lijun bi and fred d’agostino THE DOCTRINE OF FILIAL PIETY: A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEALMENT CASE It is well known that in Confucian ethics, great weight is given to family relations. A good illustration is what may be called the con- cealment case. In this case, Confucius held that a father and his son should conceal each other’s misconduct, even if this meant not ful- filling duties to the state, which they might otherwise be expected to fulfill. The Concealment Case in THE ANALECTS The concealment case is described as follows in The Analects: The duke of Sheh informed Confucius, saying,“Among us here there are those who may be styled upright in their conduct. If their father has stolen a sheep, they will bear witness to the fact.” Confucius said, “Among us, in our part of the country, those who are upright are dif- ferent from this. The father conceals (yin) the misconduct of the son, and the son conceals (yin) the misconduct of the father. Uprightness (chih) is to be found in this.” 1 In this case, Confucius insisted that should the father steal, the son, despite the wrongness of the theft itself, had a duty to conceal the father’s wrongdoing. Why is such concealment taken as the conduct required to be “upright?” Why Is the Concealment Case a Problem in Confucianism? The concealment case actually reveals some tensions between impor- tant principles and ideals in Confucianism itself. Here, we introduce LIJUN BI, Ph.D., The Meridian International School (Sydney campus). Specialties: Chinese philosophy, Confucianism, Chinese literature. E-mail: lbi1995@yahoo.com FRED D’AGOSTINO, professor and chair of the Department of Contemporary Studies, The University of Queensland. Specialties: philosophy of linguistics, philosophy of the social sciences, political philosophy. E-mail: f.dagostino@uq.edu.au Journal of Chinese Philosophy 31:4 (December 2004) 451–467 © 2004 Journal of Chinese Philosophy