Taking Confucian Ethics Seriously

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Description

This thought-provoking work presents Confucianism as a living ethical tradition with contemporary relevance. While acknowledged as one of the world's most influential philosophies, Confucianism's significance is too often consigned to a historical or solely East Asian context. Discussing both the strengths and weaknesses of Confucian ethics, the volume's contributors reflect on what this tradition offers that we cannot readily learn from other systems of ethics. Developing Confucian ethical ideas within a contemporary context, this work discusses the nature of virtue, the distinction between public and private, the value of spontaneity, the place of sympathy in moral judgment, what it means to be humane, how to handle competing values, and the relationship between trust and democracy. For all those concerned with ethics, this book offers both new perspectives and resources for the ongoing consideration of how we should live.
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Why Take Confucian Ethics Seriously?
Kam-por Yu, Julia Tao, and Philip J. Ivanhoe

1. What It Means to Take Chinese Ethics Seriously
Heiner Roetz

2. The Handling of Multiple Values in Confucian Ethics
Kam-por Yu

3. Humanity or Benevolence? The Interpretation of Confucian Ren and Its Modern Implications
Qianfan Zhang

4. East Asian Conceptions of the Public and Private Realms
Chun-chieh Huang

5. Trust Within Democracy: A Reconstructed Confucian Perspective
Julia Tao

6. A Defense of Ren-Based Interpretation of Early Confucian Ethics
Shirong Luo

7. Is Sympathy Naive?: Dai Zhen on the Use of Shu to Track Well-Being
Justin Tiwald

8. The Nature of the Virtues in Light of the Early Confucian Tradition
Eirik Lang Harris

9. The Values of Spontaneity
Philip J. Ivanhoe

List of Contributors
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Éthique et morale
• Ethique et morale
• Confucianism
• Ethics in religion

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 05 août 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438433165
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

TAKING CONFUCIAN ETHICS SERIOUSLY

Contemporary Theories and Applications

Edited by KAMPOR YU, JULIA TAO, and PHILIP J. IVANHOE

Taking Confucian Ethics Seriously

SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture ————— Roger T. Ames, editor

Taking Confucian Ethics Seriously Contemporary Theories and Applications

Edited by Kampor Yu Julia Tao and Philip J. Ivanhoe

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2010 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu

Production by Cathleen Collins Marketing by Michael Campochiaro

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Taking Confucian ethics seriously : contemporary theories and applications / edited  by Kampor Yu, Julia Tao, and Philip J. Ivanhoe.  p. cm. — (SUNY series in chinese philosophy and culture)  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9781438433158 (hardcover: alk. paper)  1. Confucian ethics. I. Yu, Kampor, 1957– II. Tao, Julia Lai PoWah, 1946– III. Ivanhoe, P. J.

BJ1289.3.T35 2010 170.951—dc22

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2010004937

Acknowledgments

Contents

Introduction: Why Take Confucian Ethics Seriously? Kampor Yu, Julia Tao, and Philip J. Ivanhoe

Chapter 1. What It Means to Take Chinese Ethics Seriously  Heiner Roetz

Chapter 2. The Handling of Multiple Values in Confucian Ethics  Kampor Yu

Chapter 3. Humanity or Benevolence? The Interpretation of Confucian RenIts Modern Implications and  Qianfan Zhang

Chapter 4. East Asian Conceptions of the Public and Private Realms  Chunchieh Huang

Chapter 5. Trust Within Democracy: A Reconstructed Confucian Perspective  Julia Tao

Chapter 6. A Defense ofRenBased Interpretation of Early Confucian Ethics Shirong Luo

Chapter 7. Is Sympathy Naive?: Dai Zhen on the Use ofShuto Track WellBeing Justin Tiwald

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Contents

Chapter 8. The Nature of the Virtues in Light of the Early Confucian Tradition  Eirik Lang Harris

Chapter 9. The Values of Spontaneity Philip J. Ivanhoe

List of Contributors

Index

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Acknowledgments

The editors would like to express our sincere gratitude to several organizations and individuals who contributed to the success of this volume. The Governance in Asia Research Centre (GARC) of City University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University sponsored the initial conference that served as the source of several of the papers in this volume. GARC generously sup ported the preparation of the manuscript, which was done in a most precise and thorough manner by Katherine E. Lawn and Bruce Tindall.We also would like to extend our appreciation to all the contributors for their creativity, care, diligence, and patience.

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Introduction

Why Take Confucian Ethics Seriously?

Kampor Yu Julia Tao Philip J. Ivanhoe

Many—though surely not all—people who have lived in Confucian societies have taken Confucian ethics seriously for hundreds of generations, but why should one study Confucian ethics today? One could do so in order to learn more about an ancient and unfamiliar school of thought or to understand or deepen one’s understanding of some aspects of East Asian cultures. To be sure, these are legitimate and respectable objectives. But to approach the study of Confucian ethics in such ways is to take it only as something we canlearn about, not something we canlearn from. For the purposes of this volume, to take Confucian ethicsseriouslythat one does not see it simply as something means East Asian or Confucian; to take Confucian ethics seriously is to be concerned with the contemporary philosophical relevance of the Confucian tradition. An ethics can be understood simply as a description of the moral outlook of people remote to us in time, space, or point of view. But an ethics can also be taken in terms of what it purports to be: a collection of answers to ethical questions that are thought to describe, in part or whole, not how some people do live but how all should live. To take an ethics in this way allows one to engage it with an eye toward discerning its contemporary relevance: to defend and uphold its strengths, to criticize and oppose its weaknesses, to further pursue its arguments and lines of thought, to develop it with the aim of making it more robust, and to consider what we can learn from it that we cannot readily learn from other systems of ethics. This volume takes Confucian ethics as a living ethical tradition, one that offers a range of principles, ideals, and arguments of contemporary relevance and

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