Climate Change and Moral Responsibility toward Future Generations: A Confucian Perspective (original) (raw)
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Understanding Confucian Ethics: Reflections on Moral Development
The standard criticisms of Confucian ethics (from a western philosophical perspective) appear contradictory. On the one hand, Confucian ethics is deemed overly rule-bound: it is obsolete because it advocates adherence to ancient Chinese norms of proper conduct. On the other hand, Confucian ethics is perceived as situational ethics—done on the run—and not properly grounded in fundamental principles or norms. I give reasons for these disparate views of Confucian ethics. I also sketch an account of Confucian morality that focuses on moral development.
Confucianism and Transgenerational Grounds for Justice
The Monist, 2023
This article explores Mencius's virtue-oriented ethics and its metaphysical foundation for resources they can provide to transgenerational communities. Mencius's ethics offers moral norms for human actions that transcend those generations with whom they can interact and impact generations of people in the future. These actions range from the preservation of traditional values to the challenges of climate change, offering grounds for transgenerational justice. Mencius's account of virtues offers a moral justification for the standards of living that are common to all human beings, justifying their entitlements to certain economic, social, cultural, and environmental conditions for the cultivation of moral virtues that perfect human nature. Due to his view that the metaphysics of human nature also governs the cosmic world, the virtues that govern good human relationships will also protect the world's natural resources, regardless of whether someone subscribes to a Confucian community.
Confucian Morality in Past and Present
The traditions of Chinese living ethics are concerned with questions about how one should live his life; what makes a life worthwhile; how to complete ones duties towards family versus duties towards strangers; whether human nature is predisposed to be morally good or bad; the extent to which one must become involved in reforming the larger social and political structures of one's society; and how one should conduct oneself when in a position of influence or power. The core concepts of Confucius ethics in historical context has been discussed in detail in this paper. A comparative study of ancient concepts and their evolution in Chinese society has been done in later part. In the end the significance of these Confucian ethics on modern Chinese society has been discussed.
(2016b) Confucian Environmental Virtue Ethics [Focusing on Wang Yangming]
In this chapter, by drawing on the ideas mostly developed by the neo-Confucian philosopher Wang Yangming, I have argued that Confucian environmental virtue ethics can avoid some pitfalls of deontological and consequentialist approaches to environmental issues as well as those of other versions of environmental virtue ethics, particularly the Aristotelian ones. Central to this Confucian environmental virtue ethics is the idea of being in body with ten thousand things. A virtuous person in this sense feels the pain and itch of these ten thousand things, just as he or she feels the pain and itch on his or her own back, because he or she feels to be in one body with ten thousand things; or reversely, the person feels to be in one body with ten thousand things, because he or she feels their pain and itch. Such an ability to feel either (both) the pain and itch of ten thousand things or (and) to be in one body with ten thousand things is ren, the cardinal Confucian virtue that characterizes a human being as a human being. It is not merely cognitive but also affective. A person who feels the pain and itch on his or her back is not merely a person who knows that there is pain and itch on his or her back but also a person who is motivated to get rid of such pain and itch. Similarly, a person who feels the pain of a bird, for example, is not a merely a person who knows that the bird is in pain but also a person who is motivated to help the bird get rid of the pain. So a Confucian environmental virtuous person takes care of ten thousand things not because of their intrinsic values but because they are part of his or her own body. Despite its appearance, such a person is not self-centered, as there is nothing outside the person, or, to put it another way, everything is part of the person, while egoism assumes the separateness of the self from others.
Confucianism and Ethics in the Western Philosophical Tradition 1: Foundational Concepts
Confucianism conceives of persons as being necessarily interdependent, defining personhood in terms of the various roles one embodies and that are established by the relationships basic to one’s life. By way of contrast, the Western philosophical tradition has predominantly defined persons in terms of intrinsic characteristics not thought to depend on others. This more strictly and explicitly individualistic concept of personhood contrasts with the Confucian idea that one becomes a person because of others; where one is never a person independently or in and of oneself but develops into one only in community. This article surveys some differences between Confucian and Western ideas of self and their connection to ethics mainly in light of the relational self of the Confucian Analects and Mencius. A Philosophy Compass article called Confucianism and Ethics in the Western Philosophical Tradition: A Comparative Analysis of Personhood (CEWII) will follow, that examines how the more individualistic way of conceiving of personhood in the West has had moral and political implications that differ, and even conflict, with those of Confucianism.
(2008c) “WHY BE MORAL?”: The Cheng Brothers’ Neo-Confucian Answer
In this article, I present a neo-Confucian answer, by Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi, to the question, “Why should I be moral?” I argue that this answer is better than some representative answers in the Western philosophical tradition. According to the Chengs, one should be moral because it is a joy to perform moral actions. Sometimes one finds it a pain, instead of a joy, to perform moral actions only because one lacks the necessary genuine moral knowledge—knowledge that is accessible to every common person as long as one makes the effort to learn. One should make the effort to learn such knowledge—to seek joy in performing moral actions—because to be moral is a distinguishing mark of being human. This neo-Confucian answer seems to be egoistic, as its conception of motivation for morality is based on self-interest: to seek one’s own joy. However, since it emphasizes that one’s true self-interest is to seek joy in things uniquely human, which is to be moral, self-interest and morality become identical; the more a person seeks one’s self-interest, the more moral the person is, and vice versa.
Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy (hereafter ECP; New York: Routledge, 2003) is a landmark in the study of Chinese philosophy in Western language. Antonio S. Cua, the editor, should be commended for his extraordinary efforts in assembling 187 full-length articles by seventy-six prominent scholars in the field. These articles are more philosophical than informational, presenting their respective authors’ views on a wide range of topics on Chinese philosophy. On some important topics, the editor even allows multiple articles so that readers can have access to diverse opinions. In this sense, ECP can be better seen as an encyclopedic anthology of the best essays in Chinese philosophy. As it covers all important philosophical schools since antiquity, and most of the articles are written with a comparative approach, the brevity of space, to say nothing about the ability of this reviewer, precludes a comprehensive review. I will focus on a group of articles, focused on Confucian ethics, as an invitation to other scholars to review articles in other areas.
To the question " What normative ethical theory does early Confucianism best represent? " researchers in the history of early Confucian philosophy respond with more than half a dozen different answers. They include sentimentalism, amoralism, pragmatism, Kantianism, Aristotelian virtue theory, care ethics, and role ethics. The lack of consensus is concerning, as three considerations make clear. First, fully trained, often leading, scholars advocate each of the theories. Second, nearly all participants in the debate believe that the central feature of early Confucianism is its moral thought. However, these normative ethical theories are logically inconsistent with one another, the third point. The entailment is unavoidable: the majority of scholars of early Confucian normative ethics must be incorrect about their attributions of a normative theory to early Confucianism. It would appear, then, that we need a new dao 道 or pathway for the study of early Confucian moral thought. One alternative is to adopt an immersively interdisciplinary research methodology that pivots on the recognition that early Confucianism is a social-functional system the governing purpose of which is to influence cultural leaders. Researchers found a large set of codices in an ancient Mayan dig in Xunantunich, present-day Belize. The Xunantunich manuscripts consist of hundreds of codices, or ˈaːmat ͡ ɬ,