Tracing back to the historical occurrence of“virtue”,it can be found that it originated from political practice and is an effective political technology with strong historical and political attributes.Among the core...Tracing back to the historical occurrence of“virtue”,it can be found that it originated from political practice and is an effective political technology with strong historical and political attributes.Among the core concepts of Confucianism,such as benevolence,rites,virtue,etc.,virtue should be the earliest to appear.Rites can be regarded as the daily,technical and detailed representation of virtue,while benevolence contains not only all ethical expectations of virtue,but also more complex humanistic information with more explicability.In contrast,“virtue”,with its rich practical color and ancient political experience,appears so simple that when it is regarded as an ideological concept,it is almost covered by the more mature“benevolence”with similar connotation,and overshadowed by richer“rites”.Therefore,virtue is the predecessor of rites and benevolence,which is the historical pedigree of the core concepts of Confucianism.展开更多
Contemporary proponents of Confucian political philosophy often ignore the fact that any sizeable future Confucian political order will have to accommodate many “non-Confucians.” The guiding question of this paper i...Contemporary proponents of Confucian political philosophy often ignore the fact that any sizeable future Confucian political order will have to accommodate many “non-Confucians.” The guiding question of this paper is therefore the following: how could a Confucian political philosophy, if it can at all, adequately take into account a plurality of comprehensive worldviews? I first turn to John Rawls and his account of these terms and of reasonable pluralism more generally. I then examine some particularly relevant developments and criticism of Rawls’ account. Finally, I offer a discussion of some recent proposals for a Confucian political philosophy, and examine to what extent each recognizes the fact of pluralism, sees it as a challenge, and deals with it in a persuasive manner. The paper concludes with a depiction of two major stumbling blocks that might stand firmly in the way of such a pluralism-accommodating political Confucianism.展开更多
文摘Tracing back to the historical occurrence of“virtue”,it can be found that it originated from political practice and is an effective political technology with strong historical and political attributes.Among the core concepts of Confucianism,such as benevolence,rites,virtue,etc.,virtue should be the earliest to appear.Rites can be regarded as the daily,technical and detailed representation of virtue,while benevolence contains not only all ethical expectations of virtue,but also more complex humanistic information with more explicability.In contrast,“virtue”,with its rich practical color and ancient political experience,appears so simple that when it is regarded as an ideological concept,it is almost covered by the more mature“benevolence”with similar connotation,and overshadowed by richer“rites”.Therefore,virtue is the predecessor of rites and benevolence,which is the historical pedigree of the core concepts of Confucianism.
文摘Contemporary proponents of Confucian political philosophy often ignore the fact that any sizeable future Confucian political order will have to accommodate many “non-Confucians.” The guiding question of this paper is therefore the following: how could a Confucian political philosophy, if it can at all, adequately take into account a plurality of comprehensive worldviews? I first turn to John Rawls and his account of these terms and of reasonable pluralism more generally. I then examine some particularly relevant developments and criticism of Rawls’ account. Finally, I offer a discussion of some recent proposals for a Confucian political philosophy, and examine to what extent each recognizes the fact of pluralism, sees it as a challenge, and deals with it in a persuasive manner. The paper concludes with a depiction of two major stumbling blocks that might stand firmly in the way of such a pluralism-accommodating political Confucianism.
