Traditional Confucian political culture （including its concepts, systems, practices and folk customs） has a legacy that deserves careful reconsideration today. Its theories, institutions, and practices address the s...Traditional Confucian political culture （including its concepts, systems, practices and folk customs） has a legacy that deserves careful reconsideration today. Its theories, institutions, and practices address the source, legitimacy, division and balance, and restriction of political power. Confucian politics is a type of ＂moral politics＂ which sticks to what ought to be and what is justifiable, and holds that political power comes from Heaven, mandate of Heaven or Dao of Heaven, which implies that justification and standards rest with the people referring to scholars peasants, workers and merchants. This type of justification is rooted in the public space and the autonomous strength of the people, and it finds guidance in the involvement, supervision, and criticism of the class of scholar-bureaucrats （shi 士）. In this article, Westem political philosophy will be taken as a frame of reference for evaluating Confucian conception of justice as well as Confucian ideas of distribution, fairness of opportunity, caring kindness for ＂the least advantaged,＂ and institutional construction. It will argue that the leading characteristic of Confucian political theory is that of ＂substantive justice.＂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Traditional Confucian political culture （including its concepts, systems, practices and folk customs） has a legacy that deserves careful reconsideration today. Its theories, institutions, and practices address the source, legitimacy, division and balance, and restriction of political power. Confucian politics is a type of ＂moral politics＂ which sticks to what ought to be and what is justifiable, and holds that political power comes from Heaven, mandate of Heaven or Dao of Heaven, which implies that justification and standards rest with the people referring to scholars peasants, workers and merchants. This type of justification is rooted in the public space and the autonomous strength of the people, and it finds guidance in the involvement, supervision, and criticism of the class of scholar-bureaucrats （shi 士）. In this article, Westem political philosophy will be taken as a frame of reference for evaluating Confucian conception of justice as well as Confucian ideas of distribution, fairness of opportunity, caring kindness for ＂the least advantaged,＂ and institutional construction. It will argue that the leading characteristic of Confucian political theory is that of ＂substantive justice.＂
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.
