Abstract
From classical antiquity to contemporary times, challenging situations of dilemmatic or paradoxical nature continue to fascinate both scholars and the casual reader. Although Western literature provides a fruitful source of philosophical discussion on the circumstances under which a morally competent agent faces incompatible moral requirements, Sinology has rarely accepted the idea of moral dilemmas in Chinese philosophy in general and Confucianism in particular. The present paper explores moral and morally motivated dilemmas in Liu Xiang’s 劉向 Lienü Zhuan 列女傳 and the philosophical strategies employed for their resolution within the framework of the Confucian tradition, emphasizing similarities with Western traditions such as Greek tragedy or Thomistic philosophy.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alford, C. Fred. 1992. Psychoanalytic Theory of Greek Tragedy. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ames, Roger T., and Henry Rosemont, Jr., trans. 1998. The Analects of Confucius. A Philosophical Translation. New York: Random House.
Barker, Derek W. M. 2009. Tragedy and Citizenship: Conflict, Reconciliation, and Democracy from Haemon to Hegel. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Brink, David O. 1996. “Moral Conflict and Its Structure.” In Moral Dilemmas and Moral Theory, edited by H. E. Mason. New York: Oxford University Press.
Chunqiu Zuozhuan, A Concordance to the 春秋左傳逐字索引. 1995. Edited by D. C. Lau 劉殿爵 and Chen Fong-ching 陳方正. Hong Kong 香港: Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館.
Conee, Earl. 1982. “Against Moral Dilemmas.” The Philosophical Review 91.1: 87–97.
Donagan, Alan. 1977. The Theory of Morality. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
____. 1993. “Moral Dilemmas, Genuine and Spurious: A Comparative Anatomy.” Ethics 104.1: 7–21.
____. 1999. Reflections of Philosophy and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor M. 1915. Poor Folk & The Gambler. Trans. by Charles James Hogarth. London: J. M. Dent.
Dougherty, Michael V. 2011. Moral Dilemmas in Medieval Thought. From Gratian to Aquinas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Eberhard, Wolfram. 1967. Guilt and Sin in Traditional China. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gamlund, Espen. 2011. “Forgiveness without Blame.” In The Ethics of Forgiveness: A Collection of Essays, edited by Christel Fricke. New York: Routledge.
Gilby, Thomas, ed. 2006. Summa Theologiae. Volume 18 (1a2ae. 18–21). Principles of Morality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. 1984. Goethes Gespräche. Zürich: Artemis.
Goldin, Paul R. 2005. “The Theme of the Primacy of the Situation in Classical Chinese Philosophy and Rhetoric.” Asia Major 18.2: 1–25.
Hall, David L., and Roger T. Ames. 1987. Thinking Through Confucius. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Hanfeizi, A Concordance to the 韓非子逐字索引. 2000. Edited by D. C. Lau 劉殿爵 and Chen Fong-ching 陳方正. Hong Kong 香港: Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館.
Hanshu (Book of Han) 漢書. 1964. Shanghai 上海: Zhonghua Shuju 中華書局.
Hare, Richard Mervyn. 1964. The Language of Morals. Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press.
____. 1981. Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point. Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press.
Harman, Gilbert. 1977. The Nature of Morality: An Introduction to Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Henry, Eric. 2003. “Anachronisms in Lüshi Chunqiu and Shuo Yuan.” Early Medieval China 9: 127–138.
Hill, Thomas E. 1996. “Moral Dilemmas, Gaps, and Residues: A Kantian Perspective.” In Moral Dilemmas and Moral Theory, edited by H. E. Mason. New York: Oxford University Press.
Hinman, Lawrence. 2007. Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory. California: Wadsworth.
Hinsch, Bret. 2005. “Reading the Lienü Zhuan (Biographies of Women) through the Life of Liu Xiang.” Journal of Asian History 39.2: 131–157.
____. 2007. “The Composition of the Lienüzhuan: Was Liu Xiang the Author or Editor?” Asia Major 20.1: 1–23.
Hou Hanshu (Book of Later Han) 後漢書. 1965. Shanghai 上海: Zhonghua Shuju 中華書局.
Huang, Yong. 2009. Rorty, Pragmatism, and Confucianism: With Responses by Richard Rorty. Albany: State University of New York Press.
____. 2013. Confucius: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloombury.
Hursthouse, Rosalind. 1999. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 1903. Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Berlin: Akademie.
Kim, Myeong-seok. 2013. “Choice, Freedom, and Responsibility in Ancient Chinese Confucianism.” Philosophy East and West 63.1: 17–38.
Kinney, Anne Behnke, trans. 2014. Exemplary Women of Early China: The Lienü Zhuan of Liu Xiang. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kongzi Jiayu, A Concordance to the 孔子家語逐字索引. 1992. Edited by D. C. Lau 劉殿爵 and Chen Fong-ching 陳方正. Hong Kong 香港: Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館.
Lee, Lily Xiao Hong. 1994. The Virtue of Yin: Studies on Chinese Women. Honolulu: Wild Peony.
Lemmon, Edward John. 1962. “Moral Dilemmas.” The Philosophical Review 70: 139–158.
Lesky, Albin. 1965. Greek Tragedy. New York: E. Benn.
Li, Chenyang. 2014. “The Confucian Conception of Freedom.” Philosophy East and West 64.4: 902–919.
Lienü Zhuan. In A Concordance to the Gulienüzhuan 古列女傳逐字索引. 1993. Edited by D. C. Lau 劉殿爵. Hong Kong 香港: Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館.
Liji, A Concordance to the 禮記逐字索引. 1992. Edited by D. C. Lau 劉殿爵 and Chen Fong-ching 陳方正. Hong Kong 香港: Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館.
Lin, Shu 林紓. 1916. “Reading the Lienü Zhuan 讀列女傳.” In Sequel of Wei Lu 畏廬續集. Shanghai 上海: Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館.
Liu, Tseng-kuei. 2009. “Taboos: An Aspect of Belief in the Qin and Han.” In Early Chinese Religion: Shang through Han (1250 BC–220 AD), vol. 2, edited by John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski. Leiden: Brill.
Lo, Ping-cheung. 2013. “How Virtues Provide Action Guidance: Confucian Military Virtues At Work.” In Virtue Ethics and Confucianism, edited by Stephen C. Angle and Michael Slote. New York: Routledge.
Loriaux, Michael. 1992. “The Realists and Saint Augustine: Skepticism, Psychology, and Moral Action in International Relations Thought.” International Studies Quarterly 36.4: 401–420.
Lunheng, A Concordance to the 論衡逐字索引. 1996. Edited by D. C. Lau 劉殿爵 and Chen Fong-ching 陳方正. Hong Kong 香港: Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館.
Lunyu, A Concordance to the 論語逐字索引. 1995. Edited by D. C. Lau 劉殿爵 and Chen Fong-ching 陳方正. Hong Kong 香港: Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館.
Lüshi Chunqiu, A Concordance to the 呂氏春秋逐字索引. 1994. Edited by D. C. Lau 劉殿爵 and Chen Fong-ching 陳方正. Hong Kong 香港: Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1990. “Moral Dilemmas.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 1: 367–382.
McInerny, Daniel. 2006. The Difficult Good: A Thomistic Approach to Moral Conflict and Human Happiness. New York: Fordham University Press.
Mengzi, A Concordance to the 孟子逐字索引. 1995. Edited by D. C. Lau 劉殿爵. Hong Kong 香港: Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館.
Mill, John Stuart. 1843. A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive. London: J. W. Parker.
Nivison, David S. 1996. “Weakness of Will in Ancient Chinese Philosophy.” In The Ways of Confucianism, edited by Bryan W. Van Norden. Chicago: Open Court.
Nyusztay, Iván. 2002. Myth, Telos, Identity: The Tragic Schema in Greek and Shakespearean Drama. Amsterdam: Rodopi B.V.
O’Neill, Onora. 1987. “Abstraction, Idealization and Ideology in Ethics.” Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series 22: 55–69.
Pirro, Robert C. 2011. The Politics of Tragedy and Democratic Citizenship. New York: Continuum.
Pufendorf, Samuel von. 1735. The Whole Duty of Man According to the Law of Nature. 5th ed. London: R. Gosling.
Quinn, Philip L. 2006. Essays in Philosophy of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Roetz, Heiner. 1993. Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age: A Reconstruction under the Aspect of the Breakthrough toward Postconventional Thinking. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Rosemont, Jr., Henry. 1976. “Notes from a Confucian Perspective: Which Human Acts Are Moral Acts?” International Philosophical Quarterly 16.1: 49–61.
____. 2013. A Reader’s Companion to the Confucian Analects. New York: Palgrave.
Rosemont, Jr., Henry, and Roger T. Ames, trans. 2009. The Chinese Classic of Family Reverence: A Philosophical Translation of the Xiaojing. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
Ross, William David. 1930. The Right and the Good. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Salkever, Stephen G. 1986. “Tragedy and the Education of the Demos.” In Greek Tragedy and Political Theory, edited by J. Peter Euben. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Sanft, Charles. 2011. “The Moment of Dying: Representations in Liu Xiang’s Anthologies Xin Xu and Shuo Yuan.” Asia Major 24.1: 127–158.
Sartre, Jean Paul. 2007. Existentialism Is a Humanism. Trans. by Carol Macomber. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Schweiker, William. 2002. Paul Ricoeur and Contemporary Moral Thought. London: Routledge.
Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) 史記. 1963. Shanghai 上海: Zhonghua Shuju 中華書局.
Shijing. In A Concordance to the Maoshi 毛詩逐字索引. 1995. Edited by D. C. Lau 劉殿爵 and Chen Fong-ching 陳方正. Hong Kong 香港: Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館.
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. 1988. Moral Dilemmas. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Stanford, William Bedell. 1983. Greek Tragedy and the Emotions: An Introductory Study. New York: Routledge.
Statman, Daniel. 1995. Moral Dilemmas. Atlanta: Rodopi.
Vallentyne, Peter. 1986. “Four Types of Moral Dilemmas.” Unpublished article. Abstract available at “Abstracts,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 59.4: C42–C64.
Van Norden, Bryan W. 2007. Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Williams, Bernard. 1999. Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Xiaojing. In A Concordance to the Erya and Xiaojing 爾雅逐字索引 孝經逐字索引. 1995. Edited by D. C. Lau 劉殿爵 and Chen Fong-ching 陳方正. Hong Kong 香港: Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館.
Yantielun, A Concordance to the 鹽鐵論逐字索引. 1996. Edited by D. C. Lau 劉殿爵 and Chen Fong-ching 陳方正. Hong Kong 香港: Shangwu Yinshuguan 商務印書館.
Zhao, Bing. 1966. Marriage Laws and Customs of China. Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Zheng, Xiaoxia 鄭曉霞. 2007. Compilation of Categorized Biographies of Women 列女傳彙編, vol. 7. Beijing 北京: Beijing Tushuguan 北京圖書館.
Zhou, Yiqun. 2010. Festivals, Feasts, and Gender Relations in Ancient China and Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Guarde-Paz, C. Moral Dilemmas in Chinese Philosophy: A Case Study of the Lienü Zhuan . Dao 15, 81–101 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-015-9475-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-015-9475-5