Since the very beginning, Confucianism has been troubled by a serious gap between its political ideals and the reality of societal circumstances. Contemporary Confucians must develop a viable method of governance that can retain the spirit of the Confucian ideal while tackling problems arising from nonideal modern situations. The best way to meet this challenge, Joseph Chan argues, is to adopt liberal democratic institutions that are shaped by the Confucian conception of the good rather than the liberal conception of the (...) right. -/- Confucian Perfectionism examines and reconstructs both Confucian political thought and liberal democratic institutions, blending them to form a new Confucian political philosophy. Chan decouples liberal democratic institutions from their popular liberal philosophical foundations in fundamental moral rights, such as popular sovereignty, political equality, and individual sovereignty. Instead, he grounds them on Confucian principles and redefines their roles and functions, thus mixing Confucianism with liberal democratic institutions in a way that strengthens both. Then he explores the implications of this new yet traditional political philosophy for fundamental issues in modern politics, including authority, democracy, human rights, civil liberties, and social justice. -/- Confucian Perfectionism critically reconfigures the Confucian political philosophy of the classical period for the contemporary era. (shrink)

Three claims are defended. (1) There is a conception of moral autonomy in Confucian ethics that to a degree can support toleration and freedom. However, (2) Confucian moral autonomy is different from personal autonomy, and the latter gives a stronger justification for civil and personal liberties than does the former. (3) The contemporary appeal of Confucianism would be strengthened by including personal autonomy, and this need not be seen as forsaking Confucian ethics but rather as an internal revision in response (...) to new social circumstances. From this inclusion emerges a new theory of liberties that recognizes the value of personal autonomy and the importance of the ethical good that liberties instrumentally serve to promote. (shrink)

We may sum up the five roles which human beings might play in the existence of the polis in the following way: (1) Human nature plays the role of the inner principle of change which explains the type of human relation a polis takes (the polis as a type); (2) General patterns of human behaviours, together with patterns of societal conditions, play the role of material conditions which explain the variety of forms of polis; (3) Statesmen or politicians play the (...) role of political craftsmen which explains the particular form of the natural type a polis actually takes; (4) Human effort plays the role of one of the external conditions which explains the occurrence of a polis; (5) Individual human persons or groups play the role of an artificer which is responsible for and wholly explains the type of the human relation a polis takes. What I have argued in this paper is, firstly, that (1) is compatible with (2), (3) and (4), but not with (5), and secondly, that Aristotle affirms (1), (2), (3) and (4), but denies (5). Aristotle's theory of the naturalness of the polis is, therefore, not the blundered doctrine its critics suppose it to be. (shrink)

Western Political Thought in Dialogue with Asia is a unique collection of essays that examines the exchange of political ideas between Western Europe and Asia from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century. The contributors to the volume call for globalizing the scope of research and teaching in the history of political thought.

Although it is widely believed that post-Mao China has fallen into a moral crisis, there are few scholarly analyses of its nature, causes, and consequences. Jiwei Ci's Moral China in the Age of Reform–1 fills this gap by giving an unusually penetrating and insightful account of this crisis. There is much in Ci's account that one can find thought-provoking and enlightening. Any good analysis of a crisis not only gives a good diagnosis but also sheds light on a possible solution. (...) While the diagnosis of China's problem occupies a large part of the book, in a tentative yet careful manner Ci does suggest a way out. In my comment here, I focus on his suggestions as to how China can accomplish this.For Ci, China has been... (shrink)