A defence of mencius’ ethical naturalism

I argue that Mencius puts forth a defensible form of ethical naturalism, according to which moral properties, moral motivation, and moral deliberation can be accounted for within the parameters of a naturalistic worldview. On this position, moral properties are the subjectively real properties which acts have in virtue of their corresponding to our most coherent set of shared desires. I give a naturalistic definition of ‘right’ which, I argue, is implicit in Mencius’ philosophy. I address the objection that some of the contemporary‐sounding views which I attribute to Mencius are positions which are alien to the ancient thinker, and I argue that the version of Mencius given here is not only quite faithful to Mencius but also a true metaethical theory.     

Forgiveness and Moral Development

Forgiveness is clearly an important aspect of our moral lives, yet surprisingly Kant, one of the most important authors in the history of Western ethics, seems to have very little to say about it. Some authors explain this omission by noting that forgiveness sits uncomfortably in Kant’s moral thought: forgiveness seems to have an ineluctably ‘elective’ aspect which makes it to a certain extent arbitrary; thus it stands in tension with Kant’s claim that agents are autonomous beings, capable of determining their own moral status through rational reflection and choice. Other authors recognise that forgiveness plays a role in Kant’s philosophy but fail to appreciate the nature of this duty and misrepresent the Kantian argument in support of it. This paper argues that there is space in Kant’s philosophy for a genuine theory of forgiveness and hopes to lay the grounds for a correct interpretation of this theory. I argue that from a Kantian perspective, forgiveness is not ‘elective’ but, at least in some cases, morally required. I claim that, for Kant, we have an imperfect duty of virtue to forgive repentant wrongdoers that have embarked on a project of self-reflection and self-reform. I develop a novel argument in support of this duty by drawing on Kant’s theory of rational agency, the thesis of radical evil, Kant’s theory of moral development, and the formula of humanity. However, it must be noted that this is a conditional duty and Kant’s position also entails that absence of repentance on the part of the wrongdoer should be taken as evidence of a lack of commitment to a project of self-reflection and self-reform. In such cases, Kant claims, we have a perfect duty to ourselves not to forgive unrepentant wrongdoers. I argue that this duty should be understood as one of the duties of self-esteem, which involves the duty to respect and recognise our own dignity as rational beings.     

Are early confucians consequentialists?

Various attempts have been made to interpret Confucian ethics in the framework of consequentialist ethics. Such interpretations either treat Mencius theory of moral choice as a kind of act-utilitarianism or attribute to Mencius a rather sophisticated consequentialist moral view. In this paper I challenge such interpretations and try to clarify the nature of the Confucian conception of the good. In order to show that the Confucian good is teleological but non-consequentialist, I will discuss different ways (especially those of John Rawls and Alasdair MacIntyre) of classifying ethical theories and show their bearing on my interpretation of Confucian ethics. I will then discuss the consequentialist (utilitarian) understanding of early Confucians, arguing that without a proper understanding of the overall character of Confucian ethics and its primary concern, no interpretation of the Confucian conception of the good may claim to be adequate.     

Social Conceptions of Moral Agency in Hegel and Sellars

This essay contributes to our understanding of the relation between the philosophies of Hegel and Sellars. While most treatments of this relation have focused on metaphysics or epistemology, I focus on ethics, and in particular on the formulation of moral agency. I argue that Hegel and Sellars arrive at a similar metaphilosophical rejection of individual moral agency in favor of conceptions of moral agency as the outcome of social mediation. To demonstrate this, I trace how Hegel and Sellars offer parallel resolutions of the ‘Kantian paradox’: the apparent problem that, in Kantian ethics, moral agents must both freely self-legislate the moral law unto themselves and stand in a dutiful relation to the moral law as a necessary function of practical reason. Drawing Hegel and Sellars together in this way casts new light on Sellars’s understudied ethical theory and further evidences the contemporary relevance of Hegel’s moral philosophy.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Xiang Yuan</Emphasis> (Village Worthies): The Appearance-only Hypocrite

This article seeks to interpret Mencius’ criticism of the village worthies (xiang yuan 鄉原) and shed light on the distinctive psychological phenomenon that Mencius has captured but not quite articulated. An attempt at filling out the Mencian view of the village worthies will help us better understand the content of the moral charges made against them and also deepen our analysis of the kind of psychology that early Confucians regard as crucial to moral agency. Following an introduction that overviews Mencius’ criticisms of the village worthies, the main discussion of this article is divided into three sections. Section 2 offers an interpretation of the psychology of the village worthy and articulates the way in which the village worthy can be regarded as a special kind of hypocrite, which I label as “appearance-only” hypocrite. Section 3 draws on the proposed interpretation to make sense of Mencius’ criticisms of the village worthy. I argue that while the village worthy can elude some common charges against hypocrisy, it is still problematic in the sense that it weakens an unstable system of morality from the inside and inflicts harm on the genuinely virtuous person. Section 4 delves deeper into analyzing the ethical implications for the self and for others.     

Moral Obligation and Moral Motivation in Confucian Role-Based Ethics

How is the Confucian moral agent motivated to do what he or she judges to be right or good? In western philosophy, the answer to a question such as this depends on whether one is an internalist or externalist concerning moral motivation. In this article, I will first interpret Confucian ethics as role-based ethics and then argue that we can attribute to Confucianism a position on moral motivation that is neither internalist nor externalist but somewhere in between. I will then illustrate my claim with my reading of Mencius 6A4, showing that it is superior to readings found in the literature, which typically assume that Mencius is an internalist.     

Relation-Centred Ethics in Confucius and Aquinas

In recent years, it has become a popular trend for the scholars in comparative philosophy to interpret Confucian moral theory by means of Aristotelian virtue ethics. However, this interpretation overlooks the relation-centred characteristics of Confucian ethics that is lacking in Aristotelian ethics. In this article, I will argue that there is relation-based ethics in the Western tradition—the ethics of Thomas Aquinas. By examining Aquinas's theory of love, I will show the relational characteristics of his ethics. I will use Aquinas's theory of love to interpret three important points of Confucian ethics: filial reverence and material support are both integral parts of xiao孝 (filial piety); the importance of remonstration for xiao; and the symmetrical features of Confucius's virtues.     

Situationism and Confucian Virtue Ethics

Situationist research in social psychology focuses on the situational factors that influence behavior. Doris and Harman argue that this research has powerful implications for ethics, and virtue ethics in particular. First, they claim that situationist research presents an empirical challenge to the moral psychology presumed within virtue ethics. Second, they argue that situationist research supports a theoretical challenge to virtue ethics as a foundation for ethical behavior and moral development. I offer a response from moral psychology using an interpretation of Xunzi—a Confucian virtue ethicist from the Classical period. This Confucian account serves as a foil to the situationist critique in that it uncovers many problematic ontological and normative assumptions at work in this debate regarding the prediction and explanation of behavior, psychological posits, moral development, and moral education. Xunzi’s account of virtue ethics not only responds to the situationist empirical challenge by uncovering problematic assumptions about moral psychology, but also demonstrates that it is not a separate empirical hypothesis. Further, Xunzi’s virtue ethic responds to the theoretical challenge by offering a new account of moral development and a ground for ethical norms that fully attends to situational features while upholding robust character traits.     

Adaptationism and Early Confucian Moral Psychology

Ryan Nichols in his recent article ‘A genealogy of early Confucian moral psychology’ argues that the discussion of Confucius and Mencius on moral emotions can be provided an evolutionary analysis. Nichols’ argument is based on the evolutionary value of kin-relations and the origin of emotions toward kin in human society. In this article I argue that Nichols’ argument is flawed because he endorses an adaptationist program of human moral psychology. The adaptationists treat kin-relations and our emotions toward kin as a straightforward result of natural selection and adaptation. They ignore any non-adaptationist interpretation of biological traits. As more and more evolutionary biologists discover that the adaptationist program is too simplistic to understand the diverse evolutionary pathways of living beings, Nichols’ project is not justified due to its reliance on this problematic adaptationist program.     

Doing Good by Splitting Hairs? Analytic Philosophy and Applied Ethics

This article explores the connections between analytic philosophy and applied ethics — both historical and substantive. Historically speaking, applied ethics is a child of analytic philosophy. It arose as the result of two factors in the 1960s: the re‐emergence of normative ethics on the one hand, and urgent social and political challenges on the other. But is there a significant substantive link between applied ethics and analytic philosophy? I argue that applied ethics inherited important ‘analytic’ ideals such as clarity and argumentative rigour. At the same time these ideals are not the exclusive preserve of analytic philosophy and applied ethics. Moreover, they are under threat from various trends within applied ethics. In this context I rebut the allegation that the anti‐revisionist reliance on pre‐theoretical moral judgements (aka ‘intuitions’) is less rational than their revisionist dismissal. The article ends with a plea for an analytic approach within applied ethics.     

Moral Psychology of Shame in Early Confucian Philosophy

In Western philosophy and psychology, shame is characterized as a self-critical emotion that is often contrasted with the similarly self-critical but morally active emotion of guilt. If shame is negative concern over endangered or threatened self-image (usually in front of others), guilt is autonomous moral awareness of one’s wrongdoings and reparative motivation to correct one’s moral misconduct. Recently, many psychologists have begun to discuss the moral significance of shame in their comparative studies of non-Western cultures. In this new approach, shame is characterized as a positive moral emotion and active motivation for self-reflection and self-cultivation. If shame is a positive and active moral emotion, what is its moral psychological nature? In this paper, I will analyze shame from the perspective of cultural psychology and early Confucian philosophy. Unlike many Western philosophers, Confucius and Mencius discuss shame as a form of moral excellence. In early Confucian texts, shame is not a reactive emotion of an endangered self but a moral disposition that supports a self-critical and self-transformative process of moral development.     

Kant’s Racism

After a long period of comparative neglect, in the last few decades growing numbers of philosophers have been paying attention to the startling contrast presented between Kant’s universal moral theory, with its inspiring enlightenment ideas of human autonomy, equality and dignity and Kant’s racism. Against Charles Mills, who argues that the way to make Kant consistent is by attributing to him a threshold notion of moral personhood, according to which some races do not qualify for consideration under the categorical imperative, I argue that Kant cannot be made consistent on race, and that rather than trying to make him so, we should use the example of Kant’s racism to tell us something about the nature of racism. I argue that Kant’s own moral philosophy and moral psychology in fact give some materials for thinking about his racism, and about racism.     

Mencius,Hume, and the virtue of humanity: sources of benevolent moral development

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we elucidate the moral psychology and what we might call the moral sociology of Mencius and of Hume, and we argue for three claims. First, we demonstrate that there are strong similarities between Mencius and Hume concerning some of the principal psychological sources of the virtue of humanity. Second, we show that there are strong similarities between the two concerning some of the principal social sources of the virtue of humanity. Third, we argue that there are related, though weaker, similarities between Mencius and Hume concerning some of the principal cognitive sources of the virtue of humanity. We conclude by suggesting that the number and nature of these similarities demonstrate the need for future research on the conceptual connections between Confucian and Humean moral philosophy, especially on the psychological and social sources of benevolent moral development.     

Is Contemporary Chinese Society Inhumane? What Mencius and Empirical Psychology Have to Say

This essay discusses the tragic news story of a Chinese toddler, Xiao Yueyue 小悅悅, in light of Mencius’ ethical philosophy and modern studies of moral psychology, which help in understanding the problem of passive bystanders that has long vexed the Chinese public. Mencius never said that every person would act to help when a child is in danger; he did not even say that people would feel sympathetic for every child in a real life dangerous situation. He simply asserted the existence of a fragile sprout of sympathy that demands constant cultivation and a proper environment to be grown into actual altruistic behavior. This essay also compares and contrasts Mencius’ theory to the works of Martin Hoffman and Daniel C. Batson and shows some of the ways modern empirical psychology supports Mencius’ understanding of sympathy and altruism.     

Theology After the Scientific Revolution: The Significance of Nancey Murphy’s Contribution to Philosophy of Religion

This paper evaluates Nancey Murphy’s contribution to philosophy of religion paying special attention to epistemology and ethics. I argue that Murphy’s intellectual moves are motivated by a reflective and constructive engagement—around particular loci such as human knowledge, divine action, and the moral nature of the universe—with reductive materialism as a rival tradition of inquiry. At paper’s end, I suggest an amendment in Murphy’s contribution to ethics.     

Between Good and Evil: Xunzi’s Reinterpretation of the Hegemonic Rule as Decent Governance

This essay investigates Xunzi’s political philosophy of ba dao (Hegemonic Rule). It argues that Xunzi’s practical philosophy of ba dao was developed in the course of resolving the tension between theory and practice latent in Mencius’s account of ba dao. Its central claim is that contra Mencius who remained torn between his ideal political theory of ba dao and the practical utility and moral value of ba dao, Xunzi creatively re-appropriated ba dao as a “morally decent” (if not morally ideal) statecraft, within the parameter of practical Confucian philosophy. After examining the moral and political value of ba dao in both domestic and international governance, the essay concludes by arguing that Xunzi’s defense of ba dao should be understood in the context of what I call “negative Confucianism,” without which the realization of the Confucian moral-political ideal (or positive Confucianism) is impossible.     

Situationism and the Concept of a Situation

Abstract: The concept of a situation underlying the debate between moral situationists and dispositionists conceals various underexplored complexities. Some of those issues have been engaged recently in the so‐called psychology of situations, but they have been slow to receive attention in mainstream philosophy. I invoke various distinctions among situations, and show how situationists have selectively chosen certain types of situations that, for conceptual reasons, skew the argument in their favour. I introduce the concept of a ‘virtue‐calibrated situation’, and argue that if the person–situation debate is to move forward in philosophy as it has in psychology, it must focus on such situations. I bring to bear evidence from analytic and continental philosophy, as well as from social and personality psychology.     

CAPS Psychology and the Empirical Adequacy of Aristotelian Virtue Ethics

For the past decade and a half, Aristotelians have tried to counter the following criticism articulated by John Doris: if we look at personality and social psychology research, we must conclude that we generally neither have, nor have the capacity to develop, character traits of the kind envisioned by Aristotle and his followers. Some defenses of Aristotelian virtue ethics proceed by trying to insulate it from this challenge, while others have tried to dissipate the force of Doris's critique by showing how virtue ethics and recent findings in personality psychology share surprisingly extensive common ground. For example, in their 2009 books, Daniel Russell and Nancy Snow both argue that the empirical research regarding character complements - not undermines - virtue ethics. Specifically, each argues that the situationally sensitive Cognitive-Affective Personality System (CAPS) developed by Walter Mischel and Yuichi Shoda can be integrated into a virtue ethical moral philosophy and theory of character. In this paper, I raise several objections to their attempts to use the CAPS model to rehabilitate Aristotelian virtue ethics and argue that, as a result, this model has not been shown to have the promise Snow and Russell allege it has.     

Ritual Education and Moral Development: A Comparison of Xunzi and Vygotsky

Xunzi’s 荀子 advocacy for moral education is well-documented; precisely how his program bolsters moral development, and why a program touting study of ritual could be effective, remain subjects of debate. I argue that these matters can be clarified by appealing to the theory of learning and development offered by Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky posited that development depends primarily on social interactions mediated by sociocultural tools that modify learners’ cognitive architecture, enabling increasingly sophisticated thought. Vygotsky’s theory is remarkably similar to Xunzi’s account of how studying and practicing ritual restructures learners’ moral psychology. Specifically, both Vygotsky and Xunzi offer nonnativist accounts of psychosocial development that emphasize the centrality of sociocultural tools for learning. This comparison yields a more nuanced and empirically supported interpretation of Xunzi’s account of moral education, as well as an account that has applications in contemporary work in moral education and development.     

Is Shame an Ugly Emotion? Four Discourses—Two Contrasting Interpretations for Moral Education

This paper offers a sustained philosophical meditation on contrasting interpretations of the emotion of shame within four academic discourses—social psychology, psychological anthropology, educational psychology and Aristotelian scholarship—in order to elicit their implications for moral education. It turns out that within each of these discourses there is a mainstream interpretation which emphasises shame’s expendability or moral ugliness (and where shame is typically described as guilt’s ugly sister), but also a heterodox interpretation which seeks to retrieve and defend shame. As the heterodox interpretation seems to offer a more realistic picture of shame’s role in moral education, the provenance of the mainstream interpretation merits scrutiny. I argue that social scientific studies of the concept of shame, based on its supposed phenomenology, incorporate biases in favour of excessive, rather than medial, forms of the emotion. I suggest ways forward for more balanced analyses of the nature, moral justification and educative role of shame.