THE WAY, THE RIGHT, AND THE GOOD

This article argues that Kongzi's religious ethics suggests an alternative way of understanding the relationship between the right and the good, in which neither takes clear precedence in terms of being more foundational for ethics. The religious underpinnings of Kongzi's understanding of the Way are examined, including the close relationship between tian ("Heaven") and the Way. It is shown that following the Way is defined primarily by the extent to which one's actions express certain virtues, and not whether one's actions are conducive to the best overall outcome or whether they are inherently right irrespective of consequences. It is then argued that the Way is seen as constitutive of both the right and the good, and that this understanding of the right and the good has important implications for contemporary virtue ethics, religious ethics, and political philosophy.     

直感判断力:理解儒学的心之能力

Mou Zongsan incorrectly uses Kant’s practical reason to interpret Confucianism. The saying that “what is it that we have in common in our minds? It is the li 理 (principles) and the yi 义 (righteousness)” reveals how Mencius explains the origin of li and yi through a theory of common sense. In “the li and the yi please our minds, just as the flesh of beef and mutton and pork please our mouths,” “please” is used twice, proving aesthetic judgment is necessary to understanding Mencius. An analysis of Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming’s ideas will show that Confucianism should be interpreted by appealing to aesthetic judgment, and a discussion of Kant’s theory of judgment and Gadamer’s critique of Kant’s theory will support the same point. The conclusion is that Chinese moral philosophy should be interpreted through aesthetic judgment.     

儒学对道德本体的探寻及其评价

儒学将伦理学与哲学相结合 ,探讨道德的本体、本原问题 ,试图为伦理道德提供一个本体论或形而上学的基础。如何评价儒学的这一探讨是一个值得重视的问题。     

先秦儒家"和为贵"的政治伦理追求

“和为贵”是先秦儒家政治伦理思想的核心理念和本质特征。重视“人和”的社会管理思想．强调“民为邦本”的和谐社会基础,提倡“修己安人”的“和”政治伦理要求,构成了先秦儒家“和为贵”的政治伦理内涵。吸取其合理养分,对于我们今天构建社会主义和谐社会仍具有一定的借鉴作用。     

Towards a Confucian Virtue Bioethics: Reframing Chinese Medical Ethics in a Market Economy

This essay addresses a moral and cultural challenge facing health care in the People’s Republic of China: the need to create an understanding of medical professionalism that recognizes the new economic realities of China and that can maintain the integrity of the medical profession. It examines the rich Confucian resources for bioethics and health care policy by focusing on the Confucian tradition’s account of how virtue and human flourishing are compatible with the pursuit of profit. It offers the Confucian account of the division of labor and the financial inequalities this produces with special attention to China’s socialist project of creating the profession of barefoot doctors as egalitarian peasant physicians and why this project failed. It then further develops the Confucian acknowledgement of the unequal value of different services and products and how this conflicts with the current system of payment to physicians which has led to the corruption of medical professionalism through illegal supplementary payments. It further gives an account the oblique intentionality of Confucian moral psychology that shows how virtuous persons can pursue benevolent actions while both foreseeing profit and avoiding defining their character by greed. This account of Confucian virtue offers the basis for a medical professionalism that can function morally within a robustly profit-oriented market economy. The paper concludes with a summary of the characteristics of Confucian medical professionalism and of how it places the profit motive within its account of virtue ethics.     

《逸周书·宝典篇》与儒家思想

《逸周书》对于考察孔子和早期儒家学说的形成有重要作用,《宝典》篇中便能够清晰地看到早期儒学的影子。其中关于“仁”的内容,对孔子“仁”的思想的形成有一定影响;所述“四位”、“九德”、“三信”的内容与儒家的修身思想关系极其密切;“十奸”、“十散”涉及择人、敬谋问题,与早期儒家和孔子亦有一定关联。结合前人研究成果,参照出土文献等资料分析,《逸周书》的《宝典》篇应是可靠的周初文献。     

苏非主义与明清汉文译著活动

明清以来,穆斯林学者卓有成效的汉文译著活动,成就了中国伊斯兰教思想和实践。在这一活动中,苏非主义也起了相当的作用,苏非来华传教、苏非作品传入中国并在经堂教育中作为课本使用,都对明清穆斯林学者的译著活动产生了一定影响,使他们的译著作品带有苏非主义特征。     

China and the Problem of Human Rights: Ancient Verities and Modern Realities

The six sections of the essay discuss recurrent issues relative to the modern advocacy of human rights and the vicissitudes of the Chinese response—universal standards versus cultural and historical particularity, individualism versus community, traditional Confucian ethics versus Western modernism, nativism versus foreign influence, the stability of the social order versus individual well-being, and the possibility of developing a view of rights a part of which is drawn from the Chinese philosophical tradition. The concluding segment examines historical conditions of law and religion and their relevance for contemporary discussion on human rights. By looking closely at selected classical texts and events, the essay offers both a sustained critique of Confucianism in its traditional formulation and a suggested attempt to re-interpret aspects of the tradition for the current situation.     

Confucian ritual and modern civility

The Confucian notion of civility has for thousands of years guided all aspects of socio-ethical life in East Asia. Confucians express their central concern for civility in their notion of li, which is commonly translated ‘ritual’ and refers to the conventions and courtesies through which we submit to the socio-ethical order, as we do, for example, in performing sacrifices, weddings, and funerals, and various daily acts of deference. Since the rise of China and other East Asian countries as economic powers, it has been suggested that we have in East Asia a ‘Confucian’ ritual-based culture that is opposed to the law-based culture of the West, a culture of rites opposed to a culture of rights, and that this ritual-based culture can be carried into modernity as another way to secure social harmony. I argue that the values central to Confucian ritual – deference, repayment, and harmony – are incompatible with the freedom enacted in modern civility. It is unlikely, therefore, that Confucian ritual can be carried into modernity and, as some suggest, remedy the fragmentation, and indeed lack of civility, characteristic of modern societies.     

What Do We Compare When We Compare Religions? Philosophical Remarks on the Psychology of Studying Comparative Religion Abroad

The issue of comparison is a vexing one in religious and theological studies, not least for teachers of comparative religion in study abroad settings. We try to make familiar ideas fresh and strange, in settings where students may find it hard not to take “fresh” and “strange” as signs of existential threat. The author explores this delicate pedagogical situation, drawing on several years' experience directing a study abroad program and on the thought of figures from the Western existentialist tradition and Chinese Confucian philosophy. The article focuses particularly on “oh events” – defined as moments when one learns one has something to learn and something to unlearn. The author argues that the experience of shame that is typical of oh events can become a valuable resource for cross‐cultural learning and personal transformation, if teachers assist students to reflect on the experience as a sign of differing, but potentially harmonizable, cultural expectations. This essay is published alongside of six other essays, including a response from John Barbour, comprising a special section of the journal (see Teaching Theology and Religion 18:1, January 2015).