Reconstructionist Confucianism (eBook)

Acknowledgements 6
A Note on Chinese Sources and Characters 7
Contents 8
Introduction 12
Part I Beyond Individualism: Familism as the Key to Virtuous Social Structure 22
1 Confucian Morality: Why It Is in Tension with Contemporary Western Moral Commitments 23
2 Virtue, Ren, and Familial Roles: Deflating Concerns with Individual Rights and Equality 31
2.1 Introduction 31
2.2 Are Rights Persuasive? 31
2.3 The Confucian Virtue-Based Personhood 34
2.4 Reflections on Equal Rights Vs. Unequal Virtues 38
2.5 Towards a Reconstructionist Confucian Bioethics 41
3 A Family-Oriented Civil Society: Treating People as Unequals 42
3.1 Introduction: Civil Society, Rule of Law and Conflicting World Views 42
3.2 Liberal Democratic Civil Society: Treating People as Equals 45
3.3 Confucian Anti-Egalitarian Civil Society: Treating People as Relatives 47
3.4 The Family: Stumbling Block for Justice or Keystone of Virtue? 51
3.5 Is a Confucian Family-Oriented Civil Society Possible? 53
3.6 Concluding Reflections: Towards a Familist Civil Society 58
Part II Virtue as a Way of Life: Social Justice Reconsidered 61
4 Virtue as the True Character of Social Obligations: Why Rawlsian Social Justice is Vicious 62
4.1 Introduction 62
4.2 The Distribution of Instrumental Goods Vs. The Pursuit of Intrinsic Virtues 64
4.3 Equality Vs. Harmony 68
4.4 Liberal Democracy Vs. Confucian Aristocracy 72
4.5 Liberal Rights Vs. Confucian Rights 73
4.6 Neutral Vs. Non-Neutral 78
4.7 Election Vs. Examination 79
4.8 Contractarian Neutrality Vs. Private-Property Economy 80
4.9 Conclusion 84
5 Giving Priority to Virtue Over Justice and Rebuilding Chinese Health Care Principles 86
5.1 The Challenges of Health Care in Todays China 86
5.2 Two Misleading Ethical Views 89
5.3 Reconstructionist Confucian Ethical Principles for Health Care 91
5.3.1 The Principle of Ren-Yi (Humanity-Righteousness) 3 93
5.3.2 The Principle of Cheng-Xin (Sincerity-Fidelity) 94
5.4 Health Care Policy Reforms 95
5.5 Concluding Remarks 99
6 Which Care? Whose Responsibility? And Why family? Filial Piety and Long Term Care for the Elderly 100
6.1 A Shocking Fact: Contemporary Elderly Persons in East Asia Tend to Commit Suicide 100
6.2 Family Care: Reminiscence or Renaissance? 102
6.3 Why has Family Care Become Difficult in Contemporary Society? 106
6.4 Childrens Responsibility: The Manifestation of De (Virtue) and Xiao (Filial Piety) 112
6.5 Why Family? A Confucian Account of the Family for Elderly Care 116
6.6 Concluding Remarks 118
Part III The Market, the Goodness of Profit, and the Proper Character of Chinese Public Policy 120
7 Towards a Directed, Benevolent Market Polity: Looking Beyond Social Democratic Approaches to Health Care 121
7.1 An Introduction to Confucian Health Care Policy and Bioethics 121
7.2 Beyond Social Democracy and Limited Democracy: A Directed Benevolent Market Polity in the Pacific Rim 122
7.3 The Confucian Perspective: Why It Is So Different 124
7.4 Chinese Health Care Reforms: Towards a Confucian Health Care Policy 126
7.5 A View from Asia: Not Bioethics as Usual 132
8 How Egalitarianism Corrupted Chinese Medicine: Recovering the Synergy of the Pursuit of Virtue and Profit 134
8.1 Three Varieties of Medical Corruption in Contemporary China 134
8.2 Distortions of the Medical Market 138
8.3 Proposals for Policy Reform 140
8.4 Restructuring Chinese Medical Ethics: Some Reflections on Confucian Moral Resources 143
8.5 Looking to the Future: Taking Both the Market and Traditional Morality Seriously 148
9 Honor, Shame, and the Pursuit of Excellence: Towards a Confucian Business Ethics 150
9.1 Understanding Confucian Management Concerns 150
9.2 Rights Alone Are Not Enough 151
9.3 Honor, Shame, and Motivation 154
9.4 An Honor-Based Vs. a Rights-Based Corporate Ethos 156
9.5 Why Rights Language is Blind to the Particularity of Culturally-Embedded Management Styles 158
9.6 Conclusion: Beyond Rights and Towards Excellence 159
10 Human Dominion Over Nature: Following the Sages 162
10.1 Introduction 162
10.2 A Weak Anthropocentric and Cosmic-Principle-Oriented Account of Man and Nature 165
10.3 Nature as a Garden 169
10.4 Placing the Natural Order Within a Human Order that Reflects Cosmic Principles 171
10.5 Home, Ritual, and Eternity 174
10.6 Conclusion 175
Part IV Rites, Not Rights: Towards a Richer Vision of the Human Condition 177
11 Rites as the Foundations of Human Civilization: Rethinking the Role of the Confucian Li 178
11.1 Introduction 178
11.2 Li as the Universal Social Practices of the Confucian Tradition 180
11.3 Two Types of the Confucian Rituals 184
11.4 The Function of Ritual and the Feeling of Shame 189
11.5 Concluding Remarks 193
11.6 Postscript: A Thesis on Confucian Ritual Reform 194
12 How Should We Solve Moral Dissensus? Liberals and Libertarians Have It All Wrong 202
12.1 Introduction: How Should We Deal with Moral Dissensus? 202
12.2 Bioethical Globalization: The Liberal View 203
12.3 Bioethical Communitization: The Libertarian View 209
12.4 Bioethical Localization: The Confucian Insight 213
12.5 Conclusion 224
13 Appeal to Rites and Personhood 227
13.1 Introduction 227
13.2 The Appeal to Creation Conception of Personhood: The Judeo-Christian Conception 228
13.3 The Appeal to Rights Conceptions of Personhood: Modern Western Conceptions 229
13.4 The Transcendental Conception of Personshood: A General Conception 233
13.5 The Appeal to Rites Conception of Personhood: A Confucian Conception 236
13.6 Concluding Remarks 241
14 Restoring the Confucian Personality and Filling the Moral Vaccum in Contemporary China 242
14.1 The Confucian Personality 242
14.2 The Communist Personality Disorder 245
14.3 The Post-Communist Personality Disorder 249
14.4 Can Confucianism Fill the Moral Vacuum in Contemporary China? 254
14.5 Concluding Remarks 259
Appendix Liberalism and Confucianism: A Disputatious Dialogue between Andrew Brennan and Ruiping Fan 261
Introduction 261
The Scene 7
The Dialogue 262
References 6
Index 298