Human Dignity in Classical Chinese Philosophy (eBook)

Qianfan Zhang obtained his PhD in Government from the University of Texas at Austin (1999), and is Professor of Law at Peking University, where he is also Director of the Center for the People's Congress and Parliamentary Studies and the Senior Deputy Director of the Constitutional and Administrative Law Center. As an influential public intellectual in China, he has authored or edited over 30 books, and published more than 160 articles and 350 commentaries in the areas of constitutional law and political philosophy. 

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This book reinterprets classical Chinese philosophical tradition along the conceptual line of human dignity. Through extensive textual evidence, it illustrates that classical Confucianism, Mohism and Daoism contained rich notions of dignity, which laid the foundation for human rights and political liberty in China, even though, historically, liberal democracy failed to grow out of the authoritarian soil in China. The book critically examines the causes that might have prevented the classical schools from developing a liberal tradition, while affirming their positive contributions to the human dignity concept. Analysing the inadequacies of the western concept of human dignity, the text covers relevant teachings of Kongzi, Mengzi, Xunzi, Mozi, Laozi and Zhuangzi (in comparison with Rousseau). While the Confucian notions of humanity (Ren), righteousness (Yi), and gentleman (Junzi) bear most directly on the conception of dignity, Mohism and Daoism provide salutary corrections to the ossification of the orthodox Confucian practice (Li).