This essay examines the classical Confucian perspective on the topic of happiness through the lens of three Western theories: hedonism, desire satisfaction theory, and objective list theory. My analysis of the two classical texts—the Analects and the Mencius —reveals that three salient aspects of the Confucian conception of happiness, namely ethical pleasure, ethical desire, and moral innocence, play the fundamental role in the guidance and evaluation of an individual’s life. According to Confucius and Mencius, happiness consists primarily not in pleasure, (...) but in ethical pleasure; the good life is not a life in which all or most of one’s desires are fulfilled, but a life in which the satisfaction of prudential desires is subject to the constraint of ethical desire; the source of the greatest happiness lies not in the attainment of the greatest political power, but rather in the cognizance of one’s moral innocence. For classical Confucian thinkers, the relationship between happiness and the good life is that happiness is a critically important constituent of the good life. However, happiness—defined in terms of pleasure, desire satisfaction, or a list of goods—needs to be tempered by moral constraints. In light of their views on happiness and the good life, I conclude that Confucius and Mencius each lived a good life that exemplified the three salient features of happiness, and to that extent they were happy. (shrink)

This essay breaks new ground in defending the view that contemporary care-based ethics and early Confucian ethics share some important common ground. Luo also introduces the notion of relational virtue in an attempt to bridge a conceptual gap between relational caring ethics and agent-based virtue ethics, and to make the connections between the ethics of care and Confucian ethics philosophically clearer and more defensible.

: This essay breaks new ground in defending the view that contemporary care-based ethics and early Confucian ethics share some important common ground. Luo also introduces the notion of relational virtue in an attempt to bridge a conceptual gap between relational caring ethics and agent-based virtue ethics, and to make the connections between the ethics of care and Confucian ethics philosophically clearer and more defensible.

This essay calls attention to an aspect of Confucius's notion of ren that has often been overlooked or even denied in much recent discussion of the topic. While the egalitarian aspect of ren, i.e., the idea that every human being has the potential to become a ren person, is frequently asserted, the leadership dimension of ren has for the most part been given short shrift. I argue that for Confucius, ren is the leadership virtue. This conclusion is mainly based on (...) a careful and systematic analysis of what may be called ?the definitional ren passages? and some ?elucidative ren passages? in the Analects. (shrink)

This essay breaks new ground in defending the view that contemporary care-based ethics and early Confucian ethics share some important common ground. Luo also introduces the notion of relational virtue in an attempt to bridge a conceptual gap between relational caring ethics and agent-based virtue ethics, and to make the connections between the ethics of care and Confucian ethics philosophically clearer and more defensible.

In this dissertation, the author compares early Confucian ethics with some forms of moral sentimentalism. The ethical views of two Confucian moralists, Kongzi and Mengzi are compared with Michael Slote's agent-based moral sentimentalist virtue ethics and Nel Noddings' feminine relational ethics of caring; the Confucian ethicist Xunzi's theory is compared with David Hume's classical version of moral sentimentalism. Through argumentation and theoretical reconstruction, the author attempts to establish that Kongzi and Mengzi's ethical accounts are agent-based while Xunzi's is agent-prior; Kongzi's (...) notion of shu, Mengzi's concept of ceyin zhi xin, and Xunzi's idea of "inner constitution" represent different forms of empathy. The author proposes the notion of relational virtue to reconcile the virtue ethical conception of caring with the relational ethical conception of caring. Through these comparisons and the reconciliation the author emphasizes the common ground Confucian ethics shares with the moral sentimentalist tradition. This work as the whole, therefore, represents a radical departure from traditional comparative studies that tend to emphasize the affinity between early Confucian ethics and the ancient Greek tradition. (shrink)

What is the relationship between moral virtue and happiness? Does having moral virtues make their possessors happy? Can one be happy without them? Philosophers provide diverging answers to these questions due to their different understandings of the concept of happiness which has multifarious meanings and senses. In this essay, I compare the representative Western theories of happiness with what may be called “a classical Confucian view” informed by recent scholarship on classical Confucianism. I argue that for classical Confucian philosophers, especially (...) Confucius and Mencius, there are two kinds of happiness: exclusive and inclusive happiness. I conclude that moral virtue is necessary for inclusive happiness shared by the virtuous and the recipients of their virtuous actions and/or policies. (shrink)

In Doing Philosophy Comparatively Tim Connolly has accomplished an admirable feat: the first comprehensive and systematic introduction to comparative philosophy, written in a lucid and accessible style. Although it is designed to be used as a text-book for an introduction to a comparative philosophy course, this excellent volume will prove extremely helpful to anyone who is interested in this area of philosophic pursuit. As a practitioner of comparative philosophy, I benefited from reading this book because it gives a panoramic view (...) of the field, provides answers to some of my questions, and piques my interest. I have been informed and enlightened.The volume is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on... (shrink)

In this thesis, I have explored, explicated and argued for some specific areas of commonalities between the philosophy of John Dewey and the teaching of Confucius. Both theories start with the same fundamental assumption that there is no such thing as immutable human nature, and their shared emphasis on education is based on this supposition. John Dewey and Confucius agree that the self mainly consists of habits and that the transformation of the self implies growth, i.e., the acquisition of new (...) and intelligent habits. The Deweyan conception of growth overlaps the Confucian doctrine of self-cultivation in that both concepts focus on the obtainment of inner moral qualities that are of great communal import. Dewey's construal of freedom seems to parallel jen, the Confucian ideal, because both thinkers maintain that human perfection is the ultimate goal for which we should strive unceasingly. (shrink)

Abstract Comparative studies involving early Confucian ethics often appear to assume that it is a unified approach to morality. This essay challenges that assumption by arguing that Confucius had a significantly different conception of ren , commonly viewed as central to Confucian ethics, from that of Mencius. It is generally accepted that ren has two senses: in a narrow sense, it is the virtue of benevolence (or compassion); in a broad sense, it is the all-encompassing ethical ideal. Both senses fail (...) to capture Confucius’ conception of ren , for the narrow sense fits only Mencius’ understanding of ren , while the broad sense lacks emphasis and precision. I propose a third sense of ren , that is, ren as an integral, higher-order virtue with respect as its most salient component. This sense of ren is more in keeping with the textual evidence in the Analects . It played a key role in Confucius’ political-moral thinking and made his doctrine diverge considerably from that of Mencius, who understood ren primarily as compassion. (shrink)

This essay argues that there is a political dimension to Confucius’s idea of ren. This thesis is based on a careful analysis of what may be called the definitional passages in the Analects. The author contends that contrary to what may be called the unqualified egalitarian claim, ren is not applicable to every human being because its political aspect requires some degree of constraint in its application.