Reconstructionist Confucianism

This book demonstrates that the moral insights of Confucian thought are precisely those needed to fill the moral vacuum developing in post-communist China and to address similar problems in the West.

Contrasting with conventional Neo-Confucian attempts to recast the Confucian heritage in light of modern Western values, this book offers a Reconstructionist Confucian project to reclaim Confucian resources to meet contemporary moral and public policy challenges. Ruiping Fan argues that popular accounts of human goods and social justice within the dominant individualist culture of the West are too insubstantial to direct a life of virtue and a proper structure of society. Instead, he demonstrates that the moral insights of Confucian thought are precisely those needed to fill the moral vacuum developing in post-communist China and to address similar problems in the West. The book has a depth of reflection on the Confucian tradition through a comparative philosophical strategy and a breadth of contemporary issues addressed unrivaled by any other work on these topics. It is the first in English to explore not only the endeavor to revive Confucianism in contemporary China, but also brings such an endeavor to bear upon the important ethical, social, and political difficulties being faced in 21st century China. The book should be of interest to any philosopher working in application of traditional Chinese philosophy to contemporary issues as well as any reader interested in comparative cultural and ethical studies.

Most importantly, this is the first book in English to address in depth both the attempt to revive/reconstruct Confucianism in contemporary China as well as bring those efforts to bear on a range of ethical and social/political issues brought about by the recent economic and political developments in China Not only that, it has a depth and a breadth of discussion of these aforementioned topics unrivaled in the English language The author's perspective is unique in so far as he advocates for economic and political reform in China while nonetheless cognizant of the potential ethical and social dilemmas posed by such changes, all of which he does from a contemporary perspective rooted in the ancient Confucian tradition Lastly, unlike many other authors writing on similar topics, Ruiping Fan does not attempt to transform Confucianism in light of contemporary western values and philosophical ideas, but instead reconstructs a genuine Confucian perspective

Contenu
Beyond Individualism: Familism as the Key to Virtuous Social Structure.- Confucian Morality: Why It Is in Tension with Contemporary Western Moral Commitments.- Virtue, Ren, and Familial Roles: Deflating Concerns with Individual Rights and Equality.- A Family-Oriented Civil Society: Treating People as Unequals.- Virtue as a Way of Life: Social Justice Reconsidered.- Virtue as the True Character of Social Obligations: Why Rawlsian Social Justice is Vicious.- Giving Priority to Virtue Over Justice and Rebuilding Chinese Health Care Principles.- Which Care? Whose Responsibility? And Why family? Filial Piety and Long Term Care for the Elderly.- The Market, the Goodness of Profit, and the Proper Character of Chinese Public Policy.- Towards a Directed, Benevolent Market Polity: Looking Beyond Social Democratic Approaches to Health Care.- How Egalitarianism Corrupted Chinese Medicine: Recovering the Synergy of the Pursuit of Virtue and Profit.- Honor, Shame, and the Pursuit of Excellence: Towards a Confucian Business Ethics.- Human Dominion Over Nature: Following the Sages.- Rites, not Rights: Towards a Richer Vision of the Human Condition.- Rites as the Foundations of Human Civilization: Rethinking the Role of the Confucian Li.- How Should We Solve Moral Dissensus? Liberals and Libertarians Have It All Wrong.- Appeal to Rites and Personhood.- Restoring the Confucian Personality and Filling the Moral Vaccum in Contemporary China.