This new edition offers expanded selections from the works of Kongzi, Mengzi, Zhuangzi, and Xunzi ; two new works, the dialogues _Robber Zhi_ and _White Horse_; a concise general introduction; brief introductions to, and selective bibliographies for, each work; and four appendices that shed light on important figures, periods, texts, and terms in Chinese thought.

This essay explores a variety of important Chinese conceptions of the actual and ideal relationship between human beings and the rest of the natural world. It presents views from the earliest period of historical China, the latter part of the Shang dynasty (ca. 1200–1050 bce), and from representative thinkers of other periods, extending down to the last imperial era, the Qing dynasty (1644–1911 ce). There is a fairly clear line of development from the earliest period, when the Chinese saw the (...) natural realm as chaotic, dangerous and largely inscrutable, to a later view of the world as well ordered, inclined toward human good and more open to understanding. This later view was first expressed during the “Eastern Zhou” (770–221 bce), and reached a mature and systematic form in the following Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce). Subsequent periods saw remarkable variation in the specific features of this view but its general form – a belief in a well ordered and manageable world, inclined toward human good and open to human understanding – remained dominant throughout subsequent Chinese history. (shrink)

Philip J. Ivanhoe's richly annotated translation of this classic work is accompanied by his engaging interpretation and commentary, a lucid introduction, and a Language Appendix that compares eight classic translations of the opening passage of the work and invites the reader to consider the principles upon which each was rendered.

This work provides a comprehensive introduction to Asian ethics, covering Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Each chapter comprises historical background, essential ethical themes or topics, primary sources and more.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Interpreting the MengziPhilip J. IvanhoeMencius: Contexts and Interpretations. Edited by Alan K. L. Chan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. Pp. vii + 328. Hardcover $51.00.Mencius: Contexts and Interpretations, edited by Alan K. L. Chan, is an important collection of essays from a scholarly conference held at the National University of Singapore in 1999. It begins with a concise yet incisive introduction to Mengzi, his work, and the various (...) contributions to the volume. The essays engage the Mengzi from a wide range of perspectives and employ a variety of different approaches. One of its many virtues is the inclusion of articles that explore the relationship of the text to recently excavated Guodian material. The primary audience of these essays is other scholars. However, several contributions could be understood and appreciated by nonspecialists as well.In the lead essay, Ning Chen criticizes a wide range of current accounts concerning the background of Mengzi's theory of human nature and argues that because of these mistaken impressions about Mengzi's intellectual context contemporary scholars fail to appreciate important features of Mengzi's own theory. Chen argues that in order to understand Mengzi's theory it is necessary to appreciate that he was responding to a heretofore unnoticed Mohist theory of human nature and to views that we find in certain Guodian texts. Both of these sources describe "inegalitarian" theories of human nature, and such theories served as a central focus of not only Mengzi's but Xunzi's theory of human nature as well.Some may find Chen's claims about the Mohist theory of human nature in need of further support. His evidence is a single passage from the later, dialectical chapters and the reading of this passage remains highly controversial. Given the importance of this issue for Mengzi and the significant debates Mengzi has with Mohists in various places in the Mengzi, it is quite strange that we see no direct reference to this theory in the text, nor do we find evidence of it in the core chapters of the Mozi. Chen argues that his interpretation is superior to that of Wu Yujing, who argues that the Mohists advocated the view that human nature was ethically neutral. However, Chen does not mention that others have produced quite impressive arguments in support of this same conclusion, for example David S. Nivison.Chen presents interesting and impressive textual work on Guodian texts and no one can deny that this material adds to our understanding of early Chinese philosophy. However, it is not yet clear how, if at all, these texts change our interpretation of Mengzi's theory itself. Even on the issue of what motivated thinkers like Mengzi [End Page 249] and Xunzi to argue for more "egalitarian" theories, it is not clear that Chen has identified anything strikingly new. While the Guodian texts do describe new and interesting theories concerning the character of human nature, these are not the first "inegalitarian" theories. Perhaps more important, one need not see thinkers like Mengzi as responding only or even primarily to explicit theories about human nature; there was ample motivation to argue for a fundamental moral equality among human beings in order to resist the inertia of hereditary rule. As Donald Munro argued in his classic work, The Concept of Man in Early China, this is a distinctive feature of early Chinese thought. It seems reasonable to believe that on some not-too-deep level, all these theories about human nature were responding to the political and social realities of the times.I have some concern about Chen's tendency, which is common among those working on Guodian material, to infer direct causal influence between these texts and later philosophical writings. As all philosophers know, inference is a tricky affair. If we find an earlier culture A, whose members wore trousers with two legs, and a later culture B, whose members also wore trousers with two legs, we might be led to infer that B picked up this practice from A. This would be rash. Both may have adopted the practice from a third culture C or each may have come upon the idea independently—after all, they... (shrink)

Although Freud makes only occasional, brief references to China and Chinese culture in his works, for almost a hundred years many leading Chinese intellectuals have studied and appropriated various Freudian theories. However, whilst some features of Freud’s views have been warmly embraced from the start and appreciated for their various explanatory and therapeutic values, other aspects have been vigorously criticized as implausible or inapplicable to the Chinese context. This book explores the history, reception, and use of Freud and his theories (...) in China, and makes an original and substantial contribution to our understanding of the Chinese people and their culture as well as to our appreciation of western attempts to understand the people and culture of China. The essays are organised around three key areas of research. First, it examines the historical background concerning the China-Freud connection in the 20thcentury, before going on to use reconstructed Freudian theories in order to provide a modernist critique of Chinese culture. Finally, the book deploys traditional Chinese thought in order to challenge various aspects of the Freudian project. Both Freudianism’s universal appeal and its cultural particularity are in full display throughout the book. At the same time, the allure of Chinese cultural and literary expressions, both in terms of their commonality with other cultures and their distinctive characteristics, are also scrutinized. This collection of essays will be welcomed by those interested in early modern and contemporary China, as well as the work and influence of Freud. It will also be of great interest to students and scholars of psychology, psychoanalysis, literature, philosophy, religion, and cultural studies more generally. (shrink)

Scholars of early Chinese philosophy frequently point to the nontranscendent, organismic conception of the cosmos in early China as the source of China's unique perspective and distinctive values. One would expect recent works in Confucian ethics to capitalize on this idea. Reviewing recent works in Confucian ethics by P. J. Ivanhoe, David Nivison, R. P. Peerenboom, Henry Rosemont, and Tu Wei-Ming, the author analyzes these new studies in terms of the extent to which their representation of Confucian ethics reflects (...) and is consistent with the view that in early China the cosmos was conceived to be organismic, nontranscendent, and nondualistic. (shrink)

Inleidend overzicht van de wijsgerige ethiek.

In response to criticisms of the use of the Ideological Surround Model to analyze Tolerance of Ambiguity, emphasis is placed on how the methodologies of this model operate from Christian pacifist assumptions. This model seeks to promote social scientific methodologies that will allow competing perspectives to obtain increasing clarity on points of conflict.

This study assessed the possibility that the Budner Intolerance of Ambiguity Scale can offer an ideologically biased understanding of religious commitments. In a large sample of university undergraduates , Budner Scale correlations with Religious Interest, Religious Orientation, Need for Cognition, and Response Uncertainty supported the conclusion that religion predicts an inability to cope with uncertainty. At the same time, however, special procedures were used to create new scales expressing a Christian Tolerance of Ambiguity by translating Budner Scale items into a (...) language that was more compatible with religious beliefs. These Christian Tolerance of Ambiguity measures revealed that religiousness was associated with an ability rather than an inability to cope with uncertainty. Conflicting results between these Christian and nonreligious Tolerance of Ambiguity measures yielded additional support for the Ideological Surround Model of the psychology of religion. (shrink)

A wide-ranging exploration of traditional Chinese views of mortality.

Working Virtue is the first substantial collective study of virtue theory and contemporary moral problems. Leading figures in ethical theory and applied ethics discuss topics in bioethics, professional ethics, ethics of the family, law, interpersonal ethics, and the emotions.Virtue ethics is centrally concerned with character traits or virtues and vices such as courage, kindness, and generosity. These character traits must be looked to in any attempt to understand which particular actions are right or wrong and how we ought to live (...) our lives. As a theoretical approach, virtue ethics has made an impressive comeback in relatively recent history, both posing an alternative to, and, in some ways, complementing well-known theoretical stances such as utilitarianism and deontology. Yet there is still very little material available that presents virtue-ethical approaches to practical contemporary moral problems, such as what we owe distant strangers, our parents, or even non-human animals. This book fills the gap by dealing with these and other pressing moral problems in a clear and theoretically nuanced manner. The contributors offer a variety of perspectives, including pluralistic, eudaimonistic, care-theoretical, Chinese, comparative, and stoic. This variety allows the reader to appreciate not only the wide range of topics for which a virtue-ethical approach may be fitting, but also the distinctive ways in which such an approach may be manifested. (shrink)

Working Virtue is the first substantial collective study of virtue theory and contemporary moral problems. Leading figures in ethical theory and applied ethics discuss topics in bioethics, professional ethics, ethics of the family, law, interpersonal ethics, and the emotions.

Religion and the external world -- Projection, religion, and the external world -- The senses, reason and the imagination -- Realism, meaning and justification : the external world and religious belief -- Modality, projection and realism -- 'Our profound ignorance' : causal realism, and the failure to detect necessity -- Spreading the mind : projection, necessity and realism -- Into the labyrinth : persons, modality, and Hume's undoing -- Value, projection, and realism -- Gilding : projection, value and secondary qualities (...) -- The gold : good, evil, belief and desire -- The golden : relational values, realism and a moral sense. (shrink)

It is the impression of neurologists who deal with cancer patients that the incidence of neurologic complications of cancer is increasing (Posner 1995). ...

The metaphysical problem of individuation requires an answer to two different but intimately related questions: 1) How are we to characterize individuality ontologically? To what ontological category or logical type does individuality belong? 2) What sort of distinction is there between the individuality and nature of an individual, e.g., a real distinction, a modal distinction, a distinction of reason, or some other distinction My purpose in this article is to clarify a bare particular account of individuation and respond to objections (...) that have been raised against bare particulars as individuators. (shrink)

Between 1787, and the end of his life in 1832, Bentham turned his attention to the development and application of economic ideas and principles within the general structure of his legislative project. For seventeen years this interest was manifested through a number of books and pamphlets, most of which remained in manuscript form, that develop a distinctive approach to economic questions. Although Bentham was influenced by Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, he (...) neither adopted a Smithian vocabulary for addressing questions of economic principle and policy, nor did he accept many of the distinctive features of Smith's economic theory. One consequence of this was that Bentham played almost no part in the development of the emerging science of political economy in the early nineteenth century. The standard histories of economics all emphasize how little he contributed to the mainstream of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century debate by concentrating attention on his utilitarianism and the psychology of hedonism on which it is premised. Others have argued that the calculating nature of his theory of practical reason reduced the whole legislative project to a crude attempt to apply economics to all aspects of social and political life. Put at its simplest this argument amounts to the erroneous claim that Bentham's science of legislation is reducible to the science of political economy. A different but equally dangerous error would be to argue that because Bentham's conception of the science of legislation comprehends all the basic forms of social relationships, there can be no science of political economy as there is no autonomous sphere of activity governed by the principles of economics. This approach is no doubt attractive from an historical point of view given that the major premise of this argument is true, and that many of Bentham's ‘economic’ arguments are couched in terms of his theory of legislation. Yet it fails to account for the undoubted importance of political economy within Bentham's writings, not just on finance, economic policy, colonies and preventive police, but also in other aspects of his utilitarian public policy such as prison reform, pauper management, and even constitutional reform. All of these works reflect a conception of political economy in its broadest terms. However, this conception of political economy differs in many respects from that of Bentham's contemporaries, and for this reason Bentham's distinctive approach to problems of economics and political economy has largely been misunderstood. (shrink)

Theism, according to David O'Connor, has in recent centuries been on trial for its life, the charge being that the existence of so much evil in the world is incompatible with belief in a benevolent creator. But this trial, he claims is incapable of producing a reasoned verdict.

Hume's 'Natural History of Religion' offers a naturalized account of the causes of religious thought, an investigation into its 'origins' rather than its 'foundation in reason'. Hume thinks that if we consider only the causes of religious belief, we are provided with a reason to suspend the belief. I seek to explain why this is so, and what role the argument plays in Hume's wider campaign against the rational acceptability of religious belief. In particular, I argue that the work threatens (...) a form of fideism which maintains that it is rationally permissible to maintain religious belief in the absence of evidence or of arguments in its favour. I also discuss the 'argument from common consent', and the relative superiority of Hume's account of the origins of religious belief. (shrink)

In his paper ‘Has the Ontological Argument Been Refuted?’, 97–110) William F. Vallicella argues that my attempt to show that the Ontological Argument begs the question is unsuccessful. 1 I believe he is wrong about this, but before endeavouring to vindicate my position I must first make clear what precisely is the point at issue between us. The Ontological Argument is not a single argument, but a family of arguments. Newly devised formulations of the argument are frequently put forward by (...) philosophers in an effort to avoid difficulties that have been pointed out in previous versions. As a consequence there is no possibility of a conclusive proof that every form of the argument embodies the same fallacy. Nevertheless, one can, I believe, prove that all the standard versions of the argument embody a certain fallacy and that, given the nature of the argument, it is therefore unlikely that the argument can be formulated in such a way as to avoid this difficulty. What I tried to show in my paper is that the six best-known versions of the argument all beg the question and that they do so at the same point in the argument, namely when it is asserted that it is possible that an absolutely perfect being exists. It is difficult to see how an ontological argument could be formulated without including this claim as one of its premises, since the distinguishing badge of the argument is the inference from the possibility of an absolutely perfect being to its actuality. It must be unlikely then, if my criticism of these six versions is correct, that there is any way of formulating the argument that avoids this fallacy. (shrink)

This study assessed the possibility that the Budner Intolerance of Ambiguity Scale can offer an ideologically biased understanding of religious commitments. In a large sample of university undergraduates , Budner Scale correlations with Religious Interest, Religious Orientation, Need for Cognition, and Response Uncertainty supported the conclusion that religion predicts an inability to cope with uncertainty. At the same time, however, special procedures were used to create new scales expressing a Christian Tolerance of Ambiguity by translating Budner Scale items into a (...) language that was more compatible with religious beliefs. These Christian Tolerance of Ambiguity measures revealed that religiousness was associated with an ability rather than an inability to cope with uncertainty. Conflicting results between these Christian and nonreligious Tolerance of Ambiguity measures yielded additional support for the Ideological Surround Model of the psychology of religion. (shrink)