Abstract

In response to Leong Chan, Loubna El Amine clarifies that she does not in fact deny that ethics and politics overlap. The crux of her argument is that each addresses distinct challenges: ethics concerns the best life for individuals to lead, while politics deals with matters of group coordination, scarce resources, and conflict. Political conclusions do not flow directly from ethical considerations. The difference between her view and Chan’s thus lies not in whether politics and ethics overlap but rather in where they fall on the spectrum of possibilities for such overlap. Additionally, El Amine points out that her account of the Confucian conception of political order is not utilitarian per se, nor does it reject the importance of the interests of the people. Rather, Confucian political order is based on the complementarity of interests between ruler and ruled. Relatedly, she contends that political order aims at social harmony and that this harmony as a whole can actually be described as virtuous, without necessitating that all of its parts be virtuous. The conception of political order espoused by the early Confucians is, on her reading, a lofty ideal.