Whitehead, confucius, and the aesthetics of virtue

Asian Philosophy 14 (2):171 – 190 (2004)
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Abstract

The most constructive response to the crisis in moral theory has been the revival of virtue ethics, an ethics that has the advantages of being personal, contextual, and, as this paper will argue, normative as well. The first section offers a general comparative analysis of Confucian and Whiteheadian philosophies, showing their common process orientation and their views of a somatic self united in reason and passion. The second section contrasts rational with aesthetic order, demonstrating a parallel with analytic and synthetic reason, and showing that rule-based ethics comes under the former and virtue ethics under the latter. The third and final section discusses a Confucian-Whiteheadian aesthetics of virtue, focusing on love as the comprehensive virtue. The principal goal of the paper is to propose that an appropriation of Confucian virtue ethics will enhance the otherwise slow development of a Euro-American process ethics.

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References found in this work

Art as Experience.John Dewey - 2005 - Penguin Books.
A source book in Chinese philosophy.Wing-Tsit Chan - 1963 - Princeton, N.J.,: Princeton University Press. Edited by Wing-Tsit Chan.
Art as Experience.John Dewey - 1934 - New Yorke: Perigee Books.

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