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The theory of motivation is a theory which takes the executora’s motivation as the basis of moral judgment. One presupposition of the theory is that motivation can be a common object of understanding. However, motivation exists only in the heart of the executor, and cannot be known exactly by others, so motivation cannot be perceived like a common object, and thus, logically, cannot be the basis of moral judgment. Even if the executor’s motivation is accepted by others and turned into a common object, the motivation still cannot become the valid basis of a moral judgment. This is the dilemma of the theory of motivation. In practice, the dilemma appears as follows: if one insists on the theory of motivation, one can be led to the result that people do evil with good intentions. However, just because motivation cannot be the basis of moral judgment does not mean that motivation is of no significance. Good motivation is always better than evil motivation. Therefore, in moral education we should carry out motivation education and teach people to strive to have good motivations for their behavior. This is the value of motivation theory.
The spirit of Confucianism, which holds benevolence as its core value, has positive significance in the dialogue between civilizations and in the construction of global ethics. The values represented in Confucian benevolence are similar to the values in Christian Charity. Confucian values such as the doctrine of magnanimity, the idea of putting oneself in the place of another, and the Confucian way of extending love and favors, are crucial resources to hold in close connection with the relationship between human beings and nature, individuals and society, self and others, and one and oneself. The Confucian idea of “differentiated love” is a concrete and practical idea, which can be extended to be “universal love.” Furthermore, the Confucian way of extending love can also be interpreted as eco-ethical: On the one hand, Confucianism affirms the intrinsic value of the universe and calls for a universal moral concern for the ecological world; on the other hand, it recognizes a distinction between human beings and the nature, revealing an eco-ethical awareness of distinction and a consciousness of the differentiation between different ethical spheres. In extracting the instrumental value of ecological resources, Confucians never disregard the intrinsic value of animals and plants. Confucianism puts emphasis on subjectivity, especially the subjectivity of morality. Relationships between man and himself, between self and others, however, are inter-subjective. For Confucians, the universe exists and grows in the process of perfecting oneself, others, and the world. Such an understanding is of modern significance for the exchange and dialogue between civilizations, and the growth of personality and the mental regulation of gentleman today.
From the academic frontier of modernity and postmodernity, the author aims at exploring the fission between modernity and postmodernity and also the characteristics of postmodern cultural media from a philosophical vantage point. This paper illustrates three aspects of Western modernity: individual modernity, social modernity, and instrumental modernity, and it also clarifies the issues in modernity, starting by explaining three forms of the cultural fission: avant-garde, modernism, and postmodernism. The paper then demonstrates that the rise of postmodernity represents a new transformation and new characteristics of contemporary Western spirit, namely, the collision and compatibility of various concepts, in which popular culture and high culture, mass culture and elite culture, fashion and games as well as noise and silence have constituted an uncanny landscape of cultural media. This eerie landscape displays the indeterminacy of language, culture, art, consciousness, and aesthetics. From the perspective of theoretical innovation, the author proposes that the postmodern cultural media always displays its commodity and instrumentality, plays and entertainment, anti-culture and anti-art, replication and fabrication logically and practically as an outcome of post-industrial society. In conclusion, three critical issues are addressed: personal spiritual belief, the development of mass culture, and aesthetic principles. The postmodern cultural media has deeply influenced traditional culture, aesthetics, and how they are evaluated, resulting in cultural conflicts and a humanistic dilemma in the world of contemporary capitalism.
The reason why justice and harmony are the most-prized values and the highest aims of human beings is that these qualities are the foundation which makes possible the realization of all other positive goals. Interpersonal conflicts and conflicts between individuals and the society lead to social, cultural, and moral crises. Confucian culture argues that moral reason is only possessed by human beings, and that this is what can make human existence harmonious and rational. Harmony creates power, and power can defeat impediments. As a result, physical qualities are humanized, and moral qualities increase. Goodness promotes the establishment of mutually beneficial systems and procedural justice in a society. Therefore, Chinese traditional culture provides a method for resolving contemporary social conflicts and crises, including accumulating goodness to increase virtue, constructing social integrity and harmonious righteousness, and the building up of a just society.
The invention of contemporary model theories of quantified modal logic gives substance to the modal account of essence. Kit Fine developed an incisive argument against the modal account. It is argued here that the Finean counterexamples all rest on a certain consideration of irrelevance and the challenge could be met in a uniform way. There is a distinction to be drawn between epistemological identification essence and metaphysical identity essence. The former accommodates the intuitive appeal of the Finean cases and the latter grounds the feasibility of the modal account. An object-reflexive method is introduced to rephrase the counterexamples and to rehabilitate the otherwise inscrutable metaphysical relevance.
Opposed to a commonly held interpretation that Confucian discourse regarding tianren heyi (天人合一) is simply a human-centred philosophical fusion of humanity and nature, this article argues that the Confucian discourse is in fact composed of two contradictory orientations, one ren-centred (roughly equivalent to “anthropocentric”) and the other tian-centred (“nature-centric” in a specific sense), which generally correspond to the two major camps of environmental philosophy in the West in the twentieth century. It will be further argued that the two orientations of the Confucian view have different yet related functions with regard to environmental protection and conservation: the tian-centred understanding establishes a metaphysical and religious framework for Confucian eco-ethical norms, in which ecological prohibitions and policies are built into the political and religious infrastructure, while the ren-centred orientation adds practical values and meanings to the ontological care of the human relation to the environment. In modern times, the two orientations of Confucian eco-ethics are under further development, moving away from being dualistic philosophies and converging on the eco-ethical way of life. Contemporary Confucians are investigating how the two traditional “orientations” can be unified as one holistic perspective which could provide theoretical and practical guidance for our understanding of the human position in the universe, the harmony between humans and nature, and the value of environmental protection and conservation.
In his Autobiography, John Stuart Mill, the 19th-century British political philosopher, portrayed his On Liberty as being “a kind of philosophic text-book” dedicated to a single truth, that is, “the importance, to man and society, of a large variety in types of character, and of giving full freedom to human nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting directions.” The Mill of On Liberty may seem to be a pluralist who tends to prefer difference per se to goodness of a uniform pattern, many-sidedness to conformity, and eccentricity to mediocrity. This paper seeks to challenge this argument by paying close attention to the text. It argues that the Mill of On Liberty was far from a single-minded pluralist. Two divergent positions are found throughout his reasoning: one is a pluralist idea that an individual’s own plan of life is the best, no matter how base or licentious it might be; the other is the belief that there exist a limited number of ideal ways of life which define what the good life is. The two positions are, if not mutually exclusive, at least in important aspects indicative of some profound tension at the center of Mill’s thought.
This article endeavors to provide an overview on contemporary Chinese philosophy. The focus is on contemporary Chinese philosophy in the Chinese-speaking world, particularly after the 1950s, although contemporary Chinese philosophy both in its inception in early 20th century China and in the English-speaking world are also explored. In addition to designating separate genres of contemporary Chinese philosophical interpretation and construction, including some of the major issues under discussion and debate as well as giving attention to several representative scholars, this article also teases out the historical contexts in which those issues emerged and developed, and it highlights the salient feature of contemporary Chinese philosophy in general.
Ecofascism as a tradition in Environmental Ethics seems to burgeoning with potential. The roots of Ecofascism can be traced back to the German Romantic School, to the Wagnerian narration of the Nibelungen saga, to the works of Fichte and Herder and, finally, to the so-called v?lkisch movement. Those who take pride in describing themselves as ecofascists grosso modo tend to prioritize the moral value of the ecosphere, while, at the same time, they almost entirely devalue species and individuals. Additionally, these ecofascists are eager to reject democracy, the idea of progress in its entirety, as well as industrialization and urbanization. They also seem to be hostile towards individual autonomy and free will. In this short essay I will present and discuss Kaarlo Pentti Linkola’s approach to environmental ethics, one that could be well described as the epitome of Ecofascism. I will argue that his arguments are neither sound nor documented, and I will conclude that Linkola’s overall approach is, in my view, contrary to the purpose as well as to the very essence of morality.
Is Confucian ethics primarily egoistic or altruistic? There is textual support for both answers. For the former, for example, Confucius claims that one learns for the sake of oneself; for the latter, we can find Confucius saying that one ought to not impose upon others as one would not like to be imposed upon. This essay aims to explain in what sense Confucian ethics is egoistic (the highest goal one aims to reach is to become a virtuous person oneself) and in what sense it is altruistic (a virtuous person is necessarily concerned with the well-being, both external and internal, of others). The conclusion to be drawn, however, is not that Confucian ethics is both egoistic and altruistic, but that it is neither, since the Confucian ideal of a virtuous person is to be in one body with others so that there are really no others (since all others become part of myself), and since there are no others, there is no self either.
This paper explores the roles of the erotic and gastronomic arts in Richard Shusterman’s somaesthetics. By discussing the relationship between moral education and the cultivation of gustatory taste in classical Chinese philosophy, this paper suggests future avenues of research for somaesthetics that draw on the rich tradition of thinking about food and the body in Chinese philosophy.
Facing the development of pluralistic cultures and the conflict of varied civilizations, we should examine political theory frameworks, particularly as concerns the construction of world order. On the problem of “tolerance or hospitality,” tolerance has been the target of opposition. Jacques Derrida deconstructs this concept and supports Immanuel Kant’s notion of hospitality instead of tolerance. However, Jürgen Habermas advocates reconstructing the concept of tolerance, although he does note its limits. We should regard hospitality as the fundamental spirit of international relations and take the notion of “Seeking Sameness and Respecting Diversity” as a principle for handling relations between different cultures.
The body is the center of Daoist practice. In addition to being the carrier of feelings, experiences, and actions, it also plays a major role in the construction and interpretation of religious meanings. What is important here is how it serves as the starting point and springboard for practitioners seeking either to obtain the ideal state of being or acquire transcendent powers. This article explores the formation of the body as a symbol in Daoism, and analyzes its corresponding implications. I attempt to do this through a close textual reading of Daoist texts and a critical review of previous academic work on the Daoist conception of body. Within Daoism, the body is neither some physical object, nor a spirit-flesh hybrid that is the subject of theological reflection. It is the vehicle to immortality, and is in itself a small pantheon to be discovered and promoted. As such, it is an open and rich symbol that both generates and integrates meanings on different levels. The symbol of the body not only brings together diverse meanings, but it also provides a conduit through which these meanings are expressed. After taking on religious meaning, the body comes to actualize its potentiality through Daoist practice and cultivation.
The paper aims at exploring if we have sound philosophical reason to embrace a human right to Internet access. While attempts to make Internet access a candidate for the standing of human right have become popular in both the political and legal arenas, we still lack serious philosophical reflection on this issue. The paper first evaluates the arguments made by various authors, and then moves to provide its own conclusions. Its logic is that if (i) Internet access is crucial for enabling democracy, and (ii) democracy is a basic human right, then we may have at least prima facie reason to see such a technology as a derived human right whose normativity supervenes on the right to democracy.
This paper considers the difference between the values attached to love of country in early China and in today’s world, through exploration of a series of concept clusters centered on “loyalty,” “glory,” “honor,” and “identity.” Using a wide array of sources, including legends about exemplary figures in antiquity, it assesses the extent to which patriotism or something like patriotism was a normative value in the distant past. It also outlines the appropriate limits of patriotism which the early thinkers insisted upon, thinking them useful guidelines for today.
This paper examines two notions of possibility conceived by Kierkegaard and Zhuangzi respectively. Kierkegaard conceives of it with appeals to the feeling of anxiety, while Zhuangzi deals with it in terms of a type of aesthetic feeling. Based on these distinctions, the paper goes further to explore two types of human existence as fostered by these two corresponding concepts of possibility. According to Kierkegaard, in order to maintain a connection with possibility, which would provide freedom to human existence, one must have faith in the redeemer bringing back possibility so that an individual human being might renew his or her choice ceaselessly. Zhuangzi, on the other hand, advises staying in the realm of nothingness and letting go of all things to avoid being trapped by the struggle of discerning between good and evil.
This article aims to show that the concept of “naturalness” in the Laozi is able to provide cultural guidance concerning values for contemporary social development. Specifically, the Laozi’s concept of “naturalness”— manifested in the text’s exhortation to “honor the dao and exalt the de” and its statement that “the dao models itself on naturalness”—has profound ontological, political and social implications concerning “naturalness” that are strongly expressed through a variety of propositions including “achieving all through non-action” and “downsizing the state and simplifying the people.” With respect to the question about individuals living a life of appropriateness and establishing their destiny, the Laozi emphasizes such cultivation methods as “sticking to simplicity and authenticity” and “watching in quietude and observing in depth,” which are also infused with the conception of “naturalness,” which stresses the notion that understanding the harmony between man and nature can provide useful lessons for the development of contemporary human society.
The proposed paper presents an overview on the matter of virtue from different philosophical angles. It concentrates on three different schools of thought coming from the West and the East and their respective concepts of virtue. These schools of thought and the therewith-associated personalities and works discussed in this paper are Aristotelian virtue ethics, Confucianism and Daoism. The paper focuses specifically on the Nicomachean Ethics (NE) by Aristotle, the Analects belonging to Confucianism, and the Dao De Jing coming from Daoism. The paper is divided into three major parts. First, the concept of virtue of each school is outlined. In the second part, the concrete virtues as such according to each school are explained. In the third part, these virtues are then applied in specific business contexts like business practice, corporate culture and leadership, illuminating each school’s characteristic approach. The paper closes with a summary and conclusion. In the conclusion the paper outlines differences as well as similarities between Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics. Yet, the author generally takes a critical stance towards comparisons merely for the sake of finding similarities. Particularly between Aristotelian and Confucian virtue ethics there is a significant difference when it comes to the cultural and historical background of these schools, which should not be ignored. Besides, even within Chinese philosophy there are already significant differences when it comes to concepts and practice.
In this essay, inspired by the somatic turn in philosophy initiated by Richard Shusterman, I want to invoke the language of classical Confucian philosophy to think through the best efforts of William James and John Dewey to escape the mind-body and nature-nurture dualisms—that is, to offer an alternative vocabulary that might lend further clarity to the revolutionary insights of James and Dewey by appealing to the processual categories of Chinese cosmology. What I will try to do first is to refocus the pragmatist’s explanation of the relationship between mind and body through the lens of a process Confucian cosmology. And then, to make the case for James and Dewey, I will return to the radical, imagistic language they invoke to try and make the argument that this processual, holistic understanding of “vital bodyminding” is in fact what they were trying to say all along.
Martin Heidegger famously declares that Dasein does not perish but experiences its demise, and that death stands before us as something to be anticipated. This idea of being-towards-death is an anticipation of possibility, of becoming authentically free for one’s death. If we take Heidegger’s view of death and compare it to that of the Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi, we notice that the latter also holds death in an unusual light. For Zhuangzi, death is possibility not because it symbolizes the perfection of being but insofar as it reveals its entanglements. This paper will thus argue in support of the Daoist notion that death is neither to be feared nor does it serve as the end of one’s contribution to the world. It will also take the stance that death qua nothingness is both a corporeal and metaphorical embodiment of Dao in that death and nothingness reflect the natural praxis of Dao to be still, empty, and quiet. In order to facilitate our analysis, we will focus on the story of Zhuangzi and the roadside skull, a story that has Zhuangzi pillowing said skull from which he realizes that life is but a pillowing of death.
In Western philosophy and psychology, shame is characterized as a self-critical emotion that is often contrasted with the similarly self-critical but morally active emotion of guilt. If shame is negative concern over endangered or threatened self-image (usually in front of others), guilt is autonomous moral awareness of one’s wrongdoings and reparative motivation to correct one’s moral misconduct. Recently, many psychologists have begun to discuss the moral significance of shame in their comparative studies of non-Western cultures. In this new approach, shame is characterized as a positive moral emotion and active motivation for self-reflection and self-cultivation. If shame is a positive and active moral emotion, what is its moral psychological nature? In this paper, I will analyze shame from the perspective of cultural psychology and early Confucian philosophy. Unlike many Western philosophers, Confucius and Mencius discuss shame as a form of moral excellence. In early Confucian texts, shame is not a reactive emotion of an endangered self but a moral disposition that supports a self-critical and self-transformative process of moral development.
This essay reviews the Zhuangzian notion of zhen 真, often through the text’s advancement of the zhenren 真人 (“genuine person,” “true person”) or zhenzhi 真知 (“genuine knowledge,” “true knowledge”). Contemporary scholarship, in both Chinese and English, often presents zhen as analogous to the existentialist theory of authenticity, which correspondingly reflects on interpretations of the “self,” and thereby the zhen person. Much of the Zhuangzi is a reaction to the Lunyu, including an ironic response to the Confucian cultivation project. If we establish our interpretation of the “self” against this background then we find that zhen in the Zhuangzi is actually used to argue against the Confucian identification of the person and self through social roles or conventions. However, advocating zhen does not suggest that there is some essential or core “self” to refer to; instead, it implies a natural state of responsiveness where the person acts efficaciously by being in line with what is obvious or affirmed in the situation. This essay thereby presents a reading of zhen that is historically and culturally consistent, and sets up the Zhuangzi as an alternative, and not an echo, to some of the major issues dealt with by the existentialist movement.
Emmanuel Levinas’ ethical phenomenology offers a new understanding of what constitutes the core issue of ethics. For Levinas, the word “ethics” becomes a question about the “wholly Other,” the entity that challenges the self-qua-being, thus diverging from the traditional ontological framework of Being in the West, that is, sameness or totality. At first glance, Zhuangzi seems to have little in common with Levinas: The former irreverently mocks all moral principles and ethical norms whereas the latter takes ethics as first philosophy; the former speaks of the faceless as the model of Daoist authenticity whereas the latter speaks of the face as the symbol of moral obligation. Nevertheless, there are plenty of chapters in the Zhuangzi which illustrate how a self-being experiences a profound transfiguration through its encounter with the Other, a constellation which resonates with Levinas’ theme. In this paper, the issue of relationality in the Zhuangzi will be analyzed in light of Levinas’ espousal of alterity, with the purpose of explicating the Daoist appropriation of what I will call “the philosophy of difference.” I will submit the argument that the Zhuangzian notion of freedom and the Daoist conception of a well-lived life are both based upon this philosophy of difference. I will also argue that Daoist ethics, particularly the version expressed by the Zhuangzi, is best understood as a form of “negative ethics.”
While it is known that the problem of death is a central topic animating the author/s of the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi, leading Chinese and Western interpretations of this Chinese classic have usually focused much more on other themes and aspects. Even more problematic in the author’s view is the fact that the Zhuangzi has been closely associated with one death philosophy, the set of concepts, arguments and figures present in chapter 6. This study puts death back at the very center of the Zhuangzian philosophical project yet insisting at the same time on the difficulties of defending one philosophy of death since different passages introduce new concepts, imagery, nuances and perspectives. The Zhuangzi’s focus on death is being situated within a discussion of the “immortality” ideal––accepting a total death (“to die”) or find refuge in immortality ideals (“not to die”). Different passages from the Inner Chapters are being presented as proposing three distinct immortality projects or strategies––personal, social and cosmic––to address the problem of death. E. Becker’s reflections on the challenge of mortality and the psychological need of a “beyond” in order to cope with the consciousness of death provide the basic theoretical framework underlying the discussion of the Zhuangzi in this essay.
Since reform and opening-up began in 1978, Chinese Marxist philosophy has undertaken the double mission of enhancing the emancipation of the mind in society and of realizing its own ideological emancipation. It has gone through an evolutionary process from “extensive discussion about the criterion of truth” to “reform of philosophical textbooks”; from the proposal of the philosophical conception of “practical materialism” to reflection on “modernity”; and from the carrying-out of dialogues among Chinese, Western, and Marxist philosophies to the exploration of “new forms of civilization.” Chinese Marxist philosophy has shifted its way of doing research with practical materialism as a core conception, and it changed such modes of thinking as the intuitive theory of reflection based on na?ve realism, the theory of linear causality based on mechanical determinism, and the reductionism of essence based on abstract substantialism. As a result, it has boosted changes that were already underway in Chinese philosophy, worldviews, theories of truth, conceptions of history, and views of development, and it has further endowed the discourse system of Marxist philosophy with laudable subjectivity and originality.
The causal exclusion problem is often considered as one of the major difficulties for which non-reductive physicalists have no easy solution to offer. Some non-reductive physicalists address this problem by arguing that mental properties are to some extent causally autonomous. If this is the case, then mental properties will not be causally excluded by their physical realizers because causation, in general, is a relation between properties of the same level. In this paper, I argue that the response from causal autonomy cannot be successful for two reasons. First, it does not offer a satisfactory explanation for how mental particulars can have causal efficacy in a non-reductive physicalist framework. Second, the causal considerations underpinning this response do not really support the conclusion that mental properties are causally autonomous.
Mengzi maintained that both benevolence (ren 仁) and rightness (yi義) are naturally-given in human nature. This view has occupied a dominant place in Confucian intellectual history. In Mencius 6A, Mengzi’s interlocutor, Gaozi, contests this view, arguing that rightness is determined by (doing what is fitting, in line with) external circumstances. I discuss here some passages from the excavated Guodian texts, which lend weight to Gaozi’s view. The texts reveal nuanced considerations of relational proximity and its limits, setting up requirements for moral action in scenarios where relational ties do not play a motivational role. I set out yi’s complexity in these discussions, highlighting its implications for (i) the nei-wai debate; (ii) the notion of yi as “rightness,” or doing the right thing; and (iii) how we can understand the connection between virtue and right action in these early Confucian debates. This material from the excavated texts not only provides new perspectives on a longstanding investigation of human nature and morality, it also challenges prevailing views on Warring States Confucian intellectual history.
The term xin (心), usually translated as “mind,” “heart” or “heartmind,” is considered a major problématique in traditional Chinese philosophical discourse, and it is usually analized in conjunction with xing (性, human nature). Contemporary scholars consider xin—more or less uncontroversially—as a sort of container of emotions and feelings, or, as On-Cho Ng defines it, “the very home of volition, sentiments and intellect” (Ng 1999). This paper aims to further explore the impact of the physiology of heart (xin) rhetoric within political discourse during the early decades of the Western Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 9). To that end I will first analyze the importance of physiological vocabulary in political argumentation, focusing mainly on the importance of heart (xin), its central role as the ruler of the body, and on the analogy between the heart and the sovereign of the state. I will then analyze the use of the expressions unanimity and duplicity—literally, pitting one heart (yixin 一心) against two hearts (erxin 二心 or liangxin 兩心).
This paper argues that St. Anselm’s distinction of the two senses of existence in his ontological argument for the existence of God renders Paul Tillich’s refutation of it invalid. At the same time, Anselm misuses the two types of existence in his ontological comparison, leading to a logical contradiction between the different kinds and degrees of existence. Since Anselm’s idea of different reference subjects does not coherently solve this logical absurdity, Anselm’s ontological argument falls well short of being a successful approach to establishing the existence of God.
