The European Journal of Philosophy has just published Waldemar Brys’s essay “Action-Based Benevolence”; see here. This provocative paper is the first essay specifically on Chinese philosophy in the EJP, which now joins the list of “mainstream” journals that have published works of Chinese or comparative philosophy.

If you publish in a journal outside of the specialist journals that we try to routinely track here at Warp, Weft, and Way, by all means let us know and we’ll share the news.

Read on for the Abstract.

Abstract: This paper raises a new problem for the widely held view that, according to the Confucian philosopher Mencius, being a benevolent person necessarily entails being affectively disposed in morally relevant ways. I argue that ascribing such a view to Mencius generates an inconsistent triad with two of his central philosophical commitments on what it means to be a benevolent ruler. I then consider possible ways of resolving the triad and I argue that the most attractive option is to reject the view that a benevolent person must be affectively disposed in morally relevant ways; instead, being disposed to perform benevolent actions is enough.