Call for Abstracts: Freedom, Paternalism, Morality

I thought maybe someone working on Confucian or Daoist political philosophy might be interested in sending in an abstract for this:

Freedom, Paternalism and Morality

The Bowling Green Workshop in Applied Ethics and Public Policy will take place in Bowling Green, Ohio on April 1-2, 2011. Keynote speakers will be Gerald Dworkin (University of California at Davis) and Douglas Husak (Rutgers University).

Those interested in presenting a paper are invited to submit a 2-3 page abstract (double-spaced) by September 1, 2010. Continue reading →

A Mengzian Answer to Johnson's Incompleteness Objection

As those of you interested in virtue ethics will know, one of the much-discussed objections to virtue ethics in recent years has been Robert Johnson’s claim that any virtue ethical theory that tells us an act is right if and only if a fully virtuous agent would do it is incomplete, since it cannot account for duties of moral self-improvement (“Virtue and Right.” Ethics 113 (2003): 810-34). Sean McAleer has just published an article in the on-line Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy that uses Mengzi as one strategy to rebut Johnson. It’s fascinating to see Mengzi used as one source among others, without any seeming awkwardness, in thinking through this contemporary philosophical challenge. Or at any rate, I find it fascinating; what do you all think? (Full disclosure: Sean was one of the participants in the NEH Summer Seminar that Michael Slote and I ran two summers ago.)

Harvard-Yenching Announces Visiting Philosophers

The Harvard-Yenching Institute has announced its 2010-2011 Visiting Scholars and Visiting Fellows, and included among them are three philosophers who will spend the year in Cambridge:

  • GU Hongliang, East China Normal University (20th century Chinese philosophy)
  • QU Hongmei, Jilin University (Kant and cosmopolitainism)
  • CAO Qingyun, Ph.D. candidate, Peking University (Aristotle)

They will arrive later this month and can be contacted via the Institute.

Raud and Defoort (or, Defoort continued)

As promised, I have some remarks on the continuation of the issue that Carine Defoort broaches and that Rein Raud has responded to in a published discussion between the two of them (Philosophy East and West 56:4, 2006). It’s an issue about the demarcation of philosophy and what it means, and has meant, to call something “Chinese philosophy.” As Defoort has pointed out both in her original piece and in her follow-up discussion with Raud, it is puzzling how to understand ‘Chinese’ as an adjective that goes beyond mere historical-geographic placement, since “If philosophy were considered universal in its claims, as positive science is, the adjective would create a contradictio in terminis: there would be no ‘Chinese philosophy’ as there is no ‘Greek science'” (PEW 56:4, 628). Continue reading →

Zhao Tingyang on "Rethinking China"

Manyul’s post about Chinese “philosophy” relates in an interesting way to some reading I’ve been doing lately of the work of contemporary Chinese philosopher Zhao Tingyang 赵汀阳. Zhao first gained attention for his 1993 book 《论可能生活：一种关于幸福和公正的理论》[On possible lives : a theory of happiness and justice]. He vaulted into super-stardom with his 2005 book, 《天下体系：世界制度哲学导论》[The All-Under-Heaven System: An Introduction to the Philosophy of a World Institution]. This appropriation of the “tianxia” idea has been widely discussed, positively and negatively, both within philosophy and IR circles. Some of Zhao’s work is available in English translation; I’ll cite this at the end of this post. What I want to focus on, though, is Zhao’s insistence on the need to “rethink China (重思中国)” [Zhao 2005, 6]. Continue reading →

New Issue of Comparative Philosophy

http://www.comparativephilosophy.org

COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY      Vol 1, No 2 (2010)

Table of Contents

Articles

THE LABYRINTH OF PHILOSOPHY IN ISLAM
Nader El-Bizri
THE LOGIC OF THE CATUSKOTI
Graham Priest

Recent Work

CONFUCIANISM AND VIRTUE ETHICS: STILL A FLEDGLING IN CHINESE AND COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY
Justin Tiwald