Three upcoming lectures at Columbia

On Friday, April 29, Edward Slingerland will speak on “Early Confucian Virtue Ethics and the Situationist Critique” to the THE COLUMBIA SOCIETY FOR COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY, with a response by Owen Flanagan.

On Friday, May 6, the COLUMBIA NEO-CONFUCIANISM SEMINAR will host two speakers:

  • Anna Sun, “The Revival of Confucius Worship: The Renewal and Reinvention of Personal Rites in Confucius Temples in Contemporary China.”
  • Yang Xiao, “‘Throw Me a Peach, I’ll Return You a Plum’: Mencius’ Moral Psychology of Social Relations.”

Details follow.

THE COLUMBIA SOCIETY FOR COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY welcomes:

EDWARD SLINGERLAND (University of British Columbia)

With formal responses from OWEN FLANAGAN (Duke University)

Please join us FRIDAY, APRIL 29TH (5:00pm-7:00pm) for a free discussion on:

EARLY CONFUCIAN VIRTUE ETHICS AND THE SITUATIONIST CRITIQUE

ABSTRACT:
Virtue ethics has recently been mooted as a potentially more
psychologically realistic, and therefore empirically plausible, model of
ethics than the currently-dominant deontological and consequentialist
models. Its claim to psychological plausibility, however, has been
challenged by the situationist critique, which argues that the very notion
of character traits or virtues is empirically indefensible. This talk will
review evidence suggesting that strong versions of the situationist
critique of virtue ethics are empirically and conceptually unfounded, and
will further argue that, even if one accepts that the predictive power of
character may be limited, this is not a fatal problem for early Confucian
virtue ethics. Early Confucianism has explicit strategies for
strengthening and expanding character traits over time, as well as for
managing a variety of situational forces. The talk concludes by suggesting
that Confucian virtue ethics represents a more empirically responsible
model of ethics than those currently dominant in Western philosophy.

MEETINGS ARE CONVENED IN ROOM 101 IN THE DEPARTMENT OF RELIGION AT 80 CLAREMONT AVENUE.

SEATING IS LIMITED AND DOORS CLOSE PROMPTLY AT 5:00 PM. PLEASE ARRIVE ON TIME!

DETAILS AT OUR WEBSITE:
http://www.cbs.columbia.edu/cscp/

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The next session of the COLUMBIA NEO-CONFUCIANISM SEMINAR will convene on Friday, May 6 from 4:00 to 6:00pm in the Board Room of the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University.   Please note the room change.

We will have two presentations (listed here in alphabetical order):

Anna Sun of Kenyon College and the Institute for Advanced Study will present “The Revival of Confucius Worship: The Renewal and Reinvention of Personal Rites in Confucius Temples in Contemporary China.”

Yang Xiao will present “‘Throw Me a Peach, I’ll Return You a Plum’: Mencius’ Moral Psychology of Social Relations.”

Please contact us if you would like copies of the papers.

All are welcome to attend.   Please join us after the seminar for dinner at a location to be announced (most likely the Columbia Cottage restaurant, which is located on the corner of Amsterdam and 111th Streets).

For further information, you may contact one of our three co-chairs or our rapporteur: Yong Huang of Kutztown University at yhuang@kutztown.edu, Tao Jiang at tjiang@rci.rutgers.edu, On-cho Ng at oxn1@psu.edu, or Steve Boyanton at seb2164@columbia.edu.

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