The ancient Mohists are often said to be the world’s first consequentialists — the first on record to propose that we should consistently live by an ethical standard that asks us to bring about as much good as possible for the world. In this episode, we put Mohist consequentialism under a microscope. On the Mohist view, the best action is always the one that maximizes benefit and minimizes harm. How did the Mohists justify this approach? What sorts of things count as “benefit”? Is the theory too demanding to be viable or useful for most people? Join us as we try really hard to set aside our biases and explore what’s good and admirable about a central feature of both Mohist ethics and many ethical theories today. Continue reading →
Thomas More and Desiderius Erasmus
New post in the series “Family as Topic, Root and Model in the West: An Ephemeral Resource for Comparative Philosophy.” Continue reading →
Ooi, Ivanhoe, and Lederman on Wang Yangming
The journal Res Philosophica has published Daryl Ooi’s “Wang Yangming, the Kaleidoscope Model of Genuine Knowing, and Doing Chinese Philosophy,” together with responses by P.J. Ivanhoe and Harvey Lederman, Ooi’s rejoinder. See here!
New Article: Galvany, How to Lose Weight with Confucius
Albert Galvany’s article “How to Lose Weight with Confucius: Immodesty, Inner Struggle, and Moral Learning of Yan Yuan in the Junzi wei li 君子為禮” has been published by the Center of Bamboo and Silk Manuscripts of Wuhan University.
Baker Reviews Ivanhoe and Wang at NDPR
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Philip J. Ivanhoe and Hwa Jeong Wang, Readings in Korean Confucian Philosophy, Hackett Publishing, 2026, 392pp., $32.00 (pbk) ISBN 9781647922559.
Reviewed by Don Baker, University of British Columbia
When I first held Ivanhoe and Wang’s Readings in Korean Confucian Philosophy in my hands and leafed through it, I immediately regretted retiring from teaching a couple of months earlier. I had taught Korean cultural history for decades but, since most of my students couldn’t read Korean or Classical Chinese, I couldn’t include substantial excerpts from the writings of Korean Confucian philosophers among the primary sources I asked them to read. Now that I was no longer teaching undergraduates, I had finally found a book with material I could have assigned. Moreover, the excerpts translated are short enough (with the exception…
Adam Dietz on Chinese Traditions as Living Philosophy
Philosopher Adam Dietz shares various kinds of public-facing work on topics like bringing Chinese philosophy into contemporary life at The Way Between; check it out!
Conference Announcement: NECCT 2026 at Bentley University
The 2026 meeting of the Northeast Conference on Chinese Thought (NEECT) will take place on October 30-31 at Bentley University. Please see here for more details, or read on for the program.
Chinese Translation of Foust, Confucianism and American Philosophy
Northwest University Press (西北大学出版社) has published a Chinese translation of Mathew Foust’s book, Confucianism and American Philosophy (SUNY Press, 2017): [美] 马修·A. 福斯特著，张亲霞译，《儒学与美国哲学》，西北大学出版社，2026年7月，ISBN 9787560460895. More information from Douban is available here.
Yin-Cheng Distinguished Lecture Series – Peter D. Hershock at SOAS
On 15 October, Peter D. Hershock will deliver a talk on Buddhism and AI. The public talk will be followed by a roundtable discussion extending the conversation beyond Buddhism.
Philosophy Podcast: Beyond Democracy, Toward Meritocracy (OUP, 2026)
The Ethical Frontier is a podcast hosted by Jason Chen, where he primarily interviews philosophers on ethics. Notable past guests include Julian Savalescu, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Roger Crisp, and Jess Flanigan.
Today’s podcast is with John J. Park, associate professor of philosophy at California State University-Sacramento, on his new book Beyond Democracy, Toward Meritocracy (Oxford University Press, 2026).
Listen to the podcast: https://youtu.be/3e2IF6iXXrQ
