Abstract: This article discusses progressive Confucianism as a philosophical approach. It examines whether major challenges to progressive Confucianism are successful, and by doing so, innovatively develops a theoretical framework for assessing the extent to which any theory of progressive Confucianism is defensible. This article argues that the defensibility of progressive Confucianism depends on three distinct justificatory burdens: value appropriation, public relevance against value pluralism, and political authority. These burdens are conceptually distinct and fall unevenly on different versions of progressive Confucianism. The validity of progressive Confucianism as a publicly relevant philosophy depends on the offering of accounts of i) how it appropriates values from both inside and outside Confucianism, ii) how it stays publicly relevant under the conditions of value pluralism, and iii) how it provides an acceptable theory of political authority, whose justificatory source may or may not be Confucian.

To access the article for further reading, please visit this site.