Relating the Political to the Ethical: Thoughts on Early Confucian Political Theory

Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 18 (2):277-283 (2019)
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Abstract

This essay examines the role that the the ethical plays in early Confucian political philosophy. By focusing primarily on the political thought of Xunzi, I argue that there is a necessary relationship between ethical ideas and political ideas in texts such as the Analects, Mengzi, and Xunzi. In particular, I argue against a more ‘realist’ reading of the tradition which argues that for early Confucians political order was not only a goal independent of ethical goals but also one in which morality had no role to play. In doing so, I show that interpreting the early Confucians constructing their political thought on top of the scaffolding of their ethical views allows us to make more sense of the broader array of ideas on the political realm appearing throughout these texts.

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Eirik Lang Harris
Colorado State University

Citations of this work

Confucian Political Order and the Ethics/politics Distinction: A Reassessment.Yutang Jin - 2022 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 21 (3):389-405.

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References found in this work

Xunzi: The Complete Text.Eric L. Hutton - 2014 - Princeton: Princeton University Press. Edited by Eric L. Hutton.

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