Confucianism and Ubuntu: Reflections on a dialogue between Chinese and African traditions

Journal of Chinese Philosophy

Volumn 38, Issue SUPPL. 1, 2011, Pages 78-95

  Bell, Daniel A ^a   Metz, Thaddeus ^b  

^a SHANGHAI JIAO TONG UNIVERSITY   (China)

^b UNIVERSITY OF JOHANNESBURG   (South Africa)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84858678428     PISSN: 03018121     EISSN: 15406253     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1540-6253.2012.01690.x     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. see Andrew March,"What Is Comparative Political Theory?" The Review of Politics 71, no. 4, (2009): 531-65.
2. see Munyaradzi Felix Murove, ed. African Ethics:An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics (Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2009).
3. n Confucian Ethics:A Comparative Study of Self,Autonomy, and Community, ed. Kwong-loi Shun and David B. Wong (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
4. see, Kwasi Wiredu, "The African Concept of Personhood," in African-American Perspectives on Biomedical Ethics, ed. Harley Flack and Edmund Pellegrino (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1992), 104-117;
5. Ifeanyi Menkiti, "On the Normative Conception of a Person," in A Companion to African Philosophy, ed. KwasiWiredu (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 324-31.
6. See, for example, Jiang Qing, A Confucian Constitutional Order, ed. Daniel A. Bell and Fan Ruiping, trans. Edmund Ryden (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012).
7. Analects (Lunyu ), 1: 1.
8. see Laurenti Magesa, African Religion: The Moral Traditions of Abundant Life (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1997).
9. Kwame Gyekye, Beyond Cultures (Washington, DC: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2004), 16.
10. Segun Gbadegesin, African Philosophy (Peter Lang: New York, 1991), 65.
11. See Thaddeus Metz, "Toward an African Moral Theory," The Journal of Political Philosophy 15, no. 3 (2007): 321-41.
12. Mluleki Munyaka and Mokgethi Motlhabi, "Ubuntu and Its Socio-Moral Significance." Reprinted in Murove, African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics, 63-84; quotation found on 70.
13. Augustine Shutte, "Ubuntu as the African Ethical Vision." Reprinted in Ibid., 85-99, quotation found on 94, 95 (emphasis in text).
14. See, for example, Kwasi Wiredu, "Social Philosophy in Postcolonial Africa: Some Preliminaries Concerning Communalism and Communitarianism," South African Journal of Philosophy 27, no. 4 (2008): 332-39 (esp. at 337).
15. Quoted in Barbara Nussbaum, "Ubuntu." Reprinted in Murove, African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics, 100-110; quotation found on 103.
16. Desmond Tutu, No Future without Forgiveness (New York: Random House, 1999).
17. John E. Schrecker, The Chinese Revolution in Historical Perspective (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991).
18. see Doh Chull Shin, Confucian and Democratization in East Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)
19. Shi Tianjian, The Logic of Politics in Mainland China and Taiwan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
20. See, for example, Albert H. Y. Chen, "Mediation, Litigation, and Justice: Confucian Reflections in a Modern Liberal Society," in Confucianism for the ModernWorld, ed. Daniel A. Bell and Hahm Chaibong (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
21. Constitutional Court of the Republic of South Africa, The State versusT Makwanyane and M Mchunu, Case No. CCT/3/94 (1995). Also available online at http://www.saflii.org/.
22. Analects, 15: 39.
23. BaiTongdong,"AMencianVersion of Limited Democracy," Res Publica 14, no. 1 (2008): 19-34;
24. Joseph Chan, "Democracy and Meritocracy: Toward a Confucian Perspective," Journal of Chinese Philosophy 34, no. 2 (2007): 179-193;
25. Li Chenyang, "Where Does Virtuous Leadership Stand?" Philosophy East and West 59, no. 4 (2009): 531-536;
26. Daniel A. Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), chap. 6.
27. see Sor-hoon Tan, "Beyond Elitism:A Community Ideal for a Modern East Asia," Philosophy East and West 59, no. 4 (2009): 537-53.
28. Kang Xiaoguang , Renzheng: Zhongguo Zhengzhi Fazhan de Di San Tiao Daolu (Humane Government: The Third Way for China's Political Development) (Singapore: Global Publishing, 2005).
29. For a clear expression of this perspective, see Mogobe Ramose, African Philosophy through Ubuntu (Harare: Mond Books, 1999), 135-52.
30. KwasiWiredu, "Democracy and Consensus in African Traditional Politics," Polylog 2 (2000).Available at: http://them.polylog.org/2/fwk-en. htm.
31. See Li Chenyang, "The Confucian Ideal of Harmony," Philosophy East and West 56, no. 4 (2006): 583-603.
32. see Bell, China's New Confucianism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, rev. ed. 2010), preface.
33. Mencius (Mengzi ), 4B: 30, 4A: 20.
34. See, for example, Qingping Liu, "Filiality versus Sociality and Individuality: On Confucianism as 'Consanguinitism,' " Philosophy East and West 53, no. 2 (2003): 234-50.
35. For citations and critical discussion of the notions of dignity salient in African worldviews, see Thaddeus Metz, "Human Dignity, Capital Punishment, and an African Moral Theory," Journal of Human Rights 9, no. 1 (2010): 81-99
36. "African Conceptions of Human Dignity," Human Rights Review (forthcoming).
37. On which, see Anthony Appiah, "Ethical Systems, African," in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online, ed. Edward Craig, http://www.rep.routledge.com/about.
38. Thaddeus Metz and Joseph Gaie, "The African Ethic of Ubuntu/Botho," Journal of Moral Education 39, no. 3 (2010): 273-90, at 278.
39. Mencius, 2A: 6.
40. "Mencian Confucianism and Human Rights," in Confucianism and Human Rights, ed. Wm. Theodore de Bary and Tu Weiming (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 109.
41. see Joseph Chan, "Exploring the Nonfamilial in Confucian Political Philosophy," in The Politics of Affective Relations: East Asia and Beyond, ed. Hahm Chaihark and Daniel A. Bell (Oxford: Lexington Books, 2004)
42. Munyaka and Motlhabi, "Ubuntu and Its Socio-Moral Significance," 77.
43. Bénézet Bujo, "Springboards for Modern African Constitutions and Development in African Cultural Traditions."
44. Murove, African Ethics: An Anthology of Comparative and Applied Ethics, 391-411; quotation found on 395.
45. Lawrence Kohlberg, The Psychology of Moral Development (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1984), 272-73.
46. Analects, 2: 4.
47. Menkiti, "On the Normative Conception of a Person," 325.
48. See Metz and Gaie, "The African Ethic of Ubuntu/Botho," 285-86.
49. Analects, 19: 5.