eBook PDF Download Digital Library
Author: Wm. Theodore De Bary
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 1998
Total Pages: 358
ISBN-13: 9780231109376
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →They offer a balanced forum that seeks common ground, providing needed perspective at a time when the Chinese government, after years of denouncing Confucianism as an aritfact of a feudal past, has made an abrupt reversal to endorse it as a belief system compatible with communist ideology.
Author: Joel S. Fetzer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2013
Total Pages: 117
ISBN-13: 0739173006
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Responding to the "Asian values" debate over the compatibility of Confucianism and liberal democracy, Confucianism, Democratization, and Human Rights in Taiwan, by Joel S. Fetzer and J. Christopher Soper, offers a rigorous, systematic investigation of the contributions of Confucian thought to democratization and the protection of women, indigenous peoples, and press freedom in Taiwan. Relying upon a unique combination of empirical analysis of public opinion surveys, legislative debates, public school textbooks, and interviews with leading Taiwanese political actors, this essential study documents the changing role of Confucianism in Taiwan's recent political history. While the ideology largely bolstered authoritarian rule in the past and played little role in Taiwan's democratization, the belief system is now in the process of transforming itself in a pro-democratic direction. In contrast to those who argue that Confucianism is inherently authoritarian, the authors contend that Confucianism is capable of multiple interpretations, including ones that legitimate democratic forms of government. At both the mass and the elite levels, Confucianism remains a powerful ideology in Taiwan despite or even because of the island's democratization. Borrowing from Max Weber's sociology of religion, the writers provide a distinctive theoretical argument for how an ideology like Confucianism can simultaneously accommodate itself to modernity and remain faithful to its core teachings as it decouples itself from the state. In doing so, Fetzer and Soper argue, Confucianism is behaving much like Catholicism, which moved from a position of ambivalence or even opposition to democracy to one of full support. The results of this study have profound implications for other Asian countries such as China and Singapore, which are also Confucian but have not yet made a full transition to democracy.
Author: William Theodore De Bary
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2000-03-01
Total Pages: 209
ISBN-13: 0674001966
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Since the horrific Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, the debate on human rights in China has raged on with increasing volume and shifting context, but little real progress. In this provocative book, one of our most learned scholars of China moves beyond the political shouting match, informing and contextualizing this debate from a Confucian and a historical perspective. "Asian Values" is a concept advanced by some authoritarian regimes to differentiate an Asian model of development, supposedly based on Confucianism, from a Western model identified with individualism, liberal democracy, and human rights. Highlighting the philosophical development of Confucianism as well as the Chinese historical experience with community organization, constitutionalism, education, and women's rights, Wm. Theodore de Bary argues that while the Confucian sense of personhood differs in some respects from Western libertarian concepts of the individual, it is not incompatible with human rights, but could, rather, enhance them. De Bary also demonstrates that Confucian communitarianism has historically resisted state domination, and that human rights in China could be furthered by a genuine Confucian communitarianism that incorporates elements of Western civil society. With clarity and elegance, Asian Values and Human Rights broadens our perspective on the Chinese human rights debate.
Author: Sang-Jin Han
Publisher: BRILL
Published: 2019-12-16
Total Pages: 334
ISBN-13: 9004415491
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Confucianism and Reflexive Modernity criticizes the paradigm of Asian Value Debate and defends a balance between individual empowerment and flourishing community for human rights in the context of global risk society from an enlightened post-Confucianism perspective.
Author: Marina Svensson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2002
Total Pages: 414
ISBN-13: 9780742516960
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Drawing on little-known sources, Marina Svensson argues that the concept of human rights was invoked by the Chinese people well before the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and it has continued to have strong appeal after 1949, both in Taiwan and on the mainland. These largely forgotten debates provide important perspectives on and contrasts to the official PRC line. The author gives particular attention to the issues of power and agency in describing the widely divergent views of official spokespersons, establishment intellectuals and dissidents. Until recently the PRC dismissed human rights as a bourgeois slogan, yet the globalization of human rights and the growing importance of the issue in bilateral and multilateral relations has grown. Thus, the regime has been forced to embrace, or rather appropriate, the language of human rights, an appropriation that continues to be vigorously challenged by dissidents at home and abroad.
Author: Stephen C. Angle
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Published: 2013-04-17
Total Pages: 290
ISBN-13: 074566153X
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Confucian political philosophy has recently emerged as a vibrant area of thought both in China and around the globe. This book provides an accessible introduction to the main perspectives and topics being debated today, and shows why Progressive Confucianism is a particularly promising approach. Students of political theory or contemporary politics will learn that far from being confined to a museum, contemporary Confucianism is both responding to current challenges and offering insights from which we can all learn. The Progressive Confucianism defended here takes key ideas of the twentieth-century Confucian philosopher Mou Zongsan (1909-1995) as its point of departure for exploring issues like political authority and legitimacy, the rule of law, human rights, civility, and social justice. The result is anti-authoritarian without abandoning the ideas of virtue and harmony; it preserves the key values Confucians find in ritual and hierarchy without giving in to oppression or domination. A central goal of the book is to present Progressive Confucianism in such a way as to make its insights manifest to non-Confucians, be they philosophers or simply citizens interested in the potential contributions of Chinese thinking to our emerging, shared world.
Author: Joseph Chan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2015-12-29
Total Pages: 272
ISBN-13: 0691168164
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Since the very beginning, Confucianism has been troubled by a serious gap between its political ideals and the reality of societal circumstances. Contemporary Confucians must develop a viable method of governance that can retain the spirit of the Confucian ideal while tackling problems arising from nonideal modern situations. The best way to meet this challenge, Joseph Chan argues, is to adopt liberal democratic institutions that are shaped by the Confucian conception of the good rather than the liberal conception of the right. Confucian Perfectionism examines and reconstructs both Confucian political thought and liberal democratic institutions, blending them to form a new Confucian political philosophy. Chan decouples liberal democratic institutions from their popular liberal philosophical foundations in fundamental moral rights, such as popular sovereignty, political equality, and individual sovereignty. Instead, he grounds them on Confucian principles and redefines their roles and functions, thus mixing Confucianism with liberal democratic institutions in a way that strengthens both. Then he explores the implications of this new yet traditional political philosophy for fundamental issues in modern politics, including authority, democracy, human rights, civil liberties, and social justice. Confucian Perfectionism critically reconfigures the Confucian political philosophy of the classical period for the contemporary era.
Author: Sin Kiong Wong
Publisher: World Scientific
Published: 2012
Total Pages: 262
ISBN-13: 9814374474
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A collection of essays that cover many important themes and topics in Chinese Studies, including the Confucian perspective on human rights, Nationalism and Confucianism, Confucianism and the development of Science in China, crisis and innovation in contemporary Chinese cultures, plurality of cultures in the context of globalization, and more.
Author: Hans Ingvar Roth
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2018-09-10
Total Pages: 317
ISBN-13: 0812295471
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is one of the world's best-known and most translated documents. When it was presented to the United Nations General Assembly in December in 1948, Eleanor Roosevelt, chair of the writing group, called it a new "Magna Carta for all mankind." The passage of time has shown Roosevelt to have been largely correct in her prediction as to the declaration's importance. No other document in the world today can claim a comparable standing in the international community. Roosevelt and French legal expert René Cassin have often been represented as the principal authors of the declaration. But in fact, it resulted from a collaborative effort involving a number of individuals in different capacities. One of the declaration's most important authors was the vice chairman of the Human Rights Commission, Peng Chun Chang (1892-1957), a Chinese diplomat and philosopher whose contribution has been the focus of growing attention in recent years. Indeed, it is Chang who deserves the credit for the universality and religious ecumenism that are now regarded as the declaration's defining features. Despite this, Chang's extraordinary contribution has been overlooked by historians. Peng Chun Chang was a modern-day Renaissance man—teacher, scholar, university chancellor, playwright, diplomat, and politician. A true cosmopolitan, he was deeply involved in the cultural exchange between East and West, and the dramatic events of his life left a profound mark on his intellectual and political work. P. C. Chang and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the first biography of this extraordinary actor on the world stage, who belonged to the same generation as Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek. Drawing on previously unknown sources, it casts new light on Chang's multifaceted life and involvement with one of modern history's most important documents.
Author: Daniel K. Gardner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 153
ISBN-13: 0195398912
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This volume shows the influence of the Sage's teachings over the course of Chinese history--on state ideology, the civil service examination system, imperial government, the family, and social relations--and the fate of Confucianism in China in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as China developed alongside a modernizing West and Japan. Some Chinese intellectuals attempted to reform the Confucian tradition to address new needs; others argued for jettisoning it altogether in favor of Western ideas and technology; still others condemned it angrily, arguing that Confucius and his legacy were responsible for China's feudal, ''backward'' conditions in the twentieth century and launching campaigns to eradicate its influences. Yet Chinese continue to turn to the teachings of Confucianism for guidance in their daily lives.
