Human Rights Values in the Virtues of Confucianism

2002

Opposing Sides of the Human Rights Debate The human rights debate has typically been framed as an argument between opposing sides: Asia vs. the West, "Asian values" vs. "Western values," and specifically Eastern (Confucian) Communitarianism vs. Western Individualism. In Asia, according to this view, the "rights of the community" are emphasized over individual, "political and civil" rights. In addition, defenders of "Asian values" accuse Western liberal democracies of pursuing an oppressive, colonialist agenda, threatening the viability of communities-in-transformation by the one-sided and single-minded assertion of selfish individual needs. This debate has assumed a series of associations: Asian, Confucian, communitarian, authoritarian, and statist, on the one hand; Western, Christian, individualist, and liberal-democratic, on the other. I would like to argue in this paper that these are false associations, focusing on the Asian side of the equation, and that Asian, and specifically Confucian, values are a powerful, universal resource for a profound affirmation of human freedom expressed in both individual and communitarian terms. Far from asserting the hegemony of the state, community, or family over and against individuals, Confucianism supports human liberation for individuals-in-community. Western liberal democracy is not the only model for universal human rights: I will argue that Confucianism can and should be a universal ethic of human liberation. The goal of personal freedom is not uniquely Western, and it is not anti-Confucian. Selfdetermination is as much a Confucian value as it is a Western value, and the West has a great deal to learn from the East about self-cultivation in the context of family and community life. Embedded in the Confucian classics, as well as historically in specific Confucian institutions, is a profound idea of individual possibility, creativity, and achievement, in some ways more dynamic and

1998

Human Rights and Human Nature, (eds.) Marion Albers, Thomas Hoffmann, Springer, 2014., 2014

Cambridge University Press eBooks, 2004

I would like to begin by considering some familiar contexts in which talk of rights, especially those one person might claim against another, seems quite out of place.

Basic rights are rights people have not only as citizens, but also as human beings or as persons — ie, regardless of their cultural, social, ethnic, religious or national background. As persons, each individual is equal and endowed with equal rights. This surplus of validity, which is legally protected by the basic laws, but which, at the same time, transcends their legal scope, is the (moral) essence of human rights...

This article attempts to arbitrate the contestation between Confucianism and the rule of law through the lens of gender relations in China. Advocates for Confucianism argue that its philosophy can provide moral guidance in modern times, and "political Confucianism" hopes to see traditional Chinese philosophy inform modern Chinese politics and become an alternative to western liberal democracy's emphasis on human rights and the rule of law. Can Confucianism be restored as a legitimate moral system, however, if we measure its ability to protect and empower women in a modern Chinese society? Or must Confucianism's moral principles be supplemented (or substituted) with a human rights regime grounded in the rule of law? I argue that Confucianism must incorporate human rights and the rule of law in order to be a morally acceptable modern movement. More specifically, Confucian "remonstration" is not an adequate vehicle for dissent nor can it protect the interests of the oppressed. The rights of disenfranchised community members must be guaranteed, and the most effective rights are part of an actionable legal regime. Moreover, all modern societies, including and perhaps especially China, have disenfranchised community members. As it stands, international law has the weak force of analogous to Confucian remonstration. It must be given more purchase in national and regional legal systems in order to protect victims of injustice and discrimination. At the same time, advocates for international human rights standards must allow community members to determine what constitutes injustice and discrimination for themselves, rather than having a foreign legal 1

Comparative Philosophy: An International Journal of Constructive Engagement of Distinct Approaches toward World Philosophy, 2012

Both Confucian and Islamic traditions stand in fraught and internally contested relationships with democracy and human rights. It can easily appear that the two traditions are in analogous positions with respect to the values associated with modernity, but a central contention of this essay is that Islam and Confucianism are not analogous in this way. Positions taken by advocates of the traditions are often similar, but the reasoning used to justify these positions differs in crucial ways. Whether one approaches these questions from an intra-traditional, cross-traditional, or multi-traditional perspective, the essay shows that there is great value in getting clear on the ways in which one's textual "canon" may constrain one. In the end, we will see that while there are creative Islamic approaches to taking human rights seriously, the looser constraints under which Confucians operate today may make things easier for Confucian advocates of human rights and democracy.

Handbook on Human Rights in China, 2019