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Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy

by Bryan Van Norden

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1111,711,848 (4.5)None
In this book Bryan W. Van Norden examines early Confucianism as a form of virtue ethics and Mohism, an anti-Confucian movement, as a version of consequentialism. The philosophical methodology is analytic, in that the emphasis is on clear exegesis of the texts and a critical examination of the philosophical arguments proposed by each side. Van Norden shows that Confucianism, while similar to Aristotelianism in being a form of virtue ethics, offers different conceptions of 'the good life', the virtues, human nature, and ethical cultivation. Mohism is akin to Western utilitarianism in being a form of consequentialism, but distinctive in its conception of the relevant consequences and in its specific thought-experiments and state-of-nature arguments. Van Norden makes use of the best research on Chinese history, archaeology, and philology. His text is accessible to philosophers with no previous knowledge of Chinese culture and to Sinologists with no background in philosophy.… (more)
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This is a fantastic book - which I think deserves to be read much more widely than I fear it will be. It considers the basic moral and ethical character of Confucianism and of Mohism, a kind of anti-Confucianism, as paraphrases of 'virtue ethics' and of 'consequentialism'. Any of us who find ourselves battered between the conflicting rhetorics of moral thought in the contemporary West - I mean in the form of the 'Culture Wars' - will find this an enormously helpful book for clarifying the basic shape of moral thought and reflectiveness on both sides of the debate; it elucidates the plausibility as well as the weaknesses in both positions; and it does so in a non-polemical way facilitated by its having taken so very different a culture and set of moral sources from those which lie behind our own struggles. You don't need to have any interest in, or knowledge of, Sinology to find it interesting and valuable. ( )
  readawayjay | Feb 12, 2011 |
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In this book Bryan W. Van Norden examines early Confucianism as a form of virtue ethics and Mohism, an anti-Confucian movement, as a version of consequentialism. The philosophical methodology is analytic, in that the emphasis is on clear exegesis of the texts and a critical examination of the philosophical arguments proposed by each side. Van Norden shows that Confucianism, while similar to Aristotelianism in being a form of virtue ethics, offers different conceptions of 'the good life', the virtues, human nature, and ethical cultivation. Mohism is akin to Western utilitarianism in being a form of consequentialism, but distinctive in its conception of the relevant consequences and in its specific thought-experiments and state-of-nature arguments. Van Norden makes use of the best research on Chinese history, archaeology, and philology. His text is accessible to philosophers with no previous knowledge of Chinese culture and to Sinologists with no background in philosophy.

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