Confucianism, Moral Equality, and Human Rights

A Mencian Perspective

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2776275
AutoresKim (0000-0003-2291-5896, autor de correspondencia), Sungmoon Kim
Año2015
Volumen74
Número1
Páginas149-185
Fecha de publicación2015-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Journal of Economics and Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0002-9246 • E-ISSN: 1536-7150
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/ajes.12084
OpenAlexW1603863607
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas23
Referencias citadas36

This paper attempts to show the compatibility between Confucianism and human rights, first by revisiting the moral philosophy of Mencius, a key founder of the Confucian tradition, then by reconstructing the Mencian-Confucian idea of human rights from the perspective of his moral philosophy. One of my central claims is that not only did Mencius acknowledge core human rights-socioeconomic as well as civil-political-justified by his foundational faith in universal moral equality and human dignity, but he further understood the right to subsistence as an essential part of Confucian-constitutional rights. Contrary to the widely received notion that in Mencian-Confucianism the right to subsistence has an overriding value vis-a-vis civil-political rights, I argue that Mencius (and Confucians in general for that matter) never stipulated such a lexical ranking among rights. I conclude by discussing how the type of Confucian moral reasoning that Mencius employs in justifying the moral value of human rights can be re-appropriated to produce Confucian rights suitable for today

Consequentialism · Dignity · Environmental ethics · Geography · Human rights · Moral rights · Morality · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Subsistence agriculture · Value (mathematics) · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance · Chinese history and philosophy · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy