David B Wong
Biographic Data
| ID | 219202 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David B Wong |
| GIVEN NAMES | David B |
| FAMILY NAME | Wong |
| SIGNATURE | WONG D B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Duke University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1309-167X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 60 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Cosmopolitanism’s Uneasy Relationship with Pluralism
Zhuāngzǐ: Ways of Wandering the Way
Zhuangzi on not following the leader
Constructive Skepticism in the Zhuangzi
Soup, Harmony, and Disagreement
Is the ancient Confucian ideal of he 和, ‘harmony,’ a viable ideal in pluralistic societies composed of people and groups who subscribe to different ideals of the good and moral life? Is harmony compatible with accepting, even encouraging, difference and the freedom to think differently? I start with seminal characterizations of harmony in Confucian texts and then aim to chart ways harmony and freedom can be compatible and even mutually supportive…
Dignity in Confucian and Buddhist Thought
“Dignity” in the Western tradition typically connotes the inherent and unearned worth that entitles each person to respectful attitudes and treatment. Confucian and Buddhist thought contains concepts that overlap with this concept, making possible a three-way dialogue. Confucianism forthrightly asserts the special value of the individual, but that special value lies in one’s capacities to connect with others and to create a truly worthwhile life …
Institutional Structures and Idealism of Character
Joseph Chan proposes democratic institutions as a bridge between the Confucian ideal of care and mutual trust between ruler and ruled on the one hand and our present flawed reality on the other. However, the reality of our democratic institutions is itself deeply flawed. I propose friendly amendments to Chan’s proposal to focus on the moral education of citizens. Such a focus is compatible with working with those institutions and their accompanyi…
Xunzi’s Metaethics
Encountering other traditions
The Philosophical Challenge from China
Rigorously argued and meticulously researched, an investigation of current topics in philosophy that is informed by the Chinese philosophical tradition. For too long, analytic philosophy discounted insights from the Chinese philosophical tradition. In the last decade or so, however, philosophers have begun to bring the insights of Chinese thought to bear on current philosophical issues. This volume brings together leading scholars from East and W…
Integrating philosophy with anthropology in an approach to morality
Philosophy and anthropology need to integrate their accounts of what a morality is. I identify three desiderata that an account of morality should satisfy: (1) it should recognize significant diversity and variation in the major kinds of value, (2) it should specify a set of criteria for what counts as a morality, and (3) it should indicate the basis for distinguishing between more or less justifiable moralities, or true and false moralities. I w…
The astonishment of anthropology
Confucian Political Philosophy
Confucianism is an ethics tied intimately with political philosophy. According to the text that is the most reliable guide to the teachings of Confucius, the Analects ( Lunyu ), he took the Mandate of Heaven ( tianming ) as a guide. The Mandate was formulated during the early period of the Zhou dynasty to justify the overthrow of the Shang dynasty and to legitimate the rule of the Zhou kings. The Confucian diagnosis of China's troubles suggests t…
Identifying with Nature in Early Daoism
Confucian Ethics: A Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy, and Community
Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism
To be called a relativist, especially a moral relativist, is to be condemned as someone who holds that “anything goes”. Frequently the term is part of a dichotomy: either accept relativism or accept universalism: the view that only one true morality exists. This book defends a new version of relativism that is both an alternative to, and fits between, universalism and relativism as usually defined. Pluralistic relativism does accord with one aspe…
Moral Reasons: Internal and External
The view defended is one sense externalist on the relation between moral reasons and motivation: A's having a moral reason to do X does not necessarily imply that A has a motivation that would support A's doing X via some appropriate deliberative route. However, it is in another sense externalist in holding that there are the kind of moral reasons there are only if the relevant motivational capacities are generally present in human beings, if not…
Rights and Community in Confucianism
There is an interesting turn toward Confucianism in much U.S. scholarship on Chinese philosophy. Heiner Roetz, in a recent book on Confucian ethics, detects certain frequently recurring themes in this scholarship. Quoting and paraphrasing from authors such as Herbert Fingarette, Henry Rosemont, David Hall, and Roger Ames, Roetz summarizes the themes in the following way
Relational and Autonomous Selves
Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality, Culture, & Philosophy
Beyond Morality
Pluralistic Relativism
Living Morally: A Psychology of Moral Character
Understanding the Chinese Mind: The Philosophical Roots
These essays represent an attempt to understand the Chinese mind through its philosophy. The first volume of its kind, the collection demonstrates how Chinese philosophy can be understood in light of techniques and categories taken from Western philosophy. Eight philosophers, each of whom is a recognized authority in Western philosophy as well as in some area of Chinese philosophy, contribute chapters from perspectives that indicate the uniquenes…
Response to Craig Ihara's Discussion
Moral Relativity
Is There a Distinction between Reason and Emotion in Mencius
The contrast between reason and emotion has played a crucial role in the moral psychology of the Western ethical tradition.' If we turn to Mencius in the Confucian tradition, however, there seems to be no such contrast of comparable importance. Mencius does not, as Plato and Aristotle do, employ the contrast between reason and emotion to assert the need for the primacy of reason. He takes neither the Humean position of denying nor the Kantian pos…
Integrating philosophy with anthropology in an approach to morality
Philosophy and anthropology need to integrate their accounts of what a morality is. I identify three desiderata that an account of morality should satisfy: (1) it should recognize significant diversity and variation in the major kinds of value, (2) it should specify a set of criteria for what counts as a morality, and (3) it should indicate the basis for distinguishing between more or less justifiable moralities, or true and false moralities. I w…
Moral Reasons: Internal and External
The view defended is one sense externalist on the relation between moral reasons and motivation: A's having a moral reason to do X does not necessarily imply that A has a motivation that would support A's doing X via some appropriate deliberative route. However, it is in another sense externalist in holding that there are the kind of moral reasons there are only if the relevant motivational capacities are generally present in human beings, if not…
Relational and Autonomous Selves
Universalism Versus Love with Distinctions: An Ancient Debate Revived
Response to Craig Ihara's Discussion
Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality, Culture, & Philosophy
Leibniz's Theory of Relations
D ISCUSSION of Leibniz's theory of relations has focused on the question of whether he thought that propositions about relations between substances are reducible to propositions containing nonrelational predicates only. Russell and Rescher have interpreted his doctrine that relations between substances are ideal mental entities as entailing the reducibility of relational propositions to nonrelational ones. Hintikka and Ishiguro have argued that t…
Leibniz's Theory of Relations
D ISCUSSION of Leibniz's theory of relations has focused on the question of whether he thought that propositions about relations between substances are reducible to propositions containing nonrelational predicates only. Russell and Rescher have interpreted his doctrine that relations between substances are ideal mental entities as entailing the reducibility of relational propositions to nonrelational ones. Hintikka and Ishiguro have argued that t…
Moral Relativity
Wong's Relativism and Comparative Philosophy: "A Review of "Moral Relativity
"Response to Kupperman's Review of "Moral Relativity
Moral Relativity
Journal Article Book Reviews Get access Moral Relativity. By David B. Wong. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. Pp. xii + 248. Price £28.00) R. A. Duff R. A. Duff University of Stirling Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 36, Issue 142, January 1986, Pages 99–101, https://doi.org/10.2307/2219317 Published: 01 January 1986
Moral Relativity
Universalism Versus Love with Distinctions: An Ancient Debate Revived
Response to Craig Ihara's Discussion
Is There a Distinction between Reason and Emotion in Mencius
The contrast between reason and emotion has played a crucial role in the moral psychology of the Western ethical tradition.' If we turn to Mencius in the Confucian tradition, however, there seems to be no such contrast of comparable importance. Mencius does not, as Plato and Aristotle do, employ the contrast between reason and emotion to assert the need for the primacy of reason. He takes neither the Humean position of denying nor the Kantian pos…
Living Morally: A Psychology of Moral Character
Understanding the Chinese Mind: The Philosophical Roots
These essays represent an attempt to understand the Chinese mind through its philosophy. The first volume of its kind, the collection demonstrates how Chinese philosophy can be understood in light of techniques and categories taken from Western philosophy. Eight philosophers, each of whom is a recognized authority in Western philosophy as well as in some area of Chinese philosophy, contribute chapters from perspectives that indicate the uniquenes…
Pluralistic Relativism
Beyond Morality
Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality, Culture, & Philosophy
Rights and Community in Confucianism
There is an interesting turn toward Confucianism in much U.S. scholarship on Chinese philosophy. Heiner Roetz, in a recent book on Confucian ethics, detects certain frequently recurring themes in this scholarship. Quoting and paraphrasing from authors such as Herbert Fingarette, Henry Rosemont, David Hall, and Roger Ames, Roetz summarizes the themes in the following way
Relational and Autonomous Selves
Natural Moralities: A Defense of Pluralistic Relativism
To be called a relativist, especially a moral relativist, is to be condemned as someone who holds that “anything goes”. Frequently the term is part of a dichotomy: either accept relativism or accept universalism: the view that only one true morality exists. This book defends a new version of relativism that is both an alternative to, and fits between, universalism and relativism as usually defined. Pluralistic relativism does accord with one aspe…
Moral Reasons: Internal and External
The view defended is one sense externalist on the relation between moral reasons and motivation: A's having a moral reason to do X does not necessarily imply that A has a motivation that would support A's doing X via some appropriate deliberative route. However, it is in another sense externalist in holding that there are the kind of moral reasons there are only if the relevant motivational capacities are generally present in human beings, if not…
Identifying with Nature in Early Daoism
Confucian Ethics: A Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy, and Community
Confucian Political Philosophy
Confucianism is an ethics tied intimately with political philosophy. According to the text that is the most reliable guide to the teachings of Confucius, the Analects ( Lunyu ), he took the Mandate of Heaven ( tianming ) as a guide. The Mandate was formulated during the early period of the Zhou dynasty to justify the overthrow of the Shang dynasty and to legitimate the rule of the Zhou kings. The Confucian diagnosis of China's troubles suggests t…
The astonishment of anthropology
Integrating philosophy with anthropology in an approach to morality
Philosophy and anthropology need to integrate their accounts of what a morality is. I identify three desiderata that an account of morality should satisfy: (1) it should recognize significant diversity and variation in the major kinds of value, (2) it should specify a set of criteria for what counts as a morality, and (3) it should indicate the basis for distinguishing between more or less justifiable moralities, or true and false moralities. I w…
The Philosophical Challenge from China
Rigorously argued and meticulously researched, an investigation of current topics in philosophy that is informed by the Chinese philosophical tradition. For too long, analytic philosophy discounted insights from the Chinese philosophical tradition. In the last decade or so, however, philosophers have begun to bring the insights of Chinese thought to bear on current philosophical issues. This volume brings together leading scholars from East and W…
Xunzi’s Metaethics
Philosophy (29 works) · Epistemology (27 works) · Chinese history and philosophy (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Political science (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · History (6 works) · Politics (6 works)