Since Confucianism is an intergenerational phenomenon, it should have unique insights into ethical issues surrounding our obligations to future generations. In the first part of this discussion, I examine two contemporary Confucian perspectives on intergenerational ethics. Proponents of Confucian Role Ethics have developed an interpretation of xiao 孝 as “intergenerational reverence” that binds the community together over time by reference to shared cultural models and evolving ethical values. The Chinese thinker Jiang Qing in turn argues for a political constitution in which the state depends not just on the will of presently existing citizens, but also serves to preserve and transmit the values of the past for the sake of future generations. While both interpretations share in common a critique of Western individualism and rights-based ethical framework, Jiang’s account of Confucian intergenerationality rests on the authority of tradition, whereas Confucian Role Ethics prioritizes the uniqueness of the situation at hand. In the second half of the discussion, I develop an alternative Confucian approach that is aligned with virtue ethics. On this view, our present virtue is the point of departure for understanding our relations with the past and future. I examine passages in early Confucian texts that suggest a notion of intergenerational virtue, which brings together various dispositions to see our own flourishing as linked with both past and future generations.
With a response from:
Susan Blake (Bard College)
8 February @Columbia
Patricia Kitcher: The Fact of Reason in Kant’s Moral Psychology
Response: Jessica Tizzard
22 February @NSSR
5 April @Columbia
Beatrice Longuenesse: Residues of First Nature
19 April @NSSR
Angelica Nuzzo: Approaching Hegel’s Logic Obliquely: Melville, Moliere, Beckett
Response: David Carlson
10 May @Columbia
Amy Allen: Turning Dead Ends into Through Streets: Psychoanalysis and the Idea of Progress
8 February @Columbia
Patricia Kitcher: The Fact of Reason in Kant’s Moral Psychology
Response: Jessica Tizzard
22 February @NSSR
5 April @Columbia
Beatrice Longuenesse: Residues of First Nature
19 April @NSSR
Angelica Nuzzo: Approaching Hegel’s Logic Obliquely: Melville, Moliere, Beckett
Response: David Carlson
10 May @Columbia
Amy Allen: Turning Dead Ends into Through Streets: Psychoanalysis and the Idea of Progress
8 February @Columbia
Patricia Kitcher: The Fact of Reason in Kant’s Moral Psychology
Response: Jessica Tizzard
22 February @NSSR
5 April @Columbia
Beatrice Longuenesse: Residues of First Nature
19 April @NSSR
Angelica Nuzzo: Approaching Hegel’s Logic Obliquely: Melville, Moliere, Beckett
Response: David Carlson
10 May @Columbia
Amy Allen: Turning Dead Ends into Through Streets: Psychoanalysis and the Idea of Progress
Critique is an assertion of values pitted against a state of affairs. To say that things should not be the way they are–to respond to questions such as ‘Why do I think this political or economic arrangement is wrong (and why should I care?)?’ implies an ethical stance. Critique thus draws together fact and value, domains that a long tradition of moral thought has argued exist on distinct planes. For there are dimensions of political life that are incomprehensible without this conjunction between ethical motivations and social realities. But if they are to have political consequences, such questions cannot be confined to private introspection. Scale matters. This talk looks at the articulation between everyday interactions and social movements to show the interplay among the first, second, and third person stances that characterize ethical life. Drawing ethnographic examples from American feminism and Vietnamese Marxism, it considers some of the ways in which ethical intuitions emerge, consolidate, and change, and argues that objectifications and the reflexivity they facilitate help give ethical life a social history.
Rebecca Comay, Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature, The University of Toronto discusses Hegel and Beckett followed by a response from Paul Kottman of The New School for Social Research.
The New York University Department of Philosophy will host the sixteenth in its series of conferences on issues in the history of modern philosophy on November 8 and 9, 2019. Each conference in the series examines the development of a central philosophical problem from early modern philosophy to the present, exploring the evolution of formulations of the problem and of approaches to resolving it. By examining the work of philosophers of the past both in historical context and in relation to contemporary philosophical thinking, the conferences allow philosophy’s past and present to illuminate one another.
Friday, November 8
9:00-10:00
Check-in and Continental Breakfast
10:00-12:00
Speaker: Michael Gill (University of Arizona), “Shaftesbury’s Claim That Beauty and Good Are One and the Same”
Commentator: Julia Driver (Washington University)
2:00-4:00
Speaker: Jacqueline Taylor (San Francisco University), “Hume on Humanity: Its Force and Authority”
Commentator: Rachel Cohon (University at Albany, SUNY)
4:00-4:30
Coffee Break
4:30-6:30
Speaker: Marcus Willascheck (Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main), “The Structure of Normative Space According to Kant“
Commentator: Janum Sethi (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)
6:30-7:30
Reception
Saturday, November 9
9:00-10:00
Continental Breakfast
10:00-12:00
Speaker: João Constâncio (Universidade Nova de Lisboa / Nova FCSH), “Nietzsche on Normativity: Reason in the Space of Culture and Taste”
Commentator: Ariela Tubert (University of Puget Sound)
2:00-4:00
Speaker: Hannah Ginsborg (University of California, Berkeley), “Rule-Following without Rules: Wittgenstein on Normativity in Social Practice”
Commentator: Gary Ebbs (Indiana University)
4:00-4:30
Coffee Break
4:30-6:30
Speaker: Stephen Darwall, (Yale University), “Normativity in Contemporary (and the History of) Ethics”
Commentator: Nomy Arpaly (Brown University)
6:30-7:30
Reception
- Nomy Arpaly
- Rachel Cohon
- João Constâncio
- Stephen Darwall
- Julia Driver
- Gary Ebbs
- Michael Gill
- Hannah Ginsborg
- Janum Sethi
- Jacqueline Taylor
- Ariela Tubert
- Marcus Willascheck
Recently, a group of scholars has challenged the moral legitimacy of Confucian democracy from a liberal philosophical standpoint. According to these scholars, including political liberals and moderate perfectionists, any attempt to create a Confucian democratic theory inevitably confronts a dilemma—let us call this the pluralism dilemma—with the following two horns: (a) a free society is characterized by the plurality of mutually incompatible, often conflicting, moral, philosophical, and religious doctrines that guide an individual’s conception of the good life and a truly democratic theory is required to accommodate as many reasonable conceptions of the good and comprehensive doctrines as possible and (b) a Confucian democratic theory gives a privileged normative standing to Confucianism over other competing comprehensive doctrines. This paper defends Confucian democracy against this pluralism challenge by articulating its political purpose and constitutional structure, which are commonly dismissed in the critics’ analytical frameworks.
With responses from: OMAR DAHBOUR (Hunter College & Graduate Center, CUNY)
The Fall dates for the Comparative Philosophy seminar:
September 20 – Justin Tiwald (San Francisco State University)
October 11 – Richard Kim (Loyola University, Chicago
November 8 – Sungmoon Kim (City University of Hong Kong)
December 6 – Paul R. Goldin (University of Pennsylvania)
More details (such as titles, abstracts, and respondents) to follow. Looking forward to seeing you soon.
Hagop Sarkissian
Associate Professor & Chair, Department of Philosophy, The City University of New York, Baruch College
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, CUNY Graduate Center
Co-Director, Columbia Society for Comparative Philosophy
https://www.cbs.columbia.edu/cscp/
Luca Corti (University of Padua) – March 6
Amy Allen (Penn State) – March 27
Andreja Novakovic (UC Berkeley) – April 3
Alberto Siani (University of Pisa) – May 8
Luca Corti (University of Padua) – March 6
Amy Allen (Penn State) – March 27
Andreja Novakovic (UC Berkeley) – April 3
Alberto Siani (University of Pisa) – May 8