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  1. Can Virtue Grow out of Vicious Human Nature? Xunzi’s Genealogy Reconstructed.Tang Yun - forthcoming - Philosophy East and West.
    Xunzi’s pessimistic understanding of human nature and his endorsement of the intrinsically valuable virtue of yi (義) put him in a vulnerable position. To defend this position, Xunzi needs to conquer what the essay calls “the compatibility problems,” the first of which concerns the compatibility between bad human nature and virtue, while the second is between Xunzi’s functional understanding of virtue and his understanding of virtue as possessing intrinsic value. If Xunzi’s moral philosophy were to fail to solve these two (...)
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  2. Conformed by Praise: Xunzi and William of Auxerre on the Ethics of Liturgy.Jacob J. Andrews - 2022 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 96 (1):113-136.
    The classical Confucian philosopher Xunzi proposed a naturalistic virtue ethics account of ritual: rituals are practices that channel human emotion and desire so that one develops virtues. In this paper I show that William of Auxerre’s Summa de Officiis Ecclesiasticis can be understood as presenting a similar account of ritual. William places great emphasis on the emotional power of the liturgy, which makes participants like the blessed in heaven by developing virtue. In other words, he has a virtue ethics of (...)
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  3. Harmonising with Heaven and Earth: Reciprocal Harmony and Xunzi's Environmental Ethics.Yi Jonathan Chua - 2022 - Environmental Values 31 (5):555-574.
    Xunzi's philosophy provides a rich resource for understanding how ethical relationships between humans and nature can be articulated in terms of harmony. In this paper, I build on his ideas to develop the concept of reciprocal harmony, which requires us to reciprocate those who make our lives liveable. In the context of the environment, I argue that reciprocal harmony generates moral obligations towards nature, in return for the existential debt that humanity owes towards heaven and earth. This can be used (...)
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  4. Let the ruler be the ruler.Liam D. Ryan - 2022 - Asian Journal of Philosophy 2 (2).
    How should we understand the Confucian doctrine of the rectification of names (zhengming): what does it mean that an object’s name must be in accordance with its reality, and why does it matter? The aim of this paper is to answer this question by advocating a novel interpretation of the later Confucian, Xunzi’s account of the doctrine. Xunzi claims that sage-kings ascribe names and values to objects by convention, and since they are sages, they know the truth. When we misuse (...)
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  5. Xunzi’s Ritual Model and Modern Moral Education.Colin Joseph Lewis - 2021 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 13 (2):17-43.
    While the early Confucians were largely content to maintain the rituals of ancient kings as the core of moral education in their time, it is not obvious that contemporary humans could, or should, draw from the particulars of such a tradition. Indeed, even if one takes ritual seriously as a tool for cultivation, there remains a question of how to design moral education programs incorporating ritual. This essay examines impediments faced by a ritualized approach to moral education, how they might (...)
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  6. Confucianism and Totalitarianism: An Arendtian Reconsideration of Mencius versus Xunzi.Lee Wilson - 2021 - Philosophy East and West 71 (4):981-1004.
    Totalitarianism is perhaps unanimously regarded as one of the greatest political evils of the last century and has been the grounds for much of Anglo-American political theory since. Confucianism, meanwhile, has been gaining credibility in the past decades among sympathizers of democratic theory in spite of criticisms of it being anti-democratic or authoritarian. I consider how certain key concepts in the classical Confucian texts of the Mencius and the Xunzi might or might not be appropriated for ‘legitimising’ totalitarian regimes. Under (...)
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  7. Xunzi’s Ritual Program as a Response to Han Feizi’s Criticism of Confucianism.Colin J. Lewis - 2020 - Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture 34 (August):129-153.
    One of Han Feizi’s most subtle criticisms of Confucianism targets a central feature of its moral cultivation program, namely an appeal to modelling oneself on ancient sages. According to Han Feizi, this ideal of model emulation is doomed to failure due to imperfect knowledge of past exemplars, the fact that certain ideals of practice may not be applicable to (or catastrophic for) some practitioners, and the additional fact that one cannot always rely on past examples to provide good guidance for (...)
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  8. Why Confucianism Matters in Ethics of Technology.Pak-Hang Wong - 2020 - In Shannon Vallor (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Technology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Usa.
    There are a number of recent attempts to introduce Confucian values to the ethical analysis of technology. These works, however, have not attended sufficiently to one central aspect of Confucianism, namely Ritual (‘Li’). Li is central to Confucian ethics, and it has been suggested that the emphasis on Li in Confucian ethics is what distinguishes it from other ethical traditions. Any discussion of Confucian ethics for technology, therefore, remains incomplete without accounting for Li. This chapter aims to elaborate on the (...)
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  9. On the View that People and Not Institutions Bear Primary Credit for Success in Governance: Confucian Arguments.Justin Tiwald - 2019 - Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture 32:65-97.
    This paper explicates the influential Confucian view that “people” and not “institutional rules” are the proper sources of good governance and social order, as well as some notable Confucian objections to this position. It takes Xunzi 荀子, Hu Hong 胡宏, and Zhu Xi 朱熹 as the primary representatives of the “virtue-centered” position, which holds that people’s good character and not institutional rules bear primary credit for successful governance. And it takes Huang Zongxi 黃宗羲 as a major advocate for the “institutionalist” (...)
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  10. Wittgenstein and the Xunzi on the Clarification of Language.Thomas D. Carroll - 2018 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 17 (4):527-545.
    Broadly speaking, language is part of a social activity in both Wittgenstein and Xunzi 荀子, and for both clarification of language is central to their philosophical projects; the goal of this article is to explore the extent of resonance and discord that may be found when comparing these two philosophers. While for Xunzi, the rectification of names (zhengming 正名) is anchored in a regard for establishing, propagating, and/or restoring a harmonious social system, perspicuity is for Wittgenstein represented as a philosophical (...)
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  11. Aquinas and Gregory the Great on the Puzzle of Petitionary Prayer.Scott Hill - 2018 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 5.
    I defend a solution to the puzzle of petitionary prayer based on some ideas of Aquinas, Gregory the Great, and contemporary desert theorists. I then address a series of objections. Along the way broader issues about the nature of desert, what is required for an action to have a point, and what is required for a puzzle to have a solution are discussed.
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  12. Virtue and Virtuosity: Xunzi and Aristotle on the Role of Art in Ethical Cultivation.Lee Wilson - 2018 - Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture 30:75–103.
    Christian B. Miller has noted a “realism challenge” for virtue ethicists to provide an account of how the character gap between virtuous agents and non-virtuous agents can be bridged. This is precisely one of Han Feizi’s key criticisms against Confucian virtue ethics, as Eric L. Hutton argues, which also cuts across the Aristotelian one: appealing to virtuous agents as ethical models provides the wrong kind of guidance for the development of virtues. Hutton, however, without going into detail, notes that the (...)
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  13. Can Xun Zi’s Proposition on “Establishing Ritual Practices in Accordwith Qing ” Be Validated?Chenyang Li - 2014 - 中国社会科学 35 (1):146-162.
    Wang Guowei expressed doubts about Xun Zi’s proposition on “establishing ritual practices in accord with qing,” arguing that it was in direct confict with the philosopher’s famous thesis that “human natural tendency is evil.” The word qing (情) has several connotations in the Xunzi: it may refer to factual truth (实情), sincerity (诚实) or emotions (情感). Readers of the Xunzi tend to view the emotional connotation of qing in a negative light, but in actuality qing as human emotions can also (...)
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  14. Xunzi and Virtue Epistemology.Cheng-Hung Tsai - 2014 - Universitas: Monthly Review of Philosophy and Culture 41 (3):121-142.
    Regulative virtue epistemology argues that intellectual virtues can adjust and guide one’s epistemic actions as well as improve on the quality of the epistemic actions. For regulative virtue epistemologists, intellectual virtues can be cultivated to a higher degree; when the quality of intellectual virtue is better, the resulting quality of epistemic action is better. The intellectual virtues that regulative epistemologists talk about are character virtues (such as intellectual courage and open-mindedness) rather than faculty virtues (such as sight and hearing), since (...)
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  15. Xunzi and Han Fei on Human Nature.Alejandro Bárcenas - 2012 - International Philosophical Quarterly 52 (2):135-148.
    It is commonly accepted that Han Fei studied under Xunzi sometime during the late third century BCE. However, there is surprisingly little dedicated to the in-depth study of the relationship between Xunzi’s ideas and one of his best-known followers. In this essay I argue that Han Fei’s notion of xing, commonly translated as human nature, was not only influenced by Xunzi but also that it is an important feature of his political philosophy.
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  16. Is Xunzi’s Virtue Ethics Susceptible to the Problem of Alienation?James Harold - 2011 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 10 (1):71-84.
    In this essay I argue that if Kantian and consequentialist ethical theories are vulnerable to the so-called “problem of alienation,” a virtue ethics based on Xunzi’s ethical writings will also be vulnerable to this problem. I outline the problem of alienation, and then show that the role of ritual ( li ) in Xunzi’s theory renders his view susceptible to the problem as it has been traditionally understood. I consider some replies on Xunzi’s behalf, and also discuss whether the problem (...)
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  17. 先秦儒家关于“欲”的理论 (Pre-Qin Confucian Theory on Human Desires).Keqian Xu - 2006 - 中州学刊 (Academic Journal of Zhongzhou) 2006 (1):166-170.
    The theory about human desire is one important component in early Confucian theory of humanity. It is worth our attention that Pre-Qin Confucians never put human desire at the absolute opposite position to the Heavenly Principle, as their successors do. Contrarily, they generally believe that the desire is the inseparable property of normal human nature, and making efforts to satisfy the human desire is reasonable. Only in terms of reducing the conflicts between human desire and the limited resources they advocate (...)
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  18. The debate between mencius and hsün-Tzu: Contemporary applications.Robert E. Allinson - 1998 - Journal of Chinese Philosophy 25 (1):31-49.
    This article takes one of the richest historical debates, that of Hsun-Tzu and Mencius, as the contextual starting-point for the elaboration of human goodness. In support of Mencius, this article develops additional metaphysical and bio-social-evolutionary grounds, both of which parallel each other. The metaphysical analysis suggests that, in the spirit of Spinoza, an entity’s nature must necessarily include the drive toward its preservation. Likewise, the multi-faceted bio-social-evolutionary argument locates the fundamental telos of humanity in the preservation of social ties and (...)
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  19. Hansen on Hsün-Tzu.Bryan Van Norden & Bryan Van Norden - 1993 - Journal of Chinese Philosophy 20 (3):365-382.
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