Mou Zongsan was one of the most important Chinese philosophers of the twentieth century, yet his political thought is given little attention. This is unfortunate, because his political philosophy presents significant challenges to liberal views on freedom and the basis for democracy. Mou rejects the liberal understanding of freedom as absence of interference, and instead argues for a limited conception of positive freedom in government that includes teaching basic moral values. He bases democracy on the Confucian idea of respect for (...) humanity's universal moral potential. At the same time, Mou also provides an alternative to many current conceptions of Confucian democracy, which favor pragmatist and communitarian interpretations. Mou's thought thus illustrates how Chinese conceptions of Confucian democracy frequently differ from those in English-language scholarship. The goal of this article is to examine how Mou creatively interpreted Confucian thought to develop a unique New Confucian theory of democracy that neither uncritically accepts liberalism nor discounts the importance of liberal features such as individual freedom and rights. It also considers major objections to Mou's view of democracy and his possible responses. (shrink)

As political theorists address the parochial foundations of their field, engagement with the Indigenous traditions of Turtle Island is overdue. This article argues that theorists should approach such engagement with caution. Indigenous nations’ politics of knowledge production may differ from those of de-parochializing political theorists. Some Indigenous communities, in response to violent histories of knowledge extraction, have developed practices of refusal. The contemporary movement of resurgence engages Indigenous traditions of political thought toward the end of promoting Indigenous intellectual and political (...) sovereignty and self-determination. These practices demonstrate a commitment to epistemic justice that is imperfectly aligned with, and potentially opposed to, inclusion-oriented projects like comparative political theory. If political theorists are to de-parochialize political theory by incorporating Indigenous traditions, they must do so in ways that are respectful of Indigenous peoples’ own struggles for epistemic justice. This can be achieved by drawing on and deepening practices of reflexivity exhibited in leading comparative political theory scholarship, and by allowing Indigenous treaty relationships to set the terms of the encounter. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhism and the Idea of Human Rights:Resonances and Dissonances1Perry Schmidt-LeukelIn 1991 L.P.N. Perera, Professor of Pāli and Buddhist Studies in Sri Lanka, published a Buddhist commentary on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In this commentary Perera tries to show that, in the Pāli canon, i.e. the canonical scripture of Theravāda Buddhism, for every single article of the Human Rights Declaration a substantial parallel or at least a statement (...) with a similar tendency can be found. Indeed, says Perera, Article 1, which affirms the dignity and rights of all humans, "is in complete accord with Buddhist thought, and may be said to be nothing new to Buddhism in conception" (Perera 1991:21). In contrast, the Buddhist Peter Junger, Professor of Law at the University of Cleveland, Ohio, judged in 1995 that... though followers of Buddhist traditions do value most, if not all, of the interests underlying the rhetoric of human rights, they may not have much use for the label itself, which is, after all, a product of the traditions of Western Europe and the parochial histories of that region.(Junger 1998: 56)Junger goes on to say that "the concept of human rights is not likely to be useful in...following the Buddha Dharma" (Junger 1998: 55).Thus Perera and Junger agree that the content of the various human rights is acceptable for Buddhists. However, they disagree strongly in their evaluation of the idea of human rights in itself. In this respect Damien Keown has rightly argued that the crucial question on 'Buddhism and Human Rights' is not so much whether Buddhism can accept any particular human right but rather whether the idea of human rights as such can find a philosophical justification within the "overall Buddhist vision of individual and social good" (Keown 1998: 24).It is this problem that I would like to pursue in this paper. In the first part I will sketch some basic characteristics of the idea of human rights. In the second part I will point out what resonances this idea finds in Buddhism or by which Buddhist concepts the human rights idea can be justified. And finally, in the third part, I will deal [End Page 33] with the question of potential dissonances between the idea of human rights and Buddhist concepts.On the Nature of Human RightsWith the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the various subsequent human rights conventions the rights of individuals were for the first time inscribed into international law, which had previously recognised only collectives as legal subjects. By formulating universal rights as valid for every individual human being regardless of race, colour, sex, religion, birth, etc. the Universal Declaration points to the most important feature of the idea of human rights: the protection of the individual or, to be more precise, the protection of the individual against powerful institutions of the state, society, religion or others. It is individual self-determination and free agency that are protected through human rights. Human rights define the minimum of what is necessary in order to guarantee the freedom of individual agency and the freedom of self-determination. By the definition of inalienable rights,2 the idea of human rights sets limits to those collectives and institutions in which we usually live, limits which for the sake of the basic liberty of the individual are not to be transgressed. Michael Ignatieff summarises this understanding of human rights with the words: "rights exist to protect individuals" (Ignatieff 2001: 67), and "they are worth having only if they can be enforced against institutions like the family, the state, and the church" (Ignatieff 2001: 66f.). Therefore "moral individualism" is "the core of the Universal Declaration" (Ignatieff 2001: 66).It is true that the further development of the human rights debate, particularly within the context of the United Nations, has led to an extension of the idea of human rights to collective rights and collective legal entities by including among human rights, for example, a nations' right to self-determination and the right to peace and the right to development. However, in my opinion it would be highly... (shrink)

There are many East and West debates on human rights. One of them is whether all civil and political rights are human rights. On one hand, scholars generally agree that rights to physical security are human rights. On the other hand, some scholars argue that rights to political liberty are only Western rights but not human rights because political liberty conflicts with some East Asian cultural factors, especially the Confucian tradition. I argue that physical security also conflicts with some parts (...) of the Confucian tradition, but rights to physical security are still human rights because physical security is a minimal value. I then argue that political liberty, similar to physical security, is also a minimal value. Therefore, similar to rights to physical security, rights to political liberty are also human rights, even though political liberty also conflicts with some parts of the Confucian tradition. (shrink)

Both Confucian and Islamic traditions stand in fraught and internally contested relationships with democracy and human rights. It can easily appear that the two traditions are in analogous positions with respect to the values associated with modernity, but a central contention of this essay is that Islam and Confucianism are not analogous in this way. Positions taken by advocates of the traditions are often similar, but the reasoning used to justify these positions differs in crucial ways. Whether one approaches these (...) questions from an intra-traditional, cross-traditional, or multi-traditional perspective, the essay shows that there is great value in getting clear on the ways in which one’s textual “canon” may constrain one. In the end, we will see that while there are creative Islamic approaches to taking human rights seriously, the looser constraints under which Confucians operate today may make things easier for Confucian advocates of human rights and democracy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In recent issues of the Journal of Religious Ethics (2006, 2007), David Little has defended the contemporary regime of international human rights against what he thinks of as the relativizing influences of the genealogical “just‐so” story told by Jeffrey Stout in his Democracy and Tradition (2004). I argue that Stout is correct about just‐so stories, and that Little does not go far enough in his reclamation of liberalism against Stout's “new traditionalists.” The main weaknesses of Little's approach are his (...) insistence on the idea that human rights are to be thought of as natural rights, and that these in turn are to be thought of as self‐evident and self‐justifying. I argue that they are neither: they come to us via a Stoutian just‐so story, and that as part of a broader reclamation of liberalism, they can continue to serve as the basis for the kind of international liberal constitutionalism that Little advocates. (shrink)

The term 'Asian values' became popular in the political discourse in the 1980s and 1990s. The most vocal proponents of Asian values are Singapore s Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysia's Mahathir and their deputies and government officials, as well as post-Tiananmen Chinese leaders. Most notable of all these three strands of the Asian values debate is the 'Singapore School', which 'comprises leaders who have articulated a defence of the Singapore regime, either in their personal or official capacities'. This article discusses (...) the origins and philosophical underpinnings of 'Asian values' in the Singapore context and its relationship to civics education. First, it provides the historical context for the interest in Confucianism and Asian Values. It then looks at the role and use of Confucianism and Asian Values in Asia, before discussing the case of Singapore and Asian values. I explore the interconnections between changes in history, civics and social studies curricula, and the politics of the 'Asian Values' discourse in Singapore which underpins these curricula. At the heart of the issue was the states attempt to forge and articulate a Singaporean identity, and the role of citizenship/moral education in attaining this elusive nation building goal. (shrink)