The “social-political-hierarchical” qualifications have long been identified as the essential features of the Confucian golden rule. This essay challenges this prevailing characterization by revealing the relation and differences between Confucius’ original shu 恕 and a series of post-Confucius reformulations in ancient Confucianism. Specifically, the premise of equality, which underlies Confucius’ formulation of shu in correlation with ren 仁, rendered shu incompatible with asymmetrical relationships. Besides the advantage of overcoming this limitation by adapting the golden rule structure of shu to specified (...) asymmetrical relationships, the post-Confucius formula, especially “the measuring square” in the Great Learning, was devised to guide one to infer universalizable rules of conduct for various roles in diverse relationships. On this basis, I demonstrate a pivotal shift in the golden rule practice of ancient Confucianism—a shift of focus from its correlation with ren to its conformity with li 禮 as the system of rules of conduct and the principle of “discriminations.”. (shrink)

PurposeAs interest in technology ethics is increasing, so is the interest in bringing schools of ethics from non-Western philosophical traditions to the field, particularly when it comes to information and communication technology. In light of this development and recent publications that result from it, this paper aims to present responds critically to recent work on Confucian virtue ethics (CVE) and technology.Design/methodology/approachFour critiques are presented as theoretical challenges to CVE in technology, claiming that current literature insufficiently addresses: overall applicability, collective ethics (...) issues, epistemic overconfidence within technology corporations and amplification of epistemic overconfidence by the implementation of CVE. These challenges make use of general CVE literature and work on technology critique, political philosophy, epistemology and business ethics.FindingsImplementing CVE in technology may yield some benefits, but these may be outweighed by other outcomes, include strengthening hierarchies, widening inequities, increasing, rather than limiting, predictive activity, personal data collection, misinformation, privacy violations and challenges to the democratic process.Originality/valueThough not directly advocating against CVE, the paper reveals hitherto unidentified and serious issues that should be addressed before CVE are used to inform ethics guidelines or regulatory policies. It also serves as a foundation for further inquiry into how Eastern philosophy more broadly can inform technology ethics in the West. (shrink)