How should we interact with people in echo chambers? Recently, some have argued that echo-chambered individuals are not entitled to civility. Civility is the virtue whereby we communicate respect for persons to manage our profound disagreements with them. But for civil exchanges to work, people must trust one another and their testimony. Therefore, some argue, we can be moderately uncivil towards those in echo chambers who are unlikely to trust our attempts to be civil. I argue against this position. I (...) suggest the focus should be on trying to rebuild these social relationships in alignment with the Confucian value of harmony. In this tradition, we aim to manage social relationships with disagreeable others by turning inward and cultivating certain dispositions in ourselves: open-mindedness, amenability, tactfulness, and courage. I argue this helps us craft a concept of ‘reparative civility’: an ideal for managing our fraught social relations in a world of echo chambers. (shrink)

Affective polarization is characterized by deep antagonism between political opponents and is an issue of growing concern. Some philosophers have recently suggested empathy as a possible remedy. In particular, it has been suggested that empathy might mitigate the harm resulting from affective polarization by helping us find common ground across our differences. While these discussions provide a helpful starting point, important questions regarding the conditions under which empathizing and finding common ground are morally appropriate and likely to be useful, given (...) the many risks associated with taking this approach, remain unaddressed. In this paper, I therefore give an account of the risks that we must reckon with if empathy and common ground are to help remedy affective polarization and repair damaged relations between political opponents. Far from suggesting that empathy is morally unimportant or intrinsically harmful, my goal is thus to extend and amplify previous discussion to promote a more nuanced understanding of empathy's role in this important aspect of the moral life and to ensure that our efforts to empathize are appropriate and fruitful. (shrink)

What are the nature and status of moral norms? And what makes individuals abide by them? These are central questions in metaethics. The first concerns the nature of the moral domain—for example, whether it exists independently of what individuals or groups think of it. The second concerns the bindingness or practical clout of moral norms—how individuals feel impelled to abide by them. In this article, I bring two distinct approaches to these questions into dialogue with one another.

My thanks to David Velleman for a clear and constructive response to my comment. He raises two issues that might benefit from some further brief remarks. The first concerns the error-theory I put forth to explain why the early Confucians were not relativists. The second concerns the extent to which the Confucian notion of harmony is at odds with Velleman's notion of interpretability or coherence. I consider each in turn, below.

Harmony is a crucial value for resolving conflicts. Discussions on harmony in the Zhuangzi primarily focus on harmonizing ‘right and wrong’ (shifei 是非). However, it represents only a superficial understanding of Zhuangzian harmony. To explore a fundamental form of harmony would be beneficial: harmonizing ‘virtuosities’ (de 德), which can prevent conflicts and avoid domination. This paper begins by illustrating the discombobulated (zhili 支离) characteristic of virtuosities in the Zhuangzi. By comparison with harmonizing virtues in Five Conducts, we can better understand (...) the distinctive characteristic of harmonizing virtuositiesin the Zhuangzi. Moreover, a metaphor of perfectly still water suggests that in this process, virtuosities can be internally preserved and externally unshaken. This suggests to maintain one’s own virtuosities in the transformations of eventsand avoidacquiring specific names or reputations that can lead to interpersonal conflicts and domination. These two characteristics can fundamentally avoid disputes over ‘right and wrong’. (shrink)