Confucius and Contemporary Ethics

Abstract

Abstract Much of the recent work on early Confucian ethics has attempted to read thinkers like Confucius 孔子(551–479 BCE) and Mencius 孟子 (c.372–289 BCE) in terms of contemporary ethical theory. While many scholars have argued that Confucianism is best understood as a virtue ethics, others favor an approach that looks at the tradition as a distinctive “role ethics.” Still others maintain that Confucianism has important affinities with care ethics, attempting to build bridge between the Chinese Confucian tradition and contemporary feminism. While these approaches have often been opposed to one another, this essay looks at points of convergence between the three interpretations, arguing that one might see them as a “family of views” that can help scholars understand what is distinctive about the early Confucian tradition.