Human Rights in Chinese Thought A Cross-Cultural Inquiry [Paperback]

This book is about the history of Chinese ideas of human rights.This book is about the origins and development of Chinese ideas of human rights, and about what we in the contemporary world should make of different cultures having different moral ideas. It differs from competing books in two ways. First, its historical account is much fuller, since it shows how Chinese discussions of rights grew out of pre-existing Confucian philosophical concerns. Second, it is also a work of philosophy: it explains what it means to have moral concepts that differ from one another, and how we should react to such differences.This book is about the origins and development of Chinese ideas of human rights, and about what we in the contemporary world should make of different cultures having different moral ideas. It differs from competing books in two ways. First, its historical account is much fuller, since it shows how Chinese discussions of rights grew out of pre-existing Confucian philosophical concerns. Second, it is also a work of philosophy: it explains what it means to have moral concepts that differ from one another, and how we should react to such differences.What should we make of claims by members of other groups to have moralities different from our own? Human Rights in Chinese Thought gives an extended answer to this question in the first study of its kind. It integrates a full account of the development of Chinese rights discourse with philosophical consideration of how various communities should respond to contemporary Chinese claims about the uniqueness of their human rights concepts. The book elaborates a plausible kind of moral pluralism and demonstrates that Chinese ideas of human rights do indeed have distinctive characteristics, but it nonetheless argues for the importance and promise of cross-cultural moral engagement.1. Introduction; 2. Languages, concepts, and pluralism; 3. The consequences of pluralism; 4. The shift toward legitimate desires in neo-ConfucianilsÄ