Confucianism - Freedom and Democracy 2.0
Is Confucianism a religion?
VIII. But Isn’t Confucianism … Tolerance and benevolence are not just for Christians
There are seven articles preceding this summary. After all those prior articles, a reader might still have questions. More detailed analysis is in the prior sections. This article should function as a quick response to questions.
Confucianism - Freedom and democracy 2.0
Is Confucianism a religion?
VII. Is Confucianism a religion? Yes. No. Maybe.
Confucianism - Freedom and democracy 2.0
Is Confucianism a religion?
VI. What is a virtue ethic? What would your mother say?
Confucianism - Freedom and democracy 2.0
Is Confucianism a Religion?
V. Another sidebar – Augustine, Garry Wills, MacIntyre, rights and the Church today There is rather a lot to cover in this sidebar – government and religion, rights, failure of rights, an Augustinian view of living faithfully in difficult times. I suppose this is all done neither wisely nor too well. There are many learned volumes about any one of the topics here. Suffice it to say these are notes to myself.
Confucianism - Freedom and democracy 2.0
Is Confucianism a religion?
IV. A sidebar – Margaret Anscombe, Jonathan Haidt, and Sam Harris toward the psychology of morality
Kant and Bentham, Rawls and Mill sought to abstract morality from religious ideology. They proposed belief in universal reason and the greatest good for the greatest number. But now particularly in a diverse, plural world, we find universal reason … lacking and “the greatest good” sometimes not good enough. As Alasdair MacIntyre told us, a morality that is everywhere is the morality of no place. Morality is necessarily local, everywhere.
A virtue ethic – like early Christianity or Confucianism – avoids the universalist constraint. We can have a commandment to love one another, and we can have natural law and beatitudes, but we look to exemplars – those we can emulate – for instruction on what is moral in a particular situation. How do we learn to be the best human we can be?
Confucianism - Freedom and democracy 2.0
Is Confucianism a religion?
III. Getting unstuck 2 - the Goal How can we talk with one another? The language of talking
Liberals understandably throw up their hands when confronted with wild-eyed conspiracy theorists of the right or flat-earthers or Q fans. But there remain the views of some principled conservatives, some thoughtful Christians with whom liberals must contend. Liberals have to find a way to talk the talk with conservatives, else they lose moral ground at the outset. I am hoping to provide some background for liberals to use so that discussion does not descend quite so quickly to yelling or silence. The organization Braver Angels is a good example, as Jonathan Rauch suggests in The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth. They sponsor workshops, debates, and music in an effort to depolarize “reds and blues.”
