Ethical Individualism and the Prospect of Confucian Political Theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-143
Author(s):  
Sungmoon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Asian Context ◽  
Seamless Connection

Abstract In his recent book, Shaun O’Dwyer defends liberal democracy as the only legitimate mode of political system in the East Asian context by critiquing various proposals of Confucian democracy and meritocracy. Underlying O’Dwyer’s critique of Confucian political theory is the seamless connection between ethical individualism (à la Kant), pragmatic democracy (à la Dewey), and political liberalism (à la Rawls), which in his view cannot be adequately accommodated by any version of Confucian political theory, unless it abandons its Confucian essence. This paper argues that the relation between these three philosophical components are far more complex than is rendered by O’Dwyer and that Confucian democracy can be justified on ethical, pragmatic, and progressive grounds.

Liberal democracy as the end of history

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doh Chull Shin ◽  
Hannah June Kim
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political System ◽  
East Asian ◽  
Asian Population ◽  
Third Wave ◽  
Conceptual Tool ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The Third ◽  
The End Of History

A growing number of political scientists have recently advocated the theses that democracy has emerged as a universal value and that it is also becoming the universally preferred system of government. Do most people in East Asia prefer democracy to nondemocratic systems, as advocates of these Western theses claim? Do they embrace liberal democracy as the most preferred system as they become socioeconomically modernized and culturally liberalized? To address these questions, we first propose a typology of privately concealed political system preferences as a new conceptual tool in order to ascertain their types and subtypes without using the word “democracy”. By means of this typology, we analyze the third wave of the Asian Barometer Survey conducted in 12 democratic and nondemocratic countries. The analysis reveals that a hybrid system, not liberal democracy, is the most preferred system even among the culturally liberalized and socioeconomically modernized segments of the East Asian population. Our results show that the increasingly popular theses of universal and liberal democratization serve merely in East Asia as prodemocracy rhetoric, not as theoretically meaningful propositions.

scholarly journals The limits of conjecture: Political liberalism, counter-radicalisation and unreasonable religious views

Ethnicities ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriele Badano ◽  
Alasia Nuti
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
John Rawls ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Comprehensive Doctrine ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
Theory Reasoning ◽  
The Stability

Originally proposed by John Rawls, the idea of reasoning from conjecture is popular among the proponents of political liberalism in normative political theory. Reasoning from conjecture consists in discussing with fellow citizens who are attracted to illiberal and antidemocratic ideas by focusing on their religious or otherwise comprehensive doctrines, attempting to convince them that such doctrines actually call for loyalty to liberal democracy. Our goal is to criticise reasoning from conjecture as a tool aimed at persuasion and, in turn, at improving the stability of liberal democratic institutions. To pursue this goal, we use as case study real-world efforts to counter-radicalise at-risk Muslim citizens, which, at first glance, reasoning from conjecture seems well-placed to contribute to. This case study helps us to argue that the supporters of reasoning from conjecture over-intellectualise opposition to liberal democracy and what societies can do to counter it. Specifically, they (i) underestimate how few members of society can effectively perform reasoning from conjecture; (ii) overlook that the burdens of judgement, a key notion for political liberals, highlight how dim the prospects of reasoning from conjecture are and (iii) do not pay attention to the causes of religious persons’ opposition to liberal democracy. However, not everything is lost for political liberals, provided that they redirect attention to different and under-researched resources contained in Rawls’s theory. In closing, we briefly explain how such resources are much better placed than reasoning from conjecture to provide guidance relative to counter-radicalisation in societies (i) populated by persons who do not generally hold anything close to a fully worked out and internally consistent comprehensive doctrine and (ii) where political institutions should take responsibility for at least part of the existing alienation from liberal democratic values.

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