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Full-Text Articles in Comparative Philosophy
Impartiality, Close Friendship And The Confucian Tradition, Andrew Lambert
Impartiality, Close Friendship And The Confucian Tradition, Andrew Lambert
Publications and Research
This paper explores the relationship between friendship and morality. Two ideas have been influential in the history of moral philosophy: the impartial standpoint and close friendship. These two perspectives on thought and action can conflict, however, and such a case is presented.
In an attempt to resolve this tension, and understand the assumptions that give rise to it, I explore an alternative conception of moral conduct and friendship suggested by early Confucian thought. Within this account, moral conduct is that which aims at harmony, understood as the appropriate blending of different elements. This suggests a conception of friendship, ‘event friendship’, …
Confucian Thought And Care Ethics: An Amicable Split?, Andrew Lambert
Confucian Thought And Care Ethics: An Amicable Split?, Andrew Lambert
Publications and Research
Since Chenyang Li’s (1994) groundbreaking article there has been interest in reading early Confucian ethics through the lens of care ethics. In this paper, I examine the prospects for dialogue between the two in light of recent work in both fields.
I argue that, despite some similarities, early Confucian ethics is not best understood as a form of care ethics, of the kind articulated by Nel Noddings (1984, 2002) and others. Reasons include incongruence deriving from the absence in the Chinese texts of a developed account of need, and doubts about whether the parent-child relationship in Confucian thought is best …