Confucian philosophy of family: interpretation or justification?

Abstract

ABSTRACT During the past decade, Si Xiao, Xianglong Zhang, Xiangcheng Sun and others have proposed a Confucian Philosophy of Family (CPF) movement as a response to issues in contemporary China. These issues include high divorce rates, low birth rates, caring for seniors, and other related issues. This proposal is an attempt to modernize traditional Confucianism and to make it relevant in contemporary China. In this paper I argue that this attempt faces external and internal challenges. The external challenges to CPF include the trademarks of contemporary philosophy, such as the methodological naturalism, epistemic pluralism and ethical individualism. Furthermore, there are three competing readings of CPF, which poses its own internal challenge to CPF. CPF scholars have failed to clarify if they are engaged in a project of interpretation, which is to elaborate the idea of family in the Confucian tradition, or as a project of justification, which is to justify Confucian understanding of family as a universal and objective value.