Fan, Ruiping, Reconstructionist Confucianism: Rethinking Morality After the West

Abstract

Reconstructionist Confucianism is fascinating, provocative, and in several ways novel. It is the first English language, full-length effort to re-articulate Confucianism so that it speaks to the specific ethical challenges of the contemporary world. Fan’s background as a bioethicist enables him to enter deeply into a series of moral and political issues. Furthermore, Fan’s methodology is distinctive and his conclusions are quite at odds with much that has been written about contemporary Confucianism. As such, the book deserves broad attention: readers with a wide range of backgrounds and research agendas will find stimulating arguments to engage them. Having found Reconstructionist Confucianism to be so provocative, I will seek to return the favor by challenging Fan on a number of points. The contemporary, globally informed philosophical development of Confucianism is still in its infancy. We need to encourage multiple voices and then to engage with them both charitably and critically: this is the best way to seek the Confucianism—or perhaps Confucianisms—that can contribute the most to our various communities around the globe. First, though, a brief summary of the book’s contents. Its fourteen chapters are organized into four parts, the titles of which capture well their contents. Part I is labeled “Beyond Individualism: Familism as the Key to Virtuous Social Structure.” There is no question that Fan’s most important analytical category is the family, which he takes to be normatively central to Confucianism and descriptively central to contemporary Chinese mores. This emphasis on the family complements another of Fan’s key notions, namely the prescriptive and descriptive importance of virtue-as-love. As he puts it, Confucianism’s anti-egalitarian social theory teaches us to treat all people like (one or another grade of) relatives. This theme is developed in Part II, “Virtue as a Way of Life: Social Justice Reconsidered.” Individual chapters in this part critique Rawlsian ideas of justice and argue for specific approaches to health care and eldercare. A new dimension of his anti-egalitarianism is introduced in Part III, titled “The Market, the Goodness of Profit, and the Proper Character of Chinese Public Policy.” Among other issues, chapters in this part cover Fan’s recommended political arrangements, reforms of the medical marketplace, Confucian business ethics, and a distinctive take on Confucian attitudes toward nature. Part IV, finally, is called “Rites, not Rights: Towards a Richer Vision of the Human Condition.” A major Dao (2010) 9:353–357 DOI 10.1007/s11712-010-9178-x