Pragmatic Confucian Democracy: Rethinking the Value of Democracy in East Asia

Abstract

In contemporary Confucian political theory, there is surprisingly little effort among the theorists to illuminate the value of democracy. When they do on rare occasions, their focus is largely on democracy’s instrumental contribution to Confucian goods. In this paper, I argue that, given democracy’s dual aspects as a political system and as a way of life, it has both instrumental and intrinsic values, and insomuch as it is a kind of democracy, Confucian democracy, too, ought to possess both values. Central to my argument is that, once introduced and justified instrumentally as a political system, democracy in a Confucian society attains its noninstrumental value as it becomes consolidated as a democratic-Confucian way of life in which democratic institutions, rights, and practices are socially mediated by and negotiated with Confucian values, civilities, and moral sentiments. I present my overarching normative framework in terms of pragmatic Confucian democracy.