David Wong
Duke University, Philosophy, Faculty Member
- Ethical Theory (Metaethics and Normative Ethics), Comparative Philosophy, Moral Psychology, Philosophy, Political Philosophy, Environmental Ethics, and 23 moreNormative Ethics, Chinese Philosophy, Political Science, Gender, Ethics, Political Theory, Feminist Theory, History of Philosophy, Conflict of Values, Confucianism, Virtue Ethics, Metaethics, Daoism, Ethical Theory, Ambivalence, Moral Judgment, Aesthetics and Ethics, Buddhist Ethics, Human Values, Concepts, Practical Reasoning, Mencius, and Practical Rationalityedit
- I write and teach in ethical theory, moral psychology and comparative philosophy, primarily in early Chinese philosop... moreI write and teach in ethical theory, moral psychology and comparative philosophy, primarily in early Chinese philosophy, Confucianism and Daoism, with interests bordering on competence in some strands of Buddhism and Indian philosophy.edit
There are two broad approaches to environmental ethics. The "conservationist" approach on which we should conserve the environment when it is in our interest to do so and the "preservationist" approach on which we should preserve the... more
There are two broad approaches to environmental ethics. The "conservationist" approach on which we should conserve the environment when it is in our interest to do so and the "preservationist" approach on which we should preserve the environment even when it is not in our interest to do so. We propose a new "relational" approach that tells us to preserve nature as part of what makes us who we are or could be. Drawing from Confucian and Daoist texts, we argue that human identities are, or should be, so intimately tied to nature that human interests evolve in relationship to nature. As conscious beings, we exist only in response to other things, and we cannot know ourselves at all without knowing them.
Arguments for the preservation of culture are based on an extremely problematic essentialist conception of culture as a fixed entity. The inadequacy of the essentialist conception has received increasing recognition, but an adequate... more
Arguments for the preservation of culture are based on an extremely problematic essentialist conception of culture as a fixed entity. The inadequacy of the essentialist conception has received increasing recognition, but an adequate positive conception has yet to take its place. This essay reframes the debate about cultural preservation by proposing a
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... from the usual formulations of Humean internalism and from the competitors identified above because it has a role for pre-existing motivational propensi-ties that can be identified independently of ethical principles, even if it is... more
... from the usual formulations of Humean internalism and from the competitors identified above because it has a role for pre-existing motivational propensi-ties that can be identified independently of ethical principles, even if it is not the standard Humean role. ...
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ABSTRACT Sayre-McCord's definition of realism is illuminating, and I am sympathetic to his claim for the compatibility of moral realism and certain forms of relativism. I shall use his definition of realism to explain why certain... more
ABSTRACT Sayre-McCord's definition of realism is illuminating, and I am sympathetic to his claim for the compatibility of moral realism and certain forms of relativism. I shall use his definition of realism to explain why certain forms of relativistic realism are more plausible than others. Sayre-McCord sketches a possible argumentative strategy for relativists, but it is underdeveloped, and I will explain how it could be plausibly extended. Finally, I will suggest some ways in which moderate forms of relativistic realism may incorporate insights usually associated with nonrelativistic realism. Sayre-McCord defines a realist as holding of the disputed claims that some of them, when literally construed, are straightforwardly true. This provides a useful way of understanding what could be at stake when there is disagreement over whether to call a given account of the disputed claims realistic or not. The subjects of disagreement fall into two categories: what constitutes a literal construal of the disputed claims, and what is involved in the claims being straightforwardly true. Discussion of the second subject involves the requirement of "seamless semantics," as Sayre-McCord notes, and at a higher level of abstraction, the question of what constitutes a realistic conception of truth. Those who hold more robustly realistic conceptions of truth may be dissatisfied with, say, neo-Wittgensteinian accounts of morality that purport to be realistic. Sayre-McCord further seems right in claiming that many debates over the realism of a given account of moral claims rest on disagreement over what constitutes an adequate and literal construal of these claims. Some construe moral claims to necessarily involve claims to the strongest forms of objectivity. J. L. Mackie, 1 for instance, denies that any account of moral claims is realistic unless it involves a commitment to objectively prescriptive properties. That is why he is an error
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This essay explains the inescapability of moral demands. I deny that the individual has genuine reason to comply with these demands only if she has desires that would be served by doing so. Rather, the learning of moral reasons helps to... more
This essay explains the inescapability of moral demands. I deny that the individual has genuine reason to comply with these demands only if she has desires that would be served by doing so. Rather, the learning of moral reasons helps to shape and channel self- and other-interested motivations so as to facilitate and promote social cooperation. This shaping happens through the “embedding” of reasons in the intentional objects of motivational propensities. The dominance of the instrumental conception of reason, according to which reasons must be based in desires of the individual, has made it harder to recognize that reasons shape desires. I attempt to undermine this dominance by arguing that the concept of a self that extends over time is constructed to meet the demands of social cooperation. Prudential reasons to act on behalf of the persisting self's desires are often taken to constitute the paradigm of reasons based on desires of the individual. But such reasons, along with th...
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It should be obvious that, within the confines of a short response, we cannot possibly answer the question that constitutes the title of our reply. Nonetheless, each of our commentators touched upon issues that bear directly on this... more
It should be obvious that, within the confines of a short response, we cannot possibly answer the question that constitutes the title of our reply. Nonetheless, each of our commentators touched upon issues that bear directly on this question, so we've chosen it as a framework within which to reflect upon their many stimulating comments.
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<jats:p>The <jats:italic>Zhuangzi</jats:italic> text deploys two epistemic themes to accomplish its ends of combatting human pretensions to know the world and to prompting us to rediscover the world through fresh eyes.... more
<jats:p>The <jats:italic>Zhuangzi</jats:italic> text deploys two epistemic themes to accomplish its ends of combatting human pretensions to know the world and to prompting us to rediscover the world through fresh eyes. To get us to shed our arrogant dispositions it applies a constructive skepticism to whatever it is that human beings claim to know. To point towards a more constructive relationship with Nature, it articulates the stance of being a mirror to nature. This essay will explain how the text does this and relates its conceptions of skepticism and being as mirror to relevant contemporary science.</jats:p>
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Philosophy and anthropology need to integrate their accounts of what a morality is. I identify three desiderata that an account of morality should satisfy: (1) it should recognize significant diversity and variation in the major kinds of... more
Philosophy and anthropology need to integrate their accounts of what a morality is. I identify three desiderata that an account of morality should satisfy: (1) it should recognize significant diversity and variation in the major kinds of value, (2) it should specify a set of criteria for what counts as a morality, and (3) it should indicate the basis for distinguishing between more or less justifiable moralities, or true and false moralities. I will discuss why these three desiderata are hard to satisfy at the same time, and why they are controversial. Anthropologists and philosophers will differ on which ones they are inclined to reject. I argue that all three should be accepted and can be satisfied.
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The nature of love explored through the issue of whether one can or should love for reasons
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Research Interests: Buddhism, Social Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Moral Psychology, Liberalism, and 15 moreCulture, Evolution, Naturalism, Individualism, Resistance, Prototype Theory, Cultural transmission, S, M, P, C, R, L, J, and A
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Addresses the question of whether moral reasons stem from existing desires of the agent, from the nature of practical rationality or from outside the agent herself.
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I discuss the value of agon or contest in Greek thought and the value of he or harmony in Chinese thought. I argue that these values, often thought to be mutually exclusive, actually imply one another.
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Metaphors of adorning, crafting, water flowing downwards, and growing sprouts appear in the Analects, the Mencius, and the Xunzi. They express and guide thinking about what there is in human nature to cultivate and how it is to be... more
Metaphors of adorning, crafting, water flowing downwards, and growing sprouts appear in the Analects, the Mencius, and the Xunzi. They express and guide thinking about what there is in human nature to cultivate and how it is to be cultivated. The craft metaphor seems to imply that our nature is of the sort that must be disciplined and reshaped to achieve goodness, while the adorning, water, and sprout metaphors imply that human nature has an inbuilt directionality toward the ethical that should be protected or nurtured. I argue that all the metaphors capture different aspects of human nature and how one must work with these aspects. There is much in contemporary psychology and neuroscience to suggest that the early Confucians were on the right track. It is also argued that they point to a fruitful conception of ethical development that is relational and holistic.
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In this chapter, I reflect on the implications of Mencius' conception of compassion for one of the most important problems that defines the Western philosophical tradition: the relationship between reason on the one hand and desire and... more
In this chapter, I reflect on the implications of Mencius' conception of compassion for one of the most important problems that defines the Western philosophical tradition: the relationship between reason on the one hand and desire and emotion on the other, especially in the development of moral character. I articulate what philosophers working within the Western tradition could learn from the Mencius text, drawing from some contemporary scientific studies to support my suggestions that this text provides fruitful directions of thought. Western philosophers and many psychologists continue a tendency to construe reason, desire, and emotion in dichotomous and overgeneralized terms. I argue that we need to take a more particularized and discriminating approach to the phenomena covered by these terms. Finally, I discuss what I believe are some limitations in Mencius' approach and then show how the Analects and the Xunzi indicate ways the early Confucian tradition pointed beyond Mencius' limitations.
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Arguments for the preservation of culture are based on an extremely problematic essentialist conception of culture as a fixed entity. The inadequacy of the essentialist conception has received increasing recognition, but an adequate... more
Arguments for the preservation of culture are based on an extremely problematic essentialist conception of culture as a fixed entity. The inadequacy of the essentialist conception has received increasing recognition, but an adequate positive conception has yet to take its place. This essay reframes the debate about cultural preservation by proposing a new conception of culture as conversation. The new conception acknowledges the fluidity and internal contestation that occurs within actual cultures, and the agency of a culture’s members in creating, transmitting and revising that culture. We make this new conception our basis for proposing that a proper concern for the value of a culture should be realized in enabling its members to sustain it, not to preserve some pre-existing essence. Adopting this more viable notion of culture also changes our conception of what needs to be done to sustain it, and allows us to acknowledge and better deal with the complex arguments for and against sustaining culture.
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Practicing critical hermeneutics throws us into the tension between two requirements: first, to construe others as being like us; and second, to open ourselves to ways they may differ fundamentally from us and pose challenges to our... more
Practicing critical hermeneutics throws us into the tension between two requirements: first, to construe others as being like us; and second, to open ourselves to ways they may differ fundamentally from us and pose challenges to our treasured truths. In this essay I analyze the nature of this tension and propose a way of reconciling them. I shall argue that the embrace of difference is in fact necessary for interpreting others to be like us. To plausibly interpret others as being like us, we need sufficient diversity within the “us.” Further, I shall argue that whom we decide to include in the “us” depends on relations of power. Throughout this argument, my illustrative cases will draw from the relationship between China and the West. I will refer to what it takes for “us” in the West to understand some central features of Confucian ethics. I will refer to efforts of contemporary Chinese thinkers to “translate” the concept of rights from the West.
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The Analects is a series of glimpses into how Confucius and his students engaged in their projects of moral self-cultivation. This chapter seeks to describe the way in which the outlines of a moral psychology arises from the text and how... more
The Analects is a series of glimpses into how Confucius and his students engaged in their projects of moral self-cultivation. This chapter seeks to describe the way in which the outlines of a moral psychology arises from the text and how the text poses issues that came to be central to the Chinese philosophical tradition. It will be argued that the text provides exemplars of moral self-cultivation, that it makes emotion central to virtue and therefore makes emotional self-cultivation a central focus of moral development, that it highlights the relational nature of moral cultivation as a process that is conducted with others, that it raises difficult and crucial issues about the relation between intuitive and affective styles of action on the one hand and on the other hand action based on deliberation and reflection, and that it has some useful approaches to the problem of situationism that has recently been raised for virtue ethics.
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This book is part of the Cambridge Elements series. It was published Jan 6, 2023, and is freely available for two weeks beginning on the publication date. Clink on the DOI link https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009043496 for a pdf.