- I work on cross-cultural moral and political philosophy, specializing in Dewey's Pragmatism and Confucianism, and focusing on the issues of democracy.edit
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In the current crisis of liberal democracy, Confucianism has been cited as offering superior alternative models of government. With the resources from Dewey’s Pragmatism, this paper defends democracy, which should not be equated to de... more
In the current crisis of liberal democracy, Confucianism has been cited as offering superior alternative models of government. With the resources from Dewey’s Pragmatism, this paper defends democracy, which should not be equated to de facto liberal democracies, as desirable for Confucian societies. It examines the affinities between Confucian and Dewey’s conception of the person and community and argues for an understanding of democratic values that brings together Dewey’s democratic values and Confucian ideals of personal cultivation and virtuous governance.
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Research Interests: Economics and Meritocracy
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Research Interests: Pragmatism and East Asia
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Research Interests: Philosophy and Humanity
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This chapter explores the relevance of Dewey’s philosophy of democracy for China within the context of Dewey’s historical visit to China (1919–1921) and continuing debates about his influence among the Chinese. Dewey’s pragmatism... more
This chapter explores the relevance of Dewey’s philosophy of democracy for China within the context of Dewey’s historical visit to China (1919–1921) and continuing debates about his influence among the Chinese. Dewey’s pragmatism illuminates certain problems in the contemporary discourses about China’s democratization, including questions whether Chinese culture is an obstacle to democratization and the strengths of a Deweyan approach to articulating a Confucian democracy that could work in China. Dewey’s emphasis on experimentation in social reforms and his fallibilism regarding the political institutions of democracy open up new possibilities for China’s democratization and suggest where one might look to discover the indigenous conditions—the varied experiments being conducted in local governance and civil society—from which a Chinese democracy might be born.
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Contents: Introduction: globalization and citizenship, Sor-hoon Tan Migration and cultural diversity: implications for national and global citizenship, April Carter A refugee and a citizen of the world, C.L. Ten Justice for migrant... more
Contents: Introduction: globalization and citizenship, Sor-hoon Tan Migration and cultural diversity: implications for national and global citizenship, April Carter A refugee and a citizen of the world, C.L. Ten Justice for migrant workers? foreign domestic workers in Hong Kong and Singapore, Daniel A. Bell The globalization of citizenship, Barry Hindess Active citizens or an inert people?, James E. Tiles Socratic citizenship: the limits of deliberative democracy, Catherine Audard Liberalism, identity, minority rights, Alan Montefiore Models of multicultural citizenship: comparing Asia and the West, Will Kymlicka Montaigne's cannibals and multiculturalism, Cecilia Wee Citizenship and cultural equality, Baogang He On the Confucian idea of citizenship, A.T. Nuyen Exemplary world citizens as civilized local communicators: politics and culture in the global aspirations of Confucianism, Sor-hoon Tan Conclusion: meeting challenges, Sor-hoon Tan Index.
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Contributors to the debates about the compatibility of Confucianism and democracy and its implications for China’s democratization often adopt definitions of democracy that theories of deliberative democracy are critical of. Attention to... more
Contributors to the debates about the compatibility of Confucianism and democracy and its implications for China’s democratization often adopt definitions of democracy that theories of deliberative democracy are critical of. Attention to deliberative democracy is timely given its importance in democratic discourses and recent experiments in “deliberative” or “consultative” democracy in China. Would Confucian understanding of political deliberation help or hinder deliberative democracy? This essay compares the concept of yi in the early Confucian texts with a contemporary concept of democratic deliberation. The differences between the concept of yi in early Confucian texts and the concept of democratic deliberation show that the presence of deliberation, even when they meet stringent norms, does not guarantee that the politics would be democratic. Rather, the political environment and processes must be democratized for deliberation to be democratic. This comparative study considers h...
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One can find secular ethics in Aristotle’s philosophy; one can also find secular ethics in Confucianism. Debates about the religious status of Confucianism date back several centuries and continue today. Ethical concepts in the Classical... more
One can find secular ethics in Aristotle’s philosophy; one can also find secular ethics in Confucianism. Debates about the religious status of Confucianism date back several centuries and continue today. Ethical concepts in the Classical Confucian texts and the ethical life they advocate can be accepted on their own, independent of any otherworldly religious beliefs. This chapter reconstructs a Confucian secular ethics from the textual resources of Classical Confucianism—Analects, the Mencius, and the Xunzi. It then considers possibilities for reconciling ethics, science, and religion within secular Confucian perspectives by comparing two modern treatments of Confucian ethics, one inspired by Immanuel Kant and the other by sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. Finally, a third treatment is presented: a pragmatist treatment of Confucian secular ethics based on John Dewey’s reconstruction of the religious.
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Confucianism has been viewed as a crucial or even definitive part of Chinese culture, but Confucian philosophy also offers alternative ethical and political ideals to Western models of government and society, applicable beyond Chinese... more
Confucianism has been viewed as a crucial or even definitive part of Chinese culture, but Confucian philosophy also offers alternative ethical and political ideals to Western models of government and society, applicable beyond Chinese societies. Is Confucianism poised to become the new Universalism? Would its spread be the equivalent of sinicization on a global scale? I shall argue that these unappealing possibilities can be avoided by heeding the cultural diversity within Confucian traditions, and by avoiding the cultural superiority complex that easily leads to hegemonic or imperialistic approaches. There are resources in the Analects that could be reconstructed into a model of cultural interaction based on mutual respect suitable for a multicultural world.
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Over the past few decades, philosophers and political theorists have proposed a variety of theories on the relationship between Confucianism and democracy: from Confucian democracy being an oxymoron; arguments that democratic elements... more
Over the past few decades, philosophers and political theorists have proposed a variety of theories on the relationship between Confucianism and democracy: from Confucian democracy being an oxymoron; arguments that democratic elements could be found in Confucian texts themselves; acknowledgements that Confucianism is at best nondemocratic and perhaps even antidemocratic but nevertheless could be reinterpreted or reconstructed to be compatible with some form of democracy; to valorizations of Confucianism for its potential to improve democratic theories, or offer better alternatives in political thinking than mainstream Western democratic theories. All these theories could be seen as pragmatic responses to the encounter of Confucianism with historical developments of the last two centuries identified with modernization, especially democratization and its counter currents both intellectual and practical.
This paper presents and defends a specific Pragmatist theory of Confucian democracy, which is not just pragmatic in the sense explained above but based on John Dewey’s Pragmatism. It neither focuses on the system of government nor prescribes specific democratic institutions, but offers instead a method to reconcile or choose between Confucianism and democracy, to determine which kinds of existing institutions would be most suitable, or need to be created, in order for people to live democratically in Confucian communities. By addressing Sungmoon Kim’s recent criticisms of such “Deweyan Confucian” theories’ neglect of contextual differences between the political contexts of Dewey’s America and modern East Asia, and its emphasis on the intrinsic value to the exclusion of the instrumental value of democracy, the discussion clarifies the differences between my theory of Deweyan Confucian democracy and Kim’s own “Pragmatic Confucian democracy.” I argue, contra Kim, that not only does philosophical reconstruction of the kind central to my theory have a place in Dewey’s political philosophy, and is necessarily in both the theory and practice of Confucian democracy, but realizing Dewey’s insights in today’s China cannot proceed solely by the political reconstruction in Kim’s theory due to the differences in the political contexts of China and South Korea.
This paper presents and defends a specific Pragmatist theory of Confucian democracy, which is not just pragmatic in the sense explained above but based on John Dewey’s Pragmatism. It neither focuses on the system of government nor prescribes specific democratic institutions, but offers instead a method to reconcile or choose between Confucianism and democracy, to determine which kinds of existing institutions would be most suitable, or need to be created, in order for people to live democratically in Confucian communities. By addressing Sungmoon Kim’s recent criticisms of such “Deweyan Confucian” theories’ neglect of contextual differences between the political contexts of Dewey’s America and modern East Asia, and its emphasis on the intrinsic value to the exclusion of the instrumental value of democracy, the discussion clarifies the differences between my theory of Deweyan Confucian democracy and Kim’s own “Pragmatic Confucian democracy.” I argue, contra Kim, that not only does philosophical reconstruction of the kind central to my theory have a place in Dewey’s political philosophy, and is necessarily in both the theory and practice of Confucian democracy, but realizing Dewey’s insights in today’s China cannot proceed solely by the political reconstruction in Kim’s theory due to the differences in the political contexts of China and South Korea.