Public Reason Confucianism "Public reason Confucianism" is a particular style of Confucian democr... more Public Reason Confucianism "Public reason Confucianism" is a particular style of Confucian democratic perfectionism that calls on an active role for the democratic state in promoting a Confucian conception of the good life; at the heart of which are such values as filial piety and ritual propriety. It is also fully compatible with core values of democracy such as popular sovereignty, political equality, and the right to political participation. Sungmoon Kim presents "public reason Confucianism" as the most attractive option for contemporary East Asian societies that are historically and culturally Confucian.
This chapter explores a distributive principle that is integral to pragmatic Confucian democracy—... more This chapter explores a distributive principle that is integral to pragmatic Confucian democracy—what I call Confucian democratic sufficientarianism. Confucian democratic sufficientarianism critically embraces liberal sufficientarianism’s positive thesis stipulating the threshold of sufficiency but roundly rejects the negative thesis, which allows unlimited desert-based inequalities beyond the threshold of sufficiency. After deriving four propositions from classical Confucianism (namely, equal sufficiency, objectively high threshold standard, deserved inequalities, and constrained inequality) and presenting them as constituting the classical Confucian doctrine of sufficiency, the chapter then reconstructs it into Confucian democratic sufficientarianism by installing public equality as a side constraint that prevents deserved inequalities beyond the threshold of sufficiency from eroding an equal social relationship among citizens. Confucian democratic sufficientarianism is distinguis...
This Element aims to critically examine the philosophical thought of Im Yunjidang 任允摯堂, a female ... more This Element aims to critically examine the philosophical thought of Im Yunjidang 任允摯堂, a female Korean Neo-Confucian philosopher from the Chosŏn 朝鮮 dynasty, and to present her as a feminist thinker. Unlike most Korean women of her time, Yunjidang had the exceptional opportunity to be introduced to a major philosophical debate among Korean Neo-Confucians, which was focused on two core questions-whether sages and commoners share the same heart-mind, and whether the natures of human beings and animals are identical. In the course of engaging in this debate, she was able to reformulate Neo-Confucian metaphysics and ethics of moral self-cultivation, culminating in her bold ideas of the moral equality between men and women and the possibility of female sagehood. By proposing a 'stage-approach' to feminism that is also sensitive to the cultural context, this Element shows that Yunjidang's philosophical thought could be best captured in terms of Confucian feminism.
In his recent book, Shaun O’Dwyer defends liberal democracy as the only legitimate mode of politi... more In his recent book, Shaun O’Dwyer defends liberal democracy as the only legitimate mode of political system in the East Asian context by critiquing various proposals of Confucian democracy and meritocracy. Underlying O’Dwyer’s critique of Confucian political theory is the seamless connection between ethical individualism (à la Kant), pragmatic democracy (à la Dewey), and political liberalism (à la Rawls), which in his view cannot be adequately accommodated by any version of Confucian political theory, unless it abandons its Confucian essence. This paper argues that the relation between these three philosophical components are far more complex than is rendered by O’Dwyer and that Confucian democracy can be justified on ethical, pragmatic, and progressive grounds.
This article investigates the Neo-Confucian discourse on war, premised on the “Chinese versus bar... more This article investigates the Neo-Confucian discourse on war, premised on the “Chinese versus barbarian” binary, and its impact on the Neo-Confucian scholar-officials of 17th-century Chosŏn Korea. It shows that Korean Neo-Confucians suffered invasions from the Jurchens, who they regarded as “barbarians,” and that the political debate on how to respond to the “barbarians” drove the advocates of the pro-peace argument to reimagine Chosŏn’s statehood. The article consists of three parts. First, it reconstructs the philosophical foundations of the mainstream Neo-Confucian discourse on the war with the “barbarians” with reference to Zhu Xi. Second, it discusses the strong impact of the Neo-Confucian paradigm of war on the orthodox Korean Neo-Confucians of the 17th century. Third, it examines how Ch’oe Myŏng-kil, one of the rare champions of the pro-peace argument at the time, justified making peace with the Jurchens through the judicious use of “the expedient.”
This article investigates the Neo-Confucian project of "reverse moral economy," which aims to res... more This article investigates the Neo-Confucian project of "reverse moral economy," which aims to restore the ideal congruence between political power and moral virtue, by examining a political debate on the selection of the new Crown Prince and the incumbent ruler's subsequent abdication that took place in Korea during the formative period of the Chosŏn 朝鮮 dynasty (1392-1910) in light of the so-called "the Mencian trouble," a compromise between Mencius' ideal vision of Confucian virtue politics (or moral economy) and his realistic concern with political stability. After discussing how Korean Neo-Confucians were able to justify their choice of a more virtuous candidate in violation of the Lineage Law, which upheld father-son transmission as the constant norm (jing 經), by judiciously balancing (quan 權) between the candidate's virtue and the incumbent ruler's recommendation, it articulates the Korean Neo-Confucian project of reverse moral economy from the standpoint of the constitutionality of the new dynasty.
In the past two decades, normative Confucian political theory has emerged as one of the most vibr... more In the past two decades, normative Confucian political theory has emerged as one of the most vibrant subfields of political theory, spawning a variety of philosophical thoughts, normative ideas, and institutional suggestions that are relevant to the modern societal context of Confucian East Asia. Ideas such as "Confucian democ
Confucian virtue politics is premised on two fundamental assumptions. First, a good government fo... more Confucian virtue politics is premised on two fundamental assumptions. First, a good government founded on the Way is predicated on the political actor’s personal moral virtue, and there is no qualitative difference between the ruler’s virtue and the virtue(s) that people are ultimately to embody. Second, since there is only one single and holistic Way and the political is extended from the ethical, there cannot be two separate political and moral standards, which implies the impossibility of what Michael Walzer calls “the problem of dirty hands.” After examining how early Confucians such as Mencius and Xunzi rationalized the ostensibly problematic actions taken by their ancient moral heroes in politically critical moments, this essay concludes that early Confucians’ absolutist commitment to the Way enabled them to deal with moral dilemmas in politics with great moral flexibilities without invoking dirty hands.
Is there a counterpart to John Stuart Mill or Mary Wollstonecraft in the Confucian tradition? If ... more Is there a counterpart to John Stuart Mill or Mary Wollstonecraft in the Confucian tradition? If so, who is it? This paper aims to introduce and examine the philosophical thought of a Korean female neo-Confucian thinker named Im Yunjidang 任允摯堂 (1721-1793) who ardently pursued Confucian sagehood and upheld moral equality between men and women by creatively reinterpreting Confucian classics as well as advancing a sophisticated neo-Confucian philosophy of human nature and moral self-cultivation. I try to make sense of Yunjidang’s “Confucian feminism” by paying attention to the neo-Confucian philosophical context in late Chosŏn Korea, in which Yunjidang was deeply embedded.
If perfectionism is understood as the state's non-neutral promotion of a valuable way of life... more If perfectionism is understood as the state's non-neutral promotion of a valuable way of life, Confucian political theory, often pursued as a pluralist correction to global monism of liberal democracy, is ineluctably perfectionist. But how can Confucian perfectionism, committed to particular Confucian values, reconcile with the societal fact of value pluralismwithinthe putative Confucian polity? This article argues that a potential tension between Confucian perfectionism and value pluralism can be avoided by making Confucian perfectionist goods the core elements of public reason with which citizens can justify their arguments to one another and by which the state can justifiably exercise its public authority to reasonable citizens who otherwise subscribe to various comprehensive doctrines. By defining a mode of Confucian perfectionism working through Confucian public reason broadly shared by citizens aspublic reason Confucianism, this article attempts to balance the Confucian po...
On April 16, 2005, a 14-year old Korean girl named Lee was arrested on the charge of patricide. H... more On April 16, 2005, a 14-year old Korean girl named Lee was arrested on the charge of patricide. Her father, an alcoholic, had been beating his ill parents and Lee, his only child, over the past decade. Lee's mother, sick of the husband's drunken rowdiness and frequent violence, ran away when Lee was just over three months old, and had not been heard from since. On the day of the incident, Lee's father, drunk, was beating his elderly parents as well as Lee, who was trying to hold him back. So afraid of the father, who was running amuck while wielding a kitchen knife, Lee took hold of his hands, and as he flailed about trying to get free, she stran gled him with a necktie. It is reported that while Lee was attempt ing to hold her father from beating her grandparents, she called 112 (the police emergency number) twice for help. The police found Lee's father unconscious and carried him to the hospital, where he soon died. Lee immediately confessed her deed, and did not resist as she was arrested on the charge of patricide. In addi tion, though widely perceived as unnecessary,1 the 14-year-old was sent to an adult criminal jail. (According to the Korean Criminal Law, a person above 14 is legally liable for punishment.) After Lee's case was publicized in the news media, it soon drew heated attention from many Koreans, and, surprisingly, the public discourse was drawn to discovering who was truly responsible for Lee's action and what should be done collectively to resolve this particular case. What is quite puzzling is that no one seemed to perceive Lee as the only responsible actor for the incident. But if she alone was not responsible for her actions, who else could be? What is notable, though, is that Koreans reframed an otherwise individual, domestic, and apparently private issue as a collective, public, and essentially sociopolitical question by transferring?albeit partly? the source of responsibility from the person who committed the crime to that of the collectivity. That is to say, Koreans created a collective moral responsibility, or "wn-responsibility," to supplement Lee's individual moral responsibility or (criminal) guilt. In light of liberal individualism that predicates a directly causal notion of responsibility, however, the Korean search for a collec tive moral responsibility would denote the Koreans' lack of liberal moral/legal sensibility because, besides an arbitrary transference of responsibility from the individual to the collective, the very idea of "collective moral responsibility" is self-contradictory. In liberal individualism that draws a vivid line between individuality and collectivity, moral responsibility is the other side of the same coin of he free agent's moral autonomy. And, in liberalism's "moral i ividualism," it is moral autonomy that provides the very philosophical and criminal-legal foundation for an agentic individual's fundamental legal and political right since a sense of (criminal) guilt repre sents ex post facto the moment of choice to act otherwise. Hence at the heart of liberal individualism is the nexus of "crime-guilty-responsibility." Here freedom refers solely to an indi vidual's freedom (i.e. autonomy), and it is presented in pure legal terms, making the political essen tially the legal? From a standpoint of liberal individualism (its moral and political-legal philosophy), Lee is nothing but a serious breaker of the social contract; her crime reveals the misuse of her moral (and by extension) political freedom and thereupon the forfeit of a legal right that she would otherwise have entertained. As Hegel argued, since p rsonality has "legal recognition and validity in civil society, wrongdoing [let alone murder] now becomes an infringement, not merely of what is subjectively infinite, but of the universal thing," the action is seen as "a danger to society."3 Considering the univer sal st implications of the crime in liberal individualism, Lee's punishment is logically (say, legal-philosophically) inevitable in ord r to restitute the once disrupted liberal-legal order of Korean civil society. Or, on the flip side, it could be demanded that she be let go of on the basis of her inner psychological problem (e.g. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) or self-help. But, either case, at stake is Lee's "individual" right or self-identity. What Koreans do not embrace, though, is the discourse of liberal individualism itself. But can't we conceive of liberalism without positing individualism? Can't non-Westerners like Koreans have democracy without embraci g liberal individualism that many liberal democrats believe is an indispensable element to an authentic democracy?4
This article argues that in order to make Confucian communitarianism a viable political vision, n... more This article argues that in order to make Confucian communitarianism a viable political vision, namely, Civil Confucianism, its emphasis on civility must be balanced with what I call ‘Confucian incivility’, a set of Confucian social practices that temporarily upset the existing social relations and yet that, ironically, help those relations become more enduring and viable. The central argument is that ‘Confucian civility’ encompasses both social-harmonizing civilities that buttress the moral foundation of the Confucian social order and some incivilities that upset that foundation, albeit temporarily, in order to revise and thereby revitalize it. The article presents Confucian civility as both deferentially remonstrative and respectfully corrective (in the familial relations) and uncompromising and even intractable (in the political relations). It concludes by examining the implications of the virtue of Confucian incivility for constructing a less conservative and more socio-politica...
This paper aims to investigate the philosophical thought and moral practice of a Korean neo-Confu... more This paper aims to investigate the philosophical thought and moral practice of a Korean neo-Confucian female scholar named Kang Chŏngildang 姜靜一堂 (1772–1832), who not only believed in moral equality between men and women and the possibility of female sagehood but actually empowered herself to become a moral paragon. Furthermore, Chŏngildang’s strong faith in moral equality between men and women enabled her to engage in social criticism of the existing educational system and social norms which discriminated against women, not by overcoming neo-Confucianism, commonly understood as essentially androcentric and patriarchal, but by wholeheartedly embracing and further re-appropriating it in the service of women’s moral self-empowerment and moral perfectibility. After explicating why Chŏngildang nonetheless subscribed to gendered roles and female virtue with reference to her neo-Confucian worldview, I suggest that she can be called a harbinger of Confucian feminism.
This dissertation explores how South Koreans have creatively appropriated the meanings of democra... more This dissertation explores how South Koreans have creatively appropriated the meanings of democratic civility and national citizenship using Confucianismoriginated familial affectionate sentiments (chŏng), while refusing their liberal individualistic counterparts through a cross-cultural and comparative theoretical approach. By investigating four recent civil-action cases in South Korea, it argues that the chŏng-induced politico-cultural practice of collective moral responsibility (uriresponsibility), which transcends the binary of individualism and collectivism and of liberalism and nationalism, represents the essence of Korean democratic civility. It
In his path-breaking essay that investigates the rise of judicial review in democratic Taiwan and... more In his path-breaking essay that investigates the rise of judicial review in democratic Taiwan and South Korea, Tom Ginsburg presents the distinctive style of judicial review practiced by both countries in terms of “Confucian constitutionalism,” at the core of which is the practice of constitutional review as remonstrance. This Article examines whether the model of Confucian constitutionalism is still relevant in Korea, especially in light of the Constitutional Court’s recent decision to uphold the motion to impeach the president rather than merely offering remonstrance or warning. By associating the Court’s jurisprudence characterized by highly moralistic language and style of reasoning with Confucian constitutionalism, this Article presents Confucian constitutionalism as indirect constitutionalism, a mode of constitutionalism that aims to shape the polity’s constitutional identity in a way that achieves a meaningful congruence between liberal constitutional principles and the under...
Public Reason Confucianism "Public reason Confucianism" is a particular style of Confucian democr... more Public Reason Confucianism "Public reason Confucianism" is a particular style of Confucian democratic perfectionism that calls on an active role for the democratic state in promoting a Confucian conception of the good life; at the heart of which are such values as filial piety and ritual propriety. It is also fully compatible with core values of democracy such as popular sovereignty, political equality, and the right to political participation. Sungmoon Kim presents "public reason Confucianism" as the most attractive option for contemporary East Asian societies that are historically and culturally Confucian.
This chapter explores a distributive principle that is integral to pragmatic Confucian democracy—... more This chapter explores a distributive principle that is integral to pragmatic Confucian democracy—what I call Confucian democratic sufficientarianism. Confucian democratic sufficientarianism critically embraces liberal sufficientarianism’s positive thesis stipulating the threshold of sufficiency but roundly rejects the negative thesis, which allows unlimited desert-based inequalities beyond the threshold of sufficiency. After deriving four propositions from classical Confucianism (namely, equal sufficiency, objectively high threshold standard, deserved inequalities, and constrained inequality) and presenting them as constituting the classical Confucian doctrine of sufficiency, the chapter then reconstructs it into Confucian democratic sufficientarianism by installing public equality as a side constraint that prevents deserved inequalities beyond the threshold of sufficiency from eroding an equal social relationship among citizens. Confucian democratic sufficientarianism is distinguis...
This Element aims to critically examine the philosophical thought of Im Yunjidang 任允摯堂, a female ... more This Element aims to critically examine the philosophical thought of Im Yunjidang 任允摯堂, a female Korean Neo-Confucian philosopher from the Chosŏn 朝鮮 dynasty, and to present her as a feminist thinker. Unlike most Korean women of her time, Yunjidang had the exceptional opportunity to be introduced to a major philosophical debate among Korean Neo-Confucians, which was focused on two core questions-whether sages and commoners share the same heart-mind, and whether the natures of human beings and animals are identical. In the course of engaging in this debate, she was able to reformulate Neo-Confucian metaphysics and ethics of moral self-cultivation, culminating in her bold ideas of the moral equality between men and women and the possibility of female sagehood. By proposing a 'stage-approach' to feminism that is also sensitive to the cultural context, this Element shows that Yunjidang's philosophical thought could be best captured in terms of Confucian feminism.
In his recent book, Shaun O’Dwyer defends liberal democracy as the only legitimate mode of politi... more In his recent book, Shaun O’Dwyer defends liberal democracy as the only legitimate mode of political system in the East Asian context by critiquing various proposals of Confucian democracy and meritocracy. Underlying O’Dwyer’s critique of Confucian political theory is the seamless connection between ethical individualism (à la Kant), pragmatic democracy (à la Dewey), and political liberalism (à la Rawls), which in his view cannot be adequately accommodated by any version of Confucian political theory, unless it abandons its Confucian essence. This paper argues that the relation between these three philosophical components are far more complex than is rendered by O’Dwyer and that Confucian democracy can be justified on ethical, pragmatic, and progressive grounds.
This article investigates the Neo-Confucian discourse on war, premised on the “Chinese versus bar... more This article investigates the Neo-Confucian discourse on war, premised on the “Chinese versus barbarian” binary, and its impact on the Neo-Confucian scholar-officials of 17th-century Chosŏn Korea. It shows that Korean Neo-Confucians suffered invasions from the Jurchens, who they regarded as “barbarians,” and that the political debate on how to respond to the “barbarians” drove the advocates of the pro-peace argument to reimagine Chosŏn’s statehood. The article consists of three parts. First, it reconstructs the philosophical foundations of the mainstream Neo-Confucian discourse on the war with the “barbarians” with reference to Zhu Xi. Second, it discusses the strong impact of the Neo-Confucian paradigm of war on the orthodox Korean Neo-Confucians of the 17th century. Third, it examines how Ch’oe Myŏng-kil, one of the rare champions of the pro-peace argument at the time, justified making peace with the Jurchens through the judicious use of “the expedient.”
This article investigates the Neo-Confucian project of "reverse moral economy," which aims to res... more This article investigates the Neo-Confucian project of "reverse moral economy," which aims to restore the ideal congruence between political power and moral virtue, by examining a political debate on the selection of the new Crown Prince and the incumbent ruler's subsequent abdication that took place in Korea during the formative period of the Chosŏn 朝鮮 dynasty (1392-1910) in light of the so-called "the Mencian trouble," a compromise between Mencius' ideal vision of Confucian virtue politics (or moral economy) and his realistic concern with political stability. After discussing how Korean Neo-Confucians were able to justify their choice of a more virtuous candidate in violation of the Lineage Law, which upheld father-son transmission as the constant norm (jing 經), by judiciously balancing (quan 權) between the candidate's virtue and the incumbent ruler's recommendation, it articulates the Korean Neo-Confucian project of reverse moral economy from the standpoint of the constitutionality of the new dynasty.
In the past two decades, normative Confucian political theory has emerged as one of the most vibr... more In the past two decades, normative Confucian political theory has emerged as one of the most vibrant subfields of political theory, spawning a variety of philosophical thoughts, normative ideas, and institutional suggestions that are relevant to the modern societal context of Confucian East Asia. Ideas such as "Confucian democ
Confucian virtue politics is premised on two fundamental assumptions. First, a good government fo... more Confucian virtue politics is premised on two fundamental assumptions. First, a good government founded on the Way is predicated on the political actor’s personal moral virtue, and there is no qualitative difference between the ruler’s virtue and the virtue(s) that people are ultimately to embody. Second, since there is only one single and holistic Way and the political is extended from the ethical, there cannot be two separate political and moral standards, which implies the impossibility of what Michael Walzer calls “the problem of dirty hands.” After examining how early Confucians such as Mencius and Xunzi rationalized the ostensibly problematic actions taken by their ancient moral heroes in politically critical moments, this essay concludes that early Confucians’ absolutist commitment to the Way enabled them to deal with moral dilemmas in politics with great moral flexibilities without invoking dirty hands.
Is there a counterpart to John Stuart Mill or Mary Wollstonecraft in the Confucian tradition? If ... more Is there a counterpart to John Stuart Mill or Mary Wollstonecraft in the Confucian tradition? If so, who is it? This paper aims to introduce and examine the philosophical thought of a Korean female neo-Confucian thinker named Im Yunjidang 任允摯堂 (1721-1793) who ardently pursued Confucian sagehood and upheld moral equality between men and women by creatively reinterpreting Confucian classics as well as advancing a sophisticated neo-Confucian philosophy of human nature and moral self-cultivation. I try to make sense of Yunjidang’s “Confucian feminism” by paying attention to the neo-Confucian philosophical context in late Chosŏn Korea, in which Yunjidang was deeply embedded.
If perfectionism is understood as the state's non-neutral promotion of a valuable way of life... more If perfectionism is understood as the state's non-neutral promotion of a valuable way of life, Confucian political theory, often pursued as a pluralist correction to global monism of liberal democracy, is ineluctably perfectionist. But how can Confucian perfectionism, committed to particular Confucian values, reconcile with the societal fact of value pluralismwithinthe putative Confucian polity? This article argues that a potential tension between Confucian perfectionism and value pluralism can be avoided by making Confucian perfectionist goods the core elements of public reason with which citizens can justify their arguments to one another and by which the state can justifiably exercise its public authority to reasonable citizens who otherwise subscribe to various comprehensive doctrines. By defining a mode of Confucian perfectionism working through Confucian public reason broadly shared by citizens aspublic reason Confucianism, this article attempts to balance the Confucian po...
On April 16, 2005, a 14-year old Korean girl named Lee was arrested on the charge of patricide. H... more On April 16, 2005, a 14-year old Korean girl named Lee was arrested on the charge of patricide. Her father, an alcoholic, had been beating his ill parents and Lee, his only child, over the past decade. Lee's mother, sick of the husband's drunken rowdiness and frequent violence, ran away when Lee was just over three months old, and had not been heard from since. On the day of the incident, Lee's father, drunk, was beating his elderly parents as well as Lee, who was trying to hold him back. So afraid of the father, who was running amuck while wielding a kitchen knife, Lee took hold of his hands, and as he flailed about trying to get free, she stran gled him with a necktie. It is reported that while Lee was attempt ing to hold her father from beating her grandparents, she called 112 (the police emergency number) twice for help. The police found Lee's father unconscious and carried him to the hospital, where he soon died. Lee immediately confessed her deed, and did not resist as she was arrested on the charge of patricide. In addi tion, though widely perceived as unnecessary,1 the 14-year-old was sent to an adult criminal jail. (According to the Korean Criminal Law, a person above 14 is legally liable for punishment.) After Lee's case was publicized in the news media, it soon drew heated attention from many Koreans, and, surprisingly, the public discourse was drawn to discovering who was truly responsible for Lee's action and what should be done collectively to resolve this particular case. What is quite puzzling is that no one seemed to perceive Lee as the only responsible actor for the incident. But if she alone was not responsible for her actions, who else could be? What is notable, though, is that Koreans reframed an otherwise individual, domestic, and apparently private issue as a collective, public, and essentially sociopolitical question by transferring?albeit partly? the source of responsibility from the person who committed the crime to that of the collectivity. That is to say, Koreans created a collective moral responsibility, or "wn-responsibility," to supplement Lee's individual moral responsibility or (criminal) guilt. In light of liberal individualism that predicates a directly causal notion of responsibility, however, the Korean search for a collec tive moral responsibility would denote the Koreans' lack of liberal moral/legal sensibility because, besides an arbitrary transference of responsibility from the individual to the collective, the very idea of "collective moral responsibility" is self-contradictory. In liberal individualism that draws a vivid line between individuality and collectivity, moral responsibility is the other side of the same coin of he free agent's moral autonomy. And, in liberalism's "moral i ividualism," it is moral autonomy that provides the very philosophical and criminal-legal foundation for an agentic individual's fundamental legal and political right since a sense of (criminal) guilt repre sents ex post facto the moment of choice to act otherwise. Hence at the heart of liberal individualism is the nexus of "crime-guilty-responsibility." Here freedom refers solely to an indi vidual's freedom (i.e. autonomy), and it is presented in pure legal terms, making the political essen tially the legal? From a standpoint of liberal individualism (its moral and political-legal philosophy), Lee is nothing but a serious breaker of the social contract; her crime reveals the misuse of her moral (and by extension) political freedom and thereupon the forfeit of a legal right that she would otherwise have entertained. As Hegel argued, since p rsonality has "legal recognition and validity in civil society, wrongdoing [let alone murder] now becomes an infringement, not merely of what is subjectively infinite, but of the universal thing," the action is seen as "a danger to society."3 Considering the univer sal st implications of the crime in liberal individualism, Lee's punishment is logically (say, legal-philosophically) inevitable in ord r to restitute the once disrupted liberal-legal order of Korean civil society. Or, on the flip side, it could be demanded that she be let go of on the basis of her inner psychological problem (e.g. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) or self-help. But, either case, at stake is Lee's "individual" right or self-identity. What Koreans do not embrace, though, is the discourse of liberal individualism itself. But can't we conceive of liberalism without positing individualism? Can't non-Westerners like Koreans have democracy without embraci g liberal individualism that many liberal democrats believe is an indispensable element to an authentic democracy?4
This article argues that in order to make Confucian communitarianism a viable political vision, n... more This article argues that in order to make Confucian communitarianism a viable political vision, namely, Civil Confucianism, its emphasis on civility must be balanced with what I call ‘Confucian incivility’, a set of Confucian social practices that temporarily upset the existing social relations and yet that, ironically, help those relations become more enduring and viable. The central argument is that ‘Confucian civility’ encompasses both social-harmonizing civilities that buttress the moral foundation of the Confucian social order and some incivilities that upset that foundation, albeit temporarily, in order to revise and thereby revitalize it. The article presents Confucian civility as both deferentially remonstrative and respectfully corrective (in the familial relations) and uncompromising and even intractable (in the political relations). It concludes by examining the implications of the virtue of Confucian incivility for constructing a less conservative and more socio-politica...
This paper aims to investigate the philosophical thought and moral practice of a Korean neo-Confu... more This paper aims to investigate the philosophical thought and moral practice of a Korean neo-Confucian female scholar named Kang Chŏngildang 姜靜一堂 (1772–1832), who not only believed in moral equality between men and women and the possibility of female sagehood but actually empowered herself to become a moral paragon. Furthermore, Chŏngildang’s strong faith in moral equality between men and women enabled her to engage in social criticism of the existing educational system and social norms which discriminated against women, not by overcoming neo-Confucianism, commonly understood as essentially androcentric and patriarchal, but by wholeheartedly embracing and further re-appropriating it in the service of women’s moral self-empowerment and moral perfectibility. After explicating why Chŏngildang nonetheless subscribed to gendered roles and female virtue with reference to her neo-Confucian worldview, I suggest that she can be called a harbinger of Confucian feminism.
This dissertation explores how South Koreans have creatively appropriated the meanings of democra... more This dissertation explores how South Koreans have creatively appropriated the meanings of democratic civility and national citizenship using Confucianismoriginated familial affectionate sentiments (chŏng), while refusing their liberal individualistic counterparts through a cross-cultural and comparative theoretical approach. By investigating four recent civil-action cases in South Korea, it argues that the chŏng-induced politico-cultural practice of collective moral responsibility (uriresponsibility), which transcends the binary of individualism and collectivism and of liberalism and nationalism, represents the essence of Korean democratic civility. It
In his path-breaking essay that investigates the rise of judicial review in democratic Taiwan and... more In his path-breaking essay that investigates the rise of judicial review in democratic Taiwan and South Korea, Tom Ginsburg presents the distinctive style of judicial review practiced by both countries in terms of “Confucian constitutionalism,” at the core of which is the practice of constitutional review as remonstrance. This Article examines whether the model of Confucian constitutionalism is still relevant in Korea, especially in light of the Constitutional Court’s recent decision to uphold the motion to impeach the president rather than merely offering remonstrance or warning. By associating the Court’s jurisprudence characterized by highly moralistic language and style of reasoning with Confucian constitutionalism, this Article presents Confucian constitutionalism as indirect constitutionalism, a mode of constitutionalism that aims to shape the polity’s constitutional identity in a way that achieves a meaningful congruence between liberal constitutional principles and the under...
Is Confucianism compatible with democracy? Ongoing debates among political theorists revolve arou... more Is Confucianism compatible with democracy? Ongoing debates among political theorists revolve around the question of whether the overarching goal of Confucianism -- serving the people's moral and material well-being -- is attainable in modern day politics without broad democratic participation and without relying on a "one person, one vote" system. One side of the debate -- voiced by "traditional" Confucian meritocrats -- argues that only certain people are equipped with the moral character needed to lead and ensure broad public well-being. They emphasize moral virtue over civic virtue and the family over the state as the quintessential public institution. Moreover, they believe that a system of rule headed by meritorious elites can better handle complex modern public affairs than representative democracy. The other side -- voiced by Confucian democrats -- argues that unless all citizens participate equally in the public sphere, the kind of moral growth Confucianism emphasizes cannot be fully attained. Despite notable differences in political orientation, scholars of both positions acknowledge that democracy is largely of instrumental value for realizing Confucian moral ends in modern society. It would seem that Confucians of both types have largely dismissed democracy as a political system that can mediate clashing values and political views -- or even that Confucian democracy is a system marked by pluralism.
In this book, Sungmoon Kim lays out a normative theory of Confucian democracy -- pragmatic Confucian democracy -- to address questions of the right to political participation, instrumental and intrinsic values of democracy, democratic procedure and substance, punishment and criminal justice, social and economic justice, and humanitarian intervention. As such, this project is not only relevant to the much debated topic of Confucian democracy as a cultural alternative to Western-style liberal democracy in East Asia, but it further investigates the philosophical implications of the idea and institution of Confucian democracy in normative democratic theory, criminal justice, distributive justice, and just war. Ultimately, Kim shows us that the question is not so much about the compatibility of Confucianism and democracy, but of how the two systems can benefit from each other.
Can Confucianism be regarded as a civil religion for East Asia? This book explores this question,... more Can Confucianism be regarded as a civil religion for East Asia? This book explores this question, bringing the insights of Robert Bellah to a consideration of various expressions of the contemporary Confucian revival. Bellah identified American civil religion as a religious dimension of life that can be found throughout US culture, but one without any formal institutional structure. Rather, this “civil” form of religion provides the ethical principles that command reverence and by which a nation judges itself. Extending Bellah’s work, contributors from both the social sciences and the humanities conceive of East Asia’s Confucian revival as a “habit of the heart,” an underlying belief system that guides a society, and examine how Confucianism might function as a civil religion in China, Korea, and Japan. They discuss what aspects of Confucian tradition and thought are being embraced; some of the social movements, political factors, and opportunities connected with the revival of the tradition; and why Confucianism has not traveled much beyond East Asia. The late Robert Bellah’s reflection on the possibility for a global civil religion concludes the volume.
Recent proposals concerning Confucian meritocratic perfectionism have justified Confucian perfect... more Recent proposals concerning Confucian meritocratic perfectionism have justified Confucian perfectionism in terms of political meritocracy. In contrast, 'Confucian democratic perfectionism' is a form of comprehensive Confucian perfectionism that can accommodate a plurality of values in civil society. It is also fully compatible with core values of democracy such as popular sovereignty, political equality, and the right to political participation. Sungmoon Kim presents 'public reason Confucianism' as the most attractive option for contemporary East Asian societies that are historically and culturally Confucian. Public reason Confucianism is a particular style of Confucian democratic perfectionism in which comprehensive Confucianism is connected with perfectionism via a distinctive form of public reason. It calls for an active role for the democratic state in promoting a Confucian conception of the good life, at the heart of which are such core Confucian values as filial piety and ritual propriety.
This book explores a mode of democracy that is culturally relevant and socially practicable in th... more This book explores a mode of democracy that is culturally relevant and socially practicable in the contemporary pluralistic context of historically Confucian East Asian societies, by critically engaging with the two most dominant theories of Confucian democracy – Confucian communitarianism and meritocratic elitism. The book constructs a mode of public reason (and reasoning) that is morally palatable to East Asians who are still saturated in Confucian customs by reappropriating Confucian familialism, and using this perspective to theorize on Confucian democratic welfarism and political meritocracy. It then applies the theory of Confucian democracy to South Korea, arguably the most Confucianized society in East Asia, and examines the theory's practicality in Korea's increasingly individualized, pluralized, and multicultural society by looking at cases of freedom of expression, freedom of association, insult law, and immigration policy.
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Papers by Sungmoon Kim
In this book, Sungmoon Kim lays out a normative theory of Confucian democracy -- pragmatic Confucian democracy -- to address questions of the right to political participation, instrumental and intrinsic values of democracy, democratic procedure and substance, punishment and criminal justice, social and economic justice, and humanitarian intervention. As such, this project is not only relevant to the much debated topic of Confucian democracy as a cultural alternative to Western-style liberal democracy in East Asia, but it further investigates the philosophical implications of the idea and institution of Confucian democracy in normative democratic theory, criminal justice, distributive justice, and just war. Ultimately, Kim shows us that the question is not so much about the compatibility of Confucianism and democracy, but of how the two systems can benefit from each other.