In my dissertation I defend the intelligibility of ethical incommensurability and ethical pluralism by analyzing the persistence of Confucian values in twentieth-century China. I begin with a case study of the ethical language used by Liang Qichao, a prominent early twentieth-century Chinese thinker. Liang sought to improve Chinese ethics by stressing the importance of individuals' responsibility towards their nationality, an idea that he believed to be responsible for the flourishing of Western…
Read moreIn my dissertation I defend the intelligibility of ethical incommensurability and ethical pluralism by analyzing the persistence of Confucian values in twentieth-century China. I begin with a case study of the ethical language used by Liang Qichao, a prominent early twentieth-century Chinese thinker. Liang sought to improve Chinese ethics by stressing the importance of individuals' responsibility towards their nationality, an idea that he believed to be responsible for the flourishing of Western civilization. In the course of the case study I demonstrate that the similarities between Liang's ethical discourse and that of Niccolo Machiavelli, which others have found quite compelling, are in fact superficial. Liang's ethical language remains decidedly within the Confucian tradition. ;My next step is to show that Liang's ethical language was incommensurate with Machiavelli's. I build on Donald Davidson's semantic theory to explain that two languages are incommensurate whenever, at a particular point in time, one language cannot express some concepts of the second language. Although incommensurateness can be overcome by linguistic revision, I argue that tensions between linguistic innovation and peoples' cultural identities will limit linguistic change, and illustrate this thesis with Liang's example. ;The continuing Confucian content we see in Liang's ethical system is not the result of Liang' s misunderstanding the West nor of cultural chauvinism, but of a combination of linguistic and cultural factors that lead to persistently incommensurate ethical languages and thus to ethical pluralism. In my final chapter, I suggest that reflection on Liang's situation can give us insight into the contingency of our own ethical concepts and commitments. While ethical pluralism need not undermine our ability to make ethical judgments, I argue that it does give us reason to attempt to preserve ethical diversity by treating others with tolerance