Ann A. Pang-White

The Kantian philosophy, for many, largely represents the Modern West’s anthropocentric dominance of nature in its instrumental-rationalist orientation. Recently, some scholars have argued that Kant’s aesthetics offers significant resources for environmental ethics, while others believe that Kant’s flawed dualistic views in the second Critique severely undermine any environmental promise that aesthetic judgments may hold in Kant’s third Critique . This article first examines the meanings of nature in Kant’s three Critique s. It concludes that Kant’s aesthetic view toward sensible nature is indeed inconsistent. The article, however, also suggests that the “I” as “transcendental apperception” discussed in the paralogisms of the first Critique holds some promise of “interthing intersubjective” thinking. The second half of the article demonstrates that Daoism with a dialectic concern similar to Kant’s has something insightful to offer in its idea of interthingness based on a phenomenal account of nature. The article investigates important Daoist ideas of interthing analogical experience, qi , spiritual exercise, and wuwei in its dialect relation to zizan . By bringing Daoism and Kant into dialogue, the author hopes to bring forth a synthetic approach that is better suited to today’s environmental concerns.

This article examines the intersections of Confucian philosophy and feminist ethics of care. It explains the origins and contribution of care ethics to modern ethical discourse and the controversy that surrounds this ethical theory. The article discusses the emergence of comparative research on the compatibility (or incompatibility) of Confucian ren and feminist care. It first explores the question whether it is philosophically feasible to disassociate Confucian ren from its historical context by deploying it for contemporary feminist debates, especially considering that, strictly speaking, no direct counterpart in the original Confucian texts is an exact match to the words “care” or “caring.” Following this exploration, the article investigates what ren is and whether Confucian ren is feminist care, what the “No Exit” Objection and the “Domesticity” Objection are, and how ren or caring in Confucian philosophy can answer these objections. The article concludes with an affirmation of the social transformative power of ren and its feminist potential.

This paper presents a refreshing new reading of Augustine's view on matter. It argues that Augustine's evolving view on matter from the negative to the positive, from the overly simplistic understanding of matter as something purely physical to a nuanced view of spiritual matter, played an essential role in the Confessions. Matter, in this new understanding, accounts for both space and time. As Augustine matured as a thinker, he saw matter's potentiality also positively as possibility for grace for the embodied self and that which creates the depth of our being. Augustine owed this nuanced view of matter partly to its Plotinian origin but he modified it with his lived experience of faith.

The Introductory chapter explains the purpose of the book. To this aim, the chapter contains four subsections: (1)Bring the Past Into the Present, (2)Multiculturalism and Liberal Feminism: Is the Rift Between Them Necessary?, (3)Development of Gender Discourse in Chinese Culture and Thought, (4)Purpose of This Volume and Its Four Main Parts, and (5) What's Next? A Way Forward. Excerpt: "Chinese philosophy, broadly construed, in its varied roots and forms has approximately three thousand years of history, and it continues to exert immense influence on the lives of Chinese people as well as on the world community. Nonetheless, if traditions are not simply to remain as antiquated ideas, they must be able to converse with contemporary readers and address their deepest concerns and longings (Pang-White, 2009b, 2009c, 2011). Premised on the undeniable facts that (1) all persons are embodied and cultural beings and that (2) traditions constitute an essential element of individual identity, it would be a mistake to attempt to eradicate traditions altogether, as certain types of liberal feminists have recommended. Instead, it would be more meaningful to ask: Can we, and how do we, re-read, re-imagine, and reconstruct canonical texts so as to find their new significance in the contemporary world? It is generally agreed that Chinese traditions have had a troubled history in dealing with gender relations—well-known examples include concubinage, foot binding,female infanticide, and so on. For various reasons, Chinese traditions and societies have generally been less enthusiastic in confronting, dialoguing about, and resolving problems of gender disparity. Even though gender studies and feminist theories have populated academic discourse in the West since the 1960s, these topics remain relatively marginalized, often as an afterthought, in Chinese philosophical and cultural discourse. Furthermore, as the growing body of research and our deepened knowledge informs and expands our conception of gender, informed persons must ask themselves how Chinese philosophical traditions would and should engage the LGBT community and their concerns. Gender studies is not and should not be perceived simply as a subject in vogue. Rather, for humanity to flourish in this incredibly interdependent network of reality, it is imperative that we have a better understanding of all members of the human community so as to relate to one another in more inclusive, caring, and just ways. Surely, many of our contemporary concerns and vocabularies are anachronistic in the historical settings of classical texts. However, even within the framework of Western traditions, phrases such as “feminism,” “gender,” and “homosexual” were not part of the existing apparatus of vocabulary until the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries (Jenainati and Groves, 2010). Moreover, with the advancement of . . . "

Modern mainstream ethical theories with its overemphasis on autonomy and non-interference have failed to adequately respond to contemporary social problems. A new ethical perspective is very much needed. Thanks to Carol Gilligan's 1982 groundbreaking work, 'In a Different Voice' , we now not only have virtue and communitarian ethicists, but also a group of feminist philosophers, charting a new direction for ethics that tempers modern ethics' obsession with autonomy, contractual rights, and abstract rules. Nel Noddings, in her 'Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education', further contributed to this important discussion. In this work, Noddings proposes a new kind of moral ideal. She calls it "caring." Noddings defines "caring," as a direct, felt concern and action from the one-caring toward the well-being of the cared-for. In other words, care is a state of mental engrossment and motivational displacement that impels caring actions for the happiness of the cared-for and it transcends any rule-bound moral judgment. A caring attitude is best manifest in the spontaneous emotive bond of love between a mother and a child. This human relation of unscrutinized maternal love and care should be the model of ethics. Noddings's theory evokes a vigorous debate concerning whether or not the model can withstand rigorous philosophical scrutiny as a stand-alone ethical theory. This paper first discusses the strengths and weaknesses of a pure care ethics. Secondly, it demonstrates why both the Kantian and the Aristotelian attempts are unsatisfactory, and it offers a Confucian solution to the problems of care ethics. It argues that notwithstanding gender-oppressive practices that are at times associated with Confucianism, Confucian ethics of 'ren' (humaneness) is both more compatible with care ethics and is better equipped with conceptual resources than Kantian liberalism or Aristotelian virtue ethics to handle the moral predicament of the postmodern world. The paper demonstrates that care is an inherent element of Confucian 'ren' but that 'ren' is more than Noddings's care. It examines three essential principles that can be extracted from philosophical classical Confucianism: (1) an affectionate and particularistic approach to persons, (2) the mutual conditioning of the two prominent Confucian virtues -- humaneness (ren) and ritual propriety (li), and (3) the inseparability of the familial and the political self. The last section of the paper applies Confucian care ethics to concrete cases such as the geriatric care crisis and the problem of poverty.

This book is based on arguments presented in Achtenberg’s 1982 doctoral dissertation and several of her recent articles. In this book, Achtenberg forcefully and convincingly argues that a crucial connection exists between Aristotle’s metaphysics and ethics and that Aristotle’s ethics can be read on two levels—“in terms of its imprecise but fully justified claims,” or “in terms of the more precise metaphysical, physical, and psychological principles and arguments consideration of which gives the ethics greater articulation or depth”. She argues that ethical virtue and emotions for Aristotle are cognitive: they involve cognition, not simply of particulars, but of the value of the particulars. In this, Achtenberg presents a sort of value realism that is, paradoxically, relative and relational at the same time. For Aristotle, she contends, “there are two principal types of value,” “the good and the beautiful”. The good is an analogical equivocal, that is, an imprecise universal that shares some important similarity among its instantiations but will show up in the particulars in varied and oftentimes wholly unexpected ways. Achtenberg further argues that the good and the beautiful can be understood in terms of metaphysical concepts of telos, entelecheia, or energeia of a thing, a person, or an act because telos is what makes a thing complete, truly being “what it is.” In sum, “[a] telos is a principle of preservation or enrichment” for the things of which it is the telos, just as sight is the telos of the eyes, and virtue is “energeia of the soul”. Although telos sets a limit concerning what is to be done and what is not, it is the kind of limit that is properly called “constitutive limit” as opposed to harmful or destructive limit. Ethical virtue, friendship, and just government are examples of telos as constitutive limitation because they make the subjects that possess them flourish, whereas moral vice, animosity, and unjust government are examples of destructive limitation. In light of this, Achtenberg offers a new interpretation of the Aristotelian “mean,” which denotes neither a trivial middling amount nor an uninspiring routinized behavior, but what is “the appropriate or the needed” in each situation. She concludes that, contrary to many other moral theorists, Aristotle’s appreciation of the perception of the value of the particulars as constituents of a flourishing life is an example of “imaginative construction” that makes parts meaningful in light of the whole, rather than an imaginative deconstruction that reduces a whole into senseless parts. She sums up the book by providing an assessment of Aristotle’s ethics in terms of its strengths and weaknesses.

This article reappraises Zhu Xi's philosophy of women. First, it examines Zhu's descriptive texts. Second, it analyzes Zhu's didactic texts on li, qi, yin, yang, and gender. It finds that (i) surprisingly Zhu exhibited a level of flexibility toward women on subjects of education, property rights, and household management; (ii) his view on the male/yang and female/yin relationship was inconsistent; and (iii) improvement on Zhu's social-political teaching on women's role could result from a more consistent development of his metaphysics. When thus modified, his metaphysics of yin-yang and li-qi could make a considerable contribution to contemporary feminist discourse