Li Zehou’s Concrete Humanism: His Legacy in Confucian Tradition

Abstract

AbstractLi Zehou devoted his final decades—and with special zeal his final years—to expounding a view of reason, ethics, and morality rooted in classical Confucianism. The framework he puts forth posits concrete, lived and felt human relations to be the source and grounds of meaning and value. For Li, “what is most fundamental” is “the fact of ‘humans living.’” As he formulates it, the situated, deliberative nature of human life—the feelings, beliefs, and practices of people living in a particular place and time—points us to affirm certain conceptions of what is good and right. This outlook places him amongst the renowned, historically distinguished set of Confucian concrete humanists. This article sketches Li’s place within the tradition of Confucian concrete humanism as well as the main features of his particular version of it. It also highlights that Li’s Confucianism is progressive, endorsing the priority of individual rights and freedoms. In insisting we pragmatically assess which values and principles best serve human wellbeing, he recognizes the basic value of each member of humanity as inherently constitutive of the supreme good of humanity overall. Li’s uniquely effective concrete humanist framework herein offers an invaluable resource for ethical, moral, and political thinking for the world today and tomorrow. Notes1 Angle, Human Rights and Chinese Thought, 97; Dai, Evidential Commentary.2 Liang, The Essence of Chinese Culture, 136–39.3 Xu, The Chinese Liberal Spirit, 126.4 Li, Humanist Ethics, 43–44.5 Li, Origins of Chinese Thought, 43.6 Li, Humanist Ethics, 135.7 Ames, “Introduction,” 56.8 Li, Humanist Ethics, 104.9 Analects 12.1; Ames and Rosemont, Analects of Confucius, 152; Li, Humanist Ethics, 170, 191; Carleo, Is Free Will Confucian.10 Li, The Origins of Chinese Thought, 41.11 Yang, “Outline of Concrete Metaphysics”; “Yang, ‘Affairs’ and the Actual World”; Liu, “Yang Guorong and His Concrete Metaphysics”; Carleo and Liu “The Philosophy of Affairs.”12 For Li’s expansive understanding of what should count as “Confucian,” see Li, The Origins of Chinese Thought, 211–14.13 Li, Humanist Ethics, 116.14 Ibid., 109.15 Arendt, “The Crisis in Education.”16 Li, Humanist Ethics, 37.17 Li, Anthropo-Historical Ontology, 194.18 Li, Humanist Ethics, 203.19 Ibid., 208.20 Ibid., 148.21 Angle, Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy, 2.22 Li, Humanist Ethics, 77–78; Pinker, Enlightenment Now.23 D’Ambrosio, “Li Zehou’s ‘Harmony is Higher than Justice,’” 144.24 Li, Humanist Ethics, 209.25 Li, Anthropo-Historical Ontology, 201.26 Tan, “A Confucian Response to Rorty’s Postmodern Bourgeois Liberal Idea of Community.”27 Greene, How Rights Went Wrong, 25028 Carleo, “Confucian Post-Liberalism,” 163–64.29 Moeller and D’Ambrosio, You and Your Profile.Additional informationNotes on contributorsRobert A. CarleoRobert A. Carleo III (M.Phil. Fudan University; PhD the Chinese University of Hong Kong) is program coordinator and instructor in the international graduate program in Chinese Philosophy at East China Normal University. He is also a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University and adjunct Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Baruch College, City University of New York. Working mainly on comparative and Chinese philosophy, he takes particular interest in questions of Confucian moral and political theory. His translation of Li Zehou’s The Origins of Chinese Thought was named Choice Outstanding Academic Title of 2019. He is also co-editor, with Yong Huang, of Confucian Political Philosophy: Dialogues in the State of the Field (2021) and editor and translator of The Humanist Ethics of Li Zehou (2023).