Table Of ContentPhilosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations
Zhuoyao Li
Political Liberalism,
Confucianism,
and the Future
of Democracy in
East Asia
Philosophy and Politics - Critical
Explorations
Volume 12
Series Editors
David M. Rasmussen, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
Alessandro Ferrara, Dipartimento di Storia, University of Rome
‘Tor Vergata’, Rome, Italy
Editorial Board
Abdullah An-Na’im, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law,
Emory University, Atlanta, USA
Bruce Ackerman, Sterling Professor of Law, Yale University, New
Haven, CT, USA
Robert Audi, O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University
of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA
Seyla Benhabib, Eugene Meyer Professor for Political Science
and Philosophy, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
Samuel Freeman, Avalon Professor in the Humanities, University
of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
Jürgen Habermas, Professor Emeritus, Goethe-University,
Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt, Bayern, Germany
Axel Honneth, Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany and
Columbia University, New York, USA, Frankfurt am Main,
New York, Germany
Erin Kelly, Professor of Philosophy, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
Charles Larmore, W. Duncan MacMillan Family Professor
in the Humanities, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
Frank Michelman, Professor Emeritus, Harvard University,
Cambridge, MA, USA
Tong Shijun, Professor of Philosophy, East China Normal University,
Shanghai, China
Charles Taylor, Professor Emeritus, McGill University, Montreal,
Montreal, QC, Canada
Michael Walzer, Professor Emeritus, Institute of Advanced Study,
Princeton, Princeton, NJ, USA
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Zhuoyao Li
Political Liberalism,
Confucianism,
and the Future of
Democracy in East Asia
Zhuoyao Li
Queens, NY, USA
ISSN 2352-8370 ISSN 2352-8389 (electronic)
Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations
ISBN 978-3-030-43115-0 ISBN 978-3-030-43116-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43116-7
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
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For Anderson
Acknowledgments
This book is based on my doctoral dissertation, which was originally
intended to be a thorough reexamination and defense of John Rawls’ politi-
cal liberalism. Reading contemporary literature on comparative political
theory, particularly those that try to bridge East Asian traditions with liberal
democracy, made me realize that the value of political liberalism is more
clearly tested and demonstrated by extending its scope to nonliberal and
nondemocratic settings that are conventionally considered to be hostile to
ideals and institutions associated with political liberalism. Like many before
me, I focused on (classical) Confucianism as an example that possesses rich
internal resources to accommodate and poses substantial challenges against
the liberal and democratic tradition at the same time. The outcome is a study
that aims to make the case for political liberalism both within and beyond its
liberal, democratic, and western boundary. The central claim of the book is
that political liberalism still represents one of the most promising theoretical
frameworks to think about ideals and institutions central to liberal democ-
racy and how a liberal and democratic future can be conceived in the region
of East Asia. It is my hope that my arguments in this book strengthen the
case for political liberalism and its future development, which can serve as
some contributions to the fields of social and political philosophy as well as
comparative political theory.
In writing this book, I have incurred numerous debts. My fellow doctoral
candidates and professors in the Department of Philosophy at Boston
College have provided me with invaluable comments and suggestions. I
would like to thank Robert Minto, Matt Ray, Paul Van Rooy, and Amelia
Wirts and my dissertation board members, David Rasmussen, Alessandro
Ferrara, Sungmoon Kim, and Vanessa Rumble. I am also grateful for con-
versations with Jorge L. A. Garcia, Micah Lott, and Joseph Chan regarding
key chapters of the book. Lastly, I would like to thank the publishers at
vii
viii Acknowledgments
Springer, the book series editors, and the two anonymous reviewers for their
comments and suggestions.
Some chapters of the book were presented at several conferences and
workshops. Chapter 4 was presented at the Long Island Philosophical
Society 2019 Conference. Earlier versions of Chaps. 7 and 8 were presented
at the Interdisciplinary Graduate Workshop at the Clough Center for the
Study of Constitutional Democracy, Boston College, in 2016 and 2017. An
earlier version of Chap. 8 was also presented at the workshop on Confucian
political theory at Manchester Center for Political Theory (MANCEPT) in
2017. I would like to thank the participants of these conferences and work-
shops for their engaging discussions and suggestions.
A slightly different version of Chap. 3 was previously published as an
open-a ccess article under the same title in Ethics & Global Politics 9, No. 1
(2016). A longer version of Chap. 7 was previously published under the title
“The Discontents of Moderate Political Confucianism and the Future of
Democracy in East Asia” in Philosophy East and West 68, No. 4 (October
2018), 1193–1218. I thank the University of Hawaii Press for permission to
reprint the article here. Chapters 5 and 8 draw from my article previously
published under the title “Political Confucianism and Multivariate
Democracy in East Asia” in The Review of Politics 81, No. 3 (Summer
2019), 459–483. I thank Cambridge University Press for permission to
reprint parts of the article in this book.
Finally, I am grateful to my wife, Silvia, who has always offered her
warm support and critical nudge that keep pushing me forward. I am also
thankful to my son, Anderson, who was born during the writing of this book
and to whom I dedicate this book.
Contents
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2 Political Liberalism and the Paradigm Shift of Political
Philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3 The Public Conception of Morality in Political
Liberalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
4 Against the Asymmetry Objection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5 The Idea of Hyperpluralism and Pluralism
in East Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
6 Confucianism and Comprehensive Confucian
Perfectionism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
7 The Discontents of Moderate Political Confucianism . . . . . . . 117
8 Political Confucianism and Multivariate Democracy
in East Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
9 Toward a Pluralistic Approach to Antiperfectionism . . . . . . . 157
10 Respect, Recognition, and Toleration: A Concentric
Theory of Global Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
ix
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Background and Objective
After the debate between liberalism and communitarianism in the 1980s and
1990s, liberalism’s family quarrel takes center stage in recent literature on
political theory. Representing two historically significant traditions, politi-
cal liberalism and liberal perfectionism have become the most antagonistic
pair in the liberal family.1 On the one hand, political liberalism refuses to
ground liberalism on any particular conception of the good because people
are deeply divided over ideals of human flourishing. On the other hand, lib-
eral perfectionism regards liberalism and particular views of human flour-
ishing as compatible. Both camps are inspired by concrete historical
experiences and represent enduring intellectual traditions. Political liberal-
ism, particularly the branch advocated by John Rawls, rests on Rawls’
observation of “reasonable pluralism,” which is inspired by the evolution of
the social and historical conditions of modern democratic regimes that have
their origins in “the Wars of Religion following the Reformation and the
subsequent development of the principle of toleration, and in the growth of
constitutional government and of large industrial market economies.”2 So
the most sensible thing to do for political philosophy is to apply “the
principle of toleration” to itself in order to arrive at a public conception of
1 For an anthology of works from both camps, see Perfectionism and Neutrality: Essays
in Liberal Theory, eds. Steven Wall and George Klosko (New York: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2003).
2 John Rawls, “The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus,” Collected Papers, ed. Samuel
Freeman (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 424.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 1
Z. Li, Political Liberalism, Confucianism, and the Future of Democracy in East
Asia, Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations 12,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43116-7_1
