Comparison between Western philosophy and Chinese philosophy

Today I read two articles concerning comparison between western philosophy and Chinese philosophy. I found that the work of comparison is very helpful for me to understand both of western philosophy and Chinese philosophy. Before I read these two articles, I has been refusing to think Chinese philosophy seriously, especially Confucianism, but now I realize that it is necessary to have a comparing and critical reading of Chinese philosophy even though my main interests are in western philosophy. I note a significant problem in my understanding of western philosophy that my interpretation of western philosophy is often influenced by my covert Chinese traditional cultural background. Therefore, I must face this problem and avoid it by making comparison between them.

The two articles are raised in a collection of conference organized by the department of philosophy,NUS, in 2000. The first article I read is contributed by Prof. Ten. In this article, he criticizes the monist moral claim in Confucian tradition. He begins with conflicts between moral claims of personal relationship in family and loved people and moral claims of public. He raises several typical examples in western and Chinese literatures to illustrate the significant conflicts. He describes the moral development of person as circle in which the more central part means the stronger moral force to particular person, vice versa. For example, in Confucian tradition, the son should protect his father when he found him do wrongs, vice versa. He thinks reciprocity is the core of Confucian philosophy.However, this is dangerous to other moral claims, such as benevolence. He uses Bentham's argument to support the value of benevolence and denies Tu's claim about relation between the love of one's own people and the virtue for public. He thinks in many cases the fact is just contrary to Tu's view, for instance, in Ghandi's case. In the part of conclusion, Ten reminds us of the people left out of the moral circle who deserve respect as well.

The second article is contributed by Nussboaum. In this article, she criticizes Divison's interpretation of the golden rule of judgement in Confucian tradition, that is, if you do not want other to do something on you, do not do it to others. The logic form follows like this: if B expects A to do something to him, if A is superior, then, B should do same thing to his interior. if B expect A to do something to him, if A is interior, then, B should do same thing to his superior. As Nussboaum correctly notes that this form presuppose an order of hierarchy in society. Divison interpreted the golden rule in Kantian perspective, saying it implies that everyone respects others as the person like himself who has the common humanity. Nussboaum doubts the interpretation. Then she reviews the western tradition of moral discourse by citing Greek and Roman story concerning same kind of scene. From those stories, she interprets a missing thought which is absent in Confucian tradition. The mission thought could be found from Cynic, Aristotle and Raussou's works. The core of the thought is that everyone is invulnerable to miseries in life such as illness, lack of food, no mortal of exempt and so on. Therefore, when the king shows his pity to the bagger, he is thinking the possibility that one day he will be in the same situation. The distinctions between people are mainly based on artificial element which should not play role in making judgement. That means no body deserve what he gets from the luck of fortune, no matter it good or bad. However, we cannot find such a thought in Confucian tradition. She even believes that the democracy and the missing thought are dependent mutually. That is to say, people living in a non democratic society has no chance to face the missing thought, for example, in ancient China.

Ideas in these two articles give me a new interpretation of Chinese moral philosophy making me realize that the cultural sources of many severe problems in China.This work is very valuable for a Chinese to understand himself more clearly.