Author Description

What is the place of human rights in a society shaped by Confucian principles? Can Confucianism offer useful perspectives on the Western conception of human rights? In this enlightening volume, eighteen leading Western and Chinese authorities on Confucian tradition, modern China, and modern human rights address these timely questions. They offer a balanced forum that seeks common ground, providing needed perspective at a time when the Chinese government, after years of denouncing Confucianism as an aritfact of a feudal past, has made an abrupt reversal to endorse it as a belief system compatible with communist ideology. In using Confucianism as a lens for which to evaluate the strengths and limitations of the principles of human rights, this book makes a significant contribution to understanding the complicated issues surrounding the "values" debate between China, some Asian regimes, and the West.