Two Virtuous Actions Cannot both be Completed
This essay highlights an alternative tradition of understanding value conflicts in early Confucian thought. In contrast to a prominent position among interpreters that argues for the resolvability or harmonization of conflicting values, I argue that some early Confucians conceptualized value conflic...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
[2016]
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In: |
Journal of religious ethics
Year: 2016, Volume: 44, Issue: 4, Pages: 659-684 |
Further subjects: | B
moral remainder
B Dirty Hands B Harmony B value conflicts B Confucian Ethics B Moral Distress |
Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
Summary: | This essay highlights an alternative tradition of understanding value conflicts in early Confucian thought. In contrast to a prominent position among interpreters that argues for the resolvability or harmonization of conflicting values, I argue that some early Confucians conceptualized value conflicts as irresolvable. In other words, when meaningful aspects of a situation come into tension with each other and values are threatened to be either left unfulfilled or harmed, early Confucians put forth a variety of views. Some believed that all values could be tended to as long as one had the moral imagination of a sage, whereas others saw the world as a place where irreconcilable conflicts between values could occur for even the most profound people. Within this diversity, I take up a view about irresolvable value conflicts where the confrontation with a deep value conflict leaves behind a moral remainder that can mar even the character of a sage. |
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ISSN: | 1467-9795 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religious ethics
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/jore.12156 |