RT Article
T1 Before and after Ritual: Two Accounts of Li as Virtue in Early Confucianism
JF Sophia
VO 51
IS 2
SP 195
OP 210
A1 Kim, Sungmoon
LA English
YR 2012
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1785592017
AB In this article, I probe the nature of Confucian virtue with special focus on ritual propriety (li). I examine two classic, mutually competing accounts of li—as moral virtue and as civic virtue—in early Confucianism by investigating the thoughts of Mencius and Xunzi. My primary aim in this article is to demonstrate how their different accounts of human nature and equally different understandings of the natural state (that is, the pre-li state) led them to the development of two distinctive political theories of virtue in the Confucian tradition. More specifically, they justified the nature of the li on different terms—human/moral on the one hand and civic/political on the other. I conclude by revisiting the contemporary debate on the nature of Confucian ethics from the perspective of early Confucianism represented by Mencius and Xunzi.
K1 Xunzi
K1 Natural state
K1 Political Theory
K1 Mencius
K1 Ritual propriety (li)
K1 Ethics
DO 10.1007/s11841-012-0301-9