The New Confucian philosopher Mou Zongsan once compared the ethics of Mengzi to that of Kant, claiming that Mengzi's ethics shares the same fundamental features with Kant's and can therefore be ...better understood through a Kantian lens. This paper aims to argue against Mou by elaborating on two important but hitherto insufficiently addressed differences between Kant's and Mengzi's ethics. First, the paper shows that, as opposed to what Mou suggests, passages 6A1 to 6A3 of the Mengzi demonstrate Mengzi's adoption of an a posteriori approach to ethics that stands in direct contrast to Kant's a priori approach. Second, the paper argues that even if we read Kant's ethics in a non-rigorous way that works in favor of Mou's interpretation, ren (humaneness), yi (optimal appropriateness), li (observance of rites), and zhi (wisdom), as the core concepts of Mengzi's ethics, can still hardly be regarded as Kantian moral laws.
The Horizon of Modernity provides a historicized account of New Confucian philosophy in relation to the contemporary revival of Confucianism and explores the nexus between subjectivity and social ...structure in the works of Mou Zongsan, Tang Junyi, and Xiong Shili.
This book explores a pivotal dimension of Mou Zongsan's philosophy--that is, his project of reconstructing a moral metaphysics based largely on a dialogue between reinterpreted Chinese thought and ...Kantism--and thoroughly analyzes a number of his most paradigmatic concepts.
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