Confucian Role Ethics and a Holistic Conception of Justice Introduction

Ames, Roger T. (author)

In the last half of the nineteenth century, a Chinese-character language was created in East Asia to synchronize East Asian cultures with the “new knowledge” being pro­duced by Western modernity. Like Buddhism and other forms of Western learning that took root in China, this new vocabulary has been sinicized to express an indigenous worldview captured in the distinction between classical Greek ontological thinking as the science of being, and zoetological thinking as the art of living. While the language of Western modernity was being domesticated in East Asia, at the same time, beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the Western philosophical narrative took a zoetological turn captured in Nietzsche’s proclamation that “God is dead”, and in different philosophical movements, has repudiated its own traditional commitment to onto-theological thinking. In this essay I use a holistic conception of justice as a specif­ic case to illustrate an incremental convergence between the contemporary Chinese and Western philosophical worldviews.

• Language: English
• Keywords: justice-as-principle, zhengyi 正義, ontological thinking, zoetological thinking, holistic conception of justice, power, Confucian role ethics, individualism, human becomings
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 09.01.2026
• Number of pages: Str. 17-37
• Numbering: Vol. 14, no. 1
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-178324
• ISSN: 2232-5131
• eISSN: 2350-4226
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2026.14.1.17-37
• Publication date in RUL: 23.01.2026

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Asian studies
• Publisher: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete, Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete, Založba Univerze v Ljubljani
• ISSN: 2232-5131
• COBISS.SI-ID: 265206272

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Konfucijanska etika vlog in celostno pojmovanje pravičnosti

Abstract

V drugi polovici 19. stoletja je bila v Vzhodni Aziji ustvarjena nova terminologija takšne-ga nabora kitajskih pismenk, ki naj bi vzhodnoazijske kulture uskladil z »novim znanjem«, ki ga je ustvarila zahodna modernost. Tako kot budizem in druge oblike zahodnega uče-nja, ki so dobili svoje mesto na Kitajskem, je bilo tudi to novo besedišče pokitajčeno, da bi izrazilo avtohtone poglede na svet, ujete v razlikovanju med klasično grško ontološko miselnostjo in zoetološkim mišljenjem kot umetnostjo življenja. Medtem ko se je jezik zahodne modernosti udomačeval v Vzhodni Aziji, je zahodna filozofska naracija hkrati, začenši v drugi polovici 19. stoletja, doživela zoetološki preobrat, izražen v Nietzschejevi izjavi, da je »Bog mrtev«, in je v različnih filozofskih gibanjih zavračala svojo lastno tra-dicionalno zavezanost ontoteološkemu mišljenju. V tem prispevku na osnovi celostnega pojmovanja pravičnosti kot specifičnega primera ponazorim postopno zbliževanje med sodobnim kitajskim in zahodnim filozofskim pogledom na svet.

• Keywords: pravičnost kot načelo, zhengyi 正義, ontološka miselnost, zoetološka miselnost, celostno pojmovanje pravičnosti, moč, konfucijanska etika vlog, individual-izem, ljudje v postajanju