Quote of the Day: Confucian trade-offs

[timelets]

On nearly all of the virtues which the tradition touches, the Confucians show their
characteristic attention to the potential trade-offs between love and a sense of
obligation, natural spontaneity and reverence, and unselfconsciousness and selfcontrol.

...

Virtue ethics in this sense has to do with the way that ethical norms
are derived or explained. It presupposes that virtue (or perhaps approximate notions
like flourishing) is more basic than rules of action and the maximization of good
states of affairs. Whereas a consequentialist might say that keeping a promise to a
friend is right because it gives rise to the greatest possible amount of happiness or
well-being, a virtue ethicist might say it is right because it is honest or trustworthy, or
simply because it is what a person of admirable character would do.


CONFUCIANISM AND VIRTUE ETHICS:
STILL A FLEDGLING IN CHINESE AND COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY
JUSTIN TIWALD

https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/comparativephilosophy/vol1/iss2/7/

Comparative Philosophy Volume 1, No. 2 (2010): 55-63
Open Access / ISSN 2151-6014