Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T06:10:01.688Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Confucian Skepticism about Workplace Rights

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Alan Strudler
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Confucian scholars express skepticism about rights. This skepticism is relevant to managers who face issues about the recognition of workplace rights in a Confucian culture. My essay examines the foundations of this skepticism, and the cogency of potential leading Western liberal responses to it. I conclude that Confucian skepticism is more formidable than liberals have recognized. I attempt to craft an argument that defuses Confucian skepticism about workplace rights while at the same time respecting the moral depth of Confucianism.

Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 18 , Issue 1 , January 2008 , pp. 67 - 83
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allinson, Robert. 1985. “The Confucian Golden Rule: A Negative Formulation,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 12.Google Scholar
Anderson, Elizabeth. 1993. Value in Ethics and Economics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Arnold, Denis. 2003. “Libertarian Theories of the Corporation and Global Capitalism,” Journal of Business Ethics 48.Google Scholar
Bentham, Jeremy. 1843. Anarchial Fallacies, Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 2. Edinburgh: W. Tait, 501.Google Scholar
Buchanan, E. Allen 1989. “Assessing the Communitarian Critique of Liberalism,” Ethics 99.Google Scholar
Chan, Joseph. 1999. “A Confucian Perspective on Human Rights for Contemporary China,” in The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights, ed. Bauer and Bell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Donagan, Alan. 1977. The Theory of Morality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1984. “Rights as Trumps,” in Theories of Rights, ed. Waldron. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 2002. “Taking Rights Seriously in Bejing,” New York Review of Books 49.Google Scholar
Feinberg, Joel. 1980. “The Nature and Value of Rights,” in Feinberg, Rights, Justice and the Bounds of Liberty. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freeman, R. Edward 1994. “The Politics of Stakeholder Theory: Some Future Directions,” Business Ethics Quarterly 4.Google Scholar
Gewirth, Alan. 1978. Reason and Morality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, Chad. 2004. “The Normative Impact of Comparative Ethics: Human Rights,” in Confucian Ethics, ed. Shun and Wong. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hartman, Edwin. 1996. Organizational Ethics and the Good Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hill, Thomas Jr., 1973. “Servility and Self-Respect,” Monist 57.Google Scholar
Ihara, Craig. 2004. “Are Individual Rights Necessary? A Confucian Perspective,” in Confucian Ethics, ed. Shun and Wong. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jaffe, Louis. 1971. “Standing Again,” Harvard Law Review 84.Google Scholar
Koehn, Daryl. 1997. “Business and Game-Playing: The False Analogy,” Journal of Business Ethics 16.Google Scholar
Koehn, Daryl. 2001. Local Insights, Global Ethics for Business. New York: Rodopi Press.Google Scholar
Korsgaard, Christine. 1996. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lee, Seung-hwan. 1992. “Was there a Concept of Rights in Confucian Secular Based Morality?” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 19.Google Scholar
Li, Xiaorong 2006. Ethics, Human Rights, and Culture. New York: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Liu, Jee Loo. 2006. An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1981. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Nozick, Robert. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Parfit, Derek. 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Radin, Margaret. 1996. Contested Commodities. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Regan, Donald. 1999. “Gewirth on Necessary Goods: What Is the Agent Committed to Valuing?” in Gewirth: Critical Essays on Action, Rationality, and Community, ed. Boylan. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Rosemont, Henry Jr., 1988. “Why Take Rights Seriously? A Confucian Critique,” in Human Rights and the World’s Religions, ed. Rounner. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Sagoff, Mark. 2004. Price, Principle, and the Environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sandel, Michael. 1982. Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sen, A. 1982. “Rights and Agency,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 11: 3–39.Google Scholar
Sumner, Wayne. 1987. The Moral Foundations of Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1979. Hegel and Modern Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tenenbaum, Sergio. 2005. “Friendship and the Law of Reason,” in Persons and Passions, ed. Jenkin, Whiting, and Williams. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Thomson, Judith. 1990. The Realm of Rights. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Van Norden, Bryan W. 2002. Confucius and the Analects: New Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael. 1983. Spheres of Justice. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Wong, David B. 2004. “Rights and Community in Confucianism,” in Confucian Ethics, ed. Kwong-loi, Shun and David, Wong. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar