This paper summarizes the author’s view and research on the concept of ‘Spiritual Humanism’ as a cross-cultural, historical heritage and theoretical framework for contemporary research in philosophy. It builds on comprehensive scholarship conducted over the last decades within a plurality of leading academic communities. It reflects the author’s commitment to include Chinese Philosophy and intellectual history within the international scholarly canon.

Shame is frequently viewed as a destructive emotion; but it can also be understood in terms of change and growth. This essay highlights the problematic values that cause pervasive and frequent shame and the importance of resisting and changing these values. Using Confucian insights, I situate shame in an interactive process between the individual's values and that of their society, thus, being vulnerable to shame represents both one's connection to a community and an openness to others’ negative feedback. This process provides an important arena where personal values interact with communal ones. The Confucian tradition, I argue, affords individuals a degree of autonomy in internalization through urging them to cultivate and maintain a keen sense of shame. My discussion also offers resources for understanding the various aspects of this interactive process—how individuals with similar experiences of shame may, through channeling their experiences, influence social values and propel moral progress.

It is claimed via analysis of Shu-Hsien Liu's seminal book Understanding Confucian Philosophy that contemporary Confucianism offers: (1) a set of ultimate concerns that can be used to guide life and scholarly endeavour; (2) an axiomatic world view, and a generative model of human nature that not only accords with empirical evidence, but is highly adaptive in organising society; (3) an epistemology that is appropriate for social science research on social change. These qualities suggest that contemporary Confucianism can inform psychological research in a manner that goes far deeper than merely describing popular tendencies among culturally Chinese people. It may be used in constructing a form of social science with depth and utility in addressing both practical and existential concerns of scholars and ordinary people in society that is not restricted to Chinese societies alone, but any society in need of inspiration in seeking to construct humanist ethics for research and governance.