Human rights and Chinese thought : a cross cultural inquiry Machine generated contents note:Ch. 1Introduction 1.1.Recent History 1.2.Current Approaches: Insights and Limitations 1.3.This Book Ch. 2Languages Concepts and Pluralism 2.1.Concepts 2.2.Conceptual Distances 2.3.Pluralism Ch. 3Consequences of Pluralism 3.1.Our Own Values 3.2.Static Attitudes 3.3.Dynamic Engagement 3.4.Multiple Strategies and Divided Communities Ch. 4Shift toward Legitimate Desires in Neo Confucianism 4.1.Neo Confucianism against Desire 4.2.Embracing Desires Ch. 5Nineteenth Century Origins 5.1.Translation of International Law 5.2.Self Strengthening Movement 5.3.Japan 5.4.Reformers in the 1890s Ch. 6Dynamism in the Early Twentieth Century 6.1.Liang and Jhering 6.2.Liu Shipeis Concept of Quanli Ch. 7Change Continuity and Convergence prior to 1949 7.1.Chen Duxiu 7.2.Gao Yihan 7.3.Convergence: John Dewey 7.4.Marxism and Leninism Ch. 8Engagement despite Distinctiveness 8.1.Rights and Interests 8.2.Rights and Harmony 8.3.Political versus Economic Rights Ch. 9Conclusions. China poses great challenges to human rights in theory and practice. In practice China is considered by the measure of most Western countries to have a patchy record of protecting individuals human rights. In the theoretical realm Chinese intellectuals and government officials have challenged the idea that the term human rights can be universally understood in one single way and have often opposed attempts by Western countries to impose international standards on Asian countries. What should we make of these challenges and of claims by members of other groups to have moralities of their own Human Rights and Chinese Thought gives an extended answer to these questions in the first study of its kind. Stephen C. Angle integrates a full account of the development of Chinese rights discourse reaching back to important although neglected origins of that discourse in seventeenth and eighteenth century Confucianism with philosophical considerations of how various communities should respond to contemporary Chinese claims about the uniqueness of their human rights concepts. Drawing on Western thinkers such as Richard Rorty Alasdair MacIntyre Michael Walzer Allan Gibbard and Robert Brandom Angle elaborates a plausible kind of moral pluralism and demonstrates that Chinese ideas of human rights do indeed have distinctive characteristics. His conclusion is not that we should ignore one another though. Despite our differences Angle argues that cross cultural moral engagement is legitimate and even morally required. International moral dialogue is a dynamic and complex process and we all have good reasons for continuing to work toward bridging our differences. Jacket