Constitutionalism is commonly believed to be a stranger to Confucianism, which dominated East Asia’s intellectual, ethical, political, and cultural traditions before the “encounter with the West” in the late nineteenth century. Most notably, Max Weber captured the gist of Confucianism in terms of patrimonialism in which no principled mechanism to control the ruler’s arbitrary use of power was acknowledged, let alone devised (Weber, 1951). In the rare cases in which early twentieth-century scholars paid attention to Confucianism as a political tradition, their focus was mainly on the early development of the centralized state and the vast bureaucracy that undergirded it (e.g., Balazs, 1964). [...]

What normative compass can appropriately ground a theory for contemporary “non-Western” societies? This question has become urgent amid the pressure to decolonize political science and academia. The hybridity of numerous contemporary non-Western societies means that political theorists cannot refuse to engage with either Western-originated or premodern Indigenous concepts and ways of thinking that bear on the local public culture. However, these normative strands alone are unsuitable for grounding a contemporary theory. This methodological dilemma can be overcome if theorists adopt normative hybridity as a methodological stance. Normative hybridity suggests that hybridity is not only a feature of the theorist’s context of reference but should also be their modus operandi. Normative hybridity already underpins relevant works in contemporary Confucian political theory. Drawing from these works, I illustrate three methods to apply normative hybridity to theory building. This novel methodological approach uniquely addresses current political theory discussions and influences non-Western policymaking.

I am deeply grateful to my commentators for their careful and thoughtful engagement with my book. Their critiques and reflections not only help refine the theory of Meritocratic Democracy but also contribute meaningfully to my own scholarly development. Unfortunately, due to space constraints, I am unable to address every point raised in their detailed and insightful commentaries. I have therefore chosen to focus on the most challenging and pressing questions, in the hope that readers will appreciate the rationale behind this selective response.

A well-functioned society depends on its ability to nurture, attract, and deploy talents in critical sectors. However, the implementation of some meritocratic principles to allocate positions often leads to unjust social hierarchies. Is there, then, a solution to meritocracy’s dysfunctional hierarchical effects? This paper attempts to answer this by drawing on the real-world cases of Singapore and the USA to investigate the relationship of toxic social hierarchies with meritocracy. It proposes three solutions to curb the unjustifiable social stratifications and the erosion of social cooperation often associated with social meritocracy. These reflections could help to shed light on the grounds for the ongoing debates on social hierarchies and provide valuable insights into how to weigh up existing socio-political structures.

This book offers a new theory of democracy that advances debates on democracy and political meritocracy by synthesizing the best of contemporary Western democratic theory and Confucian political theory. The general questions that this book poses, and attempts to answer, are: can findings in Western democratic theories be used to address the Confucian meritocrats' concern for the ability of democracy to produce desirable outcomes? What is the relationship of political leaders with democracy? Can insights from Confucian political theory be used to reconceptualize how political parties in democratic societies ensure that their leaders use their power for common political goals? The answer to these questions is the theory of democracy defended in this book: meritocratic democracy. Meritocratic democracy comprises three main propositions: (a) Democratic rule is epistemically superior to meritocratic forms of government; (b) Contemporary democracies need public-spirited political leaders; (c) A system of partisan juries that preselect the candidates running for the party leadership can bring about public-spirited leadership. Meritocratic democracy opens a path for a global debate on democratic theory by exemplifying the inherent capacity of political theorization to transcend boundaries between various philosophical standpoints, and highlighting its potential for constructive reciprocal contestation.

Technologies shape who we are, how we organize our societies and how we relate to nature. For example, social media challenges democracy; artificial intelligence raises the question of what is unique to humans; and the possibility to create artificial wombs may affect notions of motherhood and birth. Some have suggested that we address global warming by engineering the climate, but how does this impact our responsibility to future generations and our relation to nature? This book shows how technologies can be socially and conceptually disruptive and investigates how to come to terms with this disruptive potential. Four technologies are studied: social media, social robots, climate engineering and artificial wombs. The authors highlight the disruptive potential of these technologies, and the new questions this raises. The book also discusses responses to conceptual disruption, like conceptual engineering, the deliberate revision of concepts.

Technologies have all kinds of impacts on the environment, on human behavior, on our society and on what we believe and value. But some technologies are not just impactful, they are also socially disruptive: they challenge existing institutions, social practices, beliefs and conceptual categories. Here we are particularly interested in technologies that disrupt existing concepts, for example because they lead to profound uncertainty about how to classify matters. Is a humanoid robot - which looks and even acts like a human - to be classified as a person or is it just an inert machine? Conceptual disruption occurs when the meaning of concepts is challenged, and such challenges may potentially lead to a revision of concepts. We illustrate how technologies can be conceptually disruptive through a range of examples, and we argue for an intercultural outlook in studying these socially disruptive technologies and conceptual disruption. Such an outlook is needed to avoid a Western bias in labeling technologies socially or conceptually disruptive, as this outlook takes inspiration from a broad range of philosophical traditions.

Can Confucian ethics contribute to diagnosing the root causes of video games' toxicity and formulating design requirements for redressing it? Contemporary Confucian studies on technology have not addressed these questions, although video games have become an important part of contemporary human life. This paper advances Confucian-inspired ethical studies on technologies by bringing attention to the moral dimension of this underexamined aspect of contemporary life. By focusing on League of Legends (one of the most popular toxic online multiplayer games), we argue that League's toxic environment hinders the cultivation of ren, shu, and he, but Confucian conceptual resources can inspire the formulation of at least three design recommendations against League's toxicity. The first is to eliminate killing in the game by banking on players' desire to express their skillfulness. The second is to include a rewatching feature to sanction toxic players with the aim of inculcating sympathy in them. The last is to add a procedure before and after each match, where players can cordially interact with each other and develop mutual respect.

What is the best way for democratic societies to experiment with digital surveillance technologies? This chapter contributes to answering this question through the analysis of the relational ideal of democracy. I contend that the relational conception of democracy offers a viable approach to experimentations with new technologies. The relational conception of democracy, which views democracy as a way of life (or culture), supports a deliberative and context-sensitive approach to new digital technologies. To clarify what this approach entails in practice, the chapter discusses the case of South Korea’s introduction of new digital surveillance technologies during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. These reflections shed new light on what democracy means and provide us with valuable insights on how to design post-pandemic democracies.

Through a new argumentative strategy, this article shows that the claims offered by some contemporary Confucian scholars in support of hierarchical social relations do not hold in contemporary societies. Exegetical disagreements that are arguably difficult to overcome are sidestepped and empirical claims in support of hierarchical Confucianism are assessed. Empirical evidence and recent developments in Western philosophy suggest that social hierarchies are detrimental to key factors for people's material well-being, ethical development, and the political order. Egalitarian social relations organized in a representative democratic system appear to be more suitable for the pursuit of the fundamental aims of a Confucian government which are accepted by the proponents of hierarchical Confucianism.

The impact of social media technologies (SMTs) on digital wellbeing has become an increasingly important puzzle for ethicists of technology. In this article, we explain why individualised theories of digital wellbeing (DWB) can only solve part of this puzzle. While an individualised conception of DWB is useful for understanding online self-regulation, we contend that we must seek greater understanding of how SMTs connect us. To build an account of this, we locate the conceptual resources for our account in Confucian ethics. In contrast to individualised conceptions of human flourishing that are found in the Western tradition, Confucian thinkers strongly emphasise that individuals cannot flourish alone, but need wider social structures (partner, family, society, nation). Not only do strands of Confucian ethics explain how individuals are defined by the roles they take up in relationships, but this perspective also makes practical suggestions for how these roles can be cultivated. We conclude our article by identifying the Confucian notions that seem to have most promise for the future design of SMTs.

Book review

This paper examines the relationship between democratic participation and the well-being of the people–a fundamental aim of Confucian government. It argues that although the value of democratic participation for people’s moral cultivation may be dubious (as suggested recently by Sungmoon Kim), democratic participation is key to meeting other salient aspects of people’s well-being. Drawing on developments in Western epistemic analyses of democracy, this paper shows that the complexity of political issues in developed countries makes democracy an important decision-making process to enhance the well-being of most of the members of society.