Abstract
Although aspects of the moral dilemma have been discussed by Western philosophers from Plato onwards, substantially less attention has been devoted to the possibility and consequences of moral quandaries within Chinese philosophy in general and Confucianism in particular. This paper argues, against common contemporary approaches to the problem, that “hard” moral dilemmas were not avoided by classical Chinese philosophers. For this purpose, I explore the episode of the son covering for the crimes of his father in the Analects, which was reformulated and instrumentalized by other philosophers such as Lü Buwei and Han Fei.
Keywords
Confucianism, moral dilemmas, hermeneutics, Lü Buwei, Han Fei, filial piety
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