One influential justification for becoming Buddhist is to end suffering, starting (it seems) with the Buddhist practitioner's own suffering. Does this indicate that Buddhist practitioners are selfish? After Buddhism became popular in China, many Confucians argued that Buddhism puts personal salvation before ethics, and is thus selfish in that respect. Some Confucians also objected to the particular sort of compassion that Buddhists were supposed to adopt ("unconditioned compassion"), insisting that it was fundamentally incompatible with the special attachments needed for important human relationships between family members and close friends.

In our first show before a live audience, Justin presents two criticisms of Buddhism, Jenny Hung 洪真如 defends Buddhism against the criticisms, and Richard moderates. The show was held at a meeting of the American Philosophical Association, and many wiser scholars in the audience weighed in as well. Join us for the lively (and quite friendly) "debate."

Many thanks to The Hong Kong Ethics Lab and the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association for sponsoring this podcast series. Thanks also to Dana Jae Audio Collective (especially Casey Hudson and Maüxe Madden) for staging and recording the event, and to Lena Li (LI La 李拉 ) for her editing and mixing. They are consummate professionals.

Want to continue the discussion? Need links to some of the sources mentioned? Go to the support page for this episode on Warp, Weft, and Way.

Jenny Hung's website
Richard Kim's website
Justin Tiwald's website

Want to skip to episode's primary philosophical issue? Go to
- 4:19: preface to today's discussion, or
- 5:39: part II

Today's topic is really about two things. First, it's about the claim that many instantiations of one virtue necessarily come packaged with other virtues. For example, you can't have great humaneness or benevolence in your charitable giving to other people unless you also show a certain amount of ritual respect to them. Second, it's about the view that one virtue in particular -- the virtue of humaneness or good caring (ren 仁) -- is more central or fundamental than the others. The Neo-Confucian philosopher Zhu Xi (1130-1200) proposes that we can understand both the unity of virtues and the central importance of humaneness (ren) by thinking about the unity of the seasons and the central importance of the spring for the other seasons. We attempt to unpack these ideas (and some of the relevant seasonal associations) as they are presented by one of the Confucian tradition's most subtle and complicated philosophers.

Many thanks to The Hong Kong Ethics Lab for sponsoring this podcast series.

Want to continue the discussion? Need links to some of the sources mentioned? Go to the support page for this episode on Warp, Weft, and Way.

We thank Lena Li (LI La 李拉 ) for her expert editing and sound engineering. We also thank the blog Warp, Weft & Way for hosting the discussion for this episode.

Co-hosts:
Richard Kim's website
Justin Tiwald's website

Want to skip to the episode's primary philosophical issue? Go to
- 15:44: part II

Much of the technical philosophy of Confucianism was developed by sophisticated thinkers that came well after the time of Confucius, starting in the Song dynasty. This episode is our first devoted to the foremost of these "Neo-Confucians," Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200 CE). To help us with this introduction, we are joined by special guest Stephen C. Angle, one of the leading scholars of Neo-Confucianism.

Consider a boat: it’s the nature of a boat to move more easily over water and not over land, and there is greater harmony and order in using boats this way than in trying to drag them across roads and fields. We can also make better sense of boats as waterborne vehicles than as land-based ones. Why are all of these things true of boats? Zhu Xi’s influential view is that we must ultimately posit the existence of an intangible entity or source that he calls “Pattern” (li 理) to explain these sorts of facts, not just about the nature and orderly use of boats, but about the nature and value of human beings, human life, and so much more. Join us for a discussion of Zhu Xi's metaphysics of Pattern. Topics that discuss include the following: it's implied position on the fact-value distinction, holistic vs. individualistic approaches to value, and the senses in which Zhu’s worldview does (and does not) call for something resembling religious belief.

Many thanks to The Hong Kong Ethics Lab for sponsoring this podcast series.

Want to continue the discussion? Need links to some of the sources mentioned? Go to the support page for this episode on Warp, Weft, and Way.

We thank Lena Li (LI La 李拉 ) for her expert editing and sound engineering. We also thank the blog Warp, Weft & Way for hosting the discussion for this episode.

Our guest:
Stephen C. Angle

Co-hosts:
Richard Kim's website
Justin Tiwald's website

Want to skip to episode's primary philosophical issue? Go to
- 10:57: preface to today's discussion, or
- 15:54: part II

In this episode, we delve into the Mozi’s "state of nature argument," a vision of human life before political order and an explanation of how humans left that state. The Mohists were history’s first consequentialists and an important and influential classical school of thought. Were they right about the foundations of political society and government? Join us as we examine the Mohists' most influential moral and political ideas and explore how moral disagreement and self-interest shape political order.

Many thanks to The Hong Kong Ethics Lab for sponsoring this podcast series.

Want to continue the discussion? Need links to some of the sources mentioned? Go to the support page for this episode on Warp, Weft, and Way.

We thank Lena Li (LI La 李拉 ) for her expert editing and sound engineering. We also thank the blog Warp, Weft & Way for hosting the discussion for this episode.

Co-hosts:
Richard Kim's website
Justin Tiwald's website

In this episode, we talk about the theme of uselessness in the Zhuangzi, one of the great foundational texts of philosophical Daoism. What exactly determines whether something is useful or useless? Is usefulness largely or fundamentally a matter of perspective? Does the text's apparent recommendation that we be "useless" (in some sense) entail some sort of realism or objectivism about value? We explore these themes together with our guest, Chris Fraser, a major scholar of the Zhuangzi.

Many thanks to The Hong Kong Ethics Lab for sponsoring this podcast series.

Want to continue the discussion? Need links to some of the sources mentioned? Go to the support page for this episode on Warp, Weft, and Way.

We thank Lena Li (LI La 李拉 ) for her expert editing and sound engineering. We also thank the blog Warp, Weft & Way for hosting the discussion for this episode.

Guest:
Chris Fraser's website
Chris Fraser's translation of the Zhuangzi
Chris Fraser's book about the Zhuangzi

Co-hosts:
Richard Kim's website
Justin Tiwald's website

It is indisputable that ritual is at the heart of Confucianism—buy why? In this episode we examine Analects 3.17 in which Confucius seems keen to defend a ritual sacrifice of a lamb which his student regards as excessive. We discuss this passage in light of Richard Wollheim's paper, "The Sheep and the Ceremony" which offers a deep and illuminating exploration of this passage and the value of ritual more broadly. We examine questions about the possibility of seeing ritual as intrinsically valuable or constitutive of a good human life, and offer some suggestions about why the Confucians may have been right to place such significant weight on ritual practice.

Many thanks to The Hong Kong Ethics Lab for sponsoring this podcast series.

Want to continue the discussion? Need links to some of the sources mentioned? Go to the support page for this episode on Warp, Weft, and Way.

We thank Lena Li (LI La 李拉 ) for her expert editing and sound engineering. We also thank the blog Warp, Weft & Way for hosting the discussion for this episode.

Co-hosts:
Richard Kim's website
Justin Tiwald's website

In the received version of the Analects, it’s quite apparent that all of Confucius’s disciples were men. So one might wonder: is this an ethics built just for men? Today we are happy to be joined by Professor Erin Cline, Tagliabue Professor at Georgetown University, to discuss this timely issue, focusing on a controversial passage that features the only woman cited by name in the Analects, Nanzi 南子. Professor Cline argues that the conventional reading of this passage is wrong and that a more plausible understanding of it is important for addressing common criticisms of patriarchy and sexism in the Analects. We also explore various pedagogical themes and strategies for teaching the Analects to students.

Please check out Professor Erin Cline's faculty profile and list of publications here.

Many thanks to The Hong Kong Ethics Lab for sponsoring this podcast series.

Want to continue the discussion? Need links to some of the sources mentioned? Go to the support page for this episode on Warp, Weft, and Way.

We thank Lena Li (LI La 李拉 ) for her expert editing and sound engineering. We also thank the blog Warp, Weft & Way for hosting the discussion for this episode.

Co-hosts:
Richard Kim's website
Justin Tiwald's website

Confucianism is well known for prioritizing familial responsibilities and love over other competing demands such as public interest or duties to the state. In this episode we explore two of the best known passages from early Confucianism that some modern scholars believe makes Confucianism morally problematic. The first passage we discuss is the "Upright Gong" passage, Analects 13.18, which has Confucius advocating mutual "covering up" of crimes by fathers and sons. The second passage is Mengzi 7A35, in which Mengzi is asked what the sage king Shun would have done if his father had committed murder. Mengzi's answer, briefly stated, is that Shun would have given up his throne and would have fled with his father to care for him for the rest of his life.

Through these passages we explore questions about justice, consequentialist ethics, and the nature of moral dilemmas (and Confucian ways of handling them).

Many thanks to The Hong Kong Ethics Lab for sponsoring this podcast series.

We thank Lena Li (LI La 李拉 ) for her expert editing and sound engineering. We also thank the blog Warp, Weft & Way for hosting the discussion for this episode.

Want to continue the discussion? Need links to some of the sources mentioned? Go to the support page for this episode on Warp, Weft, and Way.

Co-hosts:
Richard Kim's website
Justin Tiwald's website