Early Chinese Ethics

Harvard FAS

Early (Pre-Qin era) China was a hotbed of philosophical activity: scholars developed careful and fascinating ethical views in the context of serious philosophical debates between major schools of thought. This course focuses on some of these ethical debates between Confucian, Mohist, Daoist, and Legalist philosophers in early China. We’ll read both classical texts such as the Analects of Confucius, Mengzi, Xunzi, Mozi, and Zhuangzi and important contemporary scholarship on these texts.…