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China Philo Pragmatism And Philosophy Term Paper

Almost all of the advice or moral guidance given here, such as "In serving his superior the man of honor makes every effort to be faithful when he is in office," is geared towards making things runs smoothly in a practical fashion (Classic of Filial Piety, p. 68). Virtue is still important for virtue's sake, but is directly tied to practicality and pragmatism. Even stronger evidence of the joining of philosophy and practicality is found in the virtues expected of (or desirable in) women, according to a later tract. An honorable widow, who learns that her son desires to travel but is scared that she is too old to make the journey, tells hi, "whether you go depends on what you consider right, whether I follow depends on the rules of propriety" (Women's Virtues and Vices, p. 73). While virtue here seems to take precedence, with both son and mother...

The son's devotion to his mother and vice versa should not affect the son's ability to lead a useful (and thus virtuous) life, in other words. Confucian values were always meant to be practical, and here they seem to find their highest level of success.
Ethical systems tend towards the abstract when taken to their extremes; it is very rare that a pure utilitarianism or other ethics based only on practical outcomes is truly put into place. Confucianism took time to develop, but the marriage between practicality and philosophical virtue seems to have been its goal. These documents show the development of this trajectory.

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