| dc.description.abstract | The aim of this dissertation is to discuss the typology and argumentation of New Politics or external kingliness (xin wai wang) in the context of contemporary New Confucianism. In the middle of 20th century, Tang Junyi, Mou Zongsan, and Xu Fugang already began to discuss the relations between Chinese culture and democracy. They all agreed that New outer kingliness (wai wang) is different from the virtue politics (dezhi) of traditional Confucianism but rather fulfills the requirement of democracy. Regarding the relations between morality and democracy, Mou proposed a concept of self-negation of moral consciousness (liang zhi ziwo kanxian). Unlike the relation of direct linear development between traditional inner sagehood (nei sheng) and outer kingliness, he argued the relation between morality and political legitimacy is indirect. There are many academic debates about how to understand self-negation, including Kantian and Hegelian explanations. Unlike mainstream interpretation, I adopt the concept of public sphere to illustrate Mou’s self-negation and this is the core concern of this dissertation. Introducing public sphere into interpreting Mou’s self-negation, it will conceptually lead to deliberative democracy rather than aggregative democracy. Before dealing with the core concern, I have to discuss the compatibility between Confucianism and democracy first. This is because in the context of traditional inner sagehood and outer kingliness, the outcome of political regime will conceptually lead to virtue politics rather than democracy. Moreover, democracy originates from western culture. Thus, if Confucianism can conceptually lead to democracy, the first question to deal with is the compatibility between Confucianism and democracy. In chapter two, I adopt an intercultural approach to analyze the compatibility between Confucianism and democracy and argue that they are compatible. In chapter three, I extent the Mencian idea of “Everyone can become a Yao or a Shun” as a principle of the co-originality of morality and political legitimacy. This is the key to understand Mou’s self-negation of our moral consciousness. Self-negation does not deny morality. For Confucianism, the relation between morality and political legitimacy is equiprimordial. In other words, contemporary Confucianism shall view morality and political legitimacy as equiprimordial. It differs from traditional Confucianism that views political legitimacy derived directly from morality. This is the principle of Confucian democracy. Furthermore, the meanings of “Everyone can become a Yao or a Shun” can be fulfilled by the four pillars of deliberative democracy, namely inclusiveness, political equality, fairness, and publicity. Thus, I argue that the new outer kingliness of Confucianism can be understood by deliberative democracy. Finally, I put Mou’s self-negation into the context of contemporary western Philosophy debates, especially the debates of the relations between morality and political legitimacy between Rawls and Habermas in order to demonstrate the contemporary meaning of Mou’s self-negation, that is, politics separated from the traditional ethical Five Cardinal Relationships rather than from morality. | en_US |