A lecture titled "The Problem of Political Order in Classical Confucian Thought" was held in the School of Political Science and Public Administration on April 5, 2017. Loubna El Amine, assistant professor in the Department of Political Science, Northwestern University, introduced her research into the Confucian conception of political order in her recent book Classical Confucian Political Thought: A New Interpretation.

Starting with an introduction of the "Virtue Argument", Loubna presented the basic components of its structure from three perspectives: first, the goal of morality is virtue; second, all human beings have the potential to become virtuous; third, the goal of government is to make all human beings actualize their potential to become virtuous. Then she showed the problems of this interpretation by citing Confucian classics and listing political facts in Chinese ancient times. She argued that the central motivating concern of Confucian political thought is "order" instead of "virtue". She further explicated that the "order" consists of the "ritual order" and the "basic order".

Through the case of the hegemons in the Spring and Autumn Period, the lecturer explained that the "order" could be achieved through welfare policy, punishment as well as merit-based promotions. In the end, she shared her final thoughts on why order matters by discussing the question of consent as well as comparing Hobbes and the Confucians, with historical continuity highlighted. There were also many engagements during the Q&A session. The audience raised several questions that merged Chinese classical thoughts into the contemporary context, contributing to an inspiring exchange of ideas with the professor. The lecture also aroused students' interests in Chinese classical analects and helped them expand their horizons.

Source: the School of Political Science and Public Administration

Tanslated by: Gan Xinyu, Sang Weilin

Edited by: Xie Tingting