Confucianizing Modernity and “Modernizing” Confucianism: Environmentalism and the Need for a Confucian Positive Argument for Social Change

Abstract

As a student of the environmental crisis and political theory since the 1970s, and teacher of courses encompassing these subjects on both coasts since the 1980s, I am well aware of the great desire by students and the general public to know how humans can live so as not to threaten the ecological health of the planet and all of its living inhabitants. After the latest detailed scientific data regarding the litany of environmental threats to Earth, from global warming to water and air pollution, and so on (as described for China in the preceding chapters), are presented to classes and community audiences, the natural anticipated response follows with such questions as: ``Now what do we do?'' ``How should we live so we do not put the environment at risk?'' Or finally, ``How can we humans, all 6.6 billion of us, live sustainably now, and in the future, when the numbers of humans will be substantially higher?'' I quickly would like to add to this list of reactive ecological concerns a crucial normative political point that is often omitted from class and public discussion as well as from the professional scientific ecological literature, and that pertains to social justice. While environmental sustainability is necessary for all social orders to endure, it must be accompanied, in my view, by an equal emphasis upon social justice. The ideal of an environmentally healthy society is not politically or morally sufficient if social justice is absent.