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This book is about the development of Chinese ideas of human rights, and about what we in the contemporary world should make of different cultures having different moral ideas. It elaborates a plausible kind of moral pluralism and demonstrates that Chinese ideas of human rights do indeed have distinctive characteristics

Abstract
Roy Tseng's Confucian Liberalism: Mou Zongsan and Hegelian Liberalism is a tremendously significant work because of its improved understandings of some of Mou's most central ideas and the opportunities it creates toward a full and appealing articulation of democratic, progressive Confucianism. After emphasizing some of Tseng's key insights, I probe an ambiguity that might undercut Tseng's contribution to progressive Confucianism. Is Mou's view, or Tseng's, a Confucian-flavored liberalism? While there are multiple, legitimate ways to draw on Tseng's achievements, the one most apt for Confucians today is not best characterized as "Confucian liberalism."

Angle criticizes the senselessness of trying to separate the Chinese from the Western tradition when in fact the richness of these traditions consists precisely in their ability to integrate new and foreign influences. He goes on to describe the specific Chinese reception of and contribution to theories of liberal rights, as well as the ways in which Chinese thinkers have been adapting these ideas to their own situations. Focusing in particular on the work of Mou Zongsan, he indicates how the Chinese discourse has a great deal to offer both reformers within China as well as those abroad who are struggling with the contradictions between politics and ethics, individual rights and the common good. In their attempt to break down an East vs. West dichotomy, he outlines a particular Chinese pathway toward freedoms enjoyed in other parts of the world. If the Chinese can thereby provide models for those outside of China to follow, his analysis suggests that it will be due to the courage and commitment of those inside and outside the Party to find ways of allowing a popular expression of values. Adapted from the source document.

There are a number of reasons for thinking that human rights and harmony, two values much discussed with regard to contemporary China, make poor bedfellows. They emerge from different traditions and may apply in different ways: human rights setting a minimal standard and harmony articulating an elusive ideal. In addition, might not harmony demand the sacrifice of one person's rights in order to achieve some larger objective? Does not individual striving to protect one's human rights smack of disharmony? Drawing on both Confucian and contemporary Western philosophy, however, this essay argues that a simultaneous commitment to human rights and to harmony is both coherent and desirable.

Are there any coherent and defensible alternatives to liberal democracy? The author examines the possibility that a reformed democratic centralism—the principle around which China's current polity is officially organized—might be legitimate, according to both an inside and an outside perspective. The inside perspective builds on contemporary Chinese political theory; the outside perspective critically deploys Rawls's notion of a "decent society" as its standard. Along the way, the author pays particular attention to the kinds and degree of pluralism a decent society can countenance, and to the specific institutions in China that might enable the realization of a genuine and/or decent democratic centralism. The author argues that by considering both inside and outside perspectives, and the degrees to which they inter-penetrate and critically inform one another, we can engage in a global philosophy that neither pre-judges alternative political traditions nor falls prey to false conceptual barriers.