Abstract for the Kant in Asia
International Conference
at Hong Kong Baptist
University
20-23 May 2009
A.T. Nuyen, “The Kantian Good Will and the Confucian
Sincere Will”
“Sincerity”
seems to be central to Confucian ethics and yet it is not easy to understand its
role in the Confucian ethical framework, as the discussions of it in the
Confucian texts are scant and unsystematic. In this paper I argue that the
notion of sincerity can be best understood in terms of Kant’s notion of the
good will. Thus understood, we can see how sincerity functions in the
cultivation of the self, and see that the cultivation of the self is
essentially moral cultivation. Like the good will in Kant, the Confucian
sincere will is absolutely good, being that which makes the virtues virtuous.
It seems that the two things that fill Kant’s mind with awe and admiration, the
starry heavens above and the moral law (that is accepted by the good will) within, are the same two things that fill the Confucian
mind, with the same awe and admiration.