Huey-li Li, professor of educational philosophy in the LeBron James Family Foundation College of Education, recently published a chapter titled “Rethinking Confucian Values in the Global Age” in X. Liu & W. Ma (Eds.). (2018). Confucianism Reconsidered (pp. 221-236). Albany, N.Y., State University of New York Press.
In the chapter, Li notes that academic discourse on Confucianism, to a large extent, appears to be compartmentalized and polarized. As a result, there has been a tendency to romanticize ecologically congenial Confucian values (i.e., an organic worldview and reverence for nature) without attending to how Confucianism might have facilitated rapid economic development at the cost of ecological decline.
To engender a more inclusive understanding of Confucian values, Li presents a critical inquiry into the intricate and complicated conceptual connections among Confucianism, economic development and ecological decline. Drawing insight from Confucianism, the chapter further explores an ecologically congenial pedagogy that is grounded in an ethical recognition of the interconnection between cosmic order and human morality in the global age.