Abstract
This chapter argues for a Confucian perspective on social responsibility for health by commenting on Article 14 of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. It first indicates that Confucian tradition is supportive of the general ideal that it is a central purpose of governments to promote health and social development for their people. Then it points out that Confucianism cannot accept a radical egalitarian view of social responsibility for global health care. Rather Confucianism would adhere to a view-based concern to promote an adequate minimum of health care for all the people in the world. The chapter concludes by offering two specific suggestions on how to improve health care globally.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The Mencius is selected for the sake of offering this account not only because the Mencius has been taken as one of the four basic Confucian books ever since the Song dynasty of China in the eleventh century but also because it provides a detailed account of the central Confucian principles directing the policy formulation and operation of Confucian benevolent governance, as I will show in the text. Presumably, at least regarding moral issues around health and health-relevant services, this account of Confucian benevolent governance should essentially be uncontroversial among various Confucian classics, schools, and figures.
- 2.
This service conception “is clearly in opposition to the ownership interpretation of tianming, namely, that tianming grants the ruler an ownership right to the land and people” (Chan 2014, p.31).
- 3.
All my citations of the Mencius in this essay are adapted from Mencius 2003, translated by D.C.Lau.
- 4.
See Fan 2010 for more detailed argument for this line of consideration.
- 5.
King Wen was a sage king living in the early Zhou Dynasty (c. 1000 BCE), whom both Confucius and Mencius highly admired.
- 6.
For similar justificatory considerations, see Wang 1999 in which he provides a relevant defense of the Confucian duty of filial piety.
- 7.
For a powerful argument for the moral inevitability of a multitier system, see Engelhardt 1996 (esp. pp. 398–404)
References
Beauchamp, T., and J. Childress. 2013. Principles of biomedical ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Chan, J. 2014. Confucian perfectionism: A political philosophy for modern times. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Engelhardt, H.T., Jr. 1996. The foundations of bioethics. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
Fan, R. 2010. Reconstructionist Confucianism: Rethinking morality after the west. Dordrecht: Springer.
Mencius 2003. Mencius: A bilingual edition. Trans. D. C. Lau. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.
UNESCO. 2005. Declaration in bioethics and human rights. Available at http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=31058&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html. Accessed 20 Dec 2014.
Wang, Q. 1999. The Confucian filial obligation and care for aged parents. In Confucian bioethics, ed. Ruiping Fan, 235–256. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fan, R. (2018). Global Standards of Minimum Decency in Health: Social Responsibility and Health Care from a Confucian Perspective. In: Tham, J., Durante, C., García Gómez, A. (eds) Religious Perspectives on Social Responsibility in Health . Advancing Global Bioethics, vol 9. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71849-1_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71849-1_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-71848-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-71849-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)