Abstract
The goal of this chapter is to explain how consideration of Confucius’s philosophy and the two-and-a-half millennia and evolving tradition of commentary and development of Confucian thought can advance environmental political thinking and policy. I will maintain that Confucianism can provide an intellectual framework for changing China’s and the world’s current unsustainable path to more effective environmental thought and decision-making. This objective may provoke fundamental skepticism that needs to be addressed at the outset: why prescribe an ancient Chinese philosopher who is not part of modern Western thought nor associated with the environment? Why deviate from the longstanding practice of Western exclusivity regarding the environment and examine Confucius’s and his followers’ thought regarding this important topic?
The Master said: “Both keeping past teachings alive and understanding the present—someone able to do this is worthy of being a teacher.”
Confucius, Analects, 2.11; Slingerland 2003:111
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© 2013 Bingqiang Ren and Huisheng Shou
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Kassiola, J.J. (2013). China’s Environmental Crisis and Confucianism: Proposing a Confucian Green Theory to Save the Environment. In: Ren, B., Shou, H. (eds) Chinese Environmental Governance. Environmental Politics and Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137343680_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137343680_11
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