The Prospect of Pragmatic Confucian Democracy: Reply to Dryzek, Macedo, Ackerly, and Li

Before responding to Professors Dryzek, Macedo, Ackerly, and Li, I begin by reminding the readers of this symposium of the central aim of Democracy After Virtue. After the publication of my first book, Confucian Democracy in East Asia: Theory and Practice, I received two sets of comments from my critics. On the one hand, my Confucian critics wondered how "Confucian" my idea of Confucian democracy is, given my general embrace of liberal rights and democratic institutions. My second book, Public Reason Confucianism: Democratic Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in East Asia, was motivated to offer a rejoinder to this pressing question by articulating my normative vision of democratic Confucianism, a Confucianism that has been negotiated with and modified by democratic rights, values, institutions, and practices. On the other hand, my democratic critics raised a question about whether there is any generic mode of democracy in my idea of Confucian democracy, if we bracket the adjective of "Confucian." Though I believe that democratic Confucianism (or what I call public reason Confucianism) is practically inseparable from its democratic underpinning, Democracy After Virtue aims to present pragmatic democracy (roughly in the Deweyan sense) as a conception of democracy that best describes the nature of Confucian democracy. I offer this conception of democracy as an alternative to both Western-style liberal democracy and the Confucian political meritocracy recently proposed by several prominent Confucian political theorists.¹ As democratic theorists and political philosophers, Professors Dryzek, Macedo, Ackerly, and Li raise many important questions about my idea of pragmatic Confucian democracy, and I am deeply grateful for their criticisms and suggestions, which I believe will be useful in further developing my democratic vision.

Response to Dryzek

In comparison with the existing literature of contemporary Confucian political theory, one of the distinctive features of pragmatic Confucian democracy is that it begins as an effective response to what I call "the circumstances of modern politics in East Asia" (hereafter "the circumstances"). In the book, I argue that modern East Asia is defined by the complete collapse of absolute monarchy, displacement of the Mandate of Heaven as the ultimate source of political authority, deconstruction of Confucian virtue politics and its monistic ethical perfectionism, and firm entrenchment of the republican political condition in which people are no longer understood as passive subjects known as min 民 but rather exist as free and equal citizens. These new sociological facts combine to create "the circumstances" marked by value pluralism and moral disagreement increasingly characteristic of contemporary East Asian societies. Professor Dryzek's comments center around whether my understanding of "the circumstances" has empirical support, how it has affected the way I construct pragmatic Confucian democracy, and whether a more empirically grounded pragmatic Confucian democracy would be more robust in theory and practice.

In Professor Dryzek's view, my pragmatic Confucian democracy is largely underpinned by some undeniable facts (but not necessarily "better facts," as none of them, as he sees it, are grounded in good political science) and one stylized fact, namely the fact of pluralism. Professor Dryzek argues that the combination of these "facts" renders the three key components of pragmatic Confucian democracy—pragmatism, Confucianism, and democracy—"thin": pragmatism is not assimilated in a full and demanding Deweyan "Great Community" sense; Confucianism is not assimilated in any full sense; and democracy is assimilated not in Barber's sense of "strong democracy" but rather in terms set by the fact that largely defines the existing democracies in East Asia. As Professor Dryzek puts it, pragmatic Confucian democracy is "thinly pragmatic, thinly Confucian, and thinly democratic."

Apparently, Professor Dryzek offers this interpretation of pragmatic Confucian democracy as its weakness, though, as I will argue shortly, what he sees as a weakness can actually work to its benefit. Rather than delving into this "weakness," however, Professor Dryzek is more eager to provide some practical suggestions that can improve the theory and practice of pragmatic Confucian democracy. But before addressing Professor Dryzek's suggestions, let me clarify the nature of pragmatic Confucian democracy.

First, as Professor Dryzek rightly notes, pragmatic Confucian democracy is indeed not fully...