The Tianxia System and the Search for a Common Ground in the Comparative Ethics of War

This paper explores the conclusions of recent research on the ethics of war in Chinese traditional political thought, asking how they have been shaped by understandings of the nature, meaning and significance of global ethical diversity. After outlining the major contours of Chinese traditional ethics of war, we propose that the significance of this material has been understood within the terms of both liberal and communitarian meta-ethical assumptions. These assumptions have shaped how the relationship between Chinese and Western traditions has been understood, limiting this research in unhelpful ways. While liberal assumptions lead to authors discounting the distinctiveness of Chinese traditions, communitarian approaches seek to find common ground between traditions to mitigate the danger of intercultural conflict. The common ground solution is ultimately undermined by the communitarian assumptions that made it seem urgent. In response to these problems, we propose that a more radically communitarian mode of engagement should guide the comparative dimension of research into non-Western ethics of war.