Abstract

This paper summarizes key aspects of Zhu Xi’s virtue theory, as it is presented by Professor Yong Huang, and it explains why Huang views this theory as an example of agent-focused naturalistic moral realism. The paper points out some apparent gaps in Huang’s argument, which create some lack of clarity as to whether Zhu Xi’s theory is genuinely a kind of moral realism and whether it is relevantly naturalistic. Despite these worries, however, Huang has shown that Zhu Xi’s theory is an example of a kind of naturalized virtue theory that would bear further study. Zhu Xi deserves recognition as a member of a venerable tradition of naturalistic theorizing about moral virtue that leads from Aristotle to contemporary philosophers such as Philippa Foot.