Dialetheism is the view that there are true contradictions. Classical dialetheism holds further the view that the law of excluded middle is indeed a logical law. Most famous dialetheists, such as G. Priest and J. Beall, are classical dialetheists; they take classical dialetheism to be the only plausible solution to the semantic paradoxes. The main contention of the paper is, however, that their views should be rejected. Based on inspecting Priest’s and Beall’s dialetheist theories from a special perspective, this paper (...) contends that classical dialetheism has no natural and plausible way to assign truth values to various truth-ineliminable sentences, i.e., sentences whose truth-conditions essentially involve the property of being true . Several examples of such truth-ineliminable sentences are given in the paper, and two classical dialetheist strategies for assigning them truth values are inspected. This paper argues that none of these strategies is successful. (shrink)

Customer engagement behavior is a critical success factor for community e-commerce. While many community e-commerce websites are currently improving service quality to enhance customer engagement behavior, little is known about how such e-services affect customer engagement behavior. Building upon the stimulus-organism-response model, this study developed a research model to explain how e-service quality of community e-commerce platform affects customer engagement behavior through customer trust and perceived risk. The research model was empirically evaluated by surveying 326 customers who have shopped through (...) the community e-commerce platforms. The results indicate that e-service quality positively affects customer engagement behavior. Besides, customer trust and perceived risk play a mediating role between e-service quality and customer engagement behavior. This study offers recommendations to managers on how to build an attractive community e-commerce platform to stimulate customer engagement behavior. (shrink)

Richard Rorty's philosophy has two basic commitments: one to postmodernism and the other to liberalism. However, these commitments generate tension. As a postmodernist, he sharply criticizes the Enlightenment; as a liberal, he forcefully defends it. His postmodernist liberalism actually explains liberalism using irrationalism. /// 罗蒂哲学有两个基本承诺，一个是对后现代主义的承诺，一个是对自由主义 的承诺。但是这两种承诺之间存在着紧张关系: 作为后现代主义者，罗蒂对启蒙提 出了强烈的批评; 作为自由主义者，他又在极力地维护启蒙。罗蒂的后现代自由主 义实质上是以非理性主义来解释自由主义。.

In the first part of this paper, we consider several natural axioms in urelement set theory, including the Collection Principle, the Reflection Principle, the Dependent Choice scheme and its generalizations, as well as other axioms specifically concerning urelements. We prove that these axioms form a hierarchy over $\text {ZFCU}_{\text {R}}$ (ZFC with urelements formulated with Replacement) in terms of direct implication. The second part of the paper studies forcing over countable transitive models of $\text {ZFU}_{\text {R}}$. We propose a new (...) definition of ${\mathbb P}$ -names to address an issue with the existing approach. We then prove the fundamental theorem of forcing with urelements regarding axiom preservation. Moreover, we show that forcing can destroy and recover certain axioms within the previously established hierarchy. Finally, we demonstrate how ground model definability may fail when the ground model contains a proper class of urelements. (shrink)

The problem of empty terms is one of the focal issues in analytic philosophy. Russell’s theory of descriptions, a proposal attempting to solve this problem, attracted much attention and is considered a hallmark of the analytic tradition. Scholars of Indian and Buddhist philosophy, e.g., McDermott, Matilal, Shaw and Perszyk, have studied discussions of empty terms in Indian and Buddhist philosophy. But most of these studies rely heavily on the Nyāya or Navya-Nyāya sources, in which Buddhists are portrayed as opponents to (...) be defeated, and thus do not truly reflect Buddhist views on this issue. The present paper will explore how Dignāga, the founder of Buddhist logic, deals with the issue of empty subject terms. His approach is subtle and complicated. On the one hand, he proposes a method of paraphrase that resembles Russell’s theory of descriptions. On the other, by relying on his philosophy of language—the apoha theory, he tends to fall into a panfictionalism. Through the efforts of his follower Dharmakīrti, the latter approach would become more acceptable among Indian and Tibetan Buddhists. Dignāga’s Chinese commentators, who were free from the influence of Dharmakīrti, dealt with the empty term issue in three ways: (1) by adhering to Dignāga’s method of paraphrase; (2) by allowing exceptions for non-implicative negation; and (3) by indicating the propositional attitude of a given proposition. Among these, the third proved most popular. (shrink)

This paper redresses the neglect of interregimatic solidarity—solidarity between collective anti-oppressive struggles in purportedly antithetical regimes—in transnational feminist scholarship. I argue that authoritarian and demostatist regimatic contexts of oppression give rise to regimatically distinct oppressive kinds, which track their regimatic subjects of oppression respectively, and that this fact significantly increases the risk of interregimatic missolidarization in lieu of interregimatic solidarity. In response, we need to cultivate antiauthoritarian resilience, which is both an epistemic virtue and a moral virtue. Epistemically, it helps (...) us navigate a world characterized by the dynamics of authoritarian spillover, demostatist sellout, imperial standoff and capitalist scaleup, comprehend how regimatic oppressions are interconnected, and appreciate the practical import of interregimatic solidarity. Morally, antiauthoritarian resilience helps us discern and discard moral parochialism and cynical moralism, both impeding the exercise of interregimatic solidarity. I conclude with tentative thoughts on when, for whom and to what extent interregimatic solidarity is morally obligatory, if its realization depends on cultivating the virtue of antiauthoritarian resilience. (shrink)

According to an attractive conception of love as attention, discussed by Iris Murdoch, one strives to see one’s beloved accurately and justly. A puzzle for understanding how to love another in this way emerges in cases where more accurate and just perception of the beloved only reveals his flaws and vices, and where the beloved, in awareness of this, strives to escape the gaze of others - including, or perhaps especially, of his loved ones. Though less attentive forms of love (...) may be able to render one’s continued love coherent and justifiable in these cases, they risk further alienating the beloved precisely because they are less attentive and because of the operations of the beloved’s shame. I argue that attentive love is well-suited to alleviate this problem of alienation, but that in order to do so, it must be supplemented with grace. I propose a conception of gracious love as an affectionate love for the qualities of human nature, distinguishing this from a love of humanity, and show how this complex emotion, in being responsive to the complexities of shame, is able to alleviate the problem of alienation. (shrink)

The guise of the good thesis can be understood as an attempt to distinguish between human motivations that are intelligible as desires and those that are not. I propose, first, that we understand the intelligibility at stake here as the kind necessary for the experience of reactive attitudes, both negative and positive, to the behavior and motivations of an agent. Given this, I argue that the thesis must be understood as proposing substantive content restrictions on how human agents perceive objects (...) of their desires; it cannot be a purely formal constraint. Moreover, while proponents of the guise of the good thesis who posit substantive content restrictions on human desire are right to do so, they are mistaken to claim that we always desire the apparently good. Instead, I propose a different limit: the naturally attractive. This alternative to the guise of the good thesis nonetheless captures the compelling idea that human desires are intelligent, quasi-perceptual responses to the world. (shrink)

Since the publication of his book on Zhongyong, Tu Weiming has worked for more than 30 years on an anthropocosmic reconstruction of the Confucian universe, in which self-transformation is defined both as the starting point and as the necessary vehicle for one’s spiritual journey. This article is primarily intended to examine Tu’s attempts to reconstruct Confucian spirituality but further to take a step forward to argue that in the spiritual world as construed by Confucius and Mencius, the experiential functions as (...) transcendental by which the self initiates and empowers the transformative process. Through exploring the spiritual significance of Confucian experiences, this essay will conclude that although “transcendental experience” is only one of many dimensions in other religious or intellectual traditions, it is the most important path for Confucians by which the self is enabled to become fully integrated with ultimate reality. (shrink)

This article examines the puzzling phenomenon that many Chinese liberal intellectuals fervently idolize Donald Trump and embrace the alt-right ideologies he epitomizes. Rejecting ‘pure tactic’ and ‘neoliberal affinity’ explanations, it argues that the Trumpian metamorphosis of Chinese liberal intellectuals is precipitated by their ‘beacon complex’, which has ‘political’ and ‘civilizational’ components. Political beaconism grows from the traumatizing lived experience of Maoist totalitarianism, sanitizes the West and particularly the United States as politically near-perfect, and gives rise to both a neoliberal affinity (...) and a latent hostility toward baizuo. Civilizational beaconism, sharing with its nationalistic counterpart -- civilizational vindicativism -- the heritages of scientific racism and social Darwinism imported in late-Qing, renders the Chinese liberal intelligentsia receptive to anti-immigrant and Islamophobic paranoia, exacerbates its anti-baizuo sentiments, and catalyzes its Trumpian convergence with Chinese non-liberals. (shrink)

_Since arguably Bodhisattva Practice (bodhisattva-carya) is the foundation of Mahayana Buddhist ethics, it is significantly important for Bodhisattva compassion to be compatible with other Buddhist doctrines, specifically with the doctrine of 'no-self ' (anatta). There are two thoughts on the relation between compassion and 'no-self ': they are compatible or incompatibility. Most Buddhist authors accept the former view. However, the principal problem with the two views is that their arguments have not been singled out. So the acceptance or denial of (...) the compatibility may not be well grounded. This paper is to identify and evaluate the arguments for and against the agreeability, and to defend the compatible view_. (shrink)

This highly original work explores the concept of self-awareness or self-consciousness in Buddhist thought. Its central thesis is that the Buddhist theory of self-cognition originated in a soteriological discussion of omniscience among the Mahasamghikas, and then evolved into a topic of epistemological inquiry among the Yogacarins. To illustrate this central theme, this book explores a large body of primary sources in Chinese, Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan, most of which are presented to an English readership for the first time. It makes (...) available important resources for the study of the Buddhist philosophy of mind. (shrink)

This paper calls for a paradigm shift in studying academic dependency, towards the paradigm of brokered dependency. Using Chinese academia as an example, I demonstrate how the neocolonial condition of academic dependency is always mediated through blockage-brokerage mechanisms. The two most salient blockage-brokerage mechanisms of dependency in the Chinese context are linguistic barrier and authoritarian malepistemization, and the effects of the latter consist of three layers: institutional, informational and incorporational. On top of their domestic impacts, those mechanisms jointly exacerbate spectacularized (...) postcoloniality in anglophone-hegemonic global academic publishing. The paradigm of brokered dependency not only represents a more nuanced approach to the study of academic dependency, but also underscores the fact that the dismantling of the neocolonial condition cannot be conceived and pursued in isolation from comprehending and confronting the authoritarian condition, especially when the latter pertains under the disguise of anticolonialism. (shrink)

The parable of the butterfly dream is one of the most interesting and influential passages among Zhuangzi's beautiful writings. This article interprets the butterfly dream from an interdisciplinary approach. The review of mythological and religious sources reveals that the image of the butterfly is widely understood to symbolize the human self or soul. The scientific study of dream experience touches upon the issue of self-consciousness and the sense of two-tiered self. The philosophical and psychological perspectives further highlight the tension between (...) the wu 吾-self and the wo 我-self, self and ego, bodily and spiritual soul, and allow me to test my hypothesis of self-alienation. (shrink)

This study explored the relationship among the emotional labor, psychological capital, and mental health of preschool teachers. A questionnaire survey was conducted on 411 preschool teachers in China. The results revealed the following: One emotional labor strategy had a significant negative effect on mental health, whereas two emotional labor strategies had significant positive effects. The psychological capital of preschool teachers had a complete mediation on the relationship between expression of naturally felt emotions and mental health and between the deep acting (...) and mental health. (shrink)

Abstract Universality, rather than partiality, is the characteristic of Confucian jen. This article puts forward three arguments to clarify confusion of interpretation: (1) that jen, rather than shu, is the main thread running through the whole system of Confucianism, and that by its two procedures of chung and shu, it presents itself as an integration of one's self with others; (2) that jen, as love, does not signify a natural preference, but an ethical refinement of an ordinary feeling of fondness, (...) that it derives from such a feeling but goes beyond it, and that it functions as a universal commitment which begins with family affection but is not limited to it; (3) that jen, as universal love, is deontological in motive, not only in contrast to a mutuality of love but also in opposition to a utilitarianism of love. (shrink)

Two principles regarding agents' specific ability are proposed. The first claims that ordinary agents always lack the ability to do otherwise in the past, while the second principle observes that it is at least possible for some agent to have the ability to perform some action in the past. These two principles further give rise to three desiderata for a true account of ability. Two accounts of ability in the literature—the conditional analysis and the dispositional account—are then examined but they (...) both fail to meet the desiderata simultaneously. A modal principle of ability is motivated at the end. (shrink)

On one predominant conception of virtue, the virtuous agent is, among other things, wholehearted in doing what she believes best. I challenge this condition of wholeheartedness by making explicit the connections between the emotion of boredom and the states of continence and akrasia. An easily bored person is more susceptible to these forms of disharmony because of two familiar characteristics of boredom. First, that we can be – and often are – bored by what it is that we know would (...) be best to do, and second, that occurrent states of boredom tend to give rise to positive interest in performing actions that we know are bad to perform. Moreover, while a person’s susceptibility to boredom can indicate a lack of attentiveness or acuity, or be evidence of a vice such as ingratitude or shallowness, it can in others indicate positive qualities of character, such as perspicacity, liveliness, and certain forms of intelligence. Upon imagining certain bored akratics without the psychological qualities that give rise to their boredom, we will either imagine them without these positive qualities, or with others that – though perhaps psychologically possible – are not clearly better. This yields the result that a person who is continent or even akratic because of her susceptibility to boredom may have a character no less excellent than that of the wholehearted agent. (shrink)

This article aims to summarize the current ethical issues in the field of clinical and counseling psychology and the process of developing professional ethical standards in China. First, through a review of the history of counseling and psychotherapy in China, general background information is provided. Important ethical issues are then discussed based on the results from several empirical studies. Finally, the process of developing the new edition of the Chinese Psychological Society Code of Ethics for Clinical and Counseling Psychology, the (...) main contents as well as the considerations taken into account in the development of this code are presented. (shrink)

To act akratically is to act, knowingly, against what you judge is best for you to do, and it is traditionally assumed that to do this is to be weak-willed. Some have rejected this identification of akrasia and weakness of will, arguing that the latter is instead best understood as a matter of abandoning one's reasonable resolutions. This paper also rejects the identification of akrasia and weakness of will, but argues that this alternative conception is too broad, and that weakness (...) of will is best understood in relation to certain kinds of pain and pleasure. Moreover, the phenomenon of strong-willed akrasia, cases in which a person must exhibit strength of will to do precisely what she judges she should not do, suggests that strength of will is an executive virtue, and that being weak-willed is just one way (among others) in which a person can fail to manifest this virtue. (shrink)

Parmenides expelled nonbeing from the realm of knowledge and forbade us to think or talk about it. But still there has been a long tradition of nay-sayings throughout the history of Western and Eastern philosophy. Are those philosophers talking about the same nonbeing or nothing? If not, how do their concepts of nothing differ from each other? Could there be different types of nothing? Surveying the traditional classifications of nothing or nonbeing in the East and West have led me to (...) develop a typology of nothing that consists of three main types: 1) privative nothing, commonly known as absence; 2) negative nothing, the altogether not or absolute nothing; and finally 3) original nothing, the nothing that is equivalent to being. I will test my threefold typology of nothing by comparing the similarities and differences between the conceptions of nothing in Heidegger, Daoism and Buddhism. With this study, I hope that I will clarify some confusion in the understanding of nothing in Heidegger, Daoism and Buddhism, and shed light on the central philosophical issue of “what there is not”. (shrink)

ABSTRACT What is the ethical significance of the suffering of nonhuman animals? For many, the answer is simple. Such suffering has clear moral significance: nonhuman animal suffering is suffering, suffering is something bad, and the fact that it is bad gives us reason to alleviate or prevent it. The practical problem that remains is how to do this most efficiently or effectively. I argue that this does not exhaust the ethical significance of certain evils, once we consider how the existence (...) of those evils may detract from the meaning of human life, even on fully “naturalistic” conceptions of meaning in life. I will draw a distinction between what I will call “spiritual” problems and “moral” problems and consider why moral philosophers may be well suited to addressing both problems, as long as the domain of the ethical is not taken to be exhausted by the domain of the moral. Finally, I will elaborate on why marking a distinction between these problems—the moral and the spiritual—may help illuminate some disagreements between Utilitarians and their opponents about the ethical significance of the suffering of nonhuman animals. (shrink)

Philosophers are now wary of conflating the “fittingness” or accuracy of an emotion with any form of moral assessment of that emotion. Justin D’Arms and Daniel Jacobson, who originally cautioned against this “conflation”, also warned philosophers not to infer that an emotion is inaccurate from the fact that feeling it would be morally inappropriate, or that it is accurate from the fact that feeling it would be morally appropriate. Such inferences, they argue, risk committing “the moralistic fallacy”, a mistake they (...) claim is widespread throughout the work of contemporary and historical moral philosophers. I argue that many basic and familiar forms of moral assessment of the emotions are not subject to these arguments. I illustrate this by reconsidering the idea that to assess an emotion as “fitting” is to assess it as what a virtuous person would feel. After showing how assessments akin to this “virtue-theoretical” notion of fit may be prevalent even outside of the Aristotelian tradition, I suggest some more charitable and philosophically productive interpretations of the philosophical views of the emotions that D’Arms and Jacobson criticize, and argue that we cannot coherently theorize about the fittingness conditions of the emotions in a morally neutral way. (shrink)

While I find Huaping Lu-Adler’s excavation of Kant’s long-overlooked linguistic Orientalism both enlightening and thought-provoking, I disagree with her diagnosis of its theoretical and practical relevance. On the one hand, while I agree that Kant’s positionality renders all his writings and teachings presumptively impactful, there is reason to doubt that his peculiar construction of the linguistic Oriental Other had much actual impact on his disciples. On the other hand, while I agree that the Kantian ideal of public reason is inapt (...) for rectifying the linguistic-epistemic injustices of global knowledge production, I disagree on why it is so. In particular, I argue for a shift in theoretical and practical focuses, from linguistic biases and prejudices, to the structural epistemic constraints of linguistic diversity, as well as to other political-structural conditions shaping global knowledge production. (shrink)

From the tape-recording of naturally occurring Chinese psychotherapy sessions, this article explores how repeated occurrences of resistance are managed in the course of interactional sequences and the participants’ actions within these sequences. By employing the methods of conversation analysis, we discuss the main discursive strategies employed by the clients to express their resistance and investigate how the therapist manages this. We find that clients show their resistance to the therapist’s questions in four ways: keeping silence, providing minimal response, making non-answer (...) responses, and being over-talkative. Persistent asking is the main technique we identify in the data for the therapist to manage the resistance; in the meantime, asking questions in a stepwise way, making requests after facing resistance to questions, active retreating and reformulating of the client’s words are employed as subsidiary techniques. The successful management of resistance leads to a smooth sequential development of the psychotherapy, while inappropriate strategies might result in a halt or even breakdown of the therapeutic work. In psychotherapy, resistance is a result of the shared interaction between client and therapist. It is such a complex issue that, in order to understand and manage it, we also take into consideration the broader social and cultural context in which it occurs. (shrink)

School-aged children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) are at greater risk for physical inactivity, lower global self-worth, and internalizing problems, such as depression and anxiety. Based on the Environmental Stress Hypothesis (ESH), recent research has shown that physical inactivity and lower global self-worth sequentially mediate the relationship between DCD and internalizing problems, suggesting that DCD leads to lower levels of physical activity, which in turn, leads to lower levels of global self-worth, and ultimately, a greater amount of internalizing problems. However, (...) physical activity and global self-worth may also buffer (i.e., moderate) the adverse effect of DCD on internalizing problems. To date, this has yet to be tested. Participants were 1206 children aged 12-14 years (611 boys, 79 with probable DCD (pDCD)). All children received assessments of motor coordination, physical activity, global self-worth, and internalizing problems. Children with pDCD were less physically active, had lower self-worth, and experienced more internalizing problems compared to typically developing (TD) children (p’s <.05). Furthermore, the moderated moderating effect (three-way interaction) of physical activity and global self-worth was also evident (p <.05), indicating that internalizing problems in both TD and pDCD groups decreased with concurrent increases in physical activity and global self-worth. Importantly, when compared to TD children, increases in physical activity and global self-worth were associated with a greater reduction in internalizing problems among children with pDCD. The findings support several pathways in the ESH and highlight that, in addition to improving motor skills, interventions should also target both physical activity and global self-worth to mitigate potential mental health issues for children with motor difficulties. (shrink)

Online reading is developing at an increasingly rapid rate, but the debate concerning whether learning is more effective when using hypertexts than when using traditional linear texts is still persistent. In addition, several researchers stated that online reading comprehension always starts with a question, but little empirical evidence has been gathered to investigate this claim. This study used eye-tracking technology and retrospective think aloud technique to examine online reading behaviors of fifth-graders ( N = 50). The participants were asked to (...) read four texts on the website. The present study employed a three-way mixed design: 2 (reading ability: high vs. low) × 2 (reading goals: with vs. without) × 2 (text types: hypertext vs. linear text). The dependent variables were eye-movement indices and the frequencies of using online reading strategy. The results show that fifth-graders, irrespective of their reading ability, found it difficult to navigate the non-linear structure of hypertexts when searching for and integrating information. When they read with goals, they adjusted their reading speed and the focus of their attention. Their offline reading ability also influenced their online reading performance. These results suggest that online reading skills and strategies have to be taught in order to enhance the online reading abilities of elementary-school students. (shrink)

Buddhist teachings and practices can be viewed as a journey of soteriological transformation, where language, as a tool for the analysis of views, occupies a place of special significance and importance. This article examines how the concept of non-duality, from the Madhyamaka perspective, has served as a powerful rhetorical device with the explicit aim of fostering soteriological transformation. Among the various expressions representative of the Madhyamaka perspective, two are particularly explored in this article for their facilitation of soteriological transformation: the (...) expression of ‘neither a dharma nor a not-dharma’ and the teaching that ‘one should let go even of dharmas, still more so not-dharmas’ . I argue that the Madhyamaka expression of ‘neither A nor not-A’ is hardly ever just about conforming to any linguistic conventions. It is about gaining liberation from linguistic conventions and unexamined remarks. (shrink)

L.A. Paul argues that “transformative experiences” challenge our hopes to live up to an ideal that she believes is upheld within western, wealthy cultures. If these experiences reveal information to us about the world and ourselves that is in principle unavailable to us before we undergo them, it seems that there is no hope for us to be rational, authentic and autonomous masters of our own lives. Supposing that Paul is right about this, how concerned should we be? Here, I (...) challenge the ideal of "rational mastery" that guides Paul’s project, and which must be granted in order to motivate the philosophical challenge purportedly generated by experiences that drastically change who we are and what we know. (shrink)

Children's emotional attachments to toys foster trust and stability, impacting psychological growth. This study evaluates the concept of emotional attachments in children's toy designs. Employing a grounded theory methodology, it seeks to establish a conceptual framework for understanding the elements and principles of emotional attachments in toys. By shedding light on the factors that develop children’s emotional attachments with their toys, this research aims to inform the design and development processes of toys that promote healthy emotional development. The findings suggest (...) that integrating a conceptual model of emotional attachments into the design processes can lead to the creation of toys that facilitate children's holistic growth and offer them positive experiences of emotional connection. Furthermore, the study proposes a conceptual framework for integrating emotional attachment into children's toy design and development processes. This has profound implications for toy designers, teachers, manufacturers, and education researchers aiming to enhance children's emotional well-being through play. (shrink)

We replicated and extended the findings of Yao et al. [(2018). Differential emotional processing in concrete and abstract words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 44(7), 1064–1074] regarding the interaction of emotionality, concreteness, and imageability in word processing by measuring eye fixation times on target words during normal reading. A 3 (Emotion: negative, neutral, positive) × 2 (Concreteness: abstract, concrete) design was used with 22 items per condition, with each set of six target words matched across conditions in (...) terms of word length and frequency. Abstract (e.g. shocking, reserved, fabulous) and concrete (e.g. massacre, calendar, treasure) target words appeared (separately) within contextually neutral, plausible sentences. Sixty-three participants each read all 132 experimental sentences while their eye movements were recorded. Analyses using Gamma generalised linear mixed models revealed significant effects of both Emotion and Concreteness on all fixation measures, indicating faster processing for emotional and concrete words. Additionally, there was a significant Emotion × Concreteness interaction which, critically, was modulated by Imageability in early fixation time measures. Emotion effects were significantly larger in higher-imageability abstract words than in lower-imageability ones, but remained unaffected by imageability in concrete words. These findings support the multimodal induction hypothesis and highlight the intricate interplay of these factors in the immediate stages of word processing during fluent reading. (shrink)

In “Confucianism and Same-Sex Marriage,” published recently in Politics and Religion, Professor Tongdong Bai argues for a “moderate Confucian position on same-sex marriage,” one that supports its legalization and yet endeavors “to use public opinion and social and political policies to encourage heterosexual marriages, and to prevent same-sex marriages from becoming the majority form of marriages” (Bai 2021:146). Against the backdrop of downright homophobia prevalent among vocal Confucians in mainland China today, Bai claims that his pro-legalization rendition “show[s] a different (...) version of Confucianism that challenges the received perception of Confucianism that it is deeply conservative, a perception that often lies at the core of the rejection of its contemporary relevance, especially by the so-called ‘liberals’ in China and elsewhere” (Bai 2021:133). Furthermore, Bai claims that his moderate Confucianism is normatively preferrable to “the typical liberal or individualist position” of a marriage equality supporter, because the specter of polygamy – the conservative trope of invoking polygamy as a reductio ad absurdum against same-sex marriage – imposes “a serious challenge” to liberals but not to moderate Confucians (Bai 2021:146, 153). -/- Both of Bai’s claims falter upon scrutiny, however. Granted, it is applaudable that Bai tries to dissuade his more conservative Confucian colleagues from opposing the legalization of same-sex marriage. But as Section 1 of this Response will show, the alternative rendition of Confucianism he presents, along with the way he presents it, is premised on a highly contested conception of what shared Confucian values are; does injustice to Confucians who embrace marriage equality more unreservedly (i.e., without caveats à la Bai); fails to produce new arguments that “enrich the theoretical basis for same-sex marriage” (Bai 2021:133); and, ironically, reinforces – rather than “challenges” – the “received perception” of Confucianism as deeply conservative. Meanwhile, Section 2 will show that Bai’s comparison between liberalism and moderate Confucianism relies both upon an apparent unfamiliarity with the extensive and nuanced liberal discussions on polygamy, and upon fallacious methods of assessing comparative normative valence. -/- Finally, Section 3 will offer some concluding thoughts from the perspective of decolonial theory, examining the dynamic of spectacularized postcoloniality that propels the production and consumption of dubious theoretical projects like Bai’s. As it turns out, this case serves not only as a cautionary tale of how not to conduct comparative normative theorizing, but also as a cautionary tale of how not to let the spectacle of postcoloniality derail the pursuit of academic decolonization. (shrink)