Ethics hum 420

The concept of Xiao “Filial Piety” (respect for parents, elders, and ancestors) is a core teaching in Confucian Ethics. It begins in the home and extends to school, politics, and society as a whole. It is the bedrock foundational teaching that informs and maintains the entirety of the Asian way of life, as promulgated in the Analects of Confucius. Watch my embed video, shot on location in Xi’an China during my sabbatical research fellowship. Read the attached Wall Street Journal article on “Why American Students Need Chinese Schools” and answer the question: What might we learn in the West, especially in terms of education, from Confucian Ethics? How might this pose a challenge to us? What are your own personal thoughts/feelings about this ethical paradigm?

Further:

1. Professor Innocent Onyewuenyi in his treatise, “Is There an African Philosophy?” critiques Western philosophy as a disease that “divorced thought from life.”What does he mean by this?
2. What is the main difference between Western and African philosophy in their respective concepts of “being” (metaphysics/ontology). How is this difference significant?
3. What is the main difference between Western and African philosophy in their respective concepts of “knowledge” (epistemology). How is this difference significant?
4. Most importantly, what is the difference between Western and African philosophy in their respective concepts of “ethics” (axilogy). How is this difference significant?

Video links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkHmoqHwaCU

https://lynn.instructuremedia.com/embed/d476cc27-05ff-4d11-91da-35039b61f13f-1041

Other info to help

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2008/07/18/sweeping-the-graves/29/