Böcker av Sungmoon Kim

In Confucian Constitutionalism, Sungmoon Kim presents a constitutional theory of democratic self-government that is normatively appealing and politically practicable in East Asia's historically Confucian societies, which are increasingly pluralist, multicultural, and rights sensitive. While Confucian political theorists are preoccupied with how to build a Confucianism-inspired institution that would make a given polity more meritorious, Kim offers a robust normative theory of Confucian constitutionalism--what he calls "Confucian democratic constitutionalism"--with special attention to value pluralism and moral disagreement. Aiming to contribute to both political theory and comparative law, Confucian Constitutionalism explains how Confucian democratic constitutionalism differs from and improves upon liberal legal constitutionalism, political constitutionalism, and Confucian meritocratic constitutionalism.

"This Element aims to critically examine the philosophical thought of Im Yunjidang (1721-93), a female Korean Neo-Confucian philosopher from the Chosæon dynasty (1392-1910), and to present her as a feminist thinker. Unlike most Korean women of her time, Yunjidang had the exceptional opportunity to be introduced to a major philosophical debate among Korean Neo-Confucians, which was focused on two core questions - whether sages and commoners share the same heart-mind and whether the natures of human beings and animals are identical. In the course of engaging in this debate, she was able to reformulate Neo-Confucian metaphysics and the ethics of moral self-cultivation, culminating in her bold ideas of the moral equality between men and women and the possibility of female sagehood. By proposing a "stage approach" to feminism that is also sensitive to the cultural context, this Element shows that Yunjidang's philosophical thought could be best captured in terms of Confucian feminism"--