Traditional Values and Virtues in Social Life Today

The transition from traditional to modern society which has lasted some four centuries draws different regions of human society into an almost synchronous process of globalization. Compared to traditional society, however, modernization is also a utilitarian pursuit of material interests and desires, which inevitably has led to a loss of traditional morality.

Alasdair MacIntyre has even described our times as coming 'after virtue'. Thus the process of globalization inevitably raises such questions as

• the relation of values and virtues
• the relation of both to culture and religion,
• whether in contemporary society traditional moral virtues have lost their vitality, and if so
• how to renew these by values as foundations for a contemporary moral life.

 With him, since the 1980s many ethicists in the West have gone back to Aristotle to advocate a 'virtue ethics', which has now become an important contemporary school. For China this raises the question of the position of traditional values and virtues in contemporary social life; do they respond to the moral issues of modern society; and to what extent do changing values provide the additional resources needed for a global ethics.

All this calls for research in ethics that looks not only back to the tradition in response to issues of modernization and globalization, but must examine the human predicament in contemporary society and rediscover the significance of human values and virtues for life today.

Logistics

The conference will be organized by the Center for the Study of Ethics, Renmin University, Beijing, China, where it will be held, and the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (RVP). Scholars of different cultural traditions, East and West, are invited to come together to discuss the status and fate of traditional values and virtues in contemporary society, and how to evolve them for our global times.

Contact: Professor Gong Qun ([email protected] or [email protected]).

There is no application fee. Travel will be covered by the participants or their home institutions.