Moral Agency in Eastern and Western Thought: Perspectives on Crafting Character

This volume explores how individuals use moral agency to craft the moral dispositions and moral capabilities needed for living well-lived lives. It draws on Eastern and Western philosophical and ethical traditions to formulate and address key issues concerning character development and moral agency.

In both Eastern and Western traditions, the complexities of shaping an individual’s moral agency focus on sustained processes of inner self-cultivation. The chapters in this volume highlight the ways in which one is to manage and direct one’s desires and aspirations, and what is to count as the source of guidance for a well-lived life. They engage with key figures and traditions in the history of Eastern and Western philosophy, including Confucian, Buddhist, and Western sources, from Aristotle to Kant. The juxtaposition of sources from the different parts of the world highlights striking similarities and significant contrasts and provides rich conceptual resources for further exploration of these issues. The volume provides a broader, deeper pursuit of central issues of moral psychology and ethics in ways that highlight the inexhaustible resources in these traditions. The focus on character is a way to draw together perspectives on ethical life, theories of human agency, views of fundamental, life-guiding values, and relations between individuals and society and how persons see their place in the world.

Moral Agency in Eastern and Western Thought will appeal to scholars and advanced students working on virtue ethics, moral psychology, comparative philosophy, and history of philosophy.

Jonathan Jacobs (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics at John Jay College/CUNY. He is also a member of the Doctoral Faculty of Philosophy at CUNY. His most recent books are The Liberal State and Criminal Sanction: Seeking Justice and Civility, (Oxford University Press 2020) and Criminology and Moral Philosophy: Empirical Methods and the Study of Values (Routledge 2022). Jacobs has held Fulbright Scholar, NEH, and Earhart Foundation grants, and has been a Visiting Professor or Visiting Fellow at University of Edinburgh, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hebrew University, University of St. Andrews, Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies, and is a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. He is also the editor of the journal Criminal Justice Ethics.

Heinz-Dieter Meyer (PhD, Cornell University) is Professor of education at State University of New York (Albany). He has been Harman Fellow at Harvard University and received a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) award. He has taught at Goettingen University and been Visiting Professor at Penn State University, Beijing University, Boston University, and the East-West Institute (Honolulu). His recent publications include Knowledge and Civil Society (with Glueckler and Suarsana), 2021, and The Design of the University: German, American, and ’World Class’ (Routledge 2017).