Comparison of Wang Yangming and Kant on their moral philosophy

Abstract

In the history of Chinese and Western philosophy, Wang Yangming and Immanuel Kant were concerned with parallel issues in moral philosophy. They established their moral philosophical systems with comparable conceptions of Liang-chi (conscience or an innate sense of right and wrong) and free will as their core, and showed analogous views in prioritizing the moral subject. Due to divergences between Chinese and Western philosophy, and their forms of argumentation and conceptualization, there are significant differences between them. I will analyze how, nonetheless, the categories established by Kant are important to the interpretation of Wang Yangming’s moral philosophy. In this thesis, I will first analyze the ethical subject in the moral philosophical systems of Kant and Wang Yangming, and secondly discuss the value and significance of their self-cultivation theories, which is the original contribution of this thesis.