LAUSR

Sungmoon Kim’s Public Reason Confucianism: Democratic Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in East Asia offers new perspectives and an innovative alternative to one of the most important philosophical and political discussions concerning East Asia today. As in the prequel, Confucian Democracy in East Asia: Theory and Practice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), arguments provided by Kim are well researched and engage extensively with major theories in the current debate. In this book, Kim is mainly in dialogue with the works of Daniel Bell, Joseph Chan, Jonathan Quong, John Rawls, and Joseph Raz. Both in terms of the content and structure, Public Reason Confucianism is systematic, neatly organized, tight, and crisp. Striking a tricky balance between summarizing relevant theories and developing his own responses, Kim’s book is generally accessible to non-experts of political thought, while at the same time being mainly geared towards those familiar with this discussion. It is not, however, intended for an audience unfamiliar with Confucianism. The title and subtitle already portray what Kim is advocating, namely a democratic perfectionism styled by certain Confucian values (most prominently filial piety). Democracy is defined here as “collective self-government of free and equal citizens” (p. 18). Accordingly, democratic perfectionism refers to “the public promotion of particular cultural values in the service of democratic citizenship under the normative constraints of core democratic principles” (p. 18). Kim’s Confucian perfectionism is not, however, simply a comprehensive perfectionism; it operates in harmony with pluralism through its unique adoption of the Confucian way of life and the particular type of democracy Kim endorses. The point here is somewhat complex, and Kim revisits it repeatedly throughout the book. Perhaps the clearest articulation is found in Chapter 4, and defined (as is often the case in Public Reason Confucianism) in contrast to Joseph Chan’s moderate Confucian perfectionism: