Richard Kim - Confucianism and the Philosophy of Well-Being

Despite its relatively small size, this book took many years to complete. My study of contemporary theories of well-being began while working on my dissertation. Accordingly, I should begin by thanking my wonderful advisor, David Solomon. He was an exemplary advisor: generous, kind, and broad-minded, with a keen eye for spotting what is (and isnt) deep or interesting.

The trajectory of my research was, to my great benefit, reshaped when I took up a postdoctoral research fellowship at the City University of Hong Kong to work with the great PJ Ivanhoe on Korean and comparative philosophy. During these years I studied early Confucianism and Korean Neo-Confucianism, learning much from the wisdom of PJ, who taught me so much of what I know of East Asian philosophy. I am greatly in his debt. I also had the great fortune of meeting many terrific scholars during this period, including Sungmoon Kim, Ruiping Fan, Eirik Harris, Owen Flanagan, Youngsun Back, Hsin-wen Lee, and Wenqing Zhao. I am grateful to all of them for both friendship and intellectual nourishment.

I also met a number of terrific philosophers during my time as a postdoctoral fellow at Saint Louis University for the Happiness and Well-Being Project directed by Dan Haybron, including Jason Chen, Jonathan Reibsamen, and Matt Shea. I owe the greatest debt to Dan, whose outstanding work on happiness and well-being continues to inspire me. He is also one of the kindest, most considerate people I have ever met.

For discussion and written comments for this book, I must thank Steve Angle, Youngsun Back, Anne Baril, Tom Carson, Tim Connolly, Eirik Harris, Dan Haybron, PJ Ivanhoe, Micah Lott, Hui-chieh Loy, Fr. James Dominic Rooney, OP, Justin Tiwald, and Xueying Wang. Their comments saved me from many blunders and dramatically improved the quality of this book. I am truly grateful to all of them. A special thanks also goes to Gina Lebkuecher, who also offered substantive comments and also did excellent work in editing the manuscript.

I am also very grateful to both Adam Johnson and Tony Bruce at Rout-ledge, who displayed great patience as I took many more years to complete this book than I had anticipated.

While working on this book I was generously supported by an Academy of Korean Studies Grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST) (AKS-2011-AAA-2102) and the John Templeton Foundation. The City University of Hong Kong, Saint Louis University, and Loyola University Chicago (where I am currently employed) all provided me with a supportive environment for scholarly work.

Some of the chapters include material that I have published elsewhere, and I thank the publishers for allowing me to reprint that material with modifications. The publications Ive incorporated into this book include Well-Being and Confucianism in the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Well-Being, ed. Guy Fletcher (Routledge); Early Confucianism and Contemporary Moral Psychology, Philosophy Compass (2016), https://doi.org/10.1111/phc3.12341; The Role of Human Nature in Moral Inquiry: MacIntyre, Mencius, and Xunzi, History of Philosophy Quarterly 32(4) (2015); Human Nature and Moral Sprouts: Mencius on the Pollyanna Problem, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 99(1) (2017); Filial Piety and Business Ethics: A Confucian Reflection (with Reuben Mondejar and Chris Chu) in Springer Handbook on Virtue Ethics in Business and Management, ed. Chris Provis (Springer).

Finally, I thank my wife, Xueying Wang, who has shown me much love and support while writing this book. I dedicate this book to her.

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