ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides the stage for key theoretical issues in the ethics of roles. It discusses a historical perspective on the nature of roles and the reasons provided by them. The book argues that the fact that accepted role-norms are social facts without necessarily being ethical facts, generates the need for some sort of justification of a claim that a practice of role expectations which take the form of obligations does indeed generate genuine obligations—ones that pass ethical muster. It also provides a very helpful analysis of the nature of Confucian role ethics in general. The book focuses on a central controversy: the relation between virtue and roles in Confucian ethics. It also focuses on the question of how practical reason functions in relation to roles.
