ABSTRACT
Is a democratic understanding of global distributive justice parochial or Western-centric? This chapter shows that, within the East Asian context, it is possible to rely on several democratic interpretations of Confucian political philosophy in order to construe the argument that it is not. This argument says that because it is plausible to regard democratic arrangements as compatible, at least in principle, with Confucian political culture and thought, it is inadequate to regard a democratic understanding of global distributive justice as Western-centric. Before laying out this argument in greater detail, however, this chapter first of all articulates in greater detail the critique that a democratic understanding of global distributive justice is parochial or Western-centric and, in addition, specifies how this critique emerges from postcolonial theory.
