While such proposals for cross-cultural dialogue move the debate on
universal human rights forward, they still face certain diYculties. For one
thing, it may not be realistic to expect that people will be willing to abstract
from the values they care deeply about during the course of a global dialogue
on human rights. Even if people agree to abstract from culturally speciWc
ways of justifying and implementing norms, the likely outcome is a with-
drawal to a highly general, abstract realm of agreement that fails to resolve
actual disputes over contested rights. For example, participants in a cross-
cultural dialogue can agree on the right to democracy, while radically dis-
agreeing upon what this means in practice—a Singaporean oYcial may argue
that competitive elections are suYcient, whereas a Western liberal will want
to argue that ‘‘meaningful elections’’ must be accompanied by the freedoms
of speech and association.
To summarize, the distinctive East Asian contribution has been to cast
doubt on ‘‘universal’’ theories grounded exclusively in the liberal moralities of
the Western world, on the grounds that cultural particularity should make
one sensitive both to the possibility of justiWable areas of diVerence between
‘‘the West’’ and ‘‘the rest’’ and to the need for more cross-cultural dialogue for
the purpose of achieving genuine, unforced consensus on human rights. The
next step, in my view, would be to take up this ‘‘East Asian challenge’’ to
liberal ‘‘universalism,’’ with the aim of developing feasible and desirable
political theories appropriate for the East Asian region as well as embarking
on sustained cross-cultural dialogue to develop theories of more universal
scope with substantive content.
3 East Asian Contributions to the
Debate on the Family and Justice
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
The history of Western ethics, until recently, is the history of valuing duties,
obligations, and activities outside of the family. Socrates neglected his chil-
dren to concentrate on philosophizing and public service, and it was a short
step from there to Plato’s proposal that the family should be abolished so that
rulers could devote themselves wholly to the service of the community,
unmoved by the distracting loyalties and aVections of the family system.
270 daniel a. bell