This chapter explores the connection between ethics and mindful leadership in education by situating the discussion within the tradition of moral and ethical leadership. Drawing on virtue ethics, the concept of virtuous mindful leadership is proposed. This leadership construct refers to the present-moment attention to self, people, and events that reflects the leader’s moral character. This form of leadership transcends a leader’s obligation to adhere to moral rules or ensure good outcomes to the leader’s ethics, conduct, and role-modeling. A virtuous, mindful leader contributes to human flourishing by helping others to achieve eudaemonic well-being. In educational administration, such a leader creates and sustains a school culture of authentic mindfulness, promotes social justice education, and supports mindful collaboration with staff.

This chapter explores the concept of virtue (de) in Confucianism and Daoism, which are the two prominent indigenous traditions in ancient China. It is argued that virtue, from an ancient Chinese paradigm, is essentially about moral excellence and influence. In the Confucian traditions, virtue is manifested in the exaltation of moral goodness and ethical charisma of exemplary persons. In the Daoist traditions, virtue is encapsulated in the emptying of one’s heart-mind and in noncoercive action. Chinese ethics in the ancient past stress the utmost importance of (inter)personal cultivation of virtues and role-modeling. School leaders, teachers, students, and other educational stakeholders should develop themselves and others morally so as to collectively achieve dao (the Way), which is a shared vision of human excellence.

Empirical virtue researchers have not generally relied on robust virtue theory. Without a unifying theory of virtue, scientific studies have developed without guidance, and the result is a patchwork of relatively disconnected studies of specific virtues based on ad hoc assumptions about those virtues. Therefore, this chapter presents an ecumenical, realistic virtue theory as a conceptual foundation for empirical research in virtue science. It suggests that moral virtues are (1) acquired traits that are (2) manifested in behavior, (3) steered by knowledge, and (4) fully motivated. The virtue theory presented is inspired by philosophic work (primarily Aristotle and Confucius), but it does not engage in the contentious debates active in philosophical approaches to virtue, leaving aside the debates about the nature and importance of ideal human virtue and focusing on the ordinary virtues that are often ascribed to people who are morally good. We also discuss the important role of culture in virtue definition. Finally, we outline the four components of virtue: (1) behavior, (2) cognition, (3) emotion/motivation, and (4) practical wisdom.

Psychology’s past in Eastern civilizations were an inherent part of the religious and moral philosophies. In an overview of those non-Western traditions in psychology, points of interaction between East and West occurred in Persia, which served as a crossroad between India and the Arab world. Ancient Indian culture followed the traditions of Buddhism and Hinduism. The writings of the Vedas, especially the Upanishads, provided the foundation for Hindu philosophy. In China, imported Buddhism taught that self-denial and proper thinking were necessary to achieve well-being. However, the older philosophical movement of Confucianism offered a stronger basis for Chinese intellectual progress. Both Buddhism and Confucianism were exported to Japan, where they were transposed into Japanese philosophies to support nationalistic aspirations. Two Middle Eastern cultures, Egyptian and Hebrew, are important as predecessors for the ancient Greeks whose philosophical formulations would provide the foundations for the emergence of psychology. Egyptian achievements in art and architecture left us a legacy, especially expressed in astronomy and medicine. The Jewish foundation of monotheism and law, along with an understanding of the person as a unity of spirit and matter, interfaced with the Greek culture that was to dominate the Mediterranean world.

This chapter discusses how culture affects economic development. Based on historical, political, and economic reasons, China today has a strongly pro-economic growth culture. Historically, the Confucian culture of frugality, hard-working, and respecting the family is conducive to economic productivity. Politically, the authoritarian political system has shaped a population that is relatively more obedient and deferent to authority – traits that contribute to efficiency for low-skilled work such as manufactu¬ring. Economically, decades of poverty under Mao’s rule made people extremely motivated to work hard to make money. All these factors fueled China’s high economic growth. The chapter also draws attention to the fact that Mao had left an indelible imprint on today’s business leaders in China, a unique and important phenomenon that the international business community should be aware of. It also shows that a “Mao plus Deng” effect – Mao’s lawlessness and Deng’s call to get rich – is the root cause of property rights violations and especially the persistent problems of product safety and counterfeit goods in China.

Chapter 5 evaluates the role of education in China’s rapid growth. In 1980, China was one of the poorest countries in the world, but the average years of schooling of its adult population was already near that of a middle-income country. This relatively high educational level was an advantage for China’s economic development. However, this advantage all but disappeared by 2005. China’s greatest advantage turns out to be in the quality rather than quantity of education. According to the cognitive skills index produced by Eric Hanushek and his coauthors, who use it as a measure of a country’s educational quality, China ranks the best among all developing nations. This factor alone may explain a very significant 4 percentage point difference in GDP per capita growth between China and developing countries such as Peru and South Africa. It is shown that China’s advantage in the quality of schooling is not due to more investment in education by the government. Instead, it is the traditional Confucian culture that has made people in China and other East Asian economies influenced by the culture value of education more than people in most other developing countries.

This article develops Brecht’s anti-metaphysical and materialist ethics through a close reading of “The Great Method,” a short text from his Me-ti that, in just three sentences, articulates a code of conduct for the revolutionary struggle. This article tries to show that even though “The Great Method” is based on the dialectics of Hegel, Marx, and Lenin, it also reflects Brecht’s interest in classical Chinese thought, in particular the Taoist notion of a subject’s full immersion in the situation requiring an ethical decision (Zhuangzi) and the assumption of an “efficacy that stems from disposition” (François Jullien), which, for example, underpins Brecht’s insistence on linguistic precision and use of modelbooks. This article also emphasizes the central role of production for Brecht’s ethics: “The Great Method” aims to unleash the human potential for productivity in all its forms, beyond capitalism, but is less interested in the production of things than in the production of change in things.

This chapter examines depictions of violence in the early period of Chinese history up to the second century BCE. Violence is widely present in works of history, literature and intellectual history from the period. What is distinctive about the Chinese case is the negative tone of most of these depictions. Early sources show violence, including martial violence, in at best equivocal and often unfavourable ways. This chapter explores depictions in classic texts such as the Book of Songs, which contains poems that pass over battle to deplore the loss and separation that war entailed. Prose descriptions of violence, whether in the Book of Documents or in bronze vessel inscriptions, tend to record fighting, its aftermath and the victors’ rewards without much celebration. Thinkers including Confucius and Mozi explicitly criticise violence, especially warfare. Sunzi, famous for his Art of War, considers the strategy and tactics of its topic, yet decries fighting as inferior to other methods of achieving victory. Even the proposals of Shang Yang, who is commonly seen as a proponent of government through force, have considerable non-coercive elements to them. Just one form of violence, namely revenge, gets much positive attention, and that comes relatively late.

This chapter examines some relations between religious experience and religious practice, with attention to Buddha, Confucius, Krishna, Moses, Paul, and Muhammad.

This chapter describes the transformation in the uses of the past from the late Bronze Age dynasty of the Western Zhou to the early Warring States in the late sixth and the fifth centuries BCE. It begins with the observation, based on bronze inscriptions and transmitted poems and speeches, that the genealogical past dominated the historical imgination among the political elite of the Western Zhou. Then, it turns to a discussion of the early Warring States period, with a detailed analysis of the Confucian Analects and the Mozi. In both texts, we can observe similar departures from the genealogial focus of the Western Zhou, but divergent interpretations of the historical agency of the deliberative capacity of individuals. Both texts also presume a historical rupture between the past and the present, unlike the earlier late Bronze Age materials, and offer different remedies for its overcoming.