David B. Wong

Human relationship is one of the great goods of human life, but it can conflict with other values and makes us vulnerable to sorrow and grief. Discussion of approaches to these problems in Confucianism, Daoism, the Bhagavad Gita and the Mahabharata.

A lecture on the Confucian notion of harmony and how it is applicable to our contemporary state of disharmony and incivility. Discussion of how that notion of harmony is related to King Ashoka's vision of religious pluralism in ancient India.

"Focus" talk speaker to students, researchers and members of the general public.

Other speakers: Peter Railton, Michael Gil, Rachel Cohon, Victor Kumar, Joshua May, Stephen Stich

Talk and discussion about ways of diversifying the philosophy curriculum

Talk on Confucian notions of ritual and harmony, and how these might be applicable to our current divisive and polarized condition.

Panel on Dao Best Essay for 2015, with precis of the essay and response to commentaries by Nancy Snow, Christian Miller, and Bongrae Seuk

Radio interview and podcast link is https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.whyradioshow.org_Why_previousepisodes_episode96.aspx&d=CwMFAg&c=imBPVzF25OnBgGmVOlcsiEgHoG1i6YHLR0Sj_gZ4adc&r=YtzLfznZlfg33PJzEzsnHA&m=gpI-QZsok7M7at3Qj9c8BoUYIWTIMM04JURmY0zDyfs&s=hQ5mK8ncKhW3aJ-hpA3_2OmboFDivt5pmB91hxK2GE0&e=.

Contribution to a workshop on the Asian concept of harmony and the Western concept of freedom

Invited Lectures

Invited Lectures

Invited Lectures

Invited Lectures ; Talk given at Rutgers at a conference on Xunzi and authority sponsored by Philosophy and Religious Studies Departments. Commentary on my talk delivered by Ruth Chang. Confucian ethics is unusual in associating beauty with ethical excellence. There is a similar theme in philosophers such as Aristotle, but the association with beauty is by far the most developed in Xunzi. I present the textual case for this as well as the philosophical and psychological case for taking this association seriously as a view on its own merits.

Invited Lectures ; . I lead the discussion on the chapter on moral cultivation.

Invited Lectures

Invited Lectures ; David Wong ; Keynote Address

Invited Lectures ; Involved scholars in Chinese philosophy and members of the Rutgers philosophy department and others who commented on the papers in Chinese philosophy and/or Chinese-Western comparative philosophy.

Invited Lectures ; D. Wong ; at the National Humanities Center Conference on Human Rights

Invited Lectures

Invited Lectures ; This was the inaugural lecture of a new annual lecture series. It involved two lectures for a general audience and a seminar in which scholars from different fields commented on my lectures and my responses to them. The scholars were Neil Levy, Director of Research, Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, University of Oxford/University of Melbourne; Kwong-loi Shun, Sin Wai Kin Professor of Chinese Culture, the Chinese University of Hong Kong; Edward Slingerland, Canada Research Chair in Chinese Thought and Embodied Cognition, University of British Columbia; and Richard A. shweder, William Claude Reavis Distinguished Service Professor of Human Development at the University of Chicago.

Invited Lectures ; Commentator on my paper was Charles Goodman, Binghamton University

Invited Lectures

Invited Lectures

Invited Lectures ; Presented at a conference: "Character East and West: A Conference in Honor of Joel Kupperman"

Invited Lectures ; Discussion of Mencius' and Xunzi's conception of human nature and moral development. My argument is that these present models that are of continued relevance, I discuss them in relation to some contemporary developmental biology and psychology.

Invited Lectures ; I discuss the implications of two different metaphors Mencius uses for the inborn beginnings of goodness in human nature: water naturally flowing downward and sprouts that grow with adequately fertile soil, water, and sun. The sprout metaphor is the more illuminating metaphor, I argue, and corresponds with recent theoretical advances that highlight the interaction of nature and nurture in development.

Invited Lectures ; http://www.ias.umn.edu/media/DavidWong.php ; I discuss three apparent cases of moral conversion and relate them to moral philosophy and recent findings in psychology and neuroscience.

Invited Lectures ; I argue that in Mencius there are two different metaphors for the goodness of human nature: we become good as water flows downward; and incipient goodness as sprouts that need nurture. I argue that Mencius seems not to have been aware of the different implications of these metaphors, and that accounts for the conflicting things he says about inborn goodness. The sprout metaphor is by far the more productive and plausible metaphor, and I relate its implications to some of the latest theory on the relation between nature and nurture, including the idea that because genes and culture co-evolved, nature prepares us for nurture.

Invited Lectures ; D. Wong ; at NYU

Invited Lectures ; David Wong ; Invited as the only philosopher to participate in a symposium on approaches to the anthropology of morality. Discussant on my paper was Richard Shweder.

Invited Lectures ; D. Wong ; Discussion of how much Aristotle is in Rawls' Aristotelian Principle. How simplicity and complexity of activity is valued in Aristotle, the Daodejing, and the Zhuangzi.

Invited Lectures ; Delivered to the Society for Empirical Ethics, Pacific APA

Invited Lectures ; David B. Wong ; The Veroni Lectures are endowed to support lectures in philosophy and the humanities that appeal to a wide audience. In this talk I examine three cases of apparent moral conversion: first, a fictional drab functionary of the East German regime, featured in the recent film The Lives of Others, who ends up trying to save the people he is assigned to spy upon; second, the actual case of Oscar Schindler having saved the lives of a great many Jews during the Nazi occupation of Poland; and third, C. P. Ellis, a leader of the Ku Klux Klan who improbably worked and became friends with a militant black activist during the desegregation of the Durham, North Carolina public schools. In asking how such dramatic changes for the better are possible, I will weave reflections on these cases with theoretical and empirical work on the nature of emotion and its relation to cognitive and perceptual capacities.

Invited Lectures ; D. Wong ; Presentation on whether love is for reasons or for no reasons. Part of panel including Harry Frankfurt, David Velleman, Michael Stocker, and Rae Langton.

Invited Lectures ; D. Wong ; Condensation and clarification of part of my argument for relativism in Natural Moralities

Invited Lectures ; D. Wong ; Lecture at a conference on moral personality which was also the "pre-conference" for the annual meeting of the Association for Moral Education.

Invited Lectures ; D. Wong ; Gave presentation at a workshop on teaching ethics sponsored by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore and the JFK School of Government at Harvard University.

Invited Lectures ; The panel was on my recent book, Natural Moralities

Service to the Professional Community

Other ; Choose readings and organize meetings for faculty discussion of ethics