On the Identification and Inheritance of the Concept of Human Rights in Traditional Chinese Culture

XIE Pengcheng* & GENG Xiao**

Abstract: Human dignity, the logical starting point of human rights, determines that human rights are universal. However, people’s different understandings, expressions, and practices of human rights under diverse historical and cultural conditions constitute the particularity of human rights. The theory of the universality and particularity of human rights serves as a theoretical instrument for identifying and analyzing the concept of human rights in traditional culture. From the perspective of the universality of human rights, it is certain that the concept of human rights exists in traditional Chinese culture. From the perspective of the particularity of human rights, the concept of human rights in traditional Chinese culture possesses both historical progressiveness and historical limitations. Its historical progressiveness is reflected in aspects such as the state’s responsibility, concern over people’s livelihoods, and the pursuit of harmony, while its historical limitations are manifested in areas such as the state-centric stance, obligation-based orientation, and hierarchical concepts. Studying the concept of human rights in traditional Chinese culture, scientifically understanding its progressiveness, limitations, and the tension between them, and consciously promoting its innovative transformation and critical inheritance are of great significance for constructing China’s independent knowledge system of human rights, shaping the contemporary Chinese outlook on human rights, and even advancing the development of the cause of human rights with Chinese characteristics.

Keywords: concept of human rights · traditional Chinese culture · historical progressiveness · innovative transformation