Karl Barth and Tang Junyi on the nature of ethics and the realization of moral life: A comparative study

This dissertation develops and compares the ethics of Karl Barth and Tang Junyi intratextually. The divine command ethics of Karl Barth has usually been interpreted in terms of act-deontology. This dissertation argues that his ethics have a double foci. One focus is his notion of divine command which should be interpreted as ethical event characterized by linearity rather than act-deontology characterized by punctiliarity. Another focus is biblical narrative which prepares a person to hear the divine command and provides delimitations and indications for the command. Moreover, the decisive issue in Barth's ethics lies in person formation rather than right action.;The ethics of Tang Junyi is constituted by creatively contemporarizing Confucian ethics along the line of Mencius-Wang Yangming. Tang's ethics are based on the transcending, self-conscious, and limitless heart-mind. Tang conceives ethics as moral life led by the moral self which self-consciously transcends the actual-self according to the decree of Heaven. The moral self is characterized by moral consciousness and moral rationality, while the actual-self is propelled by physical and psychological instincts. The decisive issue in Tang's ethics is also person formation.;Under the nature of ethics, the views of Barth and Tang exhibit numerous convergences on anthropology, essence, constitution, and the good and the right. Thick resemblances result from their conceiving ethics in the form of command-obedience within the concrete moral life of relatedness. Thin resemblances are due to a different conception of the ultimate reality.;Under the realization of moral life, the views of both persons concur heavily on freedom and on transgression and its antidote, but only concur moderately on person formation and on virtues and virtue ethics. Thick resemblances arise because both see freedom as freedom for authentic humanity. Thin resemblances emerge as the subjects directing person formation differ.;The comparison verifies the thesis that both persons see the nature of ethics as aretaic ethics of person formation and moral life as attuning to one's ontological nature.