The Mandarin paradox is an ethical parable used to illustrate the difficulty of fulfilling moral obligations when moral punishment is unlikely or impossible, leading to moral disengagement.[1] It has been used to underscore the fragility of ethical standards when moral agents are separated by physical, cultural, or other distance, especially as facilitated by globalization.[2] It was first posed by French writer Chateaubriand in "The Genius of Christianity" (1802):[3]
I ask my own heart, I put to myself this question: "If thou couldst by a mere wish kill a fellow-creature in China, and inherit his fortune in Europe, with the supernatural conviction that the fact would never be known, wouldst thou consent to form such a wish?"
The paradox is famously used to foreshadow the character development of the arriviste Eugène de Rastignac in Balzac's novel Père Goriot.[1] Rastignac asks Bianchon if he recalls the paradox, to which Bianchon first replies that he is "at [his] thirty-third mandarin," but then states that he would refuse to take an unknown man's life regardless of circumstance.[3] Rastignac wrongly attributes the quote to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which propagated to later writings.[2][4]
^ abHanotte-Zawiślak, Anna (2019-06-28). "Le retour du "paradoxe du mandarin" dans la construction de l'arriviste littéraire au XIXe siècle". Cahiers ERTA (18). Uniwersytet Gdański: 9–23. doi:10.4467/23538953CE.19.010.10695. Retrieved 2020-01-23.
^ abDelon, Michel (2013-12-15). "De Diderot à Balzac, le paradoxe du mandarin". Italian Review of French Studies. 3 (3). doi:10.4000/rief.248. Retrieved 2020-01-23.
^ abGinzburg, Carlo (Autumn 1994). "Killing a Chinese Mandarin: The Moral Implications of Distance". Critical Inquiry. 21 (1): 46–60. doi:10.1086/448740. JSTOR 1343886. S2CID 162198091.
^Falaky, Fayçal (2011-09-15). "Reverse Revolution: The Paradox of Rousseau's Authorship". In Lauritsen, Holger Ross; Thorup, Mikkel (eds.). Rousseau and Revolution. Continuum Studies in Political Philosophy. Continuum. pp. 83–97. ISBN 978-1441128973. Retrieved 2020-01-23.
The Mandarinparadox is an ethical parable used to illustrate the difficulty of fulfilling moral obligations when moral punishment is unlikely or impossible...
Look up Mandarin, mandarin, Mandarin Chinese, or mandarine in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Mandarin Chinese...
authors, including Dom Guéranger and Félicité Robert de La Mennais. Mandarinparadox Ferber, Michael (2010). Romanticism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford...
When a white horse is not a horse is a paradox in Chinese philosophy attributed to Gongsun Long, a philosopher of the Warring States period. It appears...
correspond with the major ethnic groups present in Singapore at the time: Mandarin had gained status since the introduction of Chinese-medium schools; Malay...
Rotten Tomatoes. "What Fresh Off the Boat does with its Mandarin speaker that The Cloverfield Paradox couldn't". The Verge. 8 February 2018. Lucille Soong...
(cf. Mandarin 鴨子; yāzi) 'color' – 色; sek (cf. Mandarin 顏色; yán sè) In other bisyllabic words, the syllables are inverted, as compared to Mandarin. Examples...
hypothesis (which was named after the novel), a possible solution to the Fermi paradox, though similar theories have been described as early as 1983. In a flashback...
January 1997) – 5:03 "Telling Lies (Paradox Mix by A Guy Called Gerald)" – 5:12 "Seven Years in Tibet (Mandarin Version)" – 3:58 "Earthling In The City...
season, 10 episodes 64–78 min Season 2 due to premiere in 2024 A Killer Paradox Crime thriller dark comedy February 9, 2024 1 season, 8 episodes 45–63...
schooling at the primary level in each of the three major languages, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil. Within Malay and Tamil there are a number of dialectal differences...
mother tongue. Some of the most common non-official first languages include Mandarin (679,255 first-language speakers), Punjabi (666,585), Cantonese (553,380)...
The mandarin vole (Lasiopodomys mandarinus) is a species of vole found in central China as well as the southern and central Korean Peninsula. An adult...
Mandarin, although some Chinese dialects and Korean share similar pronunciations for some characters. For example, 印刷 "print" is yìnshuā in Mandarin Chinese...
works of ancient Chinese philosophy, ideas are often explained by way of paradox, analogy, appropriation of ancient sayings, repetition, symmetry, rhyme...
video-sharing website Tudou because of Sheldon's comically inaccurate Mandarin.[citation needed] The Big Bang Theory initially received mixed reviews...
governments have promoted Mandarin, which is currently about as prevalent as English; 54.2% of the population speak Mandarin, with 2.3% native speakers...
Publishing. p. 177. ISBN 978-0-385-72186-8. Chua, Amy L. (2000). "The Paradox of Free Market Democracy: Rethinking Development Policy". Harvard International...
CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) "Tencent acquiring 5% equity in Paradox". GamesIndustry.biz. 27 May 2016. Archived from the original on 3 July...
Russian and Swedish, and had a working knowledge of Huron Indian, Hindi and Mandarin. He worked as an interpreter, but became disenchanted with having to translate...
2016. Retrieved 21 December 2016. "Resentment, acceptance, gratitude: The paradox facing Australian children of 'tiger' parents". TheGuardian.com. 2 July...
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