A Response to Fratelli Tutti from a Confucian Perspective

In Fratelli Tutti (2020), Pope Francis expresses the essence of a fraternal openness that encourages humans to love each human individual, regardless of where he or she was born or lives. This paper provides a response to this document from a Confucian perspective. While indicating the Confucian support for the Pope’s ideas of fraternity and authentic social dialogue, it also argues for a Confucian insight that the real ethical rules and principles embedded in people’s particular cultural rituals and practices should be put on the table for starting an authentic cross-culture dialogue, rather than apparently adopting any abstract principles constructed by philosophers under the title of principlism. It concludes that this regioglobal bioethical strategy is not to embrace cultural relativism, but rather to promote a minimal conception of human rights that is or should be shared by all reasonable cultures and to promote a more just and peaceful world in an appropriate way, as the Pope calls for.