In this thoughtful and penetrating inquiry, Henry Rosemont undertakes the formidable challenge of confronting and rejecting the individualist doctrines that provide the foundation for the ethical theories that dominate western discourse and moral judgment, arguing instead for a “role-bearing” conception derived from Confucian thought and practice. A rewarding and thought-provoking study, reaching broadly to crucial issues of contemporary concern.

Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor, University of Arizona

There is a growing body of literature on Confucianism and virtue ethics. It is worth noting that Rosemont’s thought is probably the leading alternative to this paradigm in comparative moral philosophy. He takes an uncompromisingly critical attitude toward this particular effort to build a bridge from West to East by attributing to the Confucians a Western virtue ethics.

Review of Metaphysics

This book can be seen as a culmination of Henry Rosemont Jr.'s decades of work in the field of comparative philosophy. . . .Against Individualism is a natural progression of all these early groundworks that Rosemont has laid along the way.

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

The unique contribution of Henry Rosemont Jr.’s Against Individualism lies not only in criticizing individualism, which has been done by others, but in doing it through comparing individualism with Confucianism…. Rosemont spends three chapters (ch.3-5) on demonstrating, from philosophical, neuro-scientific, social, political and moral angles, that this individualism is fundamentally untenable and unjust, or ‘at best a confused one [idea]’ (57). I found his arguments convincing and clear, but see the following chapters as even more interesting because they provide a genuine theoretical and empirical alternative to individualism in Confucianism…. In sum, this is an insightful and timely book that addresses the main source of many tough problems faced by the modern individual, and brings to them a family-rooted Confucian morality, philosophy, and religion in arts. Some historians and scientists have hoped that Confucianism can help human beings have a brighter future, and this book enhances that hope.

Journal of Chinese Humanities

Understood as a role-based ethics, Confucian ethics can offer a powerful alternative to mainstream Western ethical thinking…. In Against Individualism, Rosemont’s aim is to show that the predominant Western view of human beings as ‘most fundamentally free and rational, autonomous individual selves’ (Rosemont 2015:xii) is both false and socially pernicious, and to defend an alternative Confucian view based on his view of humans as role-bearing persons…. [T]he time is ripe for a Confucian ethics centered on virtuous human relationships.

Confluence: Online Journal of World Philosophies

Henry Rosemont’s book is by turns a passionate, eloquent, and honest account of a Confucian philosophy for today. It is not merely a sympathetic and well-researched study; it is also, I daresay, a spiritual and moral appropriation (or, as Roger Ames would put it, appreciation) of the core texts of classical Confucianism (including most importantly, but by no means exclusively, the Analects and the Mencius). Rosemont presents an intellectually impressive and often emotionally touching account of what is for him at the heart of Confucianism: an ancient role ethics that constitutes an important resource for addressing and alleviating the ills of the world we currently live in…. Against Individualism presents a comprehensive philosophical vision of Confucianism that challenges one of the major mainstream conceptual ghosts haunting not only contemporary philosophy, but mainstream discourse in all social spheres.

Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy