East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia. By Daniel A. Bell. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. 396p. $65.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

Abstract

"I continue to believe," states Brian Barry (Justice as Impar- tiality, 1995, p. 3), "in the possibility of putting forward a universally valid case in favor of liberal egalitarian princi- ples." Barry's belief is not idiosyncratic but widely shared by Western intellectuals. In fact, a traditional trademark of Western philosophy has been to insist on the universal validity of its teachings, while relegating other cultures and ideas to a merely contingent or particularistic status. The belief tends to be shared by much of Western social science.