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Dr Wong Bon-wah Baldwin

BA (CUHK) . MA (York) . PhD (LSE)

. Assistant Professor
. Department of Social Science

Intro

Dr. Wong holds a PhD in Government from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Before coming to the HSUHK, he taught at the University of Hong Kong as well as the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and was a Junior Research Fellow of the University of Essex. His research interests centre around ethics and political theory, especially in the areas of public justification, religion in political liberalism, liberal neutrality and Confucianism. His main concern is to explore how public political power should be exercised in a stable constitutional democracy and how traditional religions and cultures can contribute to a democratic regime. He also organized the 1st Oxford Symposium in Comparative Political Philosophy, and was invited to deliver talks in the University of Pittsburgh, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Education University of Hong Kong and the City University of Hong Kong. Besides, he is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA), United Kingdom. He writes essays in non-academic venues occasionally. During leisure time, he enjoys watching football matches and analysing football tactics.

Research Interests

  • Ethics and Political Theory (particularly in Public Justification, Religion in Political Liberalism, Liberal Neutrality and Confucianism)

Major Discipline

Journal Articles
  • Wong, B. (forthcoming). Why should I respect you? A critique and a suggestion for the justification of mutual respect in contractualism. Philosophical Forum. (AHCI) https://doi.org/10.1111/phil.12265
  • Wong, B. (forthcoming). Accessibility, Pluralism, and Honesty: A Defense for the Accessibility Requirement in Public Justification. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. (SSCI) https://doi.org/10.1080/13698230.2019.1658480
  • Wong, B. (2020). Review of Kim Sungmoon, Democracy after Virtue: Toward Pragmatic Confucian Democracy. Philosophical Quarterly, 70(279) (AHCI)
  • Wong, B. (2020). Public Reason and Structural Coercion: In Defense of the Coercion Account as the Ground of Public Reason. Social Theory and Practice, 46(1), 231-255.
  • Wong, B. (2019). A non-sectarian comprehensive Confucianism? —On Kim’s Public Reason Confucianism. Journal of Social Philosophy, 50(2), 145-162. (AHCI) https://doi.org/10.1111/josp.12292
  • Wong, B. (2019). Conjecture and the Division of Justificatory Labour. Res Publica, 25, 119-125. (ESCI) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11158-017-9373-2
  • Wong, B. (2018). Rereading Rousseau: A Republican interpretation of the idea of legislator (in Chinese). Reflexion, 35, 285-307.
  • Wong, B. (2017). Is Rawls really a Kantian contractarian?. Public Reason, 8(1-2), 31-49.
  • Wong, B. (2016). Review of Jon Mandle and David A. Reidy (ed.), A Companion to Rawls. Journal of Moral Philosophy, 13(6), 759-763. (AHCI) https://doi.org/10.1163/17455243-01306012
  • Wong, B. (2011). On the foundation of moral personhood: A Contractualist perspective (in Chinese). A Journal for Philosophical Study of Public Affairs, 38, 183-308. (ACI, TSSCI)
  • Wong, B. (2009). Would the idea of public justification harm human rights (in Chinese). Open Times, 93-107. (CSSCI)

Selected Conference Presentations

  • Wong, B. (2019, July). The Division of Educational Labour between Political Liberalism and Confucian Education. Paper presented at the 1st Oxford Symposium in Comparative Political Philosophy, The Blavantik School of Government, University of Oxford, U.K.
  • Wong, B. (2018, Oct.). Confucianism and Neutrality: On why Confucianism should embrace a principle of liberal neutrality. Paper presented at the 16th Annual Meeting of the Association for Political Theory, Bryn Mawr and Haverford College, United States.
  • Wong, B. (2018, Aug.). Public Reason as an Identifiable Signal. Paper presented at the  ECPR (European Consortium of Political Research) General Conference, Hamburg, Germany. 
  • Wong, B. (2017, Sep.). A non-sectarian comprehensive Confucianism: On Kim’s Public Reason Confucianism. Paper presented at the MANCEPT Workshops in Political Theory, 13th Annual Conference. 
  • Wong, B.  (2017, Apr.). Coercion, collective political power and public justification-In defence of the coercion account as the ground of public justification.  Paper presented at the MPSA (Midwest Political Science Association) 75th Annual Conference, Chicago.
  • Wong, B. (2016, Jan.). Should a Rawlsian state coerce Nozick? Paper presented at the Workshop Religion and Public Justification, UCL, U.K.
  • Wong, B. (2013, Sep.). Is Rawls really a Kantian contractarian? Paper presented at the MANCEPT Workshops in Political Theory, 10th Annual Conference, The University of Manchester, U. K. This paper was presented in two panels “Pluralism, Politics and Practical Reason” and “Politics and Happiness”.
  • Wong, B. (2011, Sep.). Reconstructing a Confucian Perspective on Global Distributive Justice: A Contractarian approach. Paper presented at the American Political Science Association (APSA) 2011 Annual Meeting, Seattle, Washington.
  • Wong, B. (2010, Sep.). Justification of Mutual Respect in Contractualism: a critique and a suggestion. Paper presented at the 8th Pavia Graduate Conference in Political Philosophy, Pavia, Italy. This paper was selected as one of the best papers in the conference and a bursary was granted for this presentation.
  • Wong, B. (2010, Mar.). Irrationality of the reasonable principle—A critical study of the contractualist theory of political obligation. Paper presented at the Political Studies Association (PSA) Graduate Conference, Edinburgh, U.K. The paper was shortlisted for the PSA 60th Anniversary Best Paper Award.