Theorizing Confucian Virtue Politics

Surprisingly little is known about what ancient Confucian thinkers

struggled with in their own social and political contexts and how these
struggles contributed to the establishment and further development
of classical Confucian political theory. Leading scholar of compara-
tive political theory Sungmoon Kim offers a systematic philosophical
account of the political theories of Mencius and Xunzi, investigating
both their agreements and disagreements as the champions of the
Confucian Way against the backdrop of the prevailing realpolitik of the
late Warring States period. Together, they contributed to the formation
of Confucian virtue politics, in which concerns about political order
and stability and concerns about moral character and moral enhance-
ment are deeply intertwined. By presenting their political philosophies
in terms of constitutionalism, Kim shows how they each developed a
way to authorize the ruler’s legitimate use of power in domestic and
interstate politics in ways consistent with their distinctive accounts of
human nature.

Sungmoon Kim is Professor of Political Theory and Director of

the Center for East Asian and Comparative Philosophy at City
University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Confucian Democracy
in East Asia: Theory and Practice (Cambridge, 2014), Public Reason
Confucianism: Democratic Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in
East Asia (Cambridge, 2016), and Democracy after Virtue: Toward
Pragmatic Confucian Democracy (2018).
Theorizing Confucian Virtue Politics
The Political Philosophy of Mencius and Xunzi

SUNGMOON KIM
City University of Hong Kong
University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom
One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
314–​321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi –​110025, India
79 Anson Road, #06-​04/​06, Singapore 079906

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/​9781108499422
DOI: 10.1017/​9781108645089
© Sungmoon Kim 2020
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2020
Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow Cornwall
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-​1-​108-​49942-​2 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy
of URLs for external or third-​party internet websites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
For Sejin
Contents

Preface page ix
Conventions xiii

Introduction 1

PART I Confucian Constitutionalism

1 Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 27
2 Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 59
3 Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue 89

PART II WANG, BA, and Interstate Relations

4 The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 117
5 Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 147
6 Responsibility for All under Heaven 178

Conclusion: Between Old and New 206

Bibliography 219
Index 233

vii
Preface

This book has a long and complicated origin. After graduating from college,
I attended the Academy of Korean Studies, a national research center for
humanities and social sciences in South Korea, in order to further my studies
in Confucian philosophy and political thought, while improving my classical
Chinese. Although my original goal at the Academy was to study the modern
implications of Confucianism in relation to liberalism and democracy, I was
instantly drawn to the rich history of Korean Neo-​Confucian political thought
during the Chosŏn 朝鮮 dynasty (1392–​1910) and in the end decided to write
my MA thesis on the political conflict between two towering Korean Neo-​
Confucian scholars in the sixteenth century –​Yi Hwang 李滉 (1502–​1571),
better known by his pen name T’oegye 退溪, and Cho Sik 曺植 (1501–​1572),
also known as Nammyŏng 南冥. While writing my thesis (entitled “The Politics
of the Neo-​Confucian Literati and the Confucian Scholars’ Charisma during
the Chosŏn Period”), which in part aimed to investigate the enormous moral
power held by the Korean Neo-​Confucian scholars vis-​à-​vis the king from the
perspective of “moral charisma,” I realized that Korean Neo-​Confucians had
been profoundly inspired by Mencius, especially his ideas of the “Great Man”
(da zhangfu 大丈夫) and “outstanding person” (haojie zhi shi 豪傑之士), and
this realization impelled me to develop my theoretical framework in reference
to Mencius’s moral and political thought (as well as Max Weber’s theory of
charisma). Shortly after, when I became a PhD student at the University of
Maryland at College Park (UMD), I took a course on Nietzsche and Freud
and decided to write for the term paper about Mencius’s political thought,
more precisely his view of a Confucian scholar’s moral charisma as a source of
political liberty, against the backdrop of the political psychology of Realpolitik
drawn from Nietzsche and Freud’s political and psychological insights. After
several years of revision, this paper was published by the journal History of
Political Thought and Chapter 4 of this book, though thoroughly revised and

ix
x Preface

substantially expanded, is based on this paper dating back to my second year

of graduate school at UMD.
Upon finding a full-​time faculty position, however, my most pressing con-
cern was to develop a political theory of Confucian democracy, my long-​
time passion, and this preoccupation with contemporary Confucian political
theory prevented me from developing a book-​length research project on early
Confucian political thought, though I continued to read, write, and publish on
Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, the three giants of classical Confucianism, vir-
tually without any contact with scholars in Chinese philosophy and sinology. It
was only after I joined the City University of Hong Kong in 2009 and became
acquainted with scholars such as Philip J. Ivanhoe, Eric Hutton, Eirik Harris,
Bryan Van Norden, and David Wong, among others, that I was introduced to
the recent “analytical turn” of Chinese philosophy as well as the virtue-​ethical
and moral-​psychological interpretation of Confucianism. Frankly, my initial
interaction with analytic Chinese philosophers was not always productive. We
scholars tend to welcome cross-​/​multi-​disciplinary studies that challenge the
traditional academic disciplines but we are rarely told how difficult it is to have
a full-​fledged and meaningful conversation or understanding across existing
disciplinary boundaries and how frustrating it can be to have one’s position
understood, let alone accepted, by those outside his or her immediate academic
discipline. As a political theorist trained in political science from the beginning
of college life, it is not always easy to communicate with, learn from, and (for
better or worse) influence scholars trained in ethics, moral psychology, philos-
ophy of mind, philosophy of language, and logic, even when we all deal with
the same classical Chinese texts. Oftentimes, as I have learned, our different
background disciplinary trainings critically determine the concepts that guide
our research and the different types of literature to which we aim to contribute
casually lead us to rely on vastly different points of reference. For example,
where political theorists are interested in subjects such as power, leadership,
regulation, sanction, political order, and interstate relations, philosophers
are drawn to questions concerning desire, mind, human nature, moral senti-
ment, moral motivation, moral judgment, and moral character. Where political
theorists believe it is important to consider the political context in which the
conversation between A and B is taking place in figuring out the purpose of
their conversation and its practical consequences relative to the interlocutors’
political positions, philosophers tend to pay (far more) attention to the mode
of moral reasoning in which A and B are engaged and how moral judgment
or moral education is attained by undergoing a certain psychological process.
The “good” thing about the field of Chinese philosophy, which is commonly
considered to include the history of Chinese political thought, is that this multi-​
/​cross-​disciplinary demand is not a mere option but a must. Put differently,
unless one develops a certain level of philological skill sufficient for accessing
the classical texts, understands and is capable of employing philosophical
languages, and becomes reasonably familiar with the historical and sociological
Preface xi

facts about ancient China, it is technically impossible to produce a work that

can appeal to the students of Chinese philosophy. In this regard, I am not
fully confident that this book is of the quality that can satisfy both political
scientists who want to learn about classical Confucian political thought and
the experts in classical Chinese texts and philosophers who deem ethical and
moral psychological questions far more important than questions concerning
governance and its undergirding institutional structures. All I can say is that
this book is the outcome of a years-​long engagement of a political theorist with
philosophers, philologists, and sinologists, and I hope that it presents some-
thing not only acceptable but also appealing to them and worthy of serious
engagement.
In writing this book, I have incurred numerous debts. As was the case
with my earlier books, I benefited immensely from my daily, intermittent
conversations with my colleagues at the Center for East Asian and Comparative
Philosophy and the Department of Public Policy of the City University of Hong
Kong (CityU). Although many of them have recently left CityU, I would like
to express my deep gratitude to Youngsun Back, Ruiping Fan, Eirik Harris,
P. J. Ivanhoe, Richard Kim, and Hsin-​wen Lee. The following scholars have
discussed with me some seminal ideas developed in this book and I am grateful
for their comments and friendship: Steve Angle, Elton Chan, Joseph Chan,
Mark Csikszentmihalyi, Fred Dallmayr, Loubna El Amine, Owen Flanagan,
Eric Hutton, Michael Ing, Chenyang Li, Hui-​Chieh Loy, Susan Shim, Kwong-​
loi Shun, Sor-​hoon Tan, Justin Tiwald, Bryan Van Norden, and David Wong.
Special thanks are due to my two Korean PhD students, Kyung Rok Kwon and
Subin Lee, who read the early draft of the manuscript and offered me some
critical comments. I am also grateful to my teachers at the Academy of Korean
Studies who introduced me to Confucian philosophy and the history of Korean
political thought, including Hyongjo Han, Jin-​deok Choi, Byoung-​ryon Park,
and the late Hyong-​hyo Kim, as well as Jim Glass at UMD, for whose class the
first draft of Chapter 4 was originally written. Finally, I would like to thank
Robert Dreesen, my editor at Cambridge University Press, for his encourage-
ment and support.
All six main chapters have been extensively revised and substantially
expanded from my earlier publications. It is important to note, however, that
this book is not a mere collection of previously published essays as I have both
revamped many of my earlier arguments, often based on my new interpreta-
tion of the classical texts, and added more materials in critical engagement
with Chinese philosophers, ethicists, and philologists. Therefore, this book
supersedes my arguments expressed in my previous publications. Chapter 1
has been substantively revised and expanded from “Politics and Interest in
Early Confucianism,” Philosophy East and West 64:2 (2014), pp. 425–​448 and
I am grateful to the University of Hawai’i Press for permission to reprint the
essay here. An earlier and much shorter version of Chapter 2 was previously
published as “Confucian Constitutionalism: Mencius and Xunzi on Virtue,
xii Preface

Ritual, and Royal Transmission,” Review of Politics 73:3 (2011), pp. 371–​
399 and I am grateful to the University of Notre Dame (via Cambridge
University Press) for permission to reproduce this essay. Though Chapter 3
is newly written, substantive portions have been reproduced from “Before
and after Ritual: Two Accounts of Li as Virtue in Early Confucianism,”
Sophia: International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Metaphysical
Theology and Ethics 51:2 (2012), pp. 195–​210 and I am grateful to Springer
Nature for permission to reprint the relevant portion from the essay. An ear-
lier version of Chapter 4 was published as “The Origin of Political Liberty
in Confucianism: A Nietzschean Interpretation,” History of Political Thought
29:3 (2008), pp. 393–​415 and I am grateful to Imprint Academic for permis-
sion to reproduce this essay. Chapter 5 has been thoroughly revised and sub-
stantially expanded from “Between Good and Evil: Xunzi’s Reinterpretation of
the Hegemonic Rule as Decent Governance,” Dao: A Journal of Comparative
Philosophy 12:1 (2013), pp. 73–​92 and I am grateful to Springer Nature for
permission to reuse the essay here. Finally, some portions of Chapter 6 have
been drawn from “Confucian Humanitarian Intervention? Toward Democratic
Theory,” Review of Politics 79:2 (2017), pp. 187–​213 and I am grateful to the
University of Notre Dame (via Cambridge University Press) for permission to
reprint the relevant part from this essay.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my wife Sejin for her love and
support. Without her understanding and encouragement, I would not have
been able to finish this book, which has been in the making for a long time
since the year we got married. I dedicate this book to her.
This work was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants
Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No.
CityU11670216).
Conventions

Unless otherwise noted, all English translations of the Lunyu 論語 (The

Analects of Confucius) have been adapted from The Analects, trans. D. C.
Lau (New York: Penguin, 1979). I have also consulted Confucius: Analects
with Selections from Traditional Commentaries, trans. Edward Slingerland
(Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2003) and The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical
Translation, trans. Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont, Jr. (New York: Ballantine
Books, 1998). For the Mengzi 孟子, I have quoted, unless otherwise noted, from
Mencius, trans. D. C. Lau (New York: Penguin, 1970) and consulted Mencius,
trans. Irene Bloom and ed. Philip J. Ivanhoe (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2009) as well as Mengzi: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries,
trans. Bryan W. Van Norden (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2008). For the Xunzi
荀子, I have quoted, unless otherwise noted, from Xunzi: The Complete Text,
trans. Eric L. Hutton (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014) and
consulted Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, 3 vols., trans.
John Knoblock (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988, 1990, 1994).
Chapter and section numbers follow Knoblock for the sake of consistency with
my previous publications.
For the occurrence of important terms of art or phrases, I have provided
a translation followed by the Pinyin Romanization and the original Chinese
character(s) in parenthesis –​for example, “virtue” (de 德) or “revering the king
and expelling the barbarians” (zun wang rang yi 尊王攘夷). In some special
cases involving terms whose English translations do not effectively convey
their original meanings, I have generally used their Pinyin Romanization alone,
even though I follow the aforementioned convention in their first occurrences
and wherever necessary in the given context. Such special terms include ren
(benevolent/​human-​hearted), yi (righteous/​social norms), li (ritual/​ritual pro-
priety), zhi (wisdom), ba (hegemon), and badao (hegemonic rule).

xiii
xiv Conventions

Chinese characters 禮 (ritual), 利 (profit), and 理 (good order or principle)

are all transliterated as li following the Pinyin system but I distinguished them
by adding * for 利 (i.e., li*) and ** for 理 (i.e., li**). Thus, unless otherwise
indicated, throughout this book, li refers to 禮.
Following Bloom, I transliterated the name of the last king of the Shang
dynasty 紂 as Zhòu and distinguished it from the name of one of the ancient
Chinese dynasties, 周, by rendering it as Zhou.
Introduction

In the past two decades, Confucian political theory has rapidly established
itself as one of the most vigorous subfields of political theory, obliterating the
image of Confucianism as a relic of the “feudal” age and the single greatest
obstacle to East Asia’s modernization. Of course, Confucianism as a set of
intellectual ideas or as a world religion has long been incorporated into
modern education since East Asia’s full-​scale “encounter with the West” in the
late nineteenth century. In the last century, Confucianism has been taught or
engaged in many academic disciplines and programs including sociology, his-
tory, sinology, religious studies, East Asian studies, and, most recently, philos-
ophy. Despite the ongoing controversy in the Anglophone academic world as
to whether Confucianism, and so-​called “Chinese philosophy” in general, can
be properly considered “philosophy,” as the term and its intellectual practice
are understood in the discipline,1 an increasing number of philosophers have
begun to recognize Confucianism as an important subject worthy of explo-
ration and are thus eagerly integrating it into their curriculum and research,
thereby enriching and reforming the discipline of philosophy to be more multi-​
cultural and cross-​cultural comparative. Political theorists in political science,
however, have not yet expressed equivalent enthusiasm for Confucianism as an
academic subject and this is quite surprising, even unfortunate, considering the
fact that they are often situated in an environment in which some of their more
empirically minded colleagues are actively engrossed in Confucianism under-
stood as a political culture or value system in relation to various indicators
of modernity such as economic development and democratization.2 Seen in

1
On this controversy and for a forceful criticism on West-​centrism in the philosophy departments
of North America, see Bryan W. Van Norden, Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2017).
2
See, for instance, Doh Chull Shin, Confucianism and Democratization in East Asia (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2012); Chong-​Min Park and Doh Chull Shin, “Do Asian Values

1
2 Introduction

this way, recent interest in and development of Confucian political theory

among political theorists in their endeavor to de-​provincialize politics and “the
political” signals the rise of a new intellectual movement that is long overdue,
catching up with what other disciplines have done long ago.3
But what do we mean by “Confucian political theory”? Does it only refer to
a constructive philosophical project concerned with the present and future of
contemporary East Asia and beyond, one that puts Confucianism in dialogue
with liberalism and democracy? Indeed, the recent emergence of Confucian
political theory has been propelled largely by contemporary Confucian polit-
ical theorists who commonly cite classical Confucianism as the guiding phil-
osophical inspiration for their reconstruction of Confucianism into a modern
political theory. Not surprisingly, creative intertwinement between history
of political thought and normative political theory has been one of the most
salient and exciting features of Confucian political theory and it is arguably for
this reason that highly abstract and purely analytic forms of political theory,
which dominate normative political philosophy of the West, are nearly non-​
existent in Confucian political theory.4 In most cases, key normative arguments
advanced by Confucian political theorists are difficult to make sense of or to
justify, unless supported by some textual evidence, and only then is the theory in
question considered to retain its “Confucian” credential. Accordingly, much of

Deter Popular Support for Democracy in South Korea?” Asian Survey 46 (2006), pp. 341–​361;
Adrian Chan, “Confucianism and Development in East Asia,” Journal of Contemporary China
26:1 (1996), pp. 28–​45; Kyung-​Dong Kim, “Confucianism, Economic Growth and Democracy,”
Asian Perspective 21:2 (1997), pp. 77–​ 97; Gregory K. Omatowski, “Confucian Ethics and
Economic Development: A Study of Adaptation of Confucian Values to Modern Japanese
Economic Ideology and Institutions,” Journal of Socio-​Economics 25:5 (1996), pp. 571–​590. To
the best of my knowledge, until very recently, Benjamin I. Schwartz’s classic book The World of
Thought in Ancient China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985) has been the only
book-​length work by a political theorist on Chinese political thought in which Confucian polit-
ical theory is given substantive attention.
3
See, among others, Brooke A. Ackerly, “Is Liberalism the Only Way toward Democracy?
Confucianism and Democracy,” Political Theory 33:4 (2005), pp. 547–​576; Daniel A. Bell, Beyond
Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2006); Joseph Chan, Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for
Modern Times (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014); Sungmoon Kim, Confucian
Democracy in East Asia: Theory and Practice (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014);
idem., Public Reason Confucianism: Democratic Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in East
Asia (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016); idem., Democracy after Virtue: Toward
Pragmatic Confucian Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018); Joseph
Chan, Doh Chull Shin, and Melissa S. Williams (eds.), East Asian Perspectives on Political
Legitimacy: Bridging the Empirical-​Normative Divide (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2016); Daniel A. Bell and Chenyang Li (eds.), The East Asian Challenge for Democracy: Political
Meritocracy in Comparative Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013).
4
Arguably, Chan’s Confucian Perfectionism presents the most abstract and analytic form of
Confucian political theory, but even Chan supplies an appendix at the end of the book where he
provides a textual interpretation of several key passages of the classical Confucian texts that he
believes are essential to his normative argument (pp. 213–​232).
Introduction 3

the normative disagreement among contemporary Confucian political theorists

can be attributed to their different interpretations of key Confucian texts.
However, while contemporary Confucian political theory’s methodolog-
ical eclecticism has made a remarkable contribution to the development of
Confucian political theory by encouraging many normative Confucian polit-
ical theorists to simultaneously engage the history of Confucian (and other East
Asian) political thought, it has, somewhat ironically, kept them from actively
pursuing a full-​scale investigation of classical Confucian political theory in its
own intellectual context with close attention to individual Confucian thinkers’
distinctive philosophical contributions. That is, recent enthusiasm for cross-​
cultural comparison between classical Confucianism and Western political
theory, though important, has mainly encouraged Confucian political theorists
to highlight the general features of classical Confucianism in comparison with
Western philosophical traditions, but in doing so they have paid less attention
to Confucian political theory as developed by classical Confucians themselves –​
their internal disagreement (and agreement), debate, and evolution, especially
during the formative stages of the tradition.
As a result, in political theory, we have many accounts of a general and ide-
alized Confucian view of several important philosophical concepts and ideas
such as justice, freedom, human rights, equality, autonomy, political partic-
ipation, citizenship, and so on, which are mainly West-​inspired, but surpris-
ingly little has been discussed of how the classical Confucians, individually or
together, struggled in their own social and political contexts or how their intel-
lectual struggles, often involving internal disagreement and debate, eventually
contributed to the development of classical Confucian political theory.5 Even
when existing studies on classical Confucian philosophy draw due attention to
the disagreement or debate between the classical Confucians, their focus has
predominantly been on the disagreement over “ethical” issues, such as whether
the classical Confucians held contrasting accounts of human nature in a phil-
osophically robust way or how such difference gave rise to equally contrasting
methods of moral self-​cultivation, without making much effort to extend this
ethical concern to a broader political question of how the classical Confucians
thereby advanced distinct political theories via internal disagreement and
debate in ways plausible in their own political contexts.6 Despite the plethora
of studies on classical Confucian philosophy, little work has been produced
that investigates whether classical Confucian thinkers, especially Mencius

5
Note that, throughout this book, by “classical Confucianism” I mean pre-​Qin Confucianism, more
specially the philosophical thought developed by Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi. Accordingly,
by “the classical Confucians” I strictly refer to these three ancient Confucian masters.
6
Though Loubna El Amine’s Classical Confucian Political Thought: A New Interpretation
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015) intends to provide a rather holistic picture of
classical Confucian political theory, it, too, falls short of articulating how classical Confucian
political theory was advanced via internal debate and disagreement by focusing mainly on the
common ground that binds the three ancient Confucian thinkers as “political realists.”
4 Introduction

(372–​289 bce) and Xunzi (c. 310–​235 bce), who came after Confucius (551–​
479 bce), each had a coherent political theory and whether or how they devel-
oped a more systematic Confucian political theory in the course of wrestling
with their predecessors’ ideas.
The relative disregard of classical Confucianism as a coherent and system-
atic political theory in the English-​speaking academic world is rather sur-
prising if we turn to Chinese and comparative philosophy, where exciting
philosophical innovations have been made through careful reconstruction of
and comparison between Mencius’s and Xunzi’s overall philosophical systems
(in modern academic language), especially with regard to their contrasting
views of human nature, different accounts of moral motivation, reasoning, and
judgment, and their equally different methods of moral self-​cultivation, which
are then engaged with contemporary virtue ethics, epistemology, empirical
psychology, evolutionary biology, and even neuroscience. Though book-​length
studies that thoroughly examine each Confucian thinker’s moral philosophy
are also scant relative to the studies on, for example, Plato’s or Aristotle’s moral
philosophy, despite their parallel impact on the East Asian moral and political
tradition,7 several pioneering works in early Confucian ethics and philosophy,
many of which are produced in the form of anthology, help us to attain a
comprehensive philosophical understanding of Mencius’s and Xunzi’s ethical
theories.8 Comparable intellectual endeavors are deplorably lacking in polit-
ical theory, as strikingly evidenced by the virtual absence of a book-​length
study (including anthologies) dedicated to the political theories of Mencius and
Xunzi –​what they have in common as Confucians, where they part company,
and whether or how Xunzi’s political theory is indebted to Mencius’s seminal
insights and ideas.

7
Until today, the most comprehensive study on Mencius’s moral philosophy and ethics is one
offered by Kwong-​ loi Shun, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1997), but this book also does not sufficiently engage Mencius’s political phi-
losophy. Also see Philip J. Ivanhoe, Ethics in the Confucian Tradition (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett,
2002); Bryan W. Van Norden, Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Confucian philos-
ophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), ­chapter 4. For Xunzi’s moral philosophy,
see Kurtis Hagen, The Philosophy of Xunzi: A Reconstruction (Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2007);
Janghee Lee, Xunzi and Early Chinese Nationalism (Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press, 2004); Antonio S. Cua, Human Nature, Ritual, and History: Studies in Xunzi and Chinese
Philosophy (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), part 1.
8
Essays compiled in Xiusheng Liu and Philip J. Ivanhoe (eds.), Essays on the Moral Philosophy
of Mengzi (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2002) combine to provide a comprehensive picture
of Mencius’s moral philosophy. For Xunzi’s ethics and moral philosophy, see Eric L. Hutton
(ed.), Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi (Dordrecht: Springer, 2016); T. C. Kline
III and Philip J. Ivanhoe (eds.), Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi (Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett, 2000); T. C. Kline III and Justin Tiwald (eds.), Ritual and Religion in the Xunzi
(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2014). For a short yet pointed comparison of
Mencius’s and Xunzi’s ethical theories, see Kim-​chong Chong, Early Confucian Ethics (Chicago,
IL: Open Court, 2007).
Introduction 5

This book is motivated to fill this critical lacuna in both Chinese philosophy
and Confucian political theory by systematically reconstructing Mencius’s and
Xunzi’s political theories from several guiding philosophical angles, which
I discuss shortly.

The Paradigm of Confucian Virtue Politics

There are several guiding propositions that underlie this book, which combine
to constitute what I call the paradigm of Confucian virtue politics. The para-
digm of Confucian virtue politics will provide an important backdrop against
which the distinctive characteristics of Mencius’s and Xunzi’s political theories,
to be presented in the following chapters, will be highlighted and evaluated.
First, virtue understood as excellent trait of character is the central concern
for both Mencius and Xunzi, and their political theories are predicated on
their respective virtue ethics, which begins with a specific account of human
nature, supports a specific method of moral self-​cultivation, and aspires to
the moral ideal of the “sage” (shenren 聖人) as the final destination of moral
self-​cultivation. Let us call this the virtue proposition. Though some scholars
challenge the virtue-​ethical interpretation of Confucian ethics due to the danger
of assimilating it into Western virtue ethics, especially the Aristotelian varia-
tion,9 there is deep consensus among contemporary scholars that the Chinese
character de 德, which I render as virtue, is concerned with human excellence
and flourishing and that its cultivation and proper performance in order to
become a gentleman (junzi 君子) or even a sage is at the heart of classical
Confucianism.10 Insofar as Confucian ethics is perfectionist in nature, so is
Confucian politics, even when it is profoundly concerned with order (zhi 治)
and stability.
Second, Confucian virtue ethics, as subscribed to by both Mencius and
Xunzi, generates a specific mode of perfectionist politics, namely, virtue poli-
tics, which relies primarily on the ruler’s moral character for its moral goal and

9
These critics tend to capture the nature of Confucian ethics in terms of “role ethics.” See Roger
T. Ames, Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press);
Henry Rosemont Jr., “Rights-​Bearing Individuals and Role-​Bearing Persons,” in Rules, Rituals,
and Responsibility, ed. Mary I. Bockover (Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1991), pp. 77–​101.
10
Ames and Rosemont, two of the most vigorous critics of the virtue-​ethical interpretation of
Confucian ethics, nevertheless admit that in classical Confucianism de is centrally concerned with
“excellence” in the sense of “excelling at becoming one’s own person” (Roger T. Ames and Henry
Rosemont Jr., The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation [New York: Ballantine
Books, 1998], p. 57). Even granting Ames and Rosemont’s more dynamic and process-​focused
interpretation of the Confucian self, it seems difficult not to understand their notion of “excel-
lence” in terms of a character trait. For an argument that there is meaningful difference as much
as similarity between Confucian and Aristotelian virtue ethics, see Jiyuan Yu, The Ethics of
Confucius and Aristotle: Mirrors of Virtue (New York: Routledge, 2007); May Sim, Remastering
Morals with Aristotle and Confucius (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
6 Introduction

political viability. Let us call this the virtue politics proposition. In Confucian
virtue politics, therefore, the ruler is considered to be the primary object of
moral self-​cultivation because the moral and material well-​being of the people,
the telos of Confucian politics, hangs critically on his virtuous character, or,
more precisely, his care for the people. Therefore, Confucian virtue politics does
not make the impossible demand that all members of the political community
be perfectly virtuous for it to function properly, nor does it assume that as long
as the ruler is virtuous, good government will naturally follow. In emphasizing
the ruler’s robust moral character, Confucian virtue politics stipulates that the
ruler, if his self is properly cultivated, helps maintain the institutional appara-
tuses or the “model” (fa 法) against various political contingencies.
The third proposition is the moral education proposition. To be morally
legitimate and to flourish politically, Confucian virtue politics cannot rely on
the ruler’s robust character alone, despite its foundational importance. It also
requires the people’s virtue, making the people’s moral cultivation the most
profound perfectionist concern of the Confucian state. More specifically, in
Confucian virtue politics, the people’s moral well-​being is realized in the form
of a state-​centered moral education. If the ruler’s virtue is the locomotive of a
good government, what puts the government on a firm moral foundation is
the people’s appreciation of the moral and aesthetic value of good form (wen
文) that underlies good government. Moral education enables the people to
develop moral taste and motivates them to subject themselves to the political
order, willingly reciprocating the material and moral well-​being that they enjoy
under good government with voluntary obedience. Though penal codes and
punishment are not completely eliminated from the Confucian state, it aims to
use such coercive measures minimally, and, when it does, only for the purpose
of the people’s moral correction and reform.
Fourth, since the people’s moral flourishing cannot be expected or attained
in poverty, Confucian virtue politics makes it its critical role, no less impor-
tant than to provide moral education, to create socioeconomic conditions that
enable the people to build a fiduciary society and devote themselves steadily
to moral development in association with others. We can call this the material
condition proposition. Like other institutions that govern the people’s personal
conduct and social interactions across all spheres of their life, socioeconomic
order and institutions that satisfy the people’s material well-​being are predi-
cated on ritual (li 禮), which not only places the people (and the ruler) each in
their proper place, thereby achieving social harmony, but, more importantly,
helps them to overcome their natural desires for profit so that they (the desires)
can be put in balance with morality and the common good.
Now, notice that all of these key propositions of Confucian virtue politics
are strongly supported by Confucius’s vision of good government. Precisely in
the sense that they are rooted in and vindicated by Confucius’s own thought,
I say that they constitute the “paradigm” of Confucian virtue politics, after
which political theories of later Confucians were modeled, albeit in varying
Introduction 7

degrees, thereby forming the (internally diverse) tradition of Confucian virtue

politics. Then, how is each proposition supported by Confucius?
Although Confucius never actively concerned himself with the question
of human nature, the virtue proposition is attested throughout The Analects.
One telling piece of evidence is found in his conversation with his student Yan
Hui, who asks about ren 仁 (casually translated in English as benevolence or
human-​heartedness), the Confucian virtue par excellence.11 Confucius replies,
“To return to the observance of ritual through overcoming the self constitutes
ren … [T]‌he practice of ren depends on oneself alone, and not on others.
[Therefore] do not look unless it is in accordance with li; do not listen unless
it is in accordance with li; do not speak unless it is in accordance with li; do
not move unless it is in accordance with li.”12 Yan inquires to Confucius about
ren because it is the most important virtue that his teacher has been talking
about and yet its content remains most elusive. Confucius’s core message is
that ren is a character trait, or, more accurately, a set of traits one acquires (de
得) by, most crucially, immersing oneself in the practice of ritual, a set of rules
and norms guiding one’s proper personal and social conduct –​not because it
is imposed top-​down as a moral maxim but because its moral meaning is real-
ized in the course of critical self-​reflection (si 思) that recalibrates one’s desire
in a way appropriate to his or her specific situations, making the practice of
ren self-​originated (youji 由己).13 Confucius relates this “acquisition model”
of moral self-​cultivation with his own life-​long endeavor to become a sage,
although he never believed that he had arrived at sagehood.14
At fifteen I set my heart on learning; at thirty I took my stand; at forty I came to be free
from doubts; at fifty I understood the Decree of Heaven; at sixty my ear was atuned
[sic]; at seventy I followed my heart’s desire without overstepping the line.15

For Confucius, however, the primacy of virtue does not end with ethics. It
extends to politics, with which the Decree of Heaven (tianming 天命) is origi-
nally associated in the Zhou 周 political discourse, the ancient civilization that
Confucius was eager to revive,16 with a moral demand that in order to entertain

11
For a classic account on the nature of ren in classical Confucianism as the virtue par excellence
encompassing all other virtues, see Wing-​tsit Chan, “The Evolution of the Confucian Concept
Jen,” Philosophy East and West 4:4 (1955), pp. 295–​319.
12
The Analects 12.1.
13
For Confucius’s emphasis on reflection (si), see The Analects 2.15. Also see Sor-​hoon Tan,
Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction (Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press, 2003), p. 47.
14
For the acquisition model by Confucius, see Philip J. Ivanhoe, Confucian Moral Self Cultivation
(Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000), p. 2.
15
The Analects 2.4. Also consider Confucius’s following description of the gentleman’s moral
character: “The gentleman has yi as his basic stuff and by observing li puts it into practice, by
being modest (sun 孫) gives it expression, and by being trustworthy in word (xin 信) brings it
into completion” (The Analects 15.18).
16
The Analects 3.14.
8 Introduction

the Mandate of Heaven the ruler be (or strive to be) virtuous by subjecting
himself to ritual as well as by leading the people by means of ritual.17
The first dimension of the virtue politics proposition, concerning the
ruler’s moral character, is most clearly addressed in Confucius’s following
statement: “When those above love li, none of the common people will dare be
irrelevant; when they love what is righteous (yi 義), none of the common people
will dare be insubordinate; when they love trustworthiness (xin), none of the
common people will dare be insincere. In this way, the common people from
the four quarters [i.e., the world] will come with their children strapped on their
backs.”18 The point here is the central importance of the ruler’s robust moral
character, which can inspire the people toward goodness. In this vein, Confucius
famously defines good government (zheng 政) in terms of being corrected in
goodness (zheng 正), asserting that if a ruler sets an example by being correct,
none would dare to remain incorrect.19
But the virtue politics proposition does not valorize the ruler’s moral char-
acter alone as though it yields certain magical power that attracts the people
without the institutional means to facilitate their moral transformation –​hence
its second dimension concerning the people’s moral enhancement beyond mere
political compliance.20 Consider the following statement by Confucius:
Guide them by edicts, keep them in line with punishments, and the common people will
stay out of trouble but will have no sense of shame. Guide them by virtue, keep them in
line with li, and they will, besides having a sense of shame, reform themselves.21

Earlier we noted that Confucius understood li as indispensable to his

acquisition model of moral self-​cultivation, though without clarifying the
nature of the relationship between li and ren or moral virtue more gener-
ally –​instrumental or intrinsic? –​to which I return in Chapter 3. What the
passage above reveals is that li is an indispensable means for good govern-
ment as well, an institutional mechanism by which people can be morally
reformed and political order can be attained therewith. Thus, in the para-
digm of Confucian virtue politics, political order and stability is not a value

17
Notice that both the Decree of Heaven and the Mandate of Heaven are translations of the same
Chinese term tianming. Modern scholars tend to translate tianming as the Mandate of Heaven
when it is explicitly associated with the ruler (his political legitimacy, more precisely) while ren-
dering it as the Decree of Heaven when it is concerned with an individual moral agent in relation
to his (Heaven-​given) moral nature or moral mission.
18
The Analects 13.4. Also see 14.41.
19
The Analects 12.17. Also see 13.3; 13.6.
20
Admittedly, however, several statements by Confucius, some of which (allegedly) describe sage-​
king Shun’s government, do highlight a certain “magical” or “charismatic” force of the ruler’s
moral character (see The Analects 2.1; 12.19; 15.5). My argument is that the ruler’s moral char-
acter does not fully explain the way in which Confucian virtue politics actually operates in the
non-​ideal political context.
21
The Analects 2.3.
Introduction 9

in itself. It is one of the positive byproducts that the li-​based moral trans-
formation of the people yields.22
Of course, the fact that Confucian virtue politics does not valorize political
order and stability for its own sake neither entails that it downplays the critical
importance of such political goods nor suggests that it does not acknowledge
ritual’s more active, as I will argue, “constitutional” contribution to polit-
ical order and stability. In fact, as we shall see in the chapters that follow,
one of the major political differences (if not outright disagreements) between
Mencius and Xunzi is whether to understand li as sociopolitical institutions
that can directly address the problem of disorder that defined the political
situation of the Warring States period (475–​221 bce), admittedly the most
turbulent period in Chinese history. Confucian virtue politics’ largely instru-
mental approach to political order only suggests that the classical Confucians
did not appreciate the pure “political” value of order and stability, which has
no (long-​term) internal connection with the ethical relationship between the
ruler and the ruled and does not facilitate the moral cultivation of the people.
No classical Confucian ever attempted to derive “political morality” that is
internal to the standard of ordered political rule as such in the way Bernard
Williams understands political morality in relation to what he calls “the Basic
Legitimation Demand,” which is concerned with the “first” political question
(in the Hobbesian sense) of “securing order, protection, safety, trust, and the
conditions of cooperation.”23
This second dimension of the virtue politics proposition naturally justifies
the moral education proposition. When Ji Kangji, a usurper of the ruling
authority of the state of Lu 魯, Confucius’s home country, asked how the ruler
can “inculcate in the common people the virtue of reverence, of doing their
best and of enthusiasm,” Confucius replied, “Rule over them with dignity and
they will be reverent; treat them with kindness and they will do their best; raise
the good and instruct those who are backward and they will be imbued with
enthusiasm.”24 More tellingly, when asked by Ranyou, his student, what more
can be done if there are numerous people and they have been made prosperous
by the state, Confucius famously replied that they should be educated.25 It is a
matter of controversy whether the virtues that Confucius thinks are expected
of the common people as a result of state moral education are the same sorts

22
So, I disagree with El Amine, when she asserts that “[t]‌he standard in politics is therefore not
virtue (the moral edification of the people), but rather the establishment and maintenance of
political order” (Classical Confucian Political Thought, pp. 10–​11). I critically revisit El Amine’s
central argument in the concluding chapter.
23
Bernard Williams, In the Beginning Was the Deed (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2005), p. 3. Williams claims that “the BLD [Basic Legitimation Demand] is itself a moral prin-
ciple,” not in the sense that it represents a morality that is prior to politics but in the sense that
it is “inherent in there being such a thing as politics” (p. 5).
24
The Analects 2.20.
25
The Analects 13.9.
10 Introduction

of virtues required of the ruler for good and effective government. Equally
controversial is whether they are the same moral virtues that are concerned
with human excellence and flourishing or whether the virtues required of the
common people in their political capacity of “the ruled” have only indirect
connection with their moral self-​cultivation toward sagehood. If so, what is the
nature of such virtues? Or how can we make sense of their distinctive nature?
Again, and as we will see later in this book, meaningfully different responses
to these questions lead Mencius and Xunzi to qualitative different versions of
Confucian political theory.
As Confucius’s response to Ranyou clearly shows, however, moral educa-
tion can hardly be effective if people are impoverished, as they cannot afford
to think beyond their material survival, and this concern gives rise to the mate-
rial condition proposition. Like political goods such as political order and sta-
bility, in Confucian virtue politics, socioeconomic conditions do not hold a
value of intrinsic moral importance, independent of what they aim to facili-
tate, namely, the people’s moral well-​being and flourishing. Nevertheless, no
classical Confucian believed that it would be possible to lead the people toward
goodness without creating the socioeconomic conditions under which they
have sufficient means to support them and their families. It is for this reason
that Confucius singles out “enough food” as one of the three core elements that
buttress good government, along with enough arms and trust between the ruler
and the people.26

Two Aims
In suggesting (a) the primacy of virtue as the wellspring of human excellence
and flourishing, (b) a mode of government relying primarily on the ruler’s moral
character, (c) moral education of the people, and (d) the material conditions for
the people’s moral well-​being as the key constituents of the paradigm of virtue
politics, however, Confucius did not develop an articulate political theory in
which these components are coherently interweaved into a systematic whole.
Although none of the later classical Confucians advanced a systematic polit-
ical theory in the form of a philosophical treatise paralleling Aristotle’s Politics
or Cicero’s On the Commonwealth, mainly due to the vastly different way of

26
The Analects 12.7. Also see Joseph Chan, “Is There a Confucian Perspective on Social Justice?” in
Western Political Thought in Dialogue with Asia, eds. Takashi Shogimen and Cary J. Nederman
(Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008), pp. 261–​277; Sor-​hoon Tan, “The Concept of Yi (义)
in the Mencius and Problems of Distributive Justice,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93:3
(2014), pp. 489–​505. It is highly debatable, however, whether this implies that the classical
Confucians believed in the overriding value of the so-​called “right to subsistence” vis-​à-​vis civil
and political rights, as Bell claims (see Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy, pp. 237–​243). For an
argument that counters Bell’s claim, see Sungmoon Kim, “Confucianism, Moral Equality, and
Human Rights: A Mencian Perspective,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 74:1
(2015), pp. 149–​185, esp. at pp. 174–​178.
Introduction 11

forming philosophical thought, Mencius and Xunzi immediately took on the

tasks of articulating human nature, illuminating the nature of key virtues and
their internal relations, explicating moral psychology and the method of moral
self-​cultivation, and extending virtue ethics to virtue politics in both domestic
politics and interstate relations. The result was the emergence of two different
models of Confucian virtue politics, though both maneuvered within the same
political paradigm.
One of the central aims of this book is to articulate what Mencius and
Xunzi have in common as the advocates of the political paradigm pro-
vided by Confucius, why and where they part company despite their shared
commitment to the Kingly Way (wangdao 王道), the ideal Confucian statecraft,
and how in doing so they each created a distinctive Confucian political theory,
enriching the paradigm in ways that go far beyond Confucius’s seminal ideas
and propositions. Chapters in Part I are intended to serve this aim, though each
chapter from a different angle. Together, they illuminate the inextricable and
complex relationship between Confucian virtue ethics and virtue politics and
the relationship’s distinct configuration in each thinker’s political theory more
specifically. I approach such a configuration from the overarching framework
of “Confucian constitutionalism,” about which I explain shortly.
That being said, there is another important aim of this book in relation
to Confucius’s original political thought. To explicate the background of this
second aim, however, it seems necessary to make a brief historical excursion.
Confucius lived during the last moments of the Spring and Autumn period
(771–​476 bce), which began with the destruction of the Western Zhou
(1046–​771 bce); though Zhou’s political power and symbolic authority as
the suzerain ruler governing “all under Heaven” (tianxia 天下) had signifi-
cantly waned throughout this period and its decline further accelerated during
Confucius’s lifetime, it had yet to collapse completely and no regional rulers
governing the realm called guo 國, though only nominally subject to Zhou as
the “feudal” lord, dared to arrogate to themselves the title of “king” (wang
王), the political title exclusively held by the Zhou suzerain as the Son of
Heaven (tianzi 天子). By making it his Heaven-​bestowed mission to restore
the bygone civilization of the Western Zhou,27 Confucius held an unflinching
commitment to Zhou political ritualism and believed that it alone could pro-
vide a reliable normative standard according to which the political turmoil of
his time could be rectified.28 Despite his occasional indignation at the munities

27
For Confucius’s prophetic sense of mission for the transformation of the world, see Wm.
Theodore de Bary, The Trouble with Confucianism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1991), pp. 4–​15.
28
We can have the most contextualized (and proper, in my view) reading of Confucius’s famous
idea of the “rectification of names” (zhengming 正名) against the backdrop of his commitment
to Zhou political ritualism. As a method of government, zhengming requires that the ruler be a
ruler, the subject a subject, the father a father, and the son a son (The Analects 12.11).
12 Introduction

and usurpations perpetrated by local rulers, powerful families, and ambitious

ministers,29 Confucius took for granted domestic and interstate moral hierar-
chies that Zhou political ritualism authorized and thus he never gave up his
global vision of Confucian virtue politics, at the heart of which lay a universal
kingship by a virtuous ruler.30
Both Mencius and especially Xunzi, who came two generations after
Mencius, belonged to a radically different world, however. What differentiates
the Warring States period from the Spring and Autumn period is the rise of
the independent and de facto sovereign states untrammeled by Zhou political
ritualism. Though Zhou collapsed in 256 bce, right before the reunification
of the Middle Kingdom by Qin 秦 (221 bce), a Legalistic state from the west,
by Mencius’s time Zhou had completely lost control over former feudal states,
and several powerful states, all claiming the title of “king,” were violently vying
for supremacy in their struggle to become the universal ruler, driving inter-
state relations into war –​hence the Warring States period. Mencius and Xunzi
each defended Confucianism not only against the champions of the competing
schools of thought such as Daoists, Mohists, and Yangists, but more impor-
tantly, as far as their political theories are concerned, upheld the paradigm of
Confucian virtue politics in the face of the eminent threat of Realpolitik, the
ethos of which profoundly influenced the mindset of the rulers and accordingly
the nature of interstate relations of the time.
The second aim of this book, therefore, is to investigate how Mencius and
Xunzi responded to the challenge of Realpolitik in both domestic and interstate
political contexts. As will be shown, they both embraced the new political envi-
ronment ushered in by the breakdown of Zhou political ritualism as the binding
normative norm and wrestled to reinvent Confucian virtue politics in ways
that better restrain the ruler’s arbitrary use of power and unchecked pursuit of
private interest without hampering his legitimate use of power in the service of
the well-​being of the people. Notwithstanding this common “constitutional”
concern, though, it will also be discussed, Mencius and Xunzi placed different
emphasis on the two, albeit intimately related, dimensions of Confucian virtue
politics (“enabling” and “constraining”) and their contrasting assumptions of
human nature further encouraged them to organize their idea of constitutional
politics differently –​Mencius was deeply concerned with how to countervail
the ruler’s political power by means of the minister’s moral virtue, whereas
Xunzi was far more interested in defending the ritual institutions that could

29
See The Analects 3.1; 16.1–​3. In 14.21, Confucius even urges Duke Ai of Lu to launch a punitive
expedition (tao 討) against a minister who assassinated Duke Jian of Qi and usurped the power,
which is a critical violation of Zhou political ritualism. In Chapter 6, I discuss how Mencius and
Xunzi creatively re-​appropriated the Zhou practice of punitive expedition under new interstate
political circumstances during the Warring States period.
30
On Confucius’s unswerving commitment to Zhou political ritualism, see Kung-​chun Hsiao, A
History of Chinese Political Thought, Vol. 1: From the Beginnings to the Sixth Century a.d.,
trans. F. W. Mote (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 93–​101.
Introduction 13

(re)constitute a civil polity out of political disorder. While chapters in Part I

focus directly on the different modes of Confucian constitutionalism suggested
by Mencius and Xunzi, chapters in Part II relate their constitutional visions
to the assessment of the “Way of the Hegemon” (badao 覇道) and punitive
expedition as the crucial methods of interstate governance for the sake of the
well-​being of all under Heaven.

Conceptual Frameworks
While aiming to be a work of history of political thought, this book’s method-
ology is somewhat different from the one commonly employed in traditional
history of political thought. Generally speaking, studies in history of political
thought take the interaction between the historical context and production of
meaning seriously, with special attention to a political theorist’s intention and
the vocabularies that he or she employs.31 Thus in history of political thought,
the key concern is often what kinds of concepts or ideas a theorist as an author
employs or develops in the given historical context in order to make sense of
or justify political relations, practices, and institutions and how they undergo
historical transformations in meaning or even transvaluations in the course
of being challenged by other theorists with alternative perspectives or further
articulated by later scholars conditioned by a different historical context.
Though this book intends to be sensitive to the historical context in which
Mencius and Xunzi were developing their distinctive political ideas, often via
critical conversation with kings and ministers of their time (a point which has
been given surprisingly little attention by contemporary scholars),32 its ambi-
tion to derive a cogent and (more or less) systematic political theory from the
texts of the Mengzi 孟子 and the Xunzi 荀子, significant portions of which are
allegedly attributed to the historical Mencius and Xunzi, renders its guiding
methodology to be more philosophically reconstructive and analytical than
historical and descriptive. As the term “reconstructive” suggests, in analyzing
the classical texts I do not assume that they possess an esoteric or hidden
philosophical message awaiting a perspicacious interpreter’s correct com-
prehension.33 Though some people in East Asia who are “comprehensively”

31
See Quentin Skinner’s essays in Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics, ed.
James Tully (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1988).
32
In analytic Chinese philosophy in particular, it is commonly neglected that many of Mencius’s
and Xunzi’s interlocutors were political leaders, and, accordingly, their statements tend to be
understood apolitically as pure philosophic arguments concerning, for example, moral moti-
vation, moral reasoning, and moral action but rarely as political argument on government and
statecraft.
33
Compare my approach with Tongdong Bai’s, who understands the classical Confucian texts
as sacred texts written by ancient sages and believes that they contain profound and esoteric
meanings. See his Jiubang xinming: Gujinzhongxicankaoxiade gudianrujiazhengzhizhexue [A
New Mission of an Old State: The Contemporary and Comparative Relevance of Classical
Confucian Political Philosophy] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2009).
14 Introduction

committed to Confucianism as a moral and philosophical doctrine would

still regard these texts as sacred texts –​especially the Mengzi, which was
canonized by Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–​1200) as one of the Four Books (sishu 四
書) of Neo-​Confucianism –​holding the ancient sage’s profound messages,
I approach them as philosophical texts that reflect the historical conditions
in which they are embedded and whose less-​than-​organized compositions as
political texts require reconstructions for the sake of philosophical intelligi-
bility of each thinker’s political thought. By reconstructing a cogent and sys-
tematic Confucian political theory through textual analysis, therefore, I mean
the following. I assemble Mencius’s and Xunzi’s otherwise-​scattered statements
bearing their important political insights and judgments, reorganize them in a
philosophically intelligible way, and use them to reconstruct a coherent polit-
ical argument against the backdrop of their own political contexts.
In reconstructing the constellations of Mencius’s and Xunzi’s political ideas
and arguments into a coherent and systematic political theory, I employ sev-
eral conceptual frameworks that I hope can shed new light on the comparative
understanding of their political thought.

Negative and Positive Confucianism

The first conceptual framework that I introduce is positive versus negative
Confucianism. Negative Confucianism is meant to describe the dimension
of Confucian virtue politics that stresses the importance of constraining
the ruler’s pursuit of private interest and arbitrary use of power so that he
can be on the right track of government (namely, the Kingly Way) in the
service of the moral and material well-​being of the people. While negative
Confucianism is supremely concerned with the constraining dimension
of Confucian virtue politics, positive Confucianism refers to the aspect of
Confucian virtue politics that enables the ruler, properly constrained by the
logic of negative Confucianism, to legitimately exercise his political power
and authority for the sake of public interest or common good. Central to the
ruler’s legitimate exercise of political power is his (or the state’s) ability to
coordinate the people’s conflicting interests effectively with a view to gener-
ating the public interest.
The underlying assumption of positive and negative Confucianism is that,
barring some exceptions, the ruler, whose power should be at once restrained
and enabled, is a non-​Confucian political agent who ascends the throne by
hereditary right and therefore is not necessarily virtuous. To put this assumption
in the historical context of the Warring States period, what the framework of
negative and positive Confucianism aims to illuminate is that Mencius and
Xunzi grappled with how to constrain and simultaneously empower the rulers
of their time, who were driven to a life-​and-​death struggle with others, and thus
generally drawn to Realpolitik, knowing that they did not necessarily possess
the moral character required to become a sage-​king. As such, this framework
draws attention to both thinkers’ shared political realism.
Introduction 15

In employing the positive-​ versus-​negative-​

Confucianism framework, my
core argument is that although both Mencius and Xunzi acknowledge both
dimensions of Confucian virtue politics, Mencius is strongly attracted to nega-
tive Confucianism, while Xunzi pays more attention to positive Confucianism.
As will be discussed shortly, Mencius’s strong virtue monism as well as his
ethico-​religious ideal of Confucian virtue politics allows relatively little room
for his political theory to constructively engage with, let alone empower, a less-​
than-​virtuous ruler, and this difficulty leads Mencius to generally concentrate
on negative Confucianism. On the contrary, Xunzi, who defines the ruler (jun
君) in a formal-​institutional fashion, as one who “is good at forming commu-
nity”34 or as “the pivot and crucial point in controlling social divisions [among
the people],”35 has far more freedom than Mencius in justifying the ruler’s
political authority in terms of an ability to form community and coordinate
(the divisions and allotments of) the people, as long as he is properly checked
by ritual and yi.

Virtue and Ritual Constitutionalism

Many Western observers of China have long identified the absence of the prin-
cipled division of power as one of the defining characteristics of the Confucian
state, and they have commonly understood the Confucian state in terms of
patrimony, overgrown bureaucracy, and rule of men (as opposed to rule of
law).36 As a result, readers may reasonably raise questions regarding my ear-
lier, seemingly anachronistic, attribution of terms such as “constitutional” and
“constitutionalism” to Confucian virtue politics, anachronistic in light of the
dominant Western liberal-​legal understanding of “constitutionalism,” which is
nested in the interrelated discourses of protection of rights, due process, rule of
law, and Rechtsstaat. Of course, in the modern liberal discourse, constitution-
alism is far from merely a formal political concept, generally concerned with
the constitution (i.e., make-​up) of a civil polity as it symbolizes the substantive
liberal ideal of good government, at the core of which lies the disciplined insti-
tutional restraint of the state’s coercive power.37
I hold that if it is agreed that constitutionalism, which at once enables and
constrains political power, is a widespread and adaptable phenomenon capable
of insinuating itself into institutions in multiple ways, then understanding con-
stitutionalism in a premodern non-​Western culture should require attention to

34
Xunzi 9.16a.
35
Xunzi 10.4.
36
Max Weber, The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, trans. Hans H. Gerth
(New York: The Free Press, 1951); Etienne Balazs, Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy, trans.
H. M. Wright and ed. Arthur F. Wright (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964); Joseph
R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: A Trilogy (Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1968).
37
See Stephen Macedo, Liberal Virtues: Citizenship, Virtue, and Community in Liberal Constitutionalism
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1990).
16 Introduction

the local language by which constitutionalism is mediated, the local context

in which such a language is deployed, and the cultural grammar that governs
such a context. In this regard, I wholeheartedly agree with Chaihark Hahm
(and others) that ritual played an important “constitutional” role in traditional
Confucian politics.38 I also find David Schaberg’s argument appealing, when he
presents the Rituals of Zhou (Zhouli 周禮), created during the Han dynasty,
as a sort of constitutional text by understanding the word “constitution” as a
translation of the term politeia as used by the ancient Greeks in pursuit of good
government. More specifically, Schaberg writes, “[T]‌he term ‘constitution’ (as
translation of politeia) is useful in that it identifies the Zhouli system as a
monarchy, but one with certain internally justified arrangements for the dis-
tribution of power and responsibility. By reading the Zhouli ‘constitutionally,’
we can begin to imagine how its framers would answer the kinds of questions
a Plato or an Aristotle might ask of them.”39 This said, however, in this book
I do not go as far as to suggest that Confucian virtue politics presents a form of
constitutionalism that imparts to the countervailing force an independent and
legally entrenched base of power or right vis-​à-​vis the ruler.
Throughout this book, and like Schaberg, I follow the lead of Aristotle, who
first provided the definition of constitution, which still remains the term’s most
capacious definition, and understand constitution as a translation of the Greek
term politeia, that is, as “the organization of a [state or civic body], in respect
of its offices generally, but especially in respect of that particular office which
is sovereign in all issues.”40 Of special interest is that after equating constitu-
tion with “civic body” as such, Aristotle points out two key elements as central
to assessing the polity’s constitutional nature: first, the nature of the end for
which the polity exists and, second, the mode of rule that the people and var-
ious forms of associations they form are subject to.41 In this broad definition
of constitution, the term “constitutional” can be associated with a polity that
is civil, the end of which serves the well-​being of the people, and whose use of
power is authoritative (not authoritarian). The paradigm of Confucian virtue
politics clearly shows that Confucian virtue politics meets this minimum stan-
dard of constitutionalism, while buttressing one specific mode of government,
namely, monarchy.
The fact that Confucian virtue politics has both negative and positive
dimensions, however, bears far-​reaching implications in relation to its consti-
tutional nature. It implies that Confucian virtue politics is predicated on a

38
Chaihark Hahm, “Law, Culture, and the Politics of Confucianism,” Columbia Journal of Asian
Law 16 (2003), pp. 253–​301.
39
David Schaberg, “The Zhouli as Constitutional Text,” in Statecraft and Classical Learning: The
Rituals of Zhou in East Asian History, eds. Benjamin A. Elman and Martin Kern (Leiden: Brill,
2010), pp. 33–​63, at pp. 33–​34.
40
Politics 1278b6. The English translation is adapted from Aristotle, Politics, trans. Ernest Barker
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
41
Politics 1278b15.
Introduction 17

special form of constitutional politics, which realizes its constitutional goals –​

authoritative use of political power and enhancement of the well-​being of the
people –​not by means of arbitrary rule of man but in a principled manner in
which the ruler is at once constrained and enabled as the authoritative pivot of
social coordination. In this book, Confucian constitutionalism is understood
mainly in terms of this double-​edged engagement with the ruler or the state as
a practical mechanism to actualize the broad constitutional goals of Confucian
virtue politics.42
What distinguishes Confucian constitutionalism understood in this way
from liberal constitutionalism, which is commonly (and unfortunately) equated
with constitutionalism as such, is that for its actualization it utilizes mediums
other than rights, rule of law, and an independent judiciary.43 It is, among other
things, virtue and ritual (more accurately, ritual institutions) that underpin
Confucian constitutionalism. Between virtue and ritual, depending on which
element is given more practical weight in the creation and principled operation
of the civil polity, Confucian constitutionalism takes the form of either virtue
constitutionalism or ritual constitutionalism.
Virtue constitutionalism is a mode of Confucian constitutionalism that
relies for its negative function on the Confucian-​educated minister’s charis-
matic moral virtue as the countervailing force against the (non-​Confucian)
ruler’s brute political power, while for its positive function, it resorts to the
ruler’s ability to extend his care to the people or transform his private interest
into public interest. While the locomotive of virtue constitutionalism comes
from the key political agents’ moral character, what animates ritual constitu-
tionalism is not only moral character, which has the foundational importance
in Confucian virtue politics, but, more importantly, ritual institutions that help
overcome the chaotic state of nature, coordinate the people’s socioeconomic
transactions, render social relations civil, and recalibrate the ruler’s otherwise-​
abusive power toward the well-​being of the people.
As such, virtue constitutionalism and ritual constitutionalism are not mutu-
ally exclusive and they each contain elements of both negative and positive

42
Compare my understanding of Confucian constitutionalism with Bui’s idea of classical
Confucian constitutionalism focused on the rectification of names (zhengming) and traditional
norms and institutions embodied in the li. See Ngoc Son Bui, Confucian Constitutionalism in
East Asia (New York: Routledge, 2016), chap. 1. Though Bui reconstructs and justifies a generic
mode of classical Confucian constitutionalism in reference to Confucius’s ethical and political
thought, I provide far more nuanced and sophisticated political theories of Confucian constitu-
tionalism advanced by Mencius and Xunzi in the chapters of Part I.
43
In this regard, I fully agree with Graham Walker, when he says, “Defining quality of constitu-
tionalism is not having definite texts; it is the public articulation of (at least some of) a polity’s
normative architecture,” which can be materialized “via all forms of influential public discourse”
(Graham Walker, “The Idea of Nonliberal Constitutionalism,” in Nomos XXXIX: Ethnicity and
Group Rights, eds. Ian Shapiro and Will Kymlicka [New York: New York University Press,
1997], p. 165).
18 Introduction

Confucianism. However, they nonetheless signify distinct modes of Confucian

constitutionalism with differing emphasis on either negative or positive
Confucianism. In this book, I present Mencius and Xunzi as the champions of
virtue constitutionalism and ritual constitutionalism, respectively.

Moral and Civic Virtue

The third conceptual framework I employ in this book is the distinction
between moral and civic virtue. Like the other conceptual frameworks, this dis-
tinction is not the classical Confucians’ own creation, but I believe it captures
powerfully an important difference between Mencius and Xunzi in the way
they conceptualize virtue.
By “moral virtue” I mean a set of character traits that are directly concerned
with human excellence and flourishing. Since it concerns a person’s moral
well-​being qua human being, it can also be called human virtue. In classical
Confucianism moral virtues are the virtues whose cultivation is believed to
ultimately lead one to sagehood. Such virtues include ren (benevolence), yi
(righteousness), li (ritual propriety), and zhi (ability to distinguish between
right and wrong), among others, and Mencius famously called them the four
cardinal (human) virtues, which all human beings are born with in terms of
Heaven’s decree (ming). “Civic virtue” is distinguished from moral virtue as it
refers to a set of character traits that are primarily concerned with the creation
and sustenance of the political community and thus only has an indirect rela-
tionship with human excellence and flourishing. In other words, in classical
Confucianism civic virtues are the virtues that are directly instrumental to
ritual order and social harmony but whose cultivation alone does not nec-
essarily lead to sagehood. The effect of civic virtue is more institutional than
personal and its intrinsic moral value, independent of its instrumental contri-
bution to the political community, is less obvious than that of moral virtue.
It is important to note, however, that the distinction between moral virtue
and civic virtue that I attribute to classical Confucianism is only heuristic,
and, like the distinction between virtue constitutionalism and ritual consti-
tutionalism, they are not mutually exclusive. In fact, and as will be argued in
Chapter 3, there is no stark separation between moral virtue and civic virtue in
classical Confucianism, as the two are connected, albeit not directly –​which,
I suspect, is the reason why Mencius and Xunzi do not create a conceptual
distinction between the two. One of the greatest advantages of acknowledging
the practical distinction between moral virtue and civic virtue in classical
Confucian political theory is that it makes it possible to differentiate between
li as ritual propriety, which extends from Heaven-​bestowed human nature,
and li as a set of civic virtues that are socially required for sustaining ritual
institutions and maintaining political order. As will be shown, while li is one of
the cardinal moral virtues for Mencius, for Xunzi it is primarily a civic virtue,
and this distinction is closely related to a specific mode of Confucian constitu-
tionalism advocated by each thinker.
Introduction 19

Strong and Tempered Virtue Monism

Confucian ethics as conceived by Mencius and Xunzi is monistic in its struc-
ture in that it does not (clearly) distinguish between private and public, nor
between moral and civic. Furthermore, Confucianism does not recognize the
analytical distinction between ethics and politics –​hence Confucian virtue pol-
itics in which ethics and politics are inextricably intertwined.
This, however, does not mean that classical Confucians always believed that
harmony between moral and civic and between ethics and politics, as we now
distinguish, was easy to attain. In fact, for both Mencius and Xunzi, the para-
digm of Confucian virtue politics was essentially a normative paradigm, close
to what John Rawls calls a “regulative ideal,” something that ought to be pur-
sued despite the practical difficulty of achieving it under the non-​ideal political
circumstances. In a sense, what distinguish Mencius and Xunzi as political
thinkers are the different ways in which they responded to the challenge of
a political reality that belies a seamless continuum between ethics and poli-
tics, and this difference, I contend, further differentiates the two also as virtue
ethicists. Therefore, the final conceptual framework that I rely on in this book
is the structural difference between Mencius’s virtue ethics, which is strongly
monist, and Xunzi’s virtue ethics, whose monistic structure is (more) tempered
by the demand of political reality.
Strong virtue monism, which I associate more closely with Mencius, stipulates
a perfect harmony between moral virtue and civic virtue. In strong virtue
monism civic virtue is thought to spontaneously extend from moral virtue, and,
therefore, it holds no independent moral significance, philosophically or prac-
tically. In contrast, tempered virtue monism, which I attribute mainly to Xunzi,
weaves personal moral virtue and good political consequences (or civic virtue
that is instrumental to such consequences) in a non-​straightforward manner,
creating wider room for political agency to maneuver with a view to the public
good. In fact, civic virtue is one powerful outcome of tempered virtue monism; it
is required for the common people who are bad by nature (according to Xunzi)
in order for them to nonetheless comply with and sustain ritual-​based political
order without possessing the “sprouts” of moral goodness or becoming per-
fectly good. Political virtue, a special form of civic virtue pertinent to the ruler
and other key political agents, is yet another important product of tempered
virtue monism, as it allows political actors to make tough decisions required
by the circumstances, thereby bringing about better political consequences that
could not have been attained by adhering to strong virtue monism.
The strong and tempered virtue monism framework will turn out to be espe-
cially useful in making sense of Mencius’s (what I call) normative political
dualism between ren and bu ren (what is not ren), and between the Kingly
Way and what deviates from it, including badao. It will also help us under-
stand the moral ground of Xunzi’s surprising embrace of badao as a mode of
statecraft that can buttress a decently moral state. In short, this framework,
though concerned with different modes of Confucian virtue ethics, is useful
20 Introduction

in understanding and illuminating key political differences between Mencius

and Xunzi.
I would like to close this section by making one caution and one
suggestion. First, the caution. The four conceptual frameworks that I have
introduced are intended for more effective philosophical reconstructions
of Mencius’s and Xunzi’s political thought into coherent and systematic
Confucian political theories. Though they are my own creation, and hence
not offered by the classical Confucians themselves, this does not imply that
they are West-​originated normative standards according to which Mencius’s
and Xunzi’s political thought ought to be interrogated and rearranged. It
is worth emphasizing that these frameworks have been derived from my
textual interpretation, even though some of them (such as the distinctions
between negative and positive and between moral and civic), I admit, are
inspired by Western political theory, and they are then used, not imposed
upon, in order to make the comparison between Mencius and Xunzi more
systematic and intelligible.
The suggestion that I would like to make is related to this last point about a
systematic and intelligible comparison between Mencius’s and Xunzi’s political
theories. The near-​complete absence of coherent and systematic reconstructions
of classical Confucian political theory has prevented political theorists and
philosophers from having a productive “theoretical” discussion regarding
classical Confucian political thought, and the debate among them has largely
revolved around philological questions. To be sure, there is no way of denying
the foundational importance of philological rigor and exegetical competence
when it comes to interpreting ancient texts and I hope that this book offers
new exegetical insight for philologists and sinologists, and I am certainly open
to their critical engagement with my textual interpretation. What I additionally
anticipate in framing my textual interpretation in reference to several concep-
tual dyads, which, to repeat, are never intended as stark contrasts, is a debate
on our philosophical perspectives or frameworks that guide our interpretive
or reconstructive philosophical projects that we call “political theory.” This
way, we can make classical Confucian political theory a more robust subfield
of political theory, accessible not only by classicists and sinologists but also by
political theorists and scientists who may not have direct linguistic access to
the classical texts.

Outline of the Book

This book consists of two parts, each comprised of three chapters. In Part I,
I reconstruct Mencius’s and Xunzi’s political theories under the broad phil-
osophical perspective of Confucian constitutionalism. It is here I introduce
the four conceptual frameworks and present two distinct modes of Confucian
Introduction 21

virtue politics that Mencius and Xunzi developed within the parameter of the
paradigm of Confucian virtue politics.
In Chapter 1, I investigate the complex relationship between morality, interest,
and politics in Mencius’s and Xunzi’s political thought. The central concern of
this chapter is the question of motivation: how the classical Confucians address
the motivation of the ruler, otherwise preoccupied with his private interest, to
subject himself to public interest, at the heart of which lies the well-​being of the
people, and, in Xunzi’s case in particular, how people who are bad by nature are
motivated to voluntarily comply with ritual-​based civil order. By understanding
creation and sustenance of civil order as the positive ambition of Confucian virtue
politics, which requires the transformation of private interest into public interest,
and capturing the ruler’s authoritative exercise of power in the service of public
interest in terms of positive Confucianism, this chapter shows that Mencius’s sem-
inal insight into how to realize positive Confucianism in the Warring States con-
text (on top of negative Confucianism, central to which is the constraint of the
ruler’s arbitrary power and unchecked private interest) is given further articula-
tion by Xunzi, who extends his Confucian predecessor’s original concern, namely
the formation of public interest, to the more fundamental political question of
the creation of public order by means of effective coordination of the people’s
socioeconomic transactions. Contrary to the studies that draw attention to purely
moral and intrinsically good motivation in Mencius’s and Xunzi’s ethics, this
chapter illuminates the important prudential ground in their political theories,
which underlies both the formation of public interest and the creation and suste-
nance of public order.
The fact that Confucian virtue politics does not endorse arbitrary rule by
man but espouses disciplined political practice with two –​negative and pos-
itive –​dimensions opens the possibility that it is predicated on a sort of con-
stitutional politics, what I call Confucian constitutionalism. Chapter 2 claims
that while equally committed to the paradigm of Confucian virtue politics (or
the Kingly Way), Mencius and Xunzi developed two distinctive, though closely
related, modes of Confucian constitutionalism in the face of Realpolitik that
dominated the political ethos of their time –​virtue constitutionalism and ritual
constitutionalism respectively. More specifically, I argue that Mencius valorizes
the moral authority of the virtuous ministers as the countervailing force
against the monarch who ascends the throne by hereditary right and gives
selective ministers the ritually sanctioned right to depose a tyrannical ruler as
a procedural mechanism by which to resolve the constitutional crisis caused
by misrule in a way consistent with the paradigm of Confucian virtue poli-
tics. Xunzi, on the other hand, places much stronger emphasis on the institu-
tional stability of kingship undergirded by ritual institutions, which makes the
Confucian polity less dependent on an individual ruler’s personal charisma. In
making this argument, I pay special attention to Xunzi’s criticism of Mencius’s
idealization of royal transmission between legendary sage-​kings by individual
22 Introduction

merit and interpret it as a political critique of virtue constitutionalism from the

standpoint of ritual constitutionalism.
In Chapter 3 I shed new light on Confucian virtue ethics from the per-
spective of the virtue and ritual constitutionalism framework introduced in
Chapter 2, specifically on how different types of Confucian constitutionalism
affect the monistic structure of Confucian virtue ethics differently. The argu-
ment goes as follows: Mencius’s and Xunzi’s differing accounts of human
nature lead them to describe the state of nature (i.e., the pre-​li state) differently
and this difference in turn leads them to conjecture the origin of civil order dif-
ferently, ultimately leading them to approach the nature of Confucian virtues
differently, li in particular. For Mencius the state of nature is understood not
so much as a chaotic state of life-​and-​death struggle but as an archaic state
in which humans’ inner voice of morality has yet to be awakened. For him, li
denotes first and primarily the moral virtue of ritual propriety, whose “sprout”
everyone possesses, and whose arduous cultivation contributes to genuine
human excellence and flourishing. In Mencius, ritual institutions, articulated
by the former sage-​kings, are the social expression of the inner sense of ritual
propriety and thus they do not require a special set of character traits for their
survival in addition to the cardinal human virtues. While Mencius subscribes
to the strongly monistic structure of li by singularly conceiving of it as the
moral virtue of ritual propriety, Xunzi, who begins his political theory with
the assumption of the anarchic state of nature, understands li primarily as a
set of civic virtues that buttress ritual institutions and by implication political
order. For Xunzi, therefore, li’s value is primarily political, which consists in
its instrumental contribution to political goods such as order and stability,
although he never dismisses the dimension of li as a moral resource that can be
intrinsically conducive to one’s moral self-​cultivation toward sagehood (long)
after the establishment of civil-​ritual-​political order.
After reconstructing Mencius’s and Xunzi’s political theories with reference
to the conceptual distinctions between negative and positive Confucianism,
between virtue and ritual constitutionalism, and between moral and civic
virtue in Part I, in Part II I turn to how they understand two specific modes of
government –​namely, the Kingly Way and badao –​in both domestic and inter-
state contexts under the new “Warring States” political circumstances.
In Chapter 4, I explore the psychological origin of negative Confucianism,
as suggested by Mencius, against the backdrop of Realpolitik of his time and
discuss how his strong virtue monism entails normative dualism between ren
and bu ren and between the Kingly Way and whatever deviates from it, leading
him to completely dismiss the normative value of badao. As an advocate of
Confucian virtue politics who considers one-​man monarchy as the only legit-
imate form of government, Mencius never took issue with the institution of
kingship as such, even when many rulers of his time exploited it for Realpolitik
purposes. However, Mencius seems to have been keenly aware that the king’s
unique political position as a solitary man above or beyond the political
Introduction 23

community easily makes him tempted by “great ambition” to become a uni-

versal king by subjugating all under Heaven and forgetting about the people’s
suffering in his quest, thereby making him vulnerable to moral failure, and,
worse, susceptible to tyranny. Mencius’s repeated frustration with the rulers
of his time, generally drawn to Realpolitik, and his observation of the way in
which the ideal of sage-​kingship was manipulated by ambitious feudal lords
and ministers, led him to blur the critical moral difference between badao and
tyranny, finding both equally bu ren, as well as to increasingly doubt a harmo-
nious entwinement of sagehood and (hereditary) kingship, or the possibility
of sage-​kingship under Warring States circumstances. Mencius’s theoretical
breakthrough was to develop a political theory of negative Confucianism, at
the heart of which lies moral rectification of the ruler by the virtuous ministers
who enjoy certain ritually sanctioned political liberties.
Then, in Chapter 5, I turn to Xunzi and investigate his careful affirmation
of badao as a mode of statecraft morally acceptable in both domestic and
interstate contexts. What is interesting about Xunzi is that despite his unflag-
ging commitment to the paradigm of Confucian virtue politics, he not only
recognized an important practical value of badao, which Mencius did also,
without actively endorsing it, but further affirmed that there is a Confucian
moral value, trust or trustworthiness (xin) more specifically, in the way in
which badao operates, normatively distancing it from outright bad forms of
rule such as tyranny. Though Xunzi admitted that badao neither aims at moral
edification of the people nor relies on the core Confucian moral virtues like
ren and yi as its governing principle, he thought that, nonetheless, it could
provide a critical moral-​political bulwark against the anarchic state of nature
and thus approximate certain features of the Kingly Way, rendering the state
decently moral. One of my central aims in this chapter is to show that Xunzi’s
political theory of badao was developed (consciously, I believe) in the course
of resolving the tension between Mencius’s normative political dualism and
his acknowledgment of the practical utility of badao, thereby expanding the
scope of Confucian virtue politics. I attribute Mencius’s and Xunzi’s differing
attitudes toward badao to strong virtue monism and tempered virtue monism
respectively.
Toward the end of Chapter 5, I discuss Xunzi’s endorsement of the role of
the hegemon in interstate relations under the Warring States circumstances,
and this is another place where Xunzi parts company with Mencius, who
never acknowledged the hegemon’s moral and political role as the Heaven-​
appointed officer (tianli 天吏) in interstate governance. Despite this difference,
Xunzi wholeheartedly agreed with Mencius on how the ideal global vision of
Confucian virtue politics could be realized in a drastically altered interstate
context.
In Chapter 6, I investigate how Mencius and Xunzi made Confucian virtue
politics relevant in the new interstate context, occupied by de facto sover-
eign states without compromising its global vision. I argue that the classical
24 Introduction

Confucians creatively re-​appropriated the Zhou political practice of punitive

expedition, which posits interstate moral hierarchy between the suzerain and
feudal states, in a way relevant to the new interstate context where old feudalism
had become obsolete and thus no visible political institution representing the
Mandate of Heaven, the role played by the Zhou king, could be identified. First,
I show that they reinstated interstate moral hierarchy, first by recognizing the
political reality in which there exist large/​strong states and small/​weak states,
all liberated from Zhou political ritualism, and then by promoting reciprocal
relationships between large/​strong and small/​weak states so that small/​weak
states’ political self-​determination could be given sufficient protection. Second,
in order to extend Heaven’s beneficence to all people under Heaven beyond
the state border, which, according to the Zhou political discourse, was the cen-
tral task of the Son of Heaven, Mencius and Xunzi reconceptualized punitive
expedition in terms of punishment of a tyrant by any virtuous ruler so that the
well-​being of the people living beyond one’s territory could also be taken care
of by a timely military intervention. By justifying a ruler’s extension of care and
responsibility across borders, the classical Confucians could approximate the
global vision of Confucian virtue politics without denying the Warring States
reality of state sovereignty.
I conclude this book by critically revisiting Loubna El Amine’s “new inter-
pretation” of classical Confucian political thought, which aims to uncover the
overtly political dimension of classical Confucianism, unhinged by its virtue
ethics. After articulating El Amine’s core argument and also appreciating its
contribution to Confucian political theory, which unfortunately has not been
recognized by many of El Amine’s critics, I show why my approach in this book
can better achieve the goal that she intended with her “new” interpretation.
Part I

CONFUCIAN CONSTITUTIONALISM
1

Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism

Confucianism is sometimes understood as an ethical system that consciously

opposes the pursuit of material interest. The opening page of the Mengzi is
most telling in this regard: upon King Hui of Liang’s question of how to make
his state profitable, the quintessential political question that no sensible polit-
ical leader can afford to avoid, Mencius responds, “Why must you mention the
word ‘profit’ (he bi yue li* 何必曰利)? All that matters is that there should be
ren and yi.”1
As Mencian Confucianism became dominant in mainstream Chinese politics
during the twelfth century, later Confucians, especially orthodox Cheng-​Zhu
Neo-​Confucians who were strongly influenced by Mencius, rarely challenged
the (by then firmly established) Mencian dichotomy between morality and
interest.2 In fact, they actively criticized those who advocated the social utility
of promoting interest by calling them “despoilers of the Dao” or “followers of
the Way of the Hegemon.”3 In the Mencian Confucian tradition, which occu-
pied a central place in both China and Korea, stark contrast between morality
and interest was the norm.4
1
Mencius 1A1 (modified).
2
Unless otherwise specified, throughout this chapter by “interest” I mean “material interest”
understood as the natural desire for profit.
3
See, for instance, Hoyt C. Tillman, Utilitarian Confucianism: Ch’en Liang’s Challenge to Chu
Hsi (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University’s Council on East Asian Studies, 1982) and James
T. C. Liu, Reform in Sung China: Wang An-​shih (1021–​1086) and His New Policies (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1959).
4
This general account is not to dismiss the fact that outside of the orthodox Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​
Confucian schools, there were minority Neo-​Confucian scholars such as Chen Liang and Wang
An-​shi (see n3 above) who held a much more flexible and accommodating view toward human
desires for material interests. In a private conversation, Stephen Angle reminded me that even the
orthodox Neo-​Confucians were not always hostile to human desire (yu 慾) and Zhu Xi himself,
the great compiler of (the mainstream brand of) Neo-​Confucianism, never opposed the satisfac-
tion of all human desire even as he upheld a stark contrast between human desire (renyu 人慾)

27
28 Confucian Constitutionalism

That being said, predominance of the so-​called “Mencian orthodoxy” in the

later (Neo-​)Confucian political tradition does not necessarily mean that classical
Confucians including Mencius himself actually supported the dualism between
morality and interest, especially in relation to their conception of a civil polity. In
fact, if the Mencian orthodoxy goes as far as to claim that the ideal Confucian
civil polity can be achieved only when the desire for interest is suitably suppressed,
a serious philosophical problem arises, for it can hardly account for Mencius’s
own advocacy of “benevolent government” (renzheng 仁政), at the core of which
lies the enhancement of the people’s moral and material well-​being. All the more
problematic, the Mencian orthodoxy, again understood in relation to formation
and sustenance of the Confucian civil polity, offers no clear explanation as to
precisely whose desire for interest is to be suppressed (if this is indeed the way
to go) –​the people’s, the ruler’s, or both? It is perhaps because of their general
subscription to the Mencian orthodoxy that many Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​Confucians,
despite their remarkable contributions to metaphysics, ethical theory, and moral
psychology, made relatively fewer contributions to political theory as they failed
to recognize the significant political, and “constitutional,” implications of mate-
rial interest, properly transformed, for Confucian virtue politics.
In this chapter I investigate what can be called the “morality of interest”
in the political thought of Mencius and Xunzi by going beyond the tra-
ditional Mencian orthodoxy. Specifically, I engage with the following
questions, which have rarely been taken seriously by both Neo-​Confucians
and contemporary Confucian political theorists: were classical Confucians
such as Mencius and Xunzi clearly aware of the important moral, if not
philosophical, distinction between private interest and public interest when
grappling with the problem of material interest? On what grounds –​moral,
prudential, or both –​did they make the claim that the ruler must voluntarily
submit himself to the Confucian moral norms and (institutional) rules, par-
ticularly the li? Were they solely interested in constraining the ruler’s private
interest and political power, as some contemporary scholars suggest?5 How

and moral mind (daoxin 道心) that embodies Heavenly Principle (tianli 天理) and advocated
the slogan of “uphold Heavenly Principle and overcome human desire” (cun tianli er renyu 存
天理遏人欲). Also see Stephen C. Angle, Human Rights and Chinese Thought: A Cross-​Cultural
Inquiry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 79. Certainly, as Angle rightly notes,
the many prominent Neo-​Confucians including Zhu did not advocate a radically ascetic doctrine
and they indeed distinguished moral from natural desire, believing that only the latter should be
overcome. That said, it is still the case that the dominant majority of orthodox Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​
Confucians in Song-​Ming China and Chosŏn Korea subscribed to the simple Mencian ortho-
doxy, as far as the normative dyad of “interest and morality” is concerned, if not that of “desire
and morality.” For them, pursuit of interest was commonly understood as natural, thus morally
uncultivated desire for profit.
5
See Chaihark Hahm, “Ritual and Constitutionalism: Disputing the Ruler’s Legitimacy in a
Confucian Polity,” American Journal of Comparative Law 57 (2009), pp. 135–​203 and Jaeyoon
Song, “The Zhou Li and Constitutionalism: A Southern Song Political Theory,” Journal of
Chinese Philosophy 36:3 (2009), pp. 423–​438. Note that both Hahm and Song capture the
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 29

could they make the argument that the ruler can secure royal power more
effectively and enhance his own interest more legitimately by allowing him-
self to be restrained by the sociopolitical institutions of the li and moral
principles of ren and yi? Furthermore, what would motivate ordinary people
to bring themselves to Confucian morality and ritual order? If Xunzi is right
in claiming that human nature is originally bad, why would people accept
the moral paragon (namely, a sage) as their ruler prior to their moral trans-
formation, a problem that is unlikely to arise for Mencius, who holds the
contrary view of human nature? In short, how can we make sense of the two
dimensions of Confucian virtue politics –​positive Confucianism, in which
the ruler, irrespective of whether or not he is fully virtuous as a person,
exercises political power with sufficient (if not fully legitimate) authority and
popular support, and negative Confucianism, more focused on constraining
the ruler’s untrammeled pursuit of his private interest resulting in an arbi-
trary exercise of political power?6
I argue that compared with the Neo-​Confucians who were preoccupied
with negative Confucianism,7 both Mencius and Xunzi possessed a far more
flexible and sophisticated view on interest and thus a greater insight into
both dimensions of Confucian virtue politics, although, as will be discussed
in greater detail in Chapter 4, Mencius was more strongly drawn to nega-
tive Confucianism than Xunzi was. My central claim is that, despite many
differences, Mencius and Xunzi strove under the new political circumstances
of the warring states to reconstruct a civil-political order that could best serve

negative ambition of (Neo-​)Confucian virtue politics in terms of Confucian constitutionalism. In

a sense, this chapter aims to show that Confucianism encompasses positive as well as negative
dimensions of constitutionalist politics in a uniquely Confucian moral-​political outfit that I pre-
sent in this book in terms of Confucian virtue politics.
6
For an excellent study on the negative (i.e., constraining) and positive (i.e., enabling) aspects of
constitutional politics, see Stephen Holmes, Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal
Democracy (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995). Although Holmes’s purpose is to
investigate the modern ideal of liberal constitutionalism, he also deals with such pre-​liberal polit-
ical theorists as Thomas Hobbes and Jean Bodin, who allegedly advocated absolute kingship as
the harbinger of modern constitutional politics. In this chapter I approach the political theories
of Mencius and especially Xunzi, who unswervingly championed kingship from a similar view-
point, that is, from the perspective of constitutionalism’s two functions.
7
Neo-​Confucian scholar-​officials deemed themselves representatives of the public voice (gonglun
公論) or the authentic meaning of the Way (dao 道) by means of moral remonstration or vehe-
ment political opposition. However, the Neo-​Confucian negative Confucianism that starkly
opposed political power (held by the king) and moral authority (assumed by the Confucian
scholar-​officials) had been occasionally met with brutal persecution of the scholar-​ officials
who saw themselves as the carriers of the Way. See John W. Dardess, Confucianism and
Autocracy: Professional Elites in the Founding of the Ming Dynasty (Berkeley, CA: University of
California Press, 1983) and Blood and History: The Donglin Faction and Its Repression 1620–​
1627 (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press 2002) for China and Edward W. Wagner, The
Literati Purges: Political Conflict in Early Yi Korea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1974) for Korea.
30 Confucian Constitutionalism

the people’s well-​being by refusing what would later in the tradition become
the stringent dichotomy between morality and interest, and instead attempted
to reinvent a new type of interest, enlightened by ren and yi and harnessed
by the institutions of the li. That is, they regarded interest as something that
can be transformed and productively redirected in the service of a benevo-
lent government. After examining Mencius’s advocacy of creative entwinement
between the Kingly Way and interest, and his unarticulated idea of positive
Confucianism, I then highlight Xunzi’s innovation by showing how he was
able to bring Mencius’s nascent insight on positive Confucianism to full fru-
ition in the course of critically engaging with him.

Mencius on Interest: Beyond Negative Confucianism

Morality and Interest
Mencius’s strikingly provocative response to King Hui, in part because of
his stern tone and vehemence, convinced some of the later Confucians that
Confucian morality and interest are inherently incompatible, or even contra-
dictory. From a political theoretical standpoint, however, there is more at stake.
By placing morality in direct opposition to interest, Mencius in his political
rhetoric renders his own Confucian political theory negatively oriented toward
the ruler’s political power. While upholding a positive Confucian moral-​
political ideal –​namely, the Kingly Way –​and devoting himself to turning a
ruler of his time into a sage-​king, Mencius puts equal, at times more, emphasis
on constraining the incumbent political ruler, absorbed in the quintessential
Realpolitik question of “enriching (one’s own) state, and strengthening (one’s
own) military (fu guo qiang bing 富國强兵),” by means of ren and yi. He says,
“When the prince is benevolent, everyone is benevolent; when the prince is
dutiful, everyone is dutiful; when the prince is correct, everyone else is correct.
Simply by rectifying the prince one can put the state on a firm basis.”8 In this
view, not only is there no harm in curbing the ruler but, in a profound sense,
“to curb [the ruler] is to love him.”9
Why then is Mencius objecting to the ruler’s pursuit of material interest, who
is only doing so with a view to enriching and strengthening his own state?10
Quite surprisingly, notwithstanding the inevitable entanglement between pol-
itics (and public policies) and material interest, Mencius asserts that a ruler
who actively pursues interest will ultimately be doomed. When Qin and Chu
went to war, Song Keng, the famous pacifist, tried to persuade the kings of

8
Mencius 4A20.
9
Mencius 1B4.
10
As noted, however, Mencius does not dismiss the importance of material interest per se as he
recognizes its indispensability to the people’s economic well-​being. My goal at this point is
only to explicate why he believes that the ruler should not actively pursue material interest in
governing his state.
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 31

both countries to end the hostilities by highlighting the nonprofitability of war.

Mencius, however, criticizes Song Keng’s seemingly innocuous argument:
If you place profit before the kings of Qin and Chu, and they call off their armies
because they are drawn to profit, then it means that the soldiers in their armies retire
because they are drawn to profit. If a subject, in serving his prince, cherished the profit
motive, and a son, in serving his father, and a younger brother, in serving his elder
brother, did likewise, then it would mean that in their mutual relations, prince and sub-
ject, father and son, elder brother and younger brother, all cherished the profit motive
to the total exclusion of ren and yi. The prince of such a state is sure to perish. If, on the
other hand … a subject, in serving his prince, cherished ren and yi, and a son, in serving
his father, and a younger brother, in serving his elder brother, did likewise, then it would
mean that in their mutual relations, prince and subject, father and son, elder brother
and younger brother, all cherished ren and yi to the exclusion of profit. The prince of
such a state is sure to become a true King. What is the point of mentioning the word
“profit” (he bi yue li*)?11

Here Mencius does not further explain why relentless pursuit of interest would
lead to the ruining of a state.12 What is certain, though, is that in asking “What
is the point of mentioning the word ‘profit’?” Mencius is not simply conveying
impatience with this topic, criticizing the commonly held belief that enhance-
ment of material interest –​a rich state, in King Hui’s case –​is one of the sig-
nificant ways to measure political success. There seems to be a deeper political
message in this empathetic statement; that is, if interest is the core medium of
sociopolitical relations, such relations would inevitably be ruined. On the flip
side, if sociopolitical relations are based on ren and yi, thus being modeled after
the five cardinal moral bonds (wulun 五倫), the ruler would become a true
king, a moral-​political paragon who is entitled to reign over all under Heaven.
Arguably, in Mencius’s political thought, a true king is meant to be a sage-​king
who achieves everything by means of “effortless action” (wuwei 無爲) with no
motive for (private) interest.13
What is at issue here is how to understand the phrase “終去仁義懷利以相接
(zhong qu ren yi huai li* er xiang jie)” in the original text of the Mengzi,

11
Mencius 6B4.
12
By way of comparison, Confucius offers a clear answer by drawing attention to the fact that
if sociopolitical relations are based on interest, resentment (yuan 怨) arises inevitably (The
Analects 4.12), one of the strongest antisocial passions that according to modern Western
social contractarians can relegate civil society into a state of war. For the liberal and Confucian
responses to resentment in relation to the creation of civility, see Sungmoon Kim, “Self-​
Transformation and Civil Society: Lockean vs. Confucian,” Dao 8:4 (2009), pp. 383–​401.
13
Mencius’s wuwei ideal of kingship is most clearly addressed in Mencius 4A4. For the theme of
wuwei in Mencius’s moral philosophy, see Edward Slingerland, Effortless Action: Wu-​Wei as
Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China (New York: Oxford University Press,
2003), pp. 131–​173. This does not mean that Mencius’s ideal sage-​king literally does nothing.
As will be discussed shortly, Mencius acknowledges that in materializing the government of
wuwei, it is essential to first create a proper socioeconomic condition that can facilitate wuwei
statecraft (Mencius 1A7; 7A22–​23).
32 Confucian Constitutionalism

which Lau translates as “all cherished the profit motive to the total exclusion
of morality [in relating with one another].” One way of understanding this
phrase is to conceive of the morality of ren and yi and interest as mutually
incommensurable. Then the phrase may be rendered as, “having departed from
ren and yi, people would be related to one another inevitably or solely in medi-
ation of interest.” However, this moralistic, quasi-​deontological, rendition is
fraught with problems because mutual incommensurability between interest
and morality is incompatible with Mencius’s overall philosophical thought.
Notice that Mencius explains the political meaning of bu ren (literally,
“what is not ren”) not so much in relation to interest but in terms of cruelty
and tyranny, when he says, quoting Confucius, “There are two ways and two
only: benevolence (ren) and cruelty (bu ren). If a ruler ill-​uses his people to
an extreme degree, he will be murdered and his state annexed; if he does it
to a lesser degree, his person will be in danger and his territory reduced. Such
rulers will be given the posthumous names of ‘Yu’ and ‘Li’ [i.e., ‘benighted’ and
‘tyrannical’].”14 Likewise, in his famous rationalization of the killing of tyrants
Jie and Zhòu by sage-​kings Tang and Wu, Mencius argues unequivocally that
what goes against ren and yi is not so much interest but a particular action of
cruelty: “A man who mutilates benevolence (zei ren zi 賊仁者) is a mutilator
(zei 賊), while one who cripples rightness (zei yi zi 賊義者) is a crippler (can 殘).
He who is both a mutilator and a crippler is an ‘outcast.’ I have indeed heard
of the punishment of the ‘outcast Zhòu,’ but have not heard of any regicide.”15
In the same spirit, Mencius blames badao as bu ren for its reliance on force
in governing the people despite frequent allusions to ren by its practitioners,
for he believes that government resorting to force would inevitably lead to cru-
elty.16 For instance, commenting on Confucius’s reproach of his former student
Ran Yu, who, while serving the usurper of Lu, only made his immoral lord
richer rather than morally transforming him, Mencius says:
From this it can be seen that Confucius rejected those who enriched rulers not given to
the practice of benevolent government. How much more would he reject those who do
their best to wage war on their behalf? In wars to gain land, the dead fill the plains; in
wars to gain cities, the dead fill the cities. This is known as showing the land the way to
devour human flesh. Death is too light a punishment for such men. Hence those skilled
in war should suffer the most severe punishment; those who secure alliances with other
feudal lords come next, and then come those who open up waste lands and increase the
yield of the soil.17

14
Mencius 4A2. There could be a question regarding my interpretation of bu ren, following Lau,
as cruelty. Since I believe that this statement by Mencius is so critical in understanding the
overall normative outlook of his political theory and his notion of negative Confucianism in
particular, I will return to it in Chapter 4 with fuller attention to important philological and
interpretive questions involved in my rendition of bu ren as cruelty.
15
Mencius 1B8.
16
Mencius 2A3. I elaborate Mencius’s view on badao in Chapter 4.
17
Mencius 4A14.
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 33

Like the usurper of Lu, when inquiring of Mencius as to how he can make
his state profitable, King Hui must have been dreaming about “open[ing] up
waste lands and increas[ing] the yield of the soil.” Mencius’s statement here,
however, reveals that what he objects to is not material interest as such but the
aggressive war (and cruelty that follows) brought about by a ruler’s unbridled
desire to profit his own state, with which he identifies himself.18 Put differently,
Mencius’s criticism is pointing at the material interest that satisfies the ruler’s
personal ambition and therefore one that is in service of the politics of cruelty,
not at that which promotes the well-​being of the people. Mencius describes the
politics of cruelty, the polar opposite of his ideal benevolent government, in the
following way: “In years of bad harvest and famine, close on a thousand of
your people suffered, the old and the young being abandoned in the gutter, the
able-​bodied scattering in all directions, yet your granaries were full and there
was failure on the part of your officials to inform you of what was happening.
This shows how callous those in authority were and how cruelly they treated
the people.”19
Seen in this way, it is heavily problematic to approach Mencius’s seemingly
moralistic response to King Hui without regard to the sociopolitical context of
the Warring States period in which the politics of cruelty was prevalent under
the slogan of “enriching one’s own state and strengthening one’s own military.”
If Mencius was indeed convinced that Confucian virtue politics is fundamen-
tally incompatible with all pursuits of material interest, he could not have said
that “those with constant means of support will have constant hearts [i.e.,
morality], while those without constant means will not have constant hearts,”20
nor that “benevolent government must begin with land demarcation,” which
deeply concerns the people’s basic interest and well-​being.21 Moreover, the
dualistic framework that pits interest (including the interest that profits the
state) against morality makes it impossible to make sense of Mencius’s detailed
socioeconomic policy suggestions, which are inextricably intertwined with his
broad moral-​political vision.22
Therefore, it is of critical importance to understand that Mencius’s idea of
good government involves two stages: first, a negative stage that is devoted to
curbing the ruler’s single-​minded pursuit of his private interest and arbitrary
exercise of political power and second, a positive stage where people become
morally transformed by the example of the virtuous (i.e., morally rectified)

18
More on this in Chapter 4.
19
Mencius 1B12.
20
Mencius 1A7.
21
Mencius 3A3.
22
See Sungmoon Kim, “The Secret of Confucian Wuwei Statecraft: Mencius’s Political Theory of
Responsibility,” Asian Philosophy 20:1 (2010), pp. 27–​42; Sor-​hoon Tan, “The Concept of Yi
(义) in the Mencius and Problems of Distributive Justice,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy
93:3 (2014), pp. 489–​505; Loubna El Amine, Classical Confucian Political Thought: A New
Interpretation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), pp. 68–​73.
34 Confucian Constitutionalism

ruler. Furthermore, it is important to note that the second stage involves two
stages of its own: the positive goal of Mencian Confucian virtue politics,
namely the moral elevation of the people, can be achieved only after securing
their basic material well-​being.23
In my view, Mencius’s position with regard to interest is rather modest despite
his occasional moralistic gestures. Mencius’s core claim seems to be that if
sociopolitical relations involving many forms of socioeconomic transactions are
solely based on interest as the natural, uncoordinated desire for profit without
consideration of ren and yi, they will inevitably be ruined.24 For him, what
must be proactively avoided is pure material interest that is completely insu-
lated from the internal and external regulatory mechanisms of morality as well
as human relationships formed solely in mediation of material interest, which
inevitably results in social conflict. In short, at issue is not so much the contrast
between morality and interest but the contrast between interest enlightened
and regulated by morality (both moral principles and moral institutions) and
bare material interest. I believe it is in this spirit that Confucius says, “[A]‌man
[should] remember what is right at the sight of profit (jian li* si yi 見利思義).”25
Here, Confucius does not seem to be concerned with the rigid contrast between
interest (li*) and morality (yi); rather, given his deep interest in the people’s
economic well-​being,26 what concerns him seems to be how to properly regu-
late the natural desire (yu 慾) for profit by means of morality in the service of
the public good. At the center of Confucius’s statement is the belief that one’s
desire for material interest can be reformulated by moral concerns.
By understanding “he bi yue li*” from the perspective of Confucius’s “jian
li* si yi,” we are now able to see Mencius’s political thought in a fresh light.
In this view, what are opposed to the morality of ren and yi are cruelty and
violence that necessarily accompany all forms of government deviating from
the Kingly Way, on the one hand, and interest that singularly serves the ruler’s
personal ambition on the other, which in his view ineluctably leads to politics
of cruelty. Therefore, for Mencius interest (or the desire for it) is not bad in
itself that must be suppressed or eliminated. Rather, it should be reconstructed
in ways that can undergird the moral end of Confucian virtue politics, which is
to serve the people’s material (and ultimately moral) well-​being. The question
is, how is this to be achieved?

23
Mencius 1A7; 3A4. Daniel Bell goes one step further by asserting that we can derive “a right
to be fed” from the Confucian commitment to the material well-​being of the people, especially
Mencius’s. Daniel A. Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian
Context (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), pp. 45–​47.
24
Bloom’s translation better conveys my interpretation than Lau’s: “Finally … abandon humane-
ness and rightness and encounter one another based on a preoccupation with profit” (Mencius,
trans. Irene Bloom [New York: Columbia University Press], p. 135).
25
The Analects 14.12.
26
The Analects 4.26.
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 35

Extending Private Interest to Public Interest

The following conversation between Mencius (M) and King Xuan of Qi (X),
which took place at the Snow Palace, one of King Xuan’s secondary palaces,
provides an important clue.
X: Does even a good and wise man have such enjoyment as this?
M: Should there be a man who is not given a share in such enjoyment, he
would speak ill of those in authority. To speak ill of those in authority
because one is not given a share in such enjoyment is, of course, wrong.
But for one in authority over the people not to share his enjoyment with
the people is equally wrong. The people will delight in the joy of him
who delights in their joy, and will worry over the troubles of him who
worries over their troubles. He who delights and worries on account of
all under Heaven is certain to become a true king.27
Apparently, King Xuan built the Snow Palace solely in his private interest.
What is worth noting is that Mencius does not urge the king to get rid of this
luxurious palace, nor does he recommend him to lead a frugal life.28 What
bothers Mencius, it appears, is that he is seeking only his private interest
without regard to the material well-​being of his people, whom he ought to treat
as if they were his children and therefore with whom he, as a father and mother
to the people (min zhi fumu 民之父母), ought to share his wealth and goods.29
In other words, in Mencius’s judgment, the king’s critical moral and political
failure lies in his complete negligence of what we call public interest.
For Mencius, public interest can be attained by extending the ruler’s private
interest (including his self-​love and love toward his own family) to the general
public. Mencius’s idea of “extension” is best illustrated in another conversa-
tion with King Xuan of Qi.30 When the king confesses that he has a weakness
for material goods, Mencius replies without taking issue with the weakness
27
Mencius 1B4 (modified).
28
For an investigation on Mencius’s (and Confucius’s) complex view on the moral correla-
tion between virtue and the material goods, see Youngsun Back, “Confucian Heaven (天
Tian): Moral Economy and Contingency,” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8:1
(2016), pp. 51–​77.
29
Elsewhere Mencius criticizes the same king by saying, “There is fat meat in your kitchen and
there are well-​fed horses in your stables, yet the people look hungry and in the outskirts of
cities men drop dead from starvation. This is to show animals the way to devour men. Even the
devouring of animals by animals is repugnant to men. If, then, one who is father and mother to
the people cannot, in ruling over them, avoid showing animals the way to devour men, wherein
is he father and mother to the people?” (Mencius 1A4).
30
Mencius’s notion of extension has been discussed and analyzed by many contemporary Chinese
philosophers in relation to his theory of human nature, moral psychology, and moral self-​
cultivation. For instance, see David B. Wong, “Reasons and Analogical Reasoning in Mengzi”
and Philip J. Ivanhoe, “Confucian Self Cultivation and Mengzi’s Notion of Extension,” both in
Essays on the Moral Philosophy of Mengzi, eds. Xiusheng Liu and Philip J. Ivanhoe (Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett, 2002), pp. 187–​220 and pp. 221–​241, respectively. Also see David S. Nivison,
“Motivation and Moral Action in Mencius,” in The Ways of Confucianism: Investigations in
36 Confucian Constitutionalism

itself: “In antiquity Gong Liu [allegedly the founder of the predynastic Zhou
clan] was fond of material goods too … You may be fond of material goods,
but so long as you share this fondness with the people, how can it interfere
with your becoming a true king?”31 Therefore, in the Mencian civil polity the
morality of ren and yi and interest do not amount to a zero-​sum relation. The
Kingly Way can be achieved not by suppressing or eliminating the desire for
material interest but by transforming the ruler’s private interest into a general
public interest in which both the ruler and the ruled benefit.
One may claim that my argument thus far is misguided because of my puta-
tive misunderstanding of Mencius’s theory of extension. The critic may say
(rightly, I believe) that what Mencius wants to extend in his conversation with
King Xuan is not private interest but the heart of commiseration, the sprout
of ren, which is inherent in one’s heart-​mind (xin 心). Indeed, Mencius does
encourage King Xuan, who becomes compassionate toward the ox about to
be sacrificed, to extend this compassionate heart to his people, if he wants to
exercise the Kingly Way.32 Mencius offers a general moral account of his notion
of extension when he says (to the king), “Treat the aged of your own family in
a manner befitting their venerable age and extend this treatment to the aged of
other families; treat your own young in a manner befitting their tender age and
extend this to the young of other families, and you can roll all under Heaven
on your palm … In other words, all you have to do is take this very heart here
and apply it to what is over there. Hence one who extends his bounty can bring
peace to the Four Seas.”33
Love of one’s family, especially one’s desire to care for the material well-​being
of the family members, is undoubtedly a private interest. Mohists, the passionate
advocates of inclusive care (jian ai 兼愛), found fault with Confucians, espe-
cially Mencius, for their so-​called “graded love.” In their judgment, inclusive
care, to which impartial benefit to the entire populace of the world is central,
may begin with (or at least may not renounce) private love biased toward one-
self or one’s family members, but as a political goal it can only be achieved by
going beyond private love and actively seeking to benefit all under Heaven.34
Mencius does not agree with the Mohist principle of ethical consequentialism,

Chinese Philosophy, ed. Bryan W. Van Norden (Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1996), pp. 91–​119.
In the present context, however, I understand Mencius’s notion of extension as more directly
relevant to politics, and the formation of political judgment more specifically. My concern here
is not primarily with the congruence between moral motivation and moral action/​judgment but
with the congruence between private and public interests. From a philosophical standpoint, the
two questions are intimately related but probing into this connection goes beyond the scope of
this chapter.
31
Mencius 1B5 (modified). Though Lau translates the Chinese word “huo貨” as “money,” I inter-
pret it more broadly, encompassing all material goods. Bloom translates the term as “wealth.”
32
Mencius 1A7.
33
Ibid.
34
In Mencius 3A5, Yi Zhi, the Mohist, reportedly says, “There should be no gradations in love,
though the practice of it begins with one’s parents.” For the Mohist idea of inclusive care, see
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 37

focused on material (and political) benefits to all,35 and claims that love toward
others can be gradually attained by extending one’s love of his or her own
family to others. Therefore, for Mencius, love of others is neither a deonto-
logical moral imperative nor a matter of material consequentialism; rather, it
is what one achieves through moral growth, by cultivating one’s capacity to
extend, not overcome, his or her private interest to others. When the ruler is
capable of this, it generates a public interest that serves the well-​being of the
people with clear priority to the worst-​off,36 thus solidifying the foundation of
the civil-​political order of the state.
Mencius is often regarded as a political idealist, especially in comparison
to Xunzi.37 Considering Mencius’s ethico-​ religious aspiration toward the
ideal of Confucian virtue politics, which in Xunzi’s view, as will be shown
shortly, ultimately undermines its institutional foundation, this characteriza-
tion of Mencius is understandable. We can even understand Mencius’s supreme
interest in negative Confucianism –​a mode of Confucian virtue politics geared
toward putting the ruler on the right track (i.e., the Kingly Way) by restraining
his private interest and power by means of the ministers’ virtue –​as a polit-
ical corollary of his idealism. However, it is equally important to realize that
for Mencius the people’s moral and material well-​being, which is the posi-
tive ambition of Confucian virtue politics, could not be attained merely by
curbing the ruler’s quest for private interest and his discretionary exercise of
power. Mencius’s positive Confucianism offers a realistic way to achieve the
Confucian political ideal by encouraging the ruler, restrained by the logic of
negative Confucianism, to extend his private interest to the general public, thus
transforming it into public interest.

Xunzi’s Vision of Positive Confucianism

The Problem of Compliance
Because of his vehement criticism of Mencius’s doctrine of human nature (that
human nature is good [xing shan 性善]), Xunzi is commonly understood as the
archrival of Mencius not only in his moral philosophy but also in his political
theory. Indeed, unlike Mencius, who approached the Kingly Way and badao in

Chris Fraser, The Philosophy of the Mozi: The First Consequentialists (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2016), chap. 6.
35
According to Bryan Van Norden, one of the important differences between early Mohism and
Western utilitarianism is that unlike the latter, which takes a psychological dimension of ben-
efit seriously, the former “identifies benefit (li*) with having particular concrete goods, and
harm (hai 害) with lacking these goods: wealth (fu富), populousness (zhong 衆), and good
order (zhi 治).” See Bryan W. Van Norden, Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese
Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 145.
36
See Mencius 1B5.
37
Hyŏng-​hyo Kim, Mengjawa Sunjaŭi ch’ŏraksasang [The Philosophy of Mencius and Xunzi]
(Seoul: Samjiwŏn, 1990).
38 Confucian Constitutionalism

binary terms of good and evil, Xunzi identified badao as one of the reasonable
modes of statecraft that stands between the Kingly Way and tyranny, and he
did not embrace the abdication doctrine that Mencius espoused.38
Despite these differences, however, Xunzi and Mencius have much in
common: they both believe in human moral perfectibility39 (they part company
only with regard to how to cultivate a person morally, owing to their differing
accounts of human nature),40 they both believe that at the core of Confucian
benevolent government is moral and material well-​being of the people,41 and
they both support the removal, or even killing, of a tyrant by a virtuous subject
as “the Heaven-​appointed officer.”42 Most importantly in our context, Xunzi
agrees with Mencius’s presumption that there is a tension between the morality
of ren and yi and interest in principle, when he says, “When superiors love
righteousness (yi), then the people conduct themselves in a refined manner even
in private. When superiors love wealth, then the people are willing to die for
profits (li*). These two are the crossroads to order and anarchy.”43
It is sometimes argued that Xunzi is more of a Legalist than a Confucian
because of his emphasis on Legalistic rule by ritual operating on the Daoist
ideal of wuwei and his explicit reliance on reward and punishment for socio-
political control, while the traditional Confucian ideal of wuwei statecraft is
predicated on the ruler’s all-​encompassing moral virtue and aimed at moral
cultivation of the people. However, the proponents of this view overstate
their case. While embracing badao as one of the reasonable modes of state-
craft, Xunzi blames it for failing to adopt ren and yi as its operating moral
principles44 and he also believes that Legalistic statecraft that is completely
dependent on the system of reward and punishment will eventually fail.45 In
fact, when he asserts that human nature is originally bad (xing e 性惡), his
intent is unarguably Confucian. Let me explain why.

38
Xunzi 18.5a–​c. I discuss Mencius’s advocacy of abdication and his realistic acceptance of hered-
itary system in Chapter 2.
39
Xunzi 2.10; 3.9a–​c; 4.9; 8.21; 8.11; 19.6; 23.4a; 23.5a.
40
See Philip J. Ivanhoe, Confucian Moral Self Cultivation (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000).
41
Xunzi 9.4; 11.9a; 11.12; 12.5; 27.68.
42
Xunzi 15.1d; 18.2; and, albeit arguably, 13.9.
43
Xunzi 27.66 (Knoblock’s translation). It should be noted that Xunzi, too, abhors the sociopo-
litical relations mediated purely in terms of interest (Xunzi 15.1d). I followed Knoblock’s trans-
lation here because while Hutton retains the original Chinese character 羞 xiu and translates it
as “a sense of shame” (p. 305), Knoblock, following many Chinese commentators, including the
Qing scholar Wang Nian-​sun 王念孫, replaces 羞 with 義 and translates it as “righteousness.”
I find Knoblock’s translation more convincing as it renders Xunzi’s statement more coherent
with the remainder of the text than Hutton’s translation. Hutton offers an explanation for his
choice to retain the original Chinese character on p. 381m. Note that Hak-​chu Kim, a leading
Xunzi scholar in South Korea, also follows Wang’s commentary. See Sunja [Xunzi], trans. Hak-​
chu Kim (Seoul: Yŭlyumunhwasa, 2001), p. 770.
44
Xunzi 7.1.
45
For instance, Xunzi says, “Whenever people act, if they do so for the sake of rewards and prizes,
then they will desist if they see that they will be harmed and injured. Thus, rewards, prizes,
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 39

From Xunzi’s viewpoint, the problem with Mencius’s theory of human

nature is twofold: not only does it lack empirical support,46 but, more impor-
tantly, it would ultimately make the Confucian project of moral self-​cultivation
pointless or even impossible.
Mencius says, people’s nature is good. I say: this is not so. In every case, both in ancient
times and in the present, what everyone under Heaven calls good is being correct,
ordered, peaceful, and controlled. What they call bad is being deviant, dangerous,
unruly, and chaotic. This is the division between good and bad. Now does he really
think that people’s nature is originally correct, ordered, peaceful, and controlled? Then
what use would there be for sage kings? What use for ritual and yi? Even though there
might exist sage kings and ritual and yi, whatever could these add to its correct, ordered,
peaceful, and controlled state?47

If men are naturally good and good implies being correct, ordered, peaceful,
and controlled, where does the social evil, disorder in particular, come from?
Mencius would argue that men become morally depraved largely because of
their lack of effort to become good or due to the social and political environ-
ment in which they happen to be situated.48 However, Xunzi would challenge
why human nature, which Mencius claims is Heaven-​endowed49 and thus
good, is so easily susceptible to external forces and/​or why it is so morally
frail.50 He then would ask, Is it then not the case that Mencius has critically
misunderstood the essential characteristics of human nature and, more funda-
mentally, the nature of Heaven? How can Mencius’s theory of human nature
adequately account for the supreme importance of the sociopolitical, not just
moral-​educative, institutions of ritual in the Confucian moral-​political tradi-
tion as the pivot of social coordination and regulation? More importantly,
what purpose do the sage-​kings serve, who, in Xunzi’s view, are the inventors
of ritual institutions and the masters of ritual-​based statecraft?51 For Xunzi,
the greatest irony of Mencius’s theory of human nature is that sole concern

punishments, penalties, circumstantial conditions, and deception are not sufficient to get the
utmost effort out of people or to make people willing to die … Thus, the way constituted by
using rewards, prizes, punishments, penalties, circumstantial conditions, and deception is the
way of menial servants and vendors hawking wares. It is insufficient for joining together the
great masses or refining the state and its clans” (Xunzi 15.5).
46
Xunzi 23.3b.
47
Xunzi 23.3a.
48
Mencius 6A2; 6A8.
49
Mencius 7A1; 7B24.
50
According to Benjamin I. Schwartz, it is the fundamental moral-​political question that the
Mandate of Heaven, around which both the Zhou civilization and Confucianism revolve, gives
rise to: “The heavenly mandate is mainly about the moral ritual condition of mankind, and
Heaven already relates to man largely in terms of the moral question. The moral question itself is
not Socrates’ question –​What is the good? –​but rather the question –​Why man’s departure from
the good?” (The World of Thought in Ancient China [Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1985], p. 51).
51
In a different place, Xunzi criticizes Zisi, Confucius’s grandson and allegedly the author of
Zhongyong 中庸 (The Doctrine of the Mean), and Mencius for only “roughly model[ing]
40 Confucian Constitutionalism

with development of the nascent goodness of human beings would ultimately

diminish the moral and political significance of the (sage-​)king, even though
Mencius may have never intended this.52
According to Xunzi, men have the desire for material goods and their self-​
interestedness inevitably, if unregulated, relegates society into a relentless life-​
and-​death struggle.53 The sage-​king (or the Son of Heaven54) is the supreme
moral-​political authority (shi 師) who re-​forms (wei 僞) human nature by
means of the institutions of “ritual, music (yue 樂), penal codes (xing 刑), and
royal ordinances (zheng 政),” or simply ritual institutions (lizhi 禮制).55 What
is important, however, is that Xunzi does not point out man’s natural desire for
profit or material interest as the cause of social chaos as such.56 Rather, in his
judgment, the real cause of social chaos lies in the natural equality that defies
proper (i.e., ritual-​ordered and hierarchical) social regulation of the desire for
material goods and boisterous passions accompanying its unchecked pursuit.57
Ritual provides a quintessential institutional mechanism in which men, oth-
erwise radically equal, are socially divided (fen 分) and morally distinguished
(bie 別) according to multiple criteria such as virtue, merit, age, and/​or status.58
While in Mencian negative Confucianism, ritual institutions are understood
chiefly as the apparatus to constrain the ruler’s arbitrary power,59 for Xunzi

themselves on the former kings and [failing to] understand their overall system (lue fa xianwang
er bu zhi qi tong 略法先王而不知其統)” (Xunzi 6.7), not just because of their inadequate under-
standing of human nature.
52
It is unclear though whether Xunzi understood Mencius’s account of “human nature is good”
(xing shan 性善) as implying full goodness, which is not Mencius’s claim, or nascent goodness
in terms of the innateness of moral sprouts.
53
Xunzi 19.1a.
54
As noted in the Introduction, historically, the Son of Heaven is the official title of the rulers
of the Zhou dynasty who claimed that their moral-​political authority to reign over all under
Heaven was granted by the Mandate of Heaven. As the sage-​king refers to the Son of Heaven
who possesses supreme moral virtue in addition to the Mandate of Heaven (institutionally
affirmed through the ruler’s hereditary right to the throne), it is only coincidental that the Son
of Heaven is also the sage-​king. In the Xunzi, however, Xunzi often interchanges these two
concepts because he is more interested in kingship as the moral and political institution than a
particular king’s personal moral virtue, that is, whether the person who occupies the institution
of kingship is fully virtuous or not.
55
Xunzi 23.1a–​b.
56
On the view that for Xunzi (natural) desire is morally malleable and not bad in itself, see
Siufu Tang, “Xing and Xunzi’s Understanding of Our Nature” and Eric L. Hutton, “Xunzi on
Moral Psychology,” both in Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi, ed. Eric L. Hutton
(Dordrecht: Springer, 2016), pp. 165–​200 and pp. 201–​227, respectively.
57
Xunzi 9.3.
58
See Xunzi 4.12; 9.16a; 10.1; 10.3a; 10.4; 12.6–​7. For an excellent investigation of Xunzi’s political
theory of allotments or social divisions (fen), see Eirik L. Harris, “Xunzi’s Political Philosophy,”
in Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi, ed. Eric L. Hutton (Dordrecht: Springer, 2016),
pp. 95–​138.
59
Mencius often invokes Zhou political ritualism, explicitly or implicitly, when he discusses moral
and political prerogatives of the aristocrats vis-​à-​vis the ruler (Mencius 4B3; 5B9) but it is
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 41

they play important positive political functions –​regulating the people’s

conflicting interests, coordinating their complex socioeconomic transactions,
and, ultimately, transforming the chaotic state of nature into a “well-​ordered
society.”
How, then, does ritual exert this remarkable positive political power? More spe-
cifically, how is it possible that common people in the pre-​li state who are unculti-
vated and narrowly self-​interested subscribe voluntarily to rule by ritual without
the use of coercion?60 Mencius would respond that people are predisposed to be
moral and would find morality attractive or even enjoyable once the “sprouts”
of virtue that are innate in them are carefully cultivated.61 They would be spon-
taneously aroused by the excellent moral virtue of the ruler who cares about
them, as is shown (so Mencius argues) in the case where people under the reigns
of tyrants Jie and Zhòu eagerly welcomed the soldiers of sage-​kings Tang and
Wu.62 Xunzi, who believes men are naturally bad, has difficulty accepting this
Mencian virtue-​oriented optimism and this generates what can be called “the
Xunzi problem”: given Xunzi’s xing-​e thesis, how is it possible that people who
have yet to be morally transformed can appreciate the goodness of the sage-​king’s
moral virtue in the first place, and thus welcome and voluntarily subscribe to his
moral rule without positing the (at least partial) goodness of human nature?
Many contemporary students of Chinese philosophy have wrestled with
the Xunzi problem and other related philosophical conundrums arising from
his xing-​e thesis.63 For instance, noticing basically the same problem, Erin
Cline suggests that in order to offer a compelling explanation of the origin
of morality, “[i]‌t seems likely that Xunzi’s account will need to be modified

questionable whether the rituals that he cites in such occasions are coherently connected with
his philosophical thinking on ritual understood as the moral virtue of ritual propriety. In this
regard, I agree generally with Sato when he says, “Mencius had not proposed a complete system
of political discourse in which the term li occupied its central place as he had with the term renyi
(benevolence and righteousness).” See Masayuki Sato, The Confucian Quest for Order: The
Origin and Formation of the Political Thought of Xun Zi (Leiden: Brill, 2003), p. 208.
60
If this process is dependent on purely or mainly coercive measures, Xunzi may safely be called a
Legalist.
61
Mencius 4A27. Also see Eric L. Hutton, “Moral Connoisseurship in Mengzi,” in Liu and Ivanhoe
(eds.), Essays on the Moral Philosophy of Mengzi, pp. 163–​186 and Bryan W. Van Norden,
“Mengzi and Xunzi: Two Views of Human Agency,” in Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the
Xunzi, eds. T. C. Kline III and Philip J. Ivanhoe (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000), pp. 103–​134.
62
Mencius 1B11.
63
See, for instance, Donald J. Munro, “A Villain in the Xunzi,” in Chinese Language, Thought,
and Culture: Nivison and His Critics, ed. Philip J. Ivanhoe (Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1996),
pp. 193–​201; Eric Hutton, “Does Xunzi Have a Consistent Theory of Human Nature?” and
David B. Wong, “Xunzi on Moral Motivation,” both in Kline III and Ivanhoe (eds.), Virtue,
Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi, pp. 220–​236 and pp. 135–​154, respectively. Recently,
Erin Cline has called the philosophical problems that Xunzi’s account of human nature raises
with regard to the origin of morality “Xunzi’s Dilemma.” According to Cline, Xunzi’s Dilemma
consists of three related sets of problems: “(1) If the sages started out with the same nature as
other humans, how did they turn themselves into beings who not only recognized morality but
42 Confucian Constitutionalism

in order to show why and how people would respond positively to the Way
presented by the sages.”64 If we approach the Xunzi problem purely as a philo-
sophical conundrum focused on an apparent inconsistency between bad human
nature and the origin of morality, thus decontextualizing the fact that the sages
who offer the rituals and the standards of righteousness are all, according to
Xunzi, also kings (new dynasty-​founders more precisely), and if we understand
“morality” here in terms of moral virtues alone, of the kind Mencius valorizes
such as ren and yi, the consummation of which would ideally enable one to
become a sage (if not a sage-​king), there indeed seem to be significant difficul-
ties with Xunzi’s moral theory.
When the Xunzi problem is presented as this sort of moral-​philosophical
conundrum, much seems to hang on how we interpret Xunzi’s puzzling
acknowledgement of the inherent capacity for morality in every human being
in the following statement:
Anyone on the streets can become a Yu [an ancient sage]. How do I mean this?
I say: that by which Yu was Yu was because he was ren, yi, lawful, and correct. Thus,
ren, yi, lawfulness, and correctness have patterns that can be known and can be prac-
ticed. However, people on the streets all have the material (zhi 質) for knowing ren, yi,
lawfulness, and correctness, and they all have equipment (ju 具) for practicing ren, yi,
lawfulness, and correctness. Thus, it is clear that they can become a Yu. Now if
ren, yi, lawfulness, and correctness originally had no patterns that could be known or
practiced, then even Yu would not know ren, yi, lawfulness, and correctness and could
not practice ren, yi, lawfulness, and correctness.65

To be sure, Xunzi, unlike Mencius, does not claim that humans have articulate
moral inclinations such as the four sprouts that each correspond with the four
cardinal moral virtues. The text quoted above, however, clearly shows that
Xunzi believes some elements (zhi 質 or ju 具) in human nature are essential
for recognizing and practicing morality. Xunzi does not fully explicate what
the innate capacity for morality consists of or whether it is a sort of moral sen-
timent.66 If we interpret this capacity as an innate disposition toward morality,

also loved and delighted in it? If they did not possess the same nature, why and in precisely
what ways were the sages different from everyone else? (2) What initially motivated people to
embrace the rituals and the standards of righteousness offered by the sages? (3) If they were so
motivated, what accounts for their ability to commit themselves to following the models and
standards provided by the sages?” (Erin M. Cline, Confucius, Rawls, and the Sense of Justice
[New York: Fordham University Press, 2013], p. 194).
64
Cline, Confucius, Rawls, and the Sense of Justice, p. 195. Also see Wong, “Xunzi on Moral
Motivation.”
65
Xunzi 23.5a.
66
Those who are persuaded that Xunzi has a coherent moral theory refuse to attribute any innate
moral quality to what they deem to be bare mental capacity. See, for instance, Philip J. Ivanhoe,
“Morality as an Artifact: The Nature of Moral Norms in Xunzi’s Philosophy,” in Oxford
Handbook of Chinese Philosophy, ed. Justin Tiwald (New York: Oxford University Press, forth-
coming); Hutton, “Does Xunzi Have a Consistent Theory of Human Nature?”
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 43

then Xunzi would turn out to be much closer to Mencius.67 This may resolve
the Xunzi problem but the distinctiveness of Xunzi’s moral theory would dis-
appear with it. In contrast, if we understand the capacity in question as a
bare capacity, devoid of any moral content or predisposition, to enable us to
merely distinguish good from bad once we have been educated by sages about
good and bad, we can have a way to make Xunzi’s moral theory internally
coherent. But the thorny question still remains: even if this capacity is not a
moral predisposition toward goodness as such, if it is the capacity that, upon
external stimuli (i.e., moral education by ritual and/​or teachers), can enable
every human being to distinguish between good and bad as well as to practice
the good, is it not a kind of moral capacity, even if a hidden one?68
A more fundamental question, far more germane to the present context, is
whether tackling the Xunzi problem purely as a problem of his moral theory
can help us understand Xunzi’s broader political concerns. As we have seen,
the contemporary debate surrounding the Xunzi problem does not pay enough
attention to the fact that Xunzi advances his xing-​e thesis against the political
backdrop of the late Warring States period and he criticizes Mencius precisely
for his xing-​shan thesis’s inability to do justice to the role that (sage-​)kingship
and the institutions of ritual are supposed to play in Confucian political theory,
not merely for its inadequacy as a philosophical account of human nature
per se.
This political deficit in the contemporary interpretation of Xunzi’s phil-
osophical thought has led many scholars to understand the Xunzi problem
mainly as a philosophical problem of the origin of morality, but hardly as
a political problem of compliance. Furthermore, it has led these scholars, as
I argue in Chapter 3, to pay little attention to the fact that by “morality,”
which should be instilled in the people and thus make them good, Xunzi means
not only conventional Confucian moral virtues such as ren and yi, directly
concerned with human excellence and flourishing, but also civic virtues such
as lawfulness and correctness (and being ordered, peaceful, and controlled, as
noted earlier). These civic virtues, in contrast, were never consciously acknowl-
edged by Mencius in relation to his theory of human nature, nor made integral
to his political theory.

The Regulation of Interest

Among recent scholars, Eric Hutton, in his endeavor to render Xunzi’s account
of human nature coherent, has paid rare attention to the question of political
compliance in Xunzi’s political theory by offering an explanation as to how

67
This view is held by Yiu-​Ming Fung, “Two Senses of “Wei 僞”: A New Interpretation of Xunzi’s
Theory of Human Nature,” Dao 11:2 (2012), pp. 187–​200.
68
Cline distinguishes the Xunzian capacity for morality from the Mencian moral sprout by calling
the former “hidden or latent” and the latter “visible and active from the start” (Confucius,
Rawls, and the Sense of Justice, p. 195).
44 Confucian Constitutionalism

Xunzi can show that sage-​kings are able to attain political compliance from
the common people without violating his xing-​e thesis. According to Hutton,
Xunzi’s core argument can be interpreted as follows: people are drawn to yi and
the sage-​king’s virtuous rule, not because they “like” to practice moral virtue or
participate in moral government but simply because they like for other people
[in this case, the rulers] to act morally toward them.69 “For Xunzi,” Hutton
continues, “this desire of good treatment from others is such that it makes
people amenable to those who satisfy the desire, and thus accounts precisely
for the reason why the sages can take control of the people without compul-
sion, and without an explicit contract.”70 Indeed, there is nothing in Hutton’s
account to suggest that people naturally have any tendency themselves to do
what is good. Let us call Hutton’s argument the good treatment argument.
However, Hutton’s explanation, though interesting, leaves an important
question unanswered. Note that Hutton’s good treatment argument was ini-
tially motivated to offer a rejoinder to Donald Monro’s claim that Xunzi seems,
albeit implicitly, to acknowledge the innateness of yi. In addition to the passages
that Munro cites, Hutton additionally draws attention to a seemingly more
challenging case, namely Xunzi 27.63, where Xunzi says that people possess a
“fondness for yi” (hao yi 好義). And it is in the course of interpreting “fondness
for yi” in a way consistent with Xunzi’s xing-​e thesis that Hutton advances
the good treatment argument, implying that uncultivated people would still
like yi to be done to them, even though they have no natural moral desire to
cultivate or practice it themselves. The problem lies in Hutton’s liberal rendi-
tion of yi as “good treatment.” As discussed earlier, at the core of yi in Xunzi’s
political thought are social divisions (fen) and distinctions (bie), which under-
gird a quite rigid form of moral and sociopolitical hierarchy and inequality, as
Hutton himself clearly acknowledges.71 Now, according to Hutton’s reasoning,
even if one, a petty man (xiaoren 小人), is told to belong to a low(er) social
class by a sage who allegedly possesses insight into one’s proper role as well as
a grand vision of social harmony and “utmost equality” (zhi ping 至平),72 he
would take this as “good treatment” and willingly participate in his given roles.
More strikingly, as Xunzi’s yi is deeply gendered, as far as the argument goes,
a woman, even if virtuous, ought to receive her heavily gendered and undigni-
fied social role that confines her to the inner quarters as good treatment and
happily commit herself to such a role. How could this deeply gendered and
hierarchical order that yi prescribes be good for all?

69
Hutton, “Does Xunzi Have a Consistent Theory of Human Nature?,” p. 226.
70
Ibid., p. 227.
71
Eric L. Hutton, “Ethics in the Xunzi,” in Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi, ed. Eric
L. Hutton (Dordrecht: Springer, 2016), pp. 67–​93, at p. 84.
72
Xunzi 4.12. For an explication for how hierarchical social divisions can generate “utmost
equality” in Xunzi’s political thought, see Sungmoon Kim, “The Political Economy of Confucian
Harmony,” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 78:2 (2019), pp. 493–​521.
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 45

In my view, this difficulty arises because Hutton does not pay close attention
to the social and political chaos that, as Xunzi claims, bad human nature inev-
itably leads to. If political compliance and political order can be attained only
if the ruler treats the people well, which I think is close to Mencius’s position
given his virtue-​centered ideal of benevolent government, and if the mallea-
bility of human nature, though originally bad, allows it to be easily governable
by the ruler’s “good treatment,” why does Xunzi take pains to fundamentally
re-​form human nature by means of, among other things, ritual institutions? By
understanding the political relationship between the ruler and the ruled largely
in terms of modus vivendi pivoted around the ruler’s personal beneficence,
Hutton seems to downplay the farther-​reaching “constitutional” implications
of Xunzi’s political theory, culminating in his advocacy of rule by ritual. Put
differently, Hutton’s explanation does not sufficiently explain the quintessen-
tially political nature of good treatment offered by the sage-​kings in creating
a civil order and the more lasting motivation behind the common people’s
willingness to remain in a ritual-​based political order thus created, even when
there are less-​than-​virtuous rulers at the helm and they are placed into unequal
roles and obligations.
Interestingly, however, Xunzi asserts that people would voluntarily sub-
scribe to rule by ritual and remain so. Why is this the case? The answer Xunzi
provides is surprisingly Hobbesian:
Those who calculate take what they consider to be the greater, and those who plan
follow what they approve of. People do not exchange two for one, because they under-
stand the numbers. If one goes forth following the Way, then it is like exchanging one
for two –​what loss would there be? If one departs from the Way and instead, looking
within, chooses based on oneself alone, then this is like exchanging two for one –​what
gain would there be? Given the chance to exchange the fulfillment of a hundred years’
accumulated desires for a moment’s satisfaction, if one nevertheless does it, this is
because one does not understand the numbers.73

But why is the Confucian Way predicated on the rule by ritual so profitable
for all? According to Xunzi, it is because everyone would be worse off without
ritual. What is important here is that in making this apparently Hobbesian
argument, Xunzi supposes a significant moral transformation in the people,
thus parting company with Hobbes, who allows no meaningful moral self-​
transformation in the formation of a civil order.74 However, Xunzi’s idea
of moral transformation is not only distinguished from Mencius’s, which
is focused on the development of one’s nascent moral sprouts, but seems to
involve a more complex process than the model of re-​formation stipulates,

73
Xunzi 22.6c. The Hobbesian character of this statement was earlier noted by Van Norden,
“Mengzi and Xunzi,” p. 121.
74
For a comparative study of Hobbes’s and Xunzi’s political theory of civil government, see
Sungmoon Kim, “From Desire to Civility: Is Xunzi a Hobbesian,” Dao 10:3 (2011), pp. 291–​
309. Also see Wong, “Xunzi on Moral Motivation,” pp. 136–​137.
46 Confucian Constitutionalism

which Philip J. Ivanhoe attributes to Xunzi.75 Let us investigate this transfor-

mative mechanism in Xunzi’s political theory further.
According to Mencius, a person who has fully developed his Heaven-​
endowed nature experiences a cosmic unity with Heaven.76 In this Heavenly
state, desire for power and interest is rendered absolutely incompatible with
morality, which apparently includes a certain divine quality.77 Therefore, in
Mencius (as Xunzi interprets), positive Confucianism where morality is crea-
tively entwined with interest is required and meaningful only in the transitioning
period in which, or to the extent to which, nonideal politics is transformed into
the ideal moral state. In the ideal state, every man, given one’s innate goodness,
becomes virtuous and therefore there is no need for government or politics
(zheng 政), which is essentially a mechanism by which to morally correct
(zheng 正) the people.78 The politics in this ideal state is called “the politics of
nonaction” (wuwei er zhi 無爲而治), not only in the sense of the government
being predicated on the ruler’s effortless action, the political ideal championed
by Confucius and upheld by both Mencius and Xunzi, but, more importantly
(and more worrisome, in Xunzi’s view), in the sense that the corrective function
of politics is no longer required, because the people, as far as Mencius’s rea-
soning goes, will spontaneously (ziran 自然) follow the Way, if only their innate
moral goodness is perfectly realized.79
Xunzi, however, squarely opposes this Mencian wuwei thesis that would
ultimately annihilate the political institution of kingship. For one, Xunzi does
not acknowledge Heaven’s ethico-​religious authority in terms of “decree” that

75
Ivanhoe, Confucian Moral Self Cultivation, p. 32.
76
Mencius 7A1.
77
See Julia Ching, Mysticism and Kingship in China: The Heart of Chinese Wisdom
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 99–​101; Wm. Theodore de Bary, The
Trouble with Confucianism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 15–​17.
78
Mencius 7B4. Also see The Analects 12.17; 13.6; 13.13. Benjamin Schwartz’s following
statement well captures the ethico-​religious framework of Mencius’s political thought: “In an
ideal world the ‘heavenly’ would be totally immanent and actual and man would simply be ‘con-
tinuous’ with Heaven. All men would be sages. In the actual world, however, the human may
easily lose his ‘infant’s heart.’ Nevertheless, he is endowed with the marvelous power to ‘perfect
his own person’ and on this level Heaven itself relates to man as the ‘other’ which has endowed
him with this capacity for the realization of the good. At times, one even senses that Mencius
treasures this conscious yu-​wei [youwei] self-​effort as much as he does the ideal wu-​wei sponta-
neity” (The World of Thought in Ancient China, pp. 289–​290).
79
See Mencius 4A4 and 7B32. The Confucian ideal of wuwei statecraft is best illustrated in The
Analects 2.1, where Confucius says, “Governing with excellence (de 德) can be compared to
being the North Star: the North Star dwells in its place, and the multitude of stars pay it tribute.”
Also see The Analects 15.5 for Confucius’s extolment of sage-​king Shun’s wuwei-​like govern-
ment. That said, there is an alternative way to interpret the Confucian ideal of wuwei statecraft.
That is, insomuch as the ruler is truly virtuous, the people, morally cultivated or not, would be
spontaneously drawn to his rulership, fulfilling their proper social roles. But this interpretation,
solely focused on the ruler’s brilliant (or magical?) moral charisma, neither accounts for the sta-
bility of the Confucian civil polity over generations nor explains the people’s motivation in their
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 47

Mencius presents as the metaphysical foundation of the goodness of human

nature. Nor, according to Xunzi, are Heaven and men connected in any direct
or obvious way, cosmologically or, albeit controversially, morally,80 as Heaven
is a part of nature that follows its own unique mechanism, without intervening
in human affairs.81 The moral implications of this radical separation between
men and Heaven are striking. The denial of a moral correlation between men
and Heaven enables Xunzi to give up belief in the idea of morality that is
completely decoupled from the worldly interests. Accordingly, even morally
re-​formed men, including sages, still possess the natural desire for material
interest: “All people share one thing in common: when hungry they desire to
eat, when cold they desire warmth, when tired they desire rest, they like what is
beneficial and hate what is harmful. This is something people have from birth;

perfect political compliance. Mencius’s insight here seems to be that the wuwei ideal can be a
sustained political ideal only if the potential threat to political compliance is permanently elimi-
nated and his philosophical solution is to allow for the theoretical possibility that everyone can
become more or less good by realizing, in varying degrees, Heaven’s decree within one’s nature.
Interestingly, some contemporary scholars attempt to explain the origin of ritual order and the
motivation of political compliance on the part of the people in Xunzi’s political thought in terms
of the ruler’s moral charisma. See T. C. Kline III, “Moral Agency and Motivation in the Xunzi,”
in Virtue, Nature and Moral Agency in the Xunzi, pp. 155–​175; Aaron Stalnaker, “Xunzi on
Self-​Cultivation,” in Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi, pp. 35–​65, at p. 58 (though
Stalnaker does not employ the term “charisma”).
80
“The Way is not the way of Heaven, nor is it the way of Earth. It is that whereby humans make
their way, and that which the gentleman takes as his way” (Xunzi 8.3).
81
See Xunzi 17.1. For Xunzi’s areligious and non-​cosmological understanding of Heaven, see
Janhee Lee, Xunzi and Early Chinese Naturalism (Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press, 2005); Kurtis Hagen, The Philosophy of Xunzi (Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2007).
Challenging a thoroughly areligious reading of Xunzi’s conception of Heaven, however, Edward
Machle argues that Xunzi’s conception is not incompatible with the view that embraces cer-
tain religious qualities of Heaven. See his Nature and Heaven in the Xunzi: A Study of the
Tian Lun (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993). For a similar argument
emphasizing important religious dimensions in Xunzi’s idea of Heaven, see Michael J. Puett,
To Become a God: Cosmological Sacrifice, and Self-​Divinization in Early China (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 181–​188; Paul R.
Goldin, Confucianism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011), pp. 79–​88; and
essays collected in T. C. Kline III and Justin Tiwald (eds.), Ritual and Religion in the Xunzi
(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2014). My own position is that even if we
grant that strong religious implications are found in Xunzi’s account of ritual practices and that
he acknowledges an important normative underpinning of good social order with his notion of
“(natural) patterns” (li** 理), which constitutes the underlying structure of ideal social order,
his outright rejection of any obvious cosmological connection between the Way of Humans
(ren dao 人道) and the Way of Heaven (tian dao 天道) imparts to his political theory a distinct
characteristic, especially in comparison with Mencius’s that is deeply embedded in the moral-​
cosmological discourse of the Mandate of Heaven. Put differently, for Xunzi the normativity of
the Way of Humans is rooted in “patterns,” not necessarily in Heaven. I return to the critical
importance of the Mandate of Heaven in Mencius’s political theory in Chapter 6. On Xunzi’s
idea of li**, see Eric L. Hutton, “Moral Reasoning in Aristotle and Xunzi,” Journal of Chinese
Philosophy 29:3 (2002), pp. 355–​384.
48 Confucian Constitutionalism

it is not something one awaits to become so. This is something in which [sage-​
king] Yu and [tyrant] Jie were the same.”82 Sages are not completely void of
the desire for material interest (then they simply would not be human!); rather,
they place morality over their desire for interest, or more profoundly, in them
such desire is morally transformed.83 Thus understood, the goal of moral trans-
formation, which the kings should emulate in their statecraft, lies not so much
in the expunging as in the reforming of natural desire for material interest by
means of moral governance relying on ritual.
Yi and profit are two things that humans have. Even Yao and Shun could not get rid
of the common people’s desire for profit. However, they were able to cause their desire
for profit not to overcome their fondness for yi. Likewise, even Jie and Zhòu could not
get rid of the common people’s fondness for yi. However, they were able to cause their
fondness for yi not to defeat their desire for profit. And so, when yi defeats profit, it is
an ordered age. When profit overcomes yi, then it is a chaotic age.84

Insofar as men are naturally self-​seeking, kingship and government predicated

on ritual institutions hold perpetual significance. In this way, Xunzi restores the
institutional dimension of Confucianism that has been obscured, if not wholly
dismissed, by Mencius.85 Xunzi’s core assumption is that the Confucian moral-​
political statecraft holds unmitigated significance not only during the process
of the people’s moral transformation, as Mencius assumes, but even after the
completion of the transformation (if completion is ever possible).
At this point, it should be stressed that Xunzi employs the term “interest” on
two levels. On the first, which is in the pre-​li state, interest refers to the natural
desire for profit, which has yet to be guided by morality. Interest on this level is
what ignites men’s antisocial passions, thus the root of social chaos. To control
this unruly interest the ruler must reign over it by marshalling majestic august
and powerful authority as the institutional pivot of social coordination.86 Only
then is he able to drive the people into a ritual-​based civil and political order.
In this second stage, people, being constrained by ritual institutions and under-
lying moral norms, start to develop a different type of interest, namely moral
interest, an interest that mediates between private interest and public interest.

82
Xunzi 4.9.
83
Therefore, Hagen claims that in Xunzi it is not so much desires as such but motivation structures
that undergo changes in the process of moral training and education. See Kurtis Hagen, “Xunzi
and the Prudence of Dao: Desire as the Motive to Become Good,” Dao 10:1 (2011), pp. 53–​
70. In this chapter, I understand the moral transformation of desire in terms of both changes
in its motivational structures and changes in its nature and scope, which is supported by the
arguments by Van Norden and Wong.
84
Xunzi 27.63.
85
See Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China, p. 286.
86
This bespeaks the undemocratic and authoritarian nature of Xunzi’s political theory. A helpful
discussion on this, see Hui-​ chieh Loy, “Xunzi Contra Mozi,” in Dao Companion to the
Philosophy of Xunzi, pp. 353–​575.
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 49

In my view, the most interesting feature in Xunzi’s political theory is his

belief that what proximately undergirds the civil order of the Confucian
polity is not necessarily sage-​making moral virtues, however desirable they
are, but the moral interest developed by the people in what we today call
civility, which directly undergirds their ordered transactions and relationships.
Xunzi explicates the civic and constitutional character of moral interest as
the following: “By safeguarding their responsibilities, each will have sufficient
food and clothing. The important and the trivial will have their appropriate
grade made clear by rank and dress. There is profit only from looking up to
one’s superiors, and none will try to presume power over others. So who could
offer private favors?”87
In the pre-​li state people are single-​mindedly preoccupied with private
self-​interest. However, since there is no moral and sociopolitical mechanism
here that can constrain this interest and coordinate the conflict of interests,
strife among groups and individuals is inevitable. The king (ideally the sage-​
king), however, does not strive to expunge men’s desire for private interest as
such, which is impossible to do. Profoundly concerned with bringing about
and maintaining civil order, he rather draws his attention to reconstructing
this fundamental human desire in a way that can be conducive to forming
moral interest and, ultimately, public interest. Thus, Xunzi says, “All those
who say that good order must await the elimination of desires are people
who lack the means to guide desire and cannot handle the mere having of
desires. All those who say good order must await the lessening of desires are
people who lack the means to restrain desire and cannot handle abundance
of desires.”88
For Xunzi, desires, which all humans have, are malleable and thus subject
to moral purposes and when properly “nurtured” in light of moral purposes,
they can buttress political order and social harmony. This implies that only
the kind of private interest that is compatible with and further bolsters the
civil order can become, to use de Tocqueville’s celebrated phrase, “self-​interest
rightly understood.” As David Wong puts it, for Xunzi, “any path to self-​
transformation must start from the self-​interested nature of human beings, and
not from a capacity for an approval that can motivate independently of self-​
interest. Changing oneself on the basis of approval would be changing oneself
on a more sophisticated and long-​term view of what is in one’s self-​interest, but
it would be self-​interest after all that.”89
Earlier, we noted the difficulty with Hutton’s good treatment argument.
Now Xunzi himself provides a far more persuasive argument for the political
utility of creating a ritual order when he says,

87
Xunzi 25.47 (Knoblock’s translation).
88
Xunzi 22.5a.
89
Wong, “Xunzi on Moral Motivation,” p. 142.
50 Confucian Constitutionalism

If [people] live apart and do not help each other, then they will be impoverished. If
they live together but have no social divisions, then they will struggle with each other.
Poverty is a catastrophe, and struggle is a disaster. If you wish to save them from catas-
trophe and eliminate disaster, then nothing is better than to make clear social divisions
and so employ the masses. If the strong threaten the weak, if the wise terrorize the
stupid, if the people below disregard their superiors, if the young bully their elders, if
you do not govern by virtue –​if it is like this, then the old and the weak will face the
worry of losing their means of nurture, and those in their prime will face the disaster
of divisive struggle.90

According to Xunzi, ritual order is good for all members of society, especially
those who are worse-​off, because the method of social divisions, if guided by
the principle of yi, can make socioeconomic transactions among the people
ordered, regulated, and peaceful. Not only can it prevent the strong, the wise,
the young (and, I add, men) from oppressing or taking advantage of the weak,
the stupid, the old (and women), but it can further remove poverty and bring
about productive economy that ensures material sufficiency for all.91 Otherwise
stated, for Xunzi ritual order offers a powerful coordination mechanism –​we
can call this hierarchical regulation in contradistinction to “no regulation”
(free market) or “equal self-​regulation” (democracy) –​in the face of funda-
mental injustice commonly found in the pre-​li state.
In Xunzi’s vision, therefore, only when human desires are properly
constrained by ritual and only when the conflict of interests is effectively
regulated by yi-​based social divisions can civil order be attained. Ultimately,
Xunzi’s own ideal of benevolent government rests on these complex institu-
tional mechanisms of social divisions and ritual ordering, which at once creates
a political community and benefits all members belonging to it.
In order for people to live, they cannot be without community. If they form communities
but lack social divisions then they will struggle with each other. If they struggle with each
other then there will be chaos, and if there is chaos they will be impoverished. Thus, to
lack social divisions is the greatest harm to people, and to have social divisions is the root
benefit for the whole world. And the lord of men (jun) is the pivot and crucial point in
controlling social divisions … In ancient times, the former kings divided up people and
differentially ranked them. Thus, they caused some to be praised and others disdained,
some to be generously provided for and others thinly provided for, some to live in ease
and leisure, and others to live in labor and toil. They did not do this to gain a reputation
for perversity, arrogance, and self-​aggrandizement. Rather, they did it in order to make
clear the proper forms for ren, and in order to promote the smooth operations of ren.92

Thus understood, the reason people accept ritual order is neither because it is
modeled after the Way of Heaven nor because they are intrinsically motivated to

90
Xunzi 10.1.
91
Also see Kim, “Political Economy of Confucian Harmony”; El Amine, Classical Confucian
Political Thought, pp. 68–​73.
92
Xunzi 10.4.
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 51

prefer the good form that undergirds ritual order. They accept ritual order because
they are better off when their social conduct is regulated by ritual institutions
than when they were free in the state of nature. For Xunzi, as with Confucius, ren
is the moral virtue par excellence and it is the foundation of ritual. But in his polit-
ical theory, ren obtains its most profound political significance in relation to the
civil-political order brought into existence by ritual institutions. Put differently,
outside of ritual institutions, neither ren in a politically relevant sense nor interest
properly understood is possible. In Xunzi’s political thought, these three –​ren,
interest, and ritual institutions –​are inextricably entwined.93
As noted, as a moral philosopher Xunzi never gave up the core (Mencian-​)
Confucian conviction that all humans can become sages. Nevertheless,
his more astute political sensitivity seems to have led him to approach the
Confucian civil polity and its social participants far more realistically than his
predecessors, including both Confucius and especially Mencius. For Xunzi, the
art of statecraft consists in transforming the people, who used to be “boorish”
(lou 陋) due to their single-​minded pursuit of self-​interest, which blocked them
from appreciating the good of civil order,94 first into citizens who are civically
virtuous (i.e., correct, ordered, peaceful, and controlled), thus capable of devel-
oping a moral interest in ritual order, as well as balancing their private interests
with public interest.95 Only those who have been civically transformed can be
further trained as gentlemen, through the strenuous and painstaking process of
moral education by ritual and teachers, fully immersed in virtues of ren and yi,
resulting in profound moral satisfaction in the Way.96

93
See Xunzi 27.21, where Xunzi explicates the intimate relationship between ren, yi, and
ritual: “The gentleman dwells in ren by means of yi, and only then is it ren. He carries out yi
by means of ritual, and only then is it yi. In implementing ritual, he returns to the roots and
completes the branches, and only when is it ritual. When all three are thoroughly mastered, only
then is it the Way.” Xunzi would claim that when there is this trinity between ren, yi, and ritual
that constitutes the Confucian Way, only then is it profit.
94
For Xunzi’s special yet repeated usages of the term lou 陋, which Hutton translates as “boorish,”
see Xunzi 4.9–​10.
95
Here I adopt the term “citizen” generally in terms of social membership in a civil-​political com-
munity without positing political equality, which is integral to the term’s original Greek ety-
mology and Greco-​Roman republican practice.
96
See Van Norden, “Mengzi and Xunzi,” p. 123. Compare my two-​staged argument with Ivanhoe’s
following statement where he recaps why the powerful and crafty in the Xunzian state of nature
would agree to follow the Way: “The Confucian Way offers just such an ideal, a way of life that
allows one to satisfy most of one’s basic desires –​without incurring the liabilities which plague
those in the state of nature –​while opening up new and profound sources of satisfaction, sources
which are available only to those who are inside and committed to the project of the Confucian
Way” (Philip J. Ivanhoe, “A Happy Symmetry: Xunzi’s Ecological Ethic,” in Kline III and Tiwald
(eds.), Ritual and Religion in the Xunzi, pp. 43–​60, at pp. 46–​47. Apparently, Ivanhoe does not
seem to pay sufficient attention to the important civic dimension of enlightened self-​interest
and leaves unexplained the precise political mechanism in which satisfaction of basic desires is
acquired and further brings about profound moral satisfaction “without incurring the liabilities
which plague those in the state of nature.”
52 Confucian Constitutionalism

As such, the most urgent and realistically achievable political goal for Xunzi
consists in unifying the people by re-​channeling their desire for material goods
or private interest in a manner conducive to civility, the social foundation of
political order and the wellspring of productive economy. Virtuous leadership
makes this unity more stable and firmer: “[Under virtuous leadership, t]hose
who commit violent brutalities and those who are audacious in using force
will transform for one and live honestly. Those who are biased for one side
and those who are crooked with selfishness will transform for one and avoid
prejudice. Those who are arrogantly disruptive and those who are stubbornly
unruly will transform for one and become concordant. This is called the great
transformation leading to unity.”97
For Mencius, it should be recalled, self-​transformation primarily means an
ethico-​spiritual transformation by which one experiences a cosmic unity with
Heaven. Since Heaven is the ultimate source and guarantor of what is public
(gong 公), one can only become a “public man” in its most authentic sense by
unifying with Heaven.98 Mencius called the public man, understood in this
ethico-​religious sense, “the Great Man” (da zhang fu 大丈夫), who “dwells in
the wide house of the world, occupies his proper place in the world, and carries
out the great Way of the world.”99 Mencius never identified the public man
saliently in political or civic terms, although, as discussed earlier, he implicitly
acknowledged the possibility of the public in relation to the ruler’s desire for
profit.100
In marked contrast, Xunzi, who is skeptical of the ethico-​religious meaning
of Heaven and the moral-​cosmological correlation between men and Heaven,
defines the Confucian public with direct reference to Confucian ritual insti-
tutionalism. That is, by participating in the institutions of Confucian ritual,
Xunzi is convinced, a natural man can be ethico-​politically transformed into a
public man, namely, into a citizen.101 Clearly, this is qualitatively different from
the Mencian ethico-​religious self-​transformation. For Xunzi, it seems, ethico-​
political self-​transformation is sufficient to enact the Confucian civil-political

97
Xunzi 15.5.
98
Mencius 7A1; 7A13.
99
Mencius 3B2 (Bloom’s translation).
100
To clarify, it is not my intent to argue that Mencius dismissed wholesale the important public
(gong) dimension of the state, for then he would not be able to uphold the public interest in
terms of the well-​being of all members of the political community. However, we should not
forget that for Mencius the ultimate reservoir of the public was Heaven and thus he always
placed Heaven over the interest of the de facto independent and sovereign state (guo 國) as
it was emerging as a new political reality during the Warring States period. For Mencius, the
public man referred to not so much the statesman narrowly defined (i.e., one who serves or
contributes to the state) but rather one who fulfills one’s Heaven-​bestowed decree.
101
In Wong’s words, for Xunzi, “[g]‌oodness and right are determined by the rules created by the
sages. They cannot be prior to the sages in the sense required by their having innate desires for
these things” (“Xunzi on Moral Motivation,” p. 145).
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 53

order, which is urgently required during the formative stage of state building
or rebuilding as it had become one of the most urgent political concerns during
the late Warring States period. Once ethico-​politically transformed, people are
expected to voluntarily participate in ritual,102 which would leave the ruler
with not much to do but the arduous maintenance of the system of ritual
itself. Hence, despite Xunzi’s criticism of Mencian wuwei statecraft, the oper-
ating principle of the Xunzian civil polity is equally “nonaction,” though in the
markedly different sense.103
Now we are down to one remaining question. If people subscribe voluntarily
to the moral and sociopolitical order of the ritual because it fully nourishes
their natural desire by transforming it into civil desire and thereby enhances
their moral interests, why does the ruler also subject himself to Confucian
ritual institutionalism, when it appears to substantially curtail his freedom
in exercising political power? Xunzi’s answer is simple –​because doing so is
advantageous to him as well.104

The Prudential Foundation of Positive Confucianism

Mencius realized that in order for Confucian politics to be practicable in the
nonideal world, it cannot rely solely on what I called negative Confucianism.
While negative Confucianism can contribute to the well-​being of the people by
constraining the ruler, it is limited in making the ruler actively serve the people.
This realization led Mencius to wrestle with how to make the ruler commit
himself to the well-​being of the people without serious curtailment of his pri-
vate interest. As we have seen, the gist of Mencius’s positive Confucianism
lies in extending the ruler’s private interest to the people. This pragmatism
falls short of Mencius’s ultimate political ideal relying mainly on the ruler’s
world-​transforming moral virtue and aimed at the people’s ethico-​religious
self-​transformation,105 but it nevertheless approximates that ideal by pro-
viding apposite socioeconomic conditions –​“benevolent government” in other
words –​that can facilitate the people’s moral development and flourishing.
From Xunzi’s standpoint, however, Mencius’s political theory leaves much
in ambiguity. Most problematically, Mencius never offers a clear explanation

102
For an excellent interpretive study on voluntarism that the li animates, see Herbert Fingarette,
Confucius: The Secular as Sacred (New York: Harper, 1972).
103
Xunzi 17.3b; 21.5a; 21.7a; 21.7d. Xunzi’s wuwei government is qualitatively different from
Mencius’s idealized wuwei statecraft. While Xunzi’s wuwei government is what positive polit-
ical Confucianism of the li has achieved, Mencius’s wuwei statecraft is a governing style relying
primarily on the ruler’s world-​transformative moral virtue.
104
See Daniel A. Bell, China’s New Confucianism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2008), p. 43.
105
For Mencius, sage-​ king Shun best illustrates this Confucian political ideal. According to
Mencius, the driving force of Shun’s wuwei statecraft is his great filial piety, the root of ren (see
Mencius 4A28; 5A1; 5A2; 5A3; 5A4; 7A35). On the account of filial piety as the root of ren,
see The Analects 1.2.
54 Confucian Constitutionalism

on the question of motive for his positive Confucianism. Why would a ruler
share what he deems to be his material goods with the people? Why would he
voluntarily bring himself to the institutions of ritual that would seriously con-
strain his freedom?
What makes Xunzi a unique Confucian political thinker, especially in com-
parison with Mencius, is his unequivocal acknowledgment that even virtuous
rulers (even sage-​kings!) possess the desire for material interest. According
to Xunzi, a ruler desires to practice the Kingly Way neither because of the
Mandate of Heaven nor due to his immaculate commitment to Confucian
morality. What motivates a ruler to practice the Kingly Way, at least initially, is
his deep interest in worldly (largely material) goods.106 Consider the following
statement by Xunzi:
To be so noble as to be Son of Heaven; to be so rich as to possess the whole world; to
have a reputation as being a sage king; to control all others while not being controlled
by any other –​these are what people’s natural dispositions are the same in desiring, but
a true king is the only one who has all these … Thus, people’s natural disposition is such
that their mouths like good flavors, and there are no finer flavors than the ones enjoyed
by a true king. People’s ears like good sounds, and there are no greater sounds than the
music he enjoys. People’s eyes like good sights, and none are more numerous than the
exquisite decorations and the women he enjoys. People’s bodies like ease, and there is
no greater comfort than the safety, stability, leisure, and peace he enjoys. People’s hearts
like profit, and there is no income more abundant than the one he enjoys. Combine
what everyone under Heaven is the same in wishing for –​he possesses all these things
… How could anyone who is not crazy, confused, stupid, or ignorant look upon such a
life and not be filled with delight?107

Historically, Confucians, especially those in the Mencian strain, always exhorted

the ruler to become the paragon of moral virtue, one who is completely free
of desire for power and private interest. Only if he is singularly devoted to
morality, they argued, can the ruler become a sage-​king.108 Xunzi observes,
however, that in reality the king stands at the peak of worldly interests that
combine riches, honor, and rank. Should a ruler keep himself from those
worldly interests that accompany his majestic position? If not for such worldly

106
In his essay examining the origin of ritual order, Chenyang Li claims that it is not so much
the sage-​kings’ moral sentiment but their aversion of disorder that motivated them to estab-
lish ritual institutions and attributes to Xunzi the position that “there is nothing intrinsically
good about being morally good except that it prevents the bad” (“Xunzi on the Origin of
Goodness: A New Interpretation,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38:1 [2011], pp. 46–​63, at
p. 60). Though I welcome Li’s political interpretation, I still wonder whether it can fully explain
the sage-​kings’ internal motivation without taking into account their (morally tamed) desire for
the worldly goods, when Xunzi clearly states that sages also possess desire for material interest.
107
Xunzi 11.7b.
108
For instance, Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning (聖學十圖) dedicated by Yi Hwang 李滉 (1501–​
1570), one of the most renowned Neo-​Confucian scholars during the Chosŏn 朝鮮 dynasty
(1392–​1910), to King Sŏnjo 宣祖 (r. 1567–​1608) mentions nothing about power or profit,
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 55

interests, Xunzi wonders, why would anyone bother to assume the kingship in
the first place?
That being said, it is important to realize that even here Xunzi’s deepest
concern still points to civil politics. It is clearly vindicated in his statement that
“these are also what people’s natural dispositions are the same in desiring, but
only the rituals and regulations pertaining to the Son of Heaven are such as to
be like this. When regulations and measures have been set and when govern-
ment orders have been taken up, then if an official neglects something crucial,
he is punished with death, and if a duke or feudal lord neglects ritual propriety,
he is relegated to obscurity.”109 That is to say, instead of making the ritual
institutions serve the ruler’s private interest, Xunzi subjects the ruler’s interest
to the sociopolitical and moral institutional framework set by ritual aimed
to secure political order and, more fundamentally, promote the well-​being of
the people who then would “respond to [the ruler] like a shadow or echo.”110
Against Mohists who insist on the virtue of frugality, especially on the ruler’s
part, Xunzi thus empathetically defends the majestic panoply of the king from
this institutional-​political perspective.
[The ancient sage-​kings] understood that in the matter of being a lord and superior to
others, to lack beautiful things and ornaments will leave one incapable of uniting the
people, to lack wealth and generous endowments will leave one incapable of managing
one’s subordinates, and to lack strength and the power to inspire awe will leave one
incapable of stopping those who are violent and overcoming those who are brutal. Thus
the former kings were sure to strike great bells, beat sounding drums, blow on reeds and
pipes, and play lyres and zithers, in order to fill up their ears. They were sure to have
carving, polishing, engraving, and inlay, insignias and ornaments, in order to fill up their

and it is sage-​learning (shengxue 聖學) of this sort that orthodox Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​Confucians
in China and Korea thought the ruler ought to be modeled after. For the English translation
of Ten Diagrams, see Michael C. Kalton (trans.), To Become a Sage (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1988).
109
Xunzi 11.7b.
110
Ibid. This explains an important question that has been sidelined so far –​that is, what if other
forms of political arrangement (say, based on law, force, or bureaucracy) would benefit the
ruler more effectively? If the ritual institutions are found to be less effective in satisfying the
ruler’s desire for material interests than an alternative political arrangement, would Xunzi find
it justified for him to opt out from the current political system in favor of a more advantageous
one? Though important, this challenge would have a real force only if it is agreed that Xunzi
acknowledges desire for material interest as the sole motivational force. But as will be argued
shortly, Xunzi is also concerned with how the ruler can exercise his political power in a morally
edifying way, which would truly secure the long-​term institutional basis of his interest, now his
moral interest. My argument so far has been only to show the important prudential ground
of Xunzi’s ritual institutionalism, which is often eclipsed by his staggering emphasis of virtue
ethics. Of course, it is a completely different matter whether Xunzi’s ideal regime indeed secures
both its institutional efficacy in satisfying the ruler’s material interest and moral-​political legiti-
macy better than other forms of political arrangement, which is basically an empirical question.
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me to clarify this important question.
56 Confucian Constitutionalism

eyes … Only afterward did they increase their personnel, set up official posts, promote
rewards, and make strict punishments, in order to make the people’s hearts watchful.
They thereby caused all the people to know that what they feared and dreaded lay here
with the kings … When it is like this, then the myriad things will obtain what is appro-
priate to them. When there are changes in circumstances, one will obtain the appro-
priate response.111

As Hutton interprets this passage, “Xunzi’s explicit justification is that the king
should control the things that the common people desire and fear in order to
motivate them.”112 And, perhaps more importantly, and as Loy rightly notes,
without extravagant consumption and lavish display it would be quite difficult
for any large-​scale authoritarian regime of the sort Xunzi espouses to function
effectively.113
Yet, Xunzi’s concern is not limited to realist motivation of the people in
subjecting them to a panoply of kingship or effective rulership per se. What
is more important is his observation that the ruler’s interest (i.e., the moral
interest that has become compatible with and further enhances the public
interest) can be maximized authoritatively and legitimately only within the
institutional framework of ritual, which not only enables the people to find
their proper social places, thereby avoiding social chaos and enriching their
lives, but, in the long run, also drawing them to its beauty and awesome-
ness, after which they model their lives and by which they regulate their per-
sonal conduct and social relations.114 Outside of this framework, the moral
and aesthetic essence of which Xunzi captures in terms of good form (wen
文),115 there can be no interest, and only strife prevails perennially. In short,
ritual institutions constrain the power and private interest of the ruler while
exalting his moral-​political authority and enhancing his true interest, which is
connected to the survival and flourishing of his state. And it is the good form
of ritual institutions that brings, albeit slowly, the people, originally bad yet
now civically transformed, to genuinely enjoy ritual order and the Kingly Way
for non-​instrumental reasons.116 As Xunzi puts it, “Ritual is the height of good
order and proper distinction. It is the fundamental point for making the state

111
Xunzi 10.9.
112
Eric L. Hutton, “Un-​Democratic Values in Plato and Xunzi,” in Polishing the Chinese Mirror,
eds. Marthe Chandler and Ronnie Littlejohn (New York: Global Scholars Publications, 2008),
pp. 313–​330, at p. 324.
113
See Loy, “Xunzi Contra Mozi,” pp. 367–​368. On this ground Loy considers Mozi’s criticism of
Confucian rituals (finding them entirely wasteful) mistaken as he also champions a similar kind
of the authoritarian state that Xunzi is eager to justify.
114
For the political importance of public display in Xunzi’s political theory, see El Amine, Classical
Confucian Political Thought, pp. 97–​99.
115
Xunzi 3.4.
116
It is for this reason that Xunzi criticizes, among others, Mozi for understanding one corner of
the Way, but does not realize that no one corner is sufficient to fully exhibit the Way (Xunzi
21.4). Otherwise stated, in Xunzi’s view, while Mozi rightly understood the importance of the
Interest, Morality, and Positive Confucianism 57

strong. It is the way to inspire awe pervasively. It is the critical element for
gaining accomplishments and fame. When kings and dukes follow it, that is
the means whereby they obtain the whole world. When they do not follow it,
that is the means whereby they obliterate their own alters of soil and grain.”117
As such, for Xunzi, Confucian moral and sociopolitical institutionalism of
ritual, grounded in the self-​interest of the ruler as well as of the ruled, plays a
critical constitutional role by simultaneously reforming and nourishing interest
for both parties. In this way, although starting from a radically different view
of human nature, Xunzi joins Mencius on Confucianism’s common positive
moral-​political perfectionist ambition. It was their shared conviction that pos-
itive Confucianism can be attained not by suppressing the desire for material
interest but by transforming it into the public interest that is profitable for both
the ruler and the ruled.

Conclusion
For many Confucians, Mencius’s “he bi yue li*” gave rise to the idea that
Confucian morality and interest are opposed to each other and orthodox
Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​Confucians in particular reinforced this moralistic view on
the basis of the typical Neo-​Confucian binary between the Heavenly principle
and human desire. In this chapter, I tried to show, contrary to this conventional
view, that Mencius himself never held the dualism between Confucian morality
(ren and yi) and interest without qualifications. Nor was Xunzi, I argued, an
apologist of the Chinese Realpolitik or Legalism, preoccupied with political
order and the ruler’s interest in it. Central to my argument has been that despite
holding seemingly contrasting accounts of human nature, Mencius and Xunzi
were not so distant from each other when it comes to their positive Confucian
political aspirations.
Although Mencius was deeply interested in negative Confucianism and
presented positive Confucianism in a less systematic way than Xunzi, primarily
in terms of the pragmatic vehicle toward the Kingly Way of wuwei statecraft,

consequentialist dimension of the Way, which Xunzi also shares, he critically failed to grasp,
among other things, the non-​instrumental dimensions of the Way, which renders it a good form,
the deepest moral and aesthetic source of political legitimacy and ruling authority. See also
Hutton, “Ethics in the Xunzi,” pp. 79–​81; Harris, “Xunzi’s Political Philosophy,” pp. 114–​115.
117
Xunzi 15.4. Also see Wong, “Xunzi on Moral Motivation,” pp. 146–​151; Eirik L. Harris,
“The Role of Virtue in Xunzi’s 荀子 Political Philosophy,” Dao 12:1 (2013), pp. 93–​110, esp.
pp. 103–​109. I fully agree with Hagen when he says, “The motivation to stay on the path
of Confucian self-​cultivation, at least at early stages, comes precisely from a prudential cal-
culus … Virtues and aspirations developed by strictly prudential reasoning could, in exigent
circumstances, incline one to assent to a course of action that is not itself prudential –​indeed
one may end up cultivating a character that would choose death over disgrace. So, we cultivate
a non-​prudential based character, but our incentive to go down that road is nothing other than
prudence” (Hagen, “Xunzi and the Prudence of Dao,” p. 63).
58 Confucian Constitutionalism

he never dismissed the moral value of interest –​namely, the publicly extended
interest or moral interest –​as a realistic rapport between the ruler and the
ruled, binding them equally to the ritual-​based Confucian civil-political order.
What troubled Mencius was rulers’ single-​minded pursuit of private interest
and the pathological situation in which men’s sociopolitical relations are medi-
ated purely in terms of private interest without regard to morality and, by
extension, public interest.
Xunzi, however, noticed a fundamental weakness in Mencius’s political
theory, grounded in his apolitical theory of human nature. If Mencius is right in
believing that human nature is good and every person is capable of moral self-​
transformation by concentrating on his inner capacity, Xunzi wondered, on
what basis would Mencius be able to uphold the supreme moral significance
of kingship and ritual, the core institutions of Confucian virtue politics, in his
“Confucian” political theory? Furthermore, how could Mencius account for
the motivational aspects of ritual institutionalism and Confucian kingship in
general without paying adequate attention to people’s natural desire for profit?
In Xunzi’s judgment, however, even a sage-​king who is alleged to have success-
fully transformed himself still possesses self-​interest and Confucian political
theory must take into account this realistic assumption, especially with regard
to the origin and sustenance of the Confucian civil-​political order. For him,
self-​interest was an important moral resource that helps both the ruler and
the ruled to voluntarily subscribe to the institutions of ritual, thus fulfilling the
positive purposes of Confucian virtue politics –​namely, the stable civil order
and the moral and material well-​being of the people. He believed that only
from this prudential and consequentialist ethical foundation can one further
achieve a good order of social harmony. And when people are immersed in it
for a long time, they can derive deep pleasure and intrinsic motivation toward
the Kingly Way.
2

Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism

In the previous chapter, we noted that there are two dimensions of Confucian
virtue politics –​positive and negative –​and Xunzi brought Mencius’s underde-
veloped idea of positive Confucianism to full fruition by actively expounding
upon the critical role that material interest can play in creating and maintaining
the Confucian civil-political order. In distinguishing between positive and neg-
ative Confucianism as two different modes of exercising Confucian virtue pol-
itics, however, it is far from my intention to argue that they are incompatible
or mutually exclusive. In fact, they are two sides of the same coin of Confucian
virtue politics and they combine to give rise to an interesting political dynamic
that at once enables and constrains the ruler’s political power.
What is important here is that when recast from the perspective of its
uniquely political, and as will be shown “institutional,” dynamic, we realize
that it is utterly inadequate, and seriously misleading, to capture Confucian
virtue politics in terms of an undisciplined “rule by man.” Admittedly, until
the mid-​twentieth century, Chinese Confucian politics was commonly viewed
as one of patrimonialism in which the empire is the private possession of the
ruler –​a patriarch, whose ruling legitimacy is based solely on hereditary right.
If there was any positive political effect that Confucianism had, as we have
been told, it was nothing more than the image of a benevolent father and
the rhetoric of a benevolent government that covered up for an otherwise
Legalistic ruler singularly devoted to his political security and private interest.
In this widely held view, the real engine that propelled Chinese politics under
this benign Confucian mask was “rule by law” or “Legalism” (fazhi 法治), at
the core of which were the bureaucratic apparatuses effectively controlled by
the ruler’s judicious manipulation of rewards and punishments.1

1
See, for instance, Herrlee G. Creel, Chinese Thought from Confucius to Mao Tse-​tung (Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press, 1953). On the Chinese Legalism of this conventional under-
standing, see Zhengyuan Fu, China’s Legalists: The Earliest Totalitarians and Their Art of

59
60 Confucian Constitutionalism

Originally uneasy, the alliance or intertwinement between rule by law and

rule by virtue became firmly institutionalized in the Chinese empire during
the Han dynasty (206 bc–​220 ad). As the empire, which was founded on
Legalism (and in part Daoism), employed Confucianism as its official ruling
ideology, Confucianism “degenerated” (according to the so-​called “authentic”
Confucians who insisted on Confucius’s original teachings) into what some
scholars call “Legalistic Confucianism,” in which the original moral aspiration
of Confucian virtue politics diminished significantly due to the ruling elites’
dominant concern with political order and stability.2 Under the Legalistic
Confucian political structure, we are told, there was no room for an insti-
tutional arrangement that could effectively constrain the imperial power
undergirded by centralized bureaucracy.
Recently, however, students of Confucianism have begun to challenge this
popular account of traditional Confucian politics in China. Their common
argument is that Confucian rituals or li, commonly understood as a docility
enhancing social mechanism, in effect exercised a critical “constitutional”
function by constraining the arbitrary use of power by the ruler. According to
this new interpretation, the Confucian ruler is not above the li. On the contrary,
the ruler is systematically controlled by the li (i.e., negative Confucianism) that
confers moral and political authority on him and simultaneously enables him
to exercise political power legitimately and with sufficient popular support (i.e.,
positive Confucianism).3 As Chaihark Hahm puts it, “[I]‌n East Asia the consti-
tutionalist goal of putting effective restraint on the government and the educa-
tive goal of creating citizens who will demand such restraint should be pursued
by taking into account [the] cultural idiom and vocabulary of Confucianism.

Ruling (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996). As recent scholarship on Han Fei, the synthesizer
of pre-​Qin Legalism, amply suggests, however, it is a different matter whether a particular
Legalist thinker did subscribe to the established view of Legalism, mainly offered by its critics
including Confucians. See Paul R. Goldin (ed.), Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei
(Dordrecht: Springer, 2013).
2
On the historical formation of Legalistic Confucianism and Legalism more generally during
the Han dynasty, see Joseph R. Levenson and Franz Schurmann (eds.), China: An Interpretive
History from the Beginnings to the Fall of Han (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1971). Tu Wei-​ming calls Legalistic Confucianism a “politicized Confucianism” and distinguishes
it from original Confucianism advanced by pre-​Qin Confucian masters, especially the version
supported by Mencius. See his “Probing the ‘Three Bonds’ and ‘Five Relationships’ in Confucian
Humanism,” in Confucianism and the Family, eds. Walter H. Slote and George A. DeVos (Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 1998), pp. 121–​136.
3
See Chaihark Hahm, “Constitutionalism, Confucian Civic Virtue, and Ritual Propriety,” in
Confucianism for the Modern World, eds. Daniel A. Bell and Chaibong Hahm (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 31–​53; Bui Ngoc Son, Confucian Constitutionalism in
East Asia (London: Routledge, 2016), chaps. 1 and 2. Also see Jaeyoon Song, “The Zhou Li
and Constitutionalism: A Southern Song Political Theory,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 36:3
(2009), pp. 423–​438 and Wm. Theodore de Bary, “The ‘Constitutional Tradition’ in China,”
Journal of Chinese Law 9 (1995), pp. 7–​34, although both Song’s and de Bary’s discussions are
limited to Chinese Neo-​Confucian experiences.
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 61

Among the Confucian terms and concepts … ‘ritual propriety’ can provide a
fruitful means of appropriating the Confucian cultural idiom for the project
of establishing constitutionalism … This is because the Confucian notion of
li lies at the intersection of politics and education. It is a marvelous combi-
nation of education, self-​cultivation, training, discipline, restraint, authority,
and legitimacy.”4 And, arguably, this is what we have observed in Chapter 1
with regard to Mencius’s and Xunzi’s political theories of negative and pos-
itive Confucianism, though I have consciously avoided explaining the two
dimensions of Confucian virtue politics explicitly in terms of constitutionalism.
Without implicating Mencius and Xunzi with the modern Western conception
of constitutionalism, I aim to highlight in this chapter some important consti-
tutional elements in their political thought in relation to their own conceptual
tools such as virtue and ritual.5
Li, however, is only one of the components, albeit an important one, that
buttresses the constitutional dynamic of Confucian virtue politics. Although
Confucius (re)defined government (zheng 政) in terms of “correction [of the
ruler as well as the people]” (zheng 正)6 and presented li as a complex set of
institutional apparatuses to achieve such noncoercive moral correction,7 this
does not mean that Confucian virtue politics is directly analogous to ritual
ethics or rule by ritual.8 One of the critical problems in understanding the neg-
ative (or constraining) dimension of Confucian virtue politics exclusively in
terms of “rule by ritual” (lizhi 禮治, or “ritual politics”) is that it does not do
justice to the other side of Confucian virtue politics, often identified in terms
of “rule by virtue” (dezhi 德治, or “virtue politics”), which understands the
essence of government as consisting in the moral cultivation of the people by
the transformative power of the ruler’s moral virtue.
As discussed in the Introduction, in Confucius’s original political thought
virtue politics and ritual politics denote two interconnected modes of
Confucian virtue politics because in Confucius li gained a fresh moral meaning
as a socially recognized and ordered expression of ren, the Confucian moral
virtue par excellence.9 By rediscovering moral and civil value in ritual politics

4
Hahm, “Constitutionalism, Confucian Civic Virtue, and Ritual Propriety,” p. 43.
5
For a more detailed discussion on my usages of “constitutionalism” and “Confucian constitu-
tionalism,” see the Introduction.
6
The Analects 12.17; 13.6; 13.13.
7
See The Analects 2.3.
8
Most notably, Herbert Fingarette tends to reduce Confucian virtue ethics-​cum-​politics to ritual
ethics. See his Confucius: The Secular as Sacred (New York: Harper, 1972). Despite some fasci-
nating arguments, Michael Ing also shows the same tendency when he understands Confucian
ethics wholly in terms of ritual or its dysfunctions. See Michael D. K. Ing, The Dysfunction of
Ritual in Early Confucianism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
9
On the fresh moral meaning of li in relation to ren in Confucius’s philosophical thought, see
Tu Wei-​ming, “Li as Process of Humanization,” in Humanity and Self-​Cultivation (Berkeley,
CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1979), pp. 17–​34. Also see Benjamin I. Schwartz, The World of
Thought in Ancient China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 72–​85.
62 Confucian Constitutionalism

of the Zhou civilization and redefining ritual politics in terms of virtue politics
(in mediation of ren, which had undergone conceptual transformation from
manliness into inner moral virtue),10 Confucius offered an alternative para-
digm of politics to the one based on sheer force. It is by Mencius and Xunzi
that virtue politics and ritual politics were given a more systematic framework
and philosophical formulation as two distinct, though intimately connected,
modes of Confucian virtue politics along with their core concern with negative
and positive Confucianism.
In this chapter, I argue that as second-​generation Confucians, Mencius and
Xunzi firmly established virtue (or character)-​centered politics and ritual (or
institution)-​centered politics as the two main pillars, together buttressing the
scaffold of Confucian virtue politics as an alternative to the various political
platforms and proposals toward Realpolitik that emerged during the Warring
States period. Put differently, by drawing attention to distinctive institutional
politics specific to each mode of Confucian virtue politics, I claim that Mencius
and Xunzi developed two distinct models of Confucian constitutionalism –​
virtue constitutionalism and ritual constitutionalism. More specifically, I inves-
tigate whether Mencius’s and Xunzi’s philosophical positions in respect to
Confucian virtue politics are opposed to each other, as they appear to be, or
whether they are complementary to each other despite their differing moral
philosophical premises. Special attention will be paid to Xunzi’s criticism of
Mencius’s idealization of royal transmission between sages by individual merit
or “abdication” (shanrang 禪讓)11 in Book 18 of the Xunzi. I will interpret
Xunzi’s statements there as a political philosophical critique of virtue consti-
tutionalism of the kind Mencius espouses from the standpoint of ritual consti-
tutionalism. But before delving into textual interpretation, one question must
be addressed –​in understanding Mencius’s and Xunzi’s distinct political philo-
sophical positions, why does it matter whether one defends or rejects the idea
of abdication?

The Issue
In The Trouble with Confucianism, Wm. Theodore de Bary identifies one of
the “troubles” of Confucianism as the shift from abdication, which was ideal-
ized by both Confucius and Mencius, to hereditary transmission. According to
de Bary, this shift involves a serious violation of the goals and standards that
Confucianism originally set for itself because hereditary transmission of the
throne inevitably violates the grand premise of the Confucian tradition: that

10
See E. Bruce Brooks and A. Taeko Brooks, The Original Analects: Sayings of Confucius and His
Successors (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p. 15.
11
Though the English term “abdication” does not convey the Confucian moral ideal of “yielding
to the worthy,” I nevertheless adopt this term for the Chinese concept of shanrang, following the
conventional contrast in Chinese political theory between abdication and hereditary succession.
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 63

the true king ought to be a (universal) “sage-​king” in whom moral authority

and political power are seamlessly entwined.12 In the Confucian ethico-​
political tradition, the sage-​king is understood to be the paradigmatic man
who encompasses both moral charisma and political power and mediates
between Heaven and the people. Thus Mencius extols the Way employed by
the sage-​kings Yao and Shun as “the culmination of humanity.”13 Xunzi, too,
hails the sage-​kings of Chinese antiquity as moral-​political and cultural heroes
who transformed the anarchic state of nature into a civilized and ordered state
by means of ritual institutions.14 For Confucians, hereditary transmission of
kingship tarnishes the brilliant moral and political quality associated with
the ideal of sage-​kings, namely moral virtue, which like charisma is a purely
individual quality that cannot be transmitted from father to son.15 Yet, if we
approach the Confucian ideal of abdication from the standpoint of hereditary
transmission, it looks quite destabilizing, even subversive, as it valorizes the
ruler’s purely personal moral charisma but rejects its institutionalization.
As we will see shortly, Xunzi rejects the abdication legend (and, by impli-
cation, the abdication doctrine) in spite of its idealization by many earlier
Confucians, including Mencius. If it is granted that the abdication doctrine was
originally contrived to critique the anti-​Confucian reality of hereditary trans-
mission, it can be inferred that by rejecting the abdication legend (and doctrine),
Xunzi affirms the reality (and legitimacy) of hereditary royal transmission.16 In
what follows, I argue that Xunzi’s and Mencius’s differing attitudes toward
abdication are attributable to their equally differing accounts of human nature,
leading them to prefer different models of Confucian virtue politics. More spe-
cifically, I draw attention to the complex nature of the two thinkers’ respective
political theories –​an interesting integration of political realism into Mencius’s
supposedly idealistic political theory, undergirded by the Mandate of Heaven,
and idealistic elements in Xunzi’s otherwise realistic political theory –​as well

12
Wm. Theodore de Bary, The Trouble with Confucianism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1991), pp. 1–​2. Elsewhere I argued that this shift denotes the fundamental break-
down of Confucian political moral economy according to which there should be congruency
between moral virtue and political power and status. See Sungmoon Kim, “Contingency and
Responsibility in Confucian Political Theory,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 44:6 (2018), pp.
615–​636.
13
Mencius 4A2.
14
Xunzi 23.2a.
15
Since both Mencius and Xunzi (especially the former), following the lead of Confucius, believe
that virtue has a power (a sort of potency) to attract the people to its possessor and even
transform them toward goodness, it can be understood as a pure form of “charisma” in the
Weberian sense.
16
For a seminal discussion on Xunzi’s defense of the hereditary system, see Henry Rosemont Jr.,
“State and Society in the Xunzi: A Philosophical Commentary,” in Virtue, Nature, and Moral
Agency in the Xunzi, eds. T. C. Kline III and Philip J. Ivanhoe (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000),
pp. 1–​38.
64 Confucian Constitutionalism

as how Xunzi advances his Confucian political theory by critically engaging

with Mencius’s philosophical position.

Mencius’s Defense of Abdication and Virtue Constitutionalism

The Trouble with Abdication
The last book of The Analects records cases of abdication that allegedly took
place first between Yao and Shun, then between Shun and Yu, as follows:
Yao said, “Oh, you Shun! The orderly succession of Heaven now rests upon our
shoulders. Hold faithfully to the mean. If those within the Four Seas should fall into
hardship and poverty, Heaven’s emoluments [read: the Mandate of Heaven] will be cut
off from you forever.” Shun charged Yu with the same words.17

What is remarkable about this depiction of handing over the throne is that
there is “neither conquest nor struggle; neither antagonist, nor rival to over-
come, nor any countervailing power to be met,” as de Bary observes.18 In this
mythic spectacle, power is either nonexistent from the beginning or has been
completely erased.19 What is present, instead, is virtue, which is presented as
the sole foundation of political authority of sage-​kings Yao, Shun, and Yu.
Therefore, what Yao calls “the orderly succession of Heaven” does not merely
refer to the succession of the power-​line, or what later Confucians called the
Princely-​Line (wang tung 王統); it also includes the line of brilliant moral
virtue, namely, the Sagely-​Line (dao tung 道統).20
Here several questions arise: how does the reigning king as the Son of Heaven
appoint his successor? Who authorizes the succession? And how is the successor’s
moral virtue, the single criterion for his qualification to succeed the throne, iden-
tified? The famous conversation between Mencius (M) and Wan Zhang (WZ) in

17
The Analects 20.1. The English translation is adopted from Confucius, Confucius: Analects: with
Selections from Traditional Commentaries, trans. Edward Slingerland (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett,
2003). It is generally agreed that Book 20 of the Lunyu 論語 (“Yao yue” 堯曰) is a later interpo-
lation, perhaps after the rise of Mohism, which popularized the abdication legend (see Herrlee
G. Creel, Confucius and the Chinese Way [New York: Harper and Row, 1949], pp. 182–​210).
This philological issue, however, does not affect the historical premise of the current chapter that
by the time of Mencius and Xunzi, the abdication legend had become popular not only within
the Confucian school but more broadly among the common people. On the popularity of the
abdication legend during the late Warring States period, see Sarah Allan, Buried Ideas: Legends
of Abdication and Ideal Government in Early Chinese Bamboo-​Slip Manuscripts (Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 2015).
18
De Bary, Trouble with Confucianism, p. 2.
19
For the latter possibility, see John B. Henderson, Scripture, Canon, and Commentary: A
Comparison of Confucian and Western Exegesis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1991), pp. 21–​37.
20
For the (Neo-​)Confucian consciousness of the Sagely-​Line (or the Lineage of Dao) vis-​à-​vis the
Princely-​Line, see Wm. Theodore de Bary, The Liberal Tradition in China (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1983), pp. 13–​14. Also see Seung-​Hwan Lee, Yugyo tamnoŭi chihyŏnghak [A
Typology of the Confucian Discourse] (Seoul: Purŭnsup, 2004), pp. 121–​129.
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 65

Book 5A of the Mengzi centers around some conundrums that the abdication
legend gives rise to. The following shows the first half of the conversation.
WZ: Is it true that Yao gave the world to Shun?
M: No, the king [the Son of Heaven] cannot give the world to another.
WZ: In that case who gave the world to Shun?
M: Heaven gave it to him.
WZ: Does this mean that Heaven gave him detailed and minute instructions?
M: No, Heaven does not speak but reveals itself through its acts and deeds.
WZ: How does Heaven do this?
M: The king can recommend a man to Heaven but he cannot make Heaven
give this man the world … In antiquity, Yao recommended Shun to
Heaven and Heaven accepted him; he presented him to the people and
the people accepted him. Hence I said, “Heaven does not speak but
reveals itself by its acts and deeds.”21
Mencius’s argument is composed of several propositions. First, the world (i.e.,
the universal kingdom called “all under Heaven”) is not the private property
of the king, who is the Son of Heaven. Second, therefore, the king cannot (or
is not entitled to) make a personal, purely discretionary, decision regarding
to whom to hand over the world, no matter how great the candidate’s virtue
may be. Third, as the supreme authority over all under Heaven, kingship must
be transmitted, in today’s legal language, “in due course” and the ultimate
source of such a procedural legitimacy lies in the Mandate of Heaven. Finally,
kingship, which has been conferred by the Mandate of Heaven, will simulta-
neously be accepted by the people.
The last point is worth special attention. Here Mencius does not seem to be
referring to the Mandate of Heaven and the people’s acceptance as two separate
sources for moral-​political legitimacy of royal transmission. Rather, Mencius
seems to claim that the people’s welcoming of a new, putatively virtuous, can-
didate reflects the will of Heaven. Not surprisingly, this seemingly radical
identification of the will of Heaven with the people’s support in Mencius’s
political theory has convinced some contemporary scholars to regard him as
a protodemocratic thinker. But does Mencius indeed identify Heaven directly
with the people, thereby advocating “the ultimate supremacy of the people and
their right to overthrow tyranny”?22 Even if it is acknowledged that Mencius
is genuinely concerned with the people’s well-​being, believing that political
authority is “justified by its ability to protect and promote the people’s well-​
being,”23 does he also believe that the people collectively possess the (ritually

21
Mencius 5A5.
22
See Luke Glanville, “Retaining the Mandate of Heaven: Sovereign Accountability in Ancient
China,” Millennium 39 (2010), pp. 323–​343, at p. 325.
23
Joseph Chan, Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), p. 27. Contrary to this view, however, Loubna El Amine
66 Confucian Constitutionalism

sanctioned) power to choose a ruler whom they find virtuous and declare their
choice as the will of Heaven? Or is Mencius making a normative statement
that a ruler, allegedly appointed by Heaven, ought to be accepted by the people
in order to make his moral and political legitimacy complete, instead of saying
that Heaven’s appointment will naturally and automatically be followed by the
people’s support?
Direct normative equation of Heaven with the people is logically unstable
because we can derive two different propositions from it. On the one hand,
since in this equation the Mandate of Heaven is directly congruent with the will
of the people, the people cannot logically refuse the ruler whose moral-​political
authority to rule has already been conferred by the Mandate of Heaven. Doing
so is a kind of self-​denial. Yet, on the other hand, it can be stated that regardless
of his current position or status, any person who has the support of the people
has de facto the Mandate of Heaven. To unravel this philosophical conundrum
and to clarify Mencius’s position, let us turn to the latter half of the conversa-
tion between Mencius and Wan Zhang, which proceeds as follows:
WZ: May I ask how [Shun] was accepted by Heaven when recommended
to it and how he was accepted by the people when presented to them?
M: When he was put in charge of sacrifices, the hundred gods enjoyed
them. This showed that Heaven accepted him. When he was put in
charge of affairs, they were kept in order and the people (bai xing
百姓) were content. This showed that the people (min 民) accepted
him … Hence I said, “The king cannot give the world to another.” Shun
assisted Yao for twenty-​eight years … Yao died, and after the mourning
period of three years, Shun withdrew to the south of Nan Ho, leaving
Yao’s son in possession of the field, yet the feudal lords of the whole
world coming to pay homage and those who were engaged in litigation
went to Shun, not to Yao’s son, and ballad singers sang the praises of
Shun, not of Yao’s son. Hence I said, “It was brought about by Heaven.”
Only then did Shun go to the Middle Kingdom and ascend the throne.
If he had just moved into Yao’s palace and ousted his son, it would have
been usurpation of the world, not receiving it from Heaven.24

has recently claimed that “[w]‌hat Mencius means, then, by his statement that the people are
more important than the ruler is not that their well-​being is the ultimate aim of Confucian
government, for which the ruler is a mere means, but rather that they are developmentally
(rather than normatively) more important than the ruler, that is, that no political order can
obtain without their needs being satisfied first” (Classical Confucian Political Thought: A New
Interpretation [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015], p. 51). Although it is certainly
true that Mencius was not the champion of democracy understood as rule of, by, and for the
people, it is difficult to deny Mencius’s normative interest in the people given his vehement
moral criticism of the then-​rulers who failed to create socioeconomic conditions for their moral
and material flourishing. See Chapter 1 and the Conclusion for more on this.
24
Mencius 5A5.
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 67

Here we can see that Mencius has two classes of “people” in mind who
vicariously represent the will of Heaven and accept the new Son of Heaven –​
the laypeople and the feudal lords. Implicit in Mencius’s statement is the argu-
ment that Heaven’s approval can be confirmed only when both laypeople and
feudal lords accept the new ruler (the universal king reigning over all under
Heaven more precisely). The question is whether there is any politically mean-
ingful difference between the laypeople and the feudal lords in their modes of
accepting the new king.
Generally, the Chinese term min means people in their capacity as subjects;
in its conventional usage, it does not refer to nobility.25 For example, when
depicting the scene in which sage-​king Tang (or Wu) was engaged in the puni-
tive expedition of tyrant Jie (or Zhòu), by “people” Mencius generally means
laypeople, who welcome the virtuous intervener as though they “longed for
a rainbow in time of severe drought” –​in other words, enthusiastically.26
Likewise, when Mencius encourages King Xuan of Qi to share his joy with
his “people,” as we have seen in Chapter 1, he clearly has in mind laypeople
including the worst-​off members of society, such as widows, widowers, and
orphans.27 These are the people who sing songs of praise to the new king and
welcome him by approaching him on the road.
As the second part of the conversation between Mencius and Wan Zhang
shows, however, in some contexts, Mencius broadens the scope of “people” so
as to include the nobles, be they ministers in the feudal state or, albeit rarely,
feudal lords, who used to be Zhou king’s subjects. Even more rarely, he uses the
term “people” to refer to the aristocratic class. For instance, when criticizing
King Xuan of Qi, who had just annexed Yan (a state almost the same size as
Qi), for his critical violation of the Confucian norm of righteous war (yizhan
義戰),28 Mencius refers to the “people” (zhong 衆) of Yan as the party with
whom the terms of withdrawal must be negotiated.

25
For an illuminating discussion on the social status of min in ancient China, especially as under-
stood by Confucius, see Ji-​bin Zhao, Lunyu xintan [A New Interpretation of the Analects]
(Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1959). According to Hyŏn-​kŭn Chang, until the early Zhou period
“min” had referred to (war) slaves, especially those whose eye was skewered as a sign of their
status, but by the time of Mencius min became generally identified with “commoners,” peasants
in particular. Originally, bai xing referred to a special group of people, mostly aristocrats, who
possessed their family names (xing 性) and took part, in various capacities, in government with
the ruling class. But like min, it also underwent radical transvaluation in the course of the Warring
States period and by the time of Mencius it widely referred to the people in general as “the ruled,”
although the subtle difference between min and bai xing is occasionally noticed in the Mengzi.
See Hyŏng-​kŭn Chang, “Tongyang-​esŏŭi min, chŏngch’i kaenyŏm-​ŭi hyŏngsŏng mit pyŏnch’ŏn
[The Formation and Evolution of the Concepts of the People and Politics in East Asia],” in
Minbon-​kwa minjuŭi kaenyŏmjŏk t’ongsŏp [The Conceptual Consilience between Minbon and
Minju], ed. Chŏng-​kŭn Sin (Seoul: Sungkyunkwan University Press, 2017), pp. 25–​58.
26
Mencius 1B11. Also see 7B4.
27
Mencius 1A7.
28
I discuss Mencius’s and Xunzi’s ideas of morality of war under the circumstances of the new
interstate order during the Warring States period in Chapter 6.
68 Confucian Constitutionalism

Now you double your territory without practicing benevolent government. This is to pro-
voke the armies of the whole world. If you hasten to order the release of the captives, old
and young, leave the valuable vessels where they are, and take your army out after setting
up a ruler in consultation with the people of Yan, it is still not too late to halt the armies
of the world.29

Certainly, it is unrealistic to insist that Yan’s entire population be consulted

regarding the conquering army’s terms of withdrawal and Mencius indeed seems
by the “people” here to have meant selected members of the aristocratic class.
But precisely who are these “people” who are entitled to this special authority?
Can any aristocratic member be granted this political privilege? Perhaps a more
reasonable interpretation would be that “the people of Yan” that Mencius
recommends King Xuan to consult with during the process of restoring Yan’s
social and political order are Yan’s “trusted ministers of the noble families” (shi
chen 世臣). Indeed, this interpretation has textual support. Mencius defines the
old (and, by implication, stable and well-​ordered) state as a state that consists of
(many) ministers of noble families.30 He further stresses the importance of the
existence of such ministers in governing the (feudal) state: “It is not difficult to
govern. All one has to do is not to offend the [trusted ministers of the] noble fam-
ilies. Whatever commands the admiration of the [trusted ministers of the] noble
families will command the admiration of the whole state; whatever commands
the admiration of a state will command the admiration of the whole world.”31
In short, Mencius divides the subjects of the king into two distinct
groups: passive subjects consisting of laypeople who are the beneficiaries of a
benevolent government, and active subjects such as feudal lords (of the whole
kingdom) or the ministers of noble families (within the feudal state). This dis-
tinction shows that the “people” who are entitled to approve of the ruler are
feudal lords if the ruler in question is the Son of Heaven, or the ministers of
noble families if the ruler in question is a feudal lord. Unless approved by the
active subjects (feudal lords or the ministers of the noble families), a candidate
for a royal position cannot attain ruling legitimacy even with support from the
laypeople.32
Therefore, given the ingrained class distinctions among the people and spe-
cific political rights (passive or active) tacitly attached to each class in Mencius’s
abdication doctrine, it would be a mistake to understand Mencius’s justifi-
cation of abdication as an expression of naive idealism. Quite the contrary,

29
Mencius 1B11 (emphasis added).
30
Mencius 1B7.
31
Mencius 4A6.
32
Several scholars, therefore, capture Mencius’s view of laypeople’s limited political right with
an analogy of “barometer” or “thermometer” that merely indicates the success or failure of
government without any meaningful influence on public decision making. See Justin Tiwald,
“A Right of Rebellion in the Mengzi?,” Dao 7:3 (2008), pp. 269–​282, at p. 272; Stephen C.
Angle, Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy: Toward Progressive Confucianism
(Cambridge: Polity, 2012), p. 40; El Amine, Classical Confucian Political Thought, pp. 42–​44.
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 69

Mencius’s seemingly idealistic identification of people with Heaven could in

practice mean that the Mandate of Heaven is represented vicariously by the will
of active subjects who are thought to share certain responsibilities, imposed by
Heaven, with the ruler to serve the people’s moral and material well-​being.
The implications of Mencius’s “realism” are indeed far-​reaching: Mencius’s
justification of abdication, originally focused on the sage-​king’s brilliant moral
character, can be subverted to serve the ministers’ interest, that is, to uphold
the ministers’ political authority to approve and occasionally constrain royal
power with a view to the people’s well-​being.
Mencius, however, does not dismiss the fact that the ministers’ political
authority is always a power relative to the kingship, as a Heaven-​established
moral-​political office, and therefore that ministership (political right, authority,
and power of the ministers) is fundamentally dependent on the existence of
kingship. In my judgment, the most striking part of Mencius’s political theory
is the surprising “conservative turn” that he takes –​from his original espousal
of abdication to defense of hereditary kingship, without the political backdrop
of which the political right, authority, and power of the ministers become unin-
telligible.33 In another conversation between Mencius and Wan Zhang, Wan
asks whether it is the case that virtue declined with Yu who chose his own son
to succeed him, instead of a good and wise man. Mencius responds as follows:
No, it is not. If Heaven wished to give the world to a good and wise man, then it should
be given to a good and wise man. But if Heaven wished to give it to the son, then it
should be given to the son. In antiquity, Shun recommended Yu to Heaven, and died
seventeen years later. When the mourning period of three years was over, Yu with-
drew to Yang Cheng, leaving Shun’s son in possession of the field, yet the people of all
under Heaven followed him just as, after Yao’s death, the people followed Shun instead
of Yao’s son. Yu recommended Yi to Heaven, and died seven years later. When the
mourning period of three years was over, Yi withdrew to the northern slope of Mount
Qi, leaving Yu’s son in possession of the field. Those who came to pay homage and those
who were engaged in litigation went to Qi instead of Yi, saying, “This is the son of our
prince.” … All this was due to Heaven and could not have been brought about by man.
When a thing is done though by no one, then it is the work of Heaven; when a thing
comes about though no one brings it about, then it is decreed. A common man who
comes to possess the whole world must not only have the virtue of a Shun or a Yu but
also the recommendation of the king [the Son of Heaven]. That is why Confucius never
possessed the world. On the other hand, he who inherits the world is only put aside by
Heaven if he is like Jie or Zhòu. Confucius said, “In Tang 唐 [the name of Yao’s dynasty]
and Yu 虞 [the name of Shun’s dynasty] succession was through abdication, while in
Xia, Yin and Zhou it was hereditary. The basic principle was the same.”34

33
In a similar vein, Robert Eno argues that the passages under investigation have “the effect
of delegitimizing arbitrary cession of thrones and of supporting the institutional status quo,”
calling Mencius’s position to this effect “institutional conservatism” (The Confucian Creation
of Heaven: Philosophy and the Defense of Ritual Mastery [Albany, NY: State University of
New York Press, 1990], p. 255n28).
34
Mencius 5A6.
70 Confucian Constitutionalism

While refuting Wan Zhang’s (tacit) claim that hereditary kingship began when
the kings lost their personal moral charisma, Mencius simultaneously denies
the Weberian contention that charisma, whatever forms it takes, is eventu-
ally routinized and turned into traditional authority.35 That is, the father–son
transmission from Yu to Qi is as legitimate (both morally and politically) as
the abdication from Yao to Shun and from Shun to Yu because it, too, was in
accordance with the Mandate of Heaven and supported by the people, through
the mediation of virtue alone. Mencius even justifies the hereditary transmis-
sion between Yu and Qi by referring to the authority of Confucius.
There appears, however, a logical jump in Mencius’s reasoning. If, as
Mencius claims, legitimacy of the royal transmission lies in the Mandate of
Heaven, the people’s approval, and ultimately the royal candidate’s excellent
moral virtue, which enables and vindicates the other two sources of political
legitimacy, it entails the absurd claim that all kings after Qi in the Xia dynasty –​
including the notorious tyrant Jie, Xia’s last king –​are to be regarded as kings,
the possessors of brilliant moral charisma in principle, simply because of the
fact (ex post facto) that they inherited the throne from their predecessors “in
due course,” that is, legitimately. Or, at the very least, Heaven never intervened
in the royal transmissions that historically took place. Does this mean that
all royal successors, including Jie, were virtuous, hence possessing Heaven’s
blessing to rule?
This logical problem is generated by the fact that in the end Mencius
singles out the incumbent king’s recommendation as the most decisive factor
regarding abdication. This condition implies that without the reigning king’s
recommendation, not even a sage whose moral virtue is commensurate with
that of Confucius can become a king.36 According to Mencius’s most developed

35
However, Mencius sometimes admits, albeit unwittingly, that the sage-​king’s pure (personal)
charisma does get routinized and that the routinized charisma exerts traditional authority. For
instance, when asked why sage-​king Wen (the cofounder of the Zhou dynasty with his son
sage-​king Wu), despite his matchless moral virtue (and enthusiastic welcoming by the people
of Shang), was not able to conquer Shang, then ruled by tyrant Zhòu, and the punitive expedi-
tion was only accomplished by his son, Mencius points to the benevolent customs and mores
that the rulers of Shang inherited from predecessors since its founding by the sage-​king Tang.
According to Mencius, even Zhòu was able to hold the “traditionalized charisma” of the Shang
dynasty, which made King Wen’s expedition extremely difficult (Mencius 2A1). On the routin-
ization of charisma into tradition, see Max Weber, On Charisma and Institution Building, ed.
S. N. Eisenstadt (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1968). Weber’s concept of “lineage
charisma” as a mode of the charisma routinized is especially relevant in the present context.
See Max Weber, Economy and Society (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1978), pp.
1135–​1139.
36
According to Yuri Pines, Mencius had a particular reason for introducing the ruler’s recommen-
dation as the most crucial factor in deciding abdication. Having witnessed how the abdication
legend could be taken advantage of by usurpers in the states like Qi and especially Yan, Mencius
had to moderate the inherent radicalism of his earlier interpretation of the abdication legend,
which made abdication doctrine vulnerable to usurpation by wicked ministers like Zi Zhi of Yan.
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 71

doctrine of abdication, then, the Mandate of Heaven is relegated to the will of

the Son of Heaven, and the will of the Son of Heaven is placed, albeit tacitly,
over the royal candidate’s moral virtue and the people’s approval. Here we can
see a remarkable twist having taken place in Mencius’s doctrines of abdication
and the Mandate of Heaven, commonly associated with his political idealism.

Moral Virtue as Power

My interpretation of Mencius’s political theory thus far may not seem to fit
comfortably with the conventional view of Mencius’s belief in the people’s
right to rebellion or tyrannicide. However, as Justin Tiwald has recently argued,
there is no evidence in the Mengzi that Mencius upholds the laypeople’s right
to revolution –​the right to remove the incumbent ruler and enthrone a new
ruler whom they support.37 For example, it was Tang and Wu (then the feudal
lords of Xia and Shang, respectively) who dethroned (and killed) tyrants Jie
and Zhòu, then founded the new dynasties of Shang and Zhou. In addition, if
a feudal lord has lost his ruling legitimacy due to his tyrannical behavior, lay-
people may be able to engage in collective protest against him, but the right to
replace him is held exclusively by the ministers of noble families or (preferably)
the morally excellent ones among them.
In the context of his theory of rightful regicide, Mencius distinguishes those
who possess the positive moral-​political right from passive subjects, by calling
the former “Heaven’s appointed officers.”38 In principle, the Son of Heaven is the
only Heaven-​appointed officer with the mandate to reign over all under Heaven.
What is at issue now is not only who can take the office of the Son of Heaven
but, more eminently, who is qualified to replace the bad ruler with a qualified
one. That is, who is qualified to play the role of Heaven-​appointed officer as one
who can dethrone (and enthrone) the Son of Heaven during a constitutional
crisis caused by his serious misrule? According to Tiwald, there is one visible
qualification in becoming a Heaven-​appointed officer, namely the possession of
at least 100 square li of territory.39 Certainly, this is in line with my earlier argu-
ment that the political right to dethrone a tyrant and enthrone a new king is held
and exercised exclusively by the feudal lords (who, according to Zhou political
ritualism, own at least 1,000 square li) or the ministers of the noble families
(who own at least 100 square li) if the ruler to be replaced is a feudal lord.
But for Mencius, it seems, possession of a certain amount of territory
(and the social status and political power attached to it, again according to

See Yuri Pines, “Disputers of Abdication: Zhanguo Egalitarianism and the Sovereign’s Power,”
T’oung Pao 91:4 (2005), pp. 268–​271, at pp. 275–​280. I discuss in greater detail the potential
political pathology associated with the ideal of the sage-​king and the abdication doctrine in par-
ticular in Chapter 4.
37
Tiwald, “A Right of Rebellion.”
38
Mencius 2B8.
39
Tiwald, “A Right of Rebellion,” p. 276.
72 Confucian Constitutionalism

Zhou political ritualism) is only a necessary condition to become a Heaven-​

appointed officer. Mencius certainly does not regard any minister of the king
or anyone whose enfiefment was at least 100 square li as entitled to the role
of a Heaven-​appointed officer, with the political power to dethrone (or even
kill) and enthrone a monarch. The more important qualification according to
Mencius is the would-​be Heaven-​appointed officer’s moral excellence.40 For
instance, the territorial qualification alone cannot account for Mencius’s great
admiration of Yi Yin’s sagacious ministership.41 When Tai Jia, Tang’s grandson,
went astray, Yi Yin took him into custody and gave him the world back after
only three years of regent rule.42 Obviously, in adjudicating Yi Yin’s controver-
sial action (i.e., his assumption of the role of the Heaven-​appointed officer),
Mencius’s focus was not so much on Yi Yin’s territory but on his brilliant
moral virtue and his political sagacity that extended from it.43
It should now be clear why Mencius so harshly berates the hegemons, such
as Duke Huan of Qi, who, their official status being merely feudal lords, ratio-
nalized their quasi-​imperial powers in terms of “revering the (Zhou) king and
expelling the barbarians (zun wang rang yi 尊王攘夷).” Since they emerged
during a cultural and political crisis when the Zhou king had lost substantial
political power in order to maintain the kingdom and since they, at least, did
not arrogate to themselves the title of king, the hegemons, even those who were
not appointed by the Zhou king, must have justified their moral status in terms
of Heaven-​appointed officer.44 For Mencius, however, hegemonic rule or badao

40
The virtue qualification to become a Heaven-​appointed officer is most saliently pointed out
when Mencius engages with the question as to who is qualified to initiate a punitive expedition.
I discuss this question in great detail in Chapter 6.
41
Yi Yin was one of the most sagacious ministers of sage-​king Tang, the founder of the Shang
dynasty. According to Mencius, Yi Yin accepted the position of minister only after Tang cor-
dially invited him three times (Mencius 5A7).
42
Mencius 7A31. Also see 2A2; 5A7; 5B1.
43
Since Tiwald discusses Heaven-​appointed officer in the context of rebellion on a scale of the
entire kingdom, the would-​be Heaven-​appointed officer he has in mind is a feudal lord who is
loved and esteemed by the people. Since Yi Yin, formerly prime minister, meets (substantially,
if not perfectly) the procedural condition that designates a Heaven-​appointed officer, I suppose
that Tiwald would not oppose my presentation of Yi Yin as one. According to Tiwald, proce-
dural condition stipulates that (1) the would-​be Heaven-​appointed officer must have spent time
in a position of political authority and his policies must have earned the overwhelming approval
and appreciation of the people; (2) if he happens to get such a position and the people do indeed
overwhelmingly approve of him (as evidenced by singing songs in praise of him, taking his
roads, etc.), this is Heaven’s sign that he is the next Heaven-​appointed officer (Tiwald, “A Right
of Rebellion,” pp. 277–​278). The Mengzi does not document the people’s reception of Yi Yin’s
regent rule, but, considering his wide reputation as a sage and given his previous political per-
formance in Tang’s court, there is no reason to doubt his positive reception by the people in the
wake of his regent rule.
44
Initially, though, Duke of Huan of Qi, the first official hegemon, was appointed by King Zheng
of Zhou as a senior (ba 伯) of the feudal lords to protect the Zhou royalty from internal and
external threats. To the extent that he was appointed by the Son of Heaven, the hegemon’s
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 73

is despicable because it is in principle opposed to the Kingly Way devoted to

“benevolent government.” The hegemons may possess territory of 100 square li
and minister status in the court of the Zhou king,45 but they lack what Mencius
regards as the Heaven-​appointed officer’s most important qualification –​moral
virtue. According to Mencius’s virtue-​based reformulation of Zhou political
ritualism, only “sagacious ministers” such as Fu Yue, Yi Yin, and the Duke of
Zhou (who was the minister of King Wu and King Cheng) are qualified to be
Heaven-​appointed officers, solely by virtue of their moral character.
This last point leads us to conclude that for Mencius, only those morally
excellent among the noble families can become Heaven-​appointed officers
within the feudal state. However, here arises a problem. Does Mencius’s moral
theory, as discussed in Chapter 1, not vindicate a proposition that everyone,
irrespective of his social origin, can become a sage-​minister, and, by extension,
a Heaven-​appointed officer, especially in times of crisis? Recall that Yi Yi and
Shun, who was Yao’s minister for twenty-​eight years, were originally farmers.
As we have seen in the previous chapter, Mencius believes in the goodness
of human nature and believes that anyone can become a sage. His reasoning
is as follows: if one’s nature is endowed by Heaven and this heaven-​endowed
nature can be fully realized by continuous moral self-​cultivation, then there
should be no reason to doubt one’s moral perfectibility to become a sage like
Yao and Shun.46
However, though anyone can become a sage, Mencius does not believe that
anyone can become a sage-​king. Shun’s dramatic ascendance from farmer
to king is almost impossible to repeat in a world where hereditary transmis-
sion of “kingship” (formerly feudal lordship) has become the norm. What is
possible, however, is for a farmer (or anyone, for that matter) to become a
sage-​minister by virtue of his brilliant moral virtue. Although Mencius’s moral
theory suggests that anyone can become a Yao or a Shun, his political theory
concentrates on the remarkable transformation of a person of humble origin
into a charismatic minister. Consider the following statement by Mencius:
Shun rose from the fields; Fu Yue was raised to office from amongst the builders; Jiao
Ge from amidst the fish and salt; Guan Zhong from the hands of the prison officers; Sun
Shu-​ao from the sea and Bo-​li Xi from the market. That is why Heaven, when it is about
to place a great burden on a man, always first tests his resolution, exhausts his frame

original moral status was Heaven-​appointed officer. I discuss the ba system in the interstate con-
text in Chapters 5 and 6.
45
Historically, the hegemons possessed the territory of 1,000 li or more, thus elevating them to the
position of the Son of Heaven at least in terms of land and political power.
46
See Mencius 3A1. Julia Ching powerfully recapitulates Mencius’s “revolutionary” idea as the
following: “(1) that sagehood is no longer limited to rulers or high ministers, and therefore, that
it is no longer a concept tied to politics, and (2) that everyone is therefore equal, in his or her
access to this exalted state” (Mysticism and Kingship in China: The Heart of Chinese Wisdom
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], p. 84).
74 Confucian Constitutionalism

and makes him suffer starvation and hardship, frustrates his efforts so as to shake him
from his mental lassitude, toughen his nature and make good his deficiencies.47

It is widely held that Mencius’s greatest political passion was to turn a ruler
of his time into a sage-​king who could reunite the whole world by means of
the Kingly Way. But it should not be forgotten that Mencius was not insensi-
tive to the challenges posed by hereditary kingship, in which a ruler’s political
authority is not entwined with moral authority, and this realization impelled
Mencius to emphasize moral self-​transformation through which a layperson
is morally and politically empowered and can even ultimately become a sage-​
minister who can both assist, and, more importantly, constrain the ruler whose
ruling authority is now in principle connected with Heaven, not necessarily
by means of his personal moral virtue but in mediation of the institution of
kingship, to which he has a hereditary right.48 Mencius calls such a charis-
matic moral hero a “great man” (da zhang fu 大丈夫), who “cannot be led into
excesses when wealthy and honored or deflected from his purpose when poor
and obscure, nor can be made to bow before superior force.”49 For Mencius,
this describes the ideal moral character of the (sage-​)minister in Confucian
bureaucracy who takes “curbing the ruler” as the most important and effective
way to “love him.”50
In Chapter 1, I captured this constraining dimension of Mencian Confucian
virtue politics in terms of negative Confucianism. My discussion thus far reveals
that there is an important constitutional dimension in Mencius’s idea of negative
Confucianism. Mencius can be called a conservative to the extent that he never
challenged the political legitimacy of hereditary kingship, with which the moral
ideal of sagehood was no longer affiliated, despite his unswerving commitment
to the ideal of sage-​kingship. But when he realized that the rulers (i.e., former
feudal lords), each claiming the title of kingship,51 would no longer entertain
their special connection with Heaven under the reality of hereditary trans-
mission, he uncovered and further justified the “special connection” between

47
Mencius 6B15. This is the only phrase where Mencius gives a positive evaluation of Guan
Zhong, the minister of Duke Huan of Qi. Guan Zhong is discussed extensively in Chapter 5
with a focus on the badao that he and Duke Huan exercised.
48
Hereupon, Mencius’s political theory turns to what I call the project of reverse moral economy.
See Kim, “Contingency and Responsibility.”
49
Mencius 3B2.
50
Mencius 1B4.
51
Most notably, in 344 bc, of the former feudal lords Wei Hui Hou (r. 369–​335 bc) first adopted
the title of “king” that had previously been reserved for the Zhou Son of Heaven, the practice
to be followed by other feudal lords. The man is better known as King Hui of Liang, Mencius’s
famous interlocutor. This practice then was enthusiastically followed by the rulers of Qi, Zhao,
Yan, and Zhongshan. On these historical incidents, see, Mark E. Lewis, “Warring States Political
History,” in The Cambridge History of Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to
221 b.c., eds. Michael Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), pp. 587–​650, at pp. 602–​603.
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 75

ministership and the Mandate of Heaven. Mencius’s abdication doctrine not-

withstanding, his realism shifted the focus of his virtue-​based political theory
from the ruler, whose ruling authority has been decoupled from his personal
moral character and authority, to the ministers who allegedly have achieved
a high level of moral self-​cultivation, perhaps even reaching moral perfection
(in the case of the legendary sage-​ministers). In this way, Mencius was able to
integrate the position of Heaven-​appointed officer, originally called upon to
cope with political emergencies, with the daily operations of royal bureaucracy,
thereby institutionalizing political rivalry between the ruler and the ministers.

Xunzi’s Rejection of the Abdication Doctrine and Ritual

Constitutionalism
Considering Mencius’s defense of abdication and attribution of the first inci-
dent of the father–​son transmission between Yu and Qi to an instance of abdi-
cation by highlighting Qi’s virtue, notwithstanding his ultimate acquiescence to
the reality of the hereditary system, and given that Xunzi advances his account
of human nature by criticizing Mencius’s xing-​shan thesis, it does not seem far-​
fetched to assume that Xunzi’s refutation of the abdication doctrine is, at least
partially, aimed at Mencius. As sophisticated of a political theorist as he is,
Xunzi proceeds his refutation quite methodically by focusing on three versions
of the abdication legend that were most prevalent during his time.
(1) Yao and Shun abdicated and yielded their thrones.
(2) (Only) at death, the kings (the Sons of Heaven) relinquished all claims.
(3) The kings had to abdicate due to old age and infirmity.
In what follows, I examine Xunzi’s criticism of each of these versions and
attempt to reveal (and reconstruct) Xunzi’s distinct political theory in compar-
ison with that of Mencius.

Against the First Abdication Legend

Xunzi responds to the first abdication legend as follows:
This is not so. As for the Son of Heaven, his power and position are supremely revered,
and there is no rival to them in the whole world. To whom could he yield the throne?
He follows the Way and virtue purely and completely. His wisdom and kindness are
profound and luminous. Facing south, he renders decisions for the whole world, and
all those living as commoners are stirred to submit and follow and thereby become
transformed and fully compliant with him. In all the world, there are no well-​bred men
in hiding, and no good men who have been forsaken. That which conforms with him
is affirmed, and that which diverges from him is repudiated. How would he come to
relinquish the world?52

52
Xunzi 18.5a.
76 Confucian Constitutionalism

Recall Mencius’s reasoning, according to which Yao abdicated to his “min-

ister” Shun, and Shun to his “minister” Yu. From Xunzi’s viewpoint, however,
the existence of another charismatic figure (besides the king himself) not only
contradicts the king’s absolute, hence indivisible, moral and political authority,
it also erodes the exclusive connection between the king as the Son of Heaven
and the Mandate of Heaven. By affirming that “[i]‌n all the world, there are no
well-​bred men in hiding, and no good men who have been forsaken,” Xunzi
reveals his conviction that a king’s subject can entertain Heaven’s beneficence –​
be it moral, political, economic, or cultural –​only by virtue of the king’s all-​
encompassing moral charisma, particularly, as we discussed in Chapter 1, his
ability to maintain and develop the ritual institutions. Therefore, Xunzi’s rea-
soning goes, there can be no charismatic moral splendor (sheng 聖) indepen-
dent of the king’s charismatic effect of moral transformation of all.
For Xunzi, insofar as one is the king’s subject, he acquires virtue only through
the mediation of the king’s institutional artifices and, to that extent, his virtue
cannot be commensurate with that of the king himself. Xunzi describes the
king’s matchless charisma in the following way: “The Son of Heaven has no
partner. That is to say, he has no equal … He sees things without looking upon
them, and hears things keenly without listening to them. He is trusted without
speaking, knows things without having to ponder them, and accomplishes
things without moving. That is to say, everything is perfectly arranged for him.
The power of the Son of Heaven is utterly overwhelming, his body is utterly
at ease, and his heart is utterly joyful. His intentions are frustrated in nothing,
and his body labors at nothing, because he is given unsurpassed honor.”53 Yi
Yin’s response to sage-​king Tang’s invitation, as related by Mencius, does not
merely collide with Xunzi’s idea of the king. By Xunzi’s standard, it is a kind
of blasphemy.
What do I want Tang’s presents for? I much prefer working in the fields, delighting
in the Way of Yao and Shun. [Only after Tang sent a messenger for the third time did
Yi Yin change his mind and say,] Is it not better for me to make this prince a Yao or
Shun than to remain in the fields, delighting in the Way of Yao or Shun? … Heaven,
in producing the people, has given to those who first attain understanding the duty of
awakening those who are slow to understand; and to those who are the first to awaken
the duty of awakening those who are slow to awaken. I am among the first of Heaven’s
people to awaken. I shall awaken this people by means of this Way. If I do not awaken
them, who will do so?54

Mencius’s Yi Yin claims (a) any person (even of humble origin) can entertain
the Way of sage-​kings Yao and Shun and by extension the Mandate of Heaven
without relying on sage-​king Tang’s charismatic mediation; (b) it is rather Yi
Yin’s moral charisma that enables Tang to become a sage-​king (Tang, at this

53
Xunzi 24.1.
54
Mencius 5A7.
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 77

point, is described not as a charismatic sage-​king but as a potential sage-​king

who is ready to listen to a sage); (c) therefore, it is indeed upon Yi Yin himself,
not upon Tang, to enlighten the people in morality (ren, yi, li, zhi) and in moral
relationships (wulun). Here, not only is Mencius dividing the Confucian ruling
power into two, he is also putting the sage-​minister’s moral authority over the
ruler’s (or even the universal king’s) political power.
Moreover, Mencius’s abdication doctrine undermines the infallibility of the
king that Xunzi assumes. As we have already seen, Mencius rationalizes the
first incident of the father–​son transmission of the throne by arguing that Yu’s
throne “had to” be given to his son Qi, because people chose Qi instead of
Yi, Yu’s sagacious minister, even if Yu originally recommended Yi to Heaven.
Of course, underlying Mencius’s rationalization (and the people’s choice of
Qi over Yi) is the observation that Qi’s moral virtue was superior to, or at
least parallel to, Yi’s –​hence, no qualitative difference from abdication despite
taking the form of hereditary succession. But then we are faced with a puzzling
question: why did Yu not recommend Qi to Heaven in the first place? If Qi
truly possessed more excellent moral virtue than Yi, how should we under-
stand Yu’s choice of Yi over Qi, whom the people and Heaven would have
ultimately chosen? Recently, in a series of essays, Qingping Liu has identified
the essence of Confucian ethics in terms of “consanguinitism,” which denies
the values of individuality and sociability.55 But what we find in Yu, as nar-
rated (and reconstructed) by Mencius, is the exact opposite –​Yu here shows
an extreme version of anti-​consanguinitism that goes against the wish of the
people and the Mandate of Heaven. Perhaps it was because Yu was afraid of
the possible charge his action would likely elicit, that is, the privatization of the
world. But why should his “abdication” to Qi be a problem, given Qi’s proven
record of public service and his demonstrated virtue after the demise of Yu? In
Xunzi’s judgment, this logical conundrum results inevitably from the abdica-
tion myth that Mencius (or his school) propagated.

Against the Second Abdication Legend

In Mencius 5A4, Xianqiu Meng asks Mencius whether it is true that “Shun
stood facing south, while Yao stood facing north, at the head of the feudal
lords, paying homage to him.”56 What is at issue in this question is whether
the former sage-​king had become the new sage-​king’s subject upon abdication.

55
See Qingping Liu, “Family versus Sociality and Individuality: On Confucianism as
‘Consanguinitism’,” Philosophy East and West 53:2 (2003), pp. 234–​250; “Is Menicus’ Doctrine
of ‘Extending Affection’ Tenable?” Asian Philosophy 14:1 (2004), pp. 79–​90; “On Confucius’
Principle of Consanguineous Affection: A Reading of the Dialogue about the Three-​ Year
Mourning in the Lunyu,” Asian Philosophy 16:3 (2006), pp. 173–​188.
56
According to Confucian rituals (more accurately Zhou political ritualism endorsed by the
classical Confucians), the ruler faces south and his subjects face toward him, that is, toward
the north.
78 Confucian Constitutionalism

Because of this ambiguity, there seems to have emerged the second popular
belief regarding the abdication legend that “[only a]t the point of death, Yao
and Shun relinquished it.”57 Xunzi counters the second version of the abdica-
tion legend by observing:
Again, this is not so … When the sage king has died, if there is no sage left in the world,
then certainly there is simply no one adequate to have the world relinquished to him.
If there is a sage left in the world, and he is among the king’s descendants, then the
world does not desert him. The court does not change location. The state does not alter
its regulations. The world remains calm, no different from before. One Yao succeeds
another Yao, so what switch is there? If the sage is not among the king’s descendants,
and is instead among the three dukes, then the world goes and sides with him, as if
returning and restoring a former ruler to the throne. The world remains calm, no
different from before. One Yao succeeds another Yao, so what switch is there? … And
so, while the Son of Heaven lives, the world exalts this one man, behaves with para-
mount compliance, and is ordered. He assigns rank by judging virtue, and when he dies,
then whoever is able to assume responsibility for the world is sure to take possession
of it. When the social divisions according to ritual and yi are completely implemented,
what use would be served by relinquishing the throne and yielding it to others?58

Here, Xunzi emphasizes the dynasty’s uninterruptibility and unchangeability –​

namely, the “constitutional continuity” of the Confucian body politic in
addition to the indivisibility and sovereignty of the king’s power.59 As we saw
earlier, Mencius tried to overcome the constitutional crisis (particularly at the
moment of royal transmission) by relying on the authority of the ministers
of noble families (ideally, the “sage-​ministers”), working as Heaven-​appointed
officers. For Xunzi, however, Mencius’s alternative is far from the best solution
to the problem. Rather, it is likely to exacerbate the problem by dividing the
Confucian ruling power between the king and his ministers, thereby relegating
the kingship to a noncharismatic ordinary ruler. What is noteworthy is that by
drawing attention to the indivisible and uninterruptible sovereign authority of
the Son of Heaven, Xunzi places the emphasis not so much on an individual
ruler’s personal charisma but on the office of the kingship as a moral-​political
institution.
Recall that Mencius’s doctrine of abdication is premised on the excellent
personal moral virtue of individual sage-​kings such as Yao, Shun, and Yu. For
example, in the Mengzi, Shun is described as a morally immaculate son and
brother who remained filial and fraternal to his violent father and brother, in
spite of their repeated attempts to kill him. Mencius attributes Shun’s moral
perfection to his remarkable virtues of filial piety and fraternal responsibility

57
Xunzi 18.5b.
58
Ibid.
59
Again, “constitutional” in the broad sense of creating institutional political structures (including
ones that aim to restrain the ruler’s arbitrary use of power) and enacting social norms and ritual
order with a view to good government.
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 79

(xiaoti 孝悌).60 Likewise, Mencius presents Yu as the paragon of public service,

who never stopped at his house during his eight years of public service, even
when he passed by it three times.61
Despite his occasional allusions to the sage-​kings, however, Xunzi rarely
offers detailed descriptions of the heroic moral virtue of particular sage-​kings.
Instead, he explains the personal characteristics of the sage or sage-​king in a
highly abstract and general manner, shifting our attention from a particular
king as a moral hero to the critical political roles he (or the kingship) plays
as a ruler (or as a moral-​political institution). When Xunzi discusses the way
to be a ruler, his prominent interest is clearly in the ruler’s moral character as
the profound engine enabling him to maintain the ritual institutions: “There
are chaotic lords; there are no states chaotic of themselves. There are men
who create order; there are no rules creating order of themselves … Thus,
rules cannot stand alone, and categories cannot implement themselves. If one
has the right person, then they will be preserved. If one loses the right person,
then they will be lost. The rules are the beginning of order, and the gentleman
is the origin of the rules.”62 For Xunzi, kingship (or rulership in general) has
a paramount “constitutional” significance because it is understood as the
antithesis of and the civilized bulwark against the chaotic state of nature. In
Chapter 1 (and as will be discussed in greater detail in the following chapter),
we have examined Xunzi’s account of the rise of ritual with special attention
to his interest in civic virtues. Now we can revisit it from a slightly different
angle, with focus on the political role of kingship as an office to run ritual
institutions.
People’s nature is bad … Thus, if people follow along with their inborn dispositions and
obey their nature, they are sure to come to struggle and contention, turn to disrupting
social divisions and order, and end up becoming violent. So, it is necessary to await the
transforming influence of teachers and models and the guidance of ritual and yi, and only
then will they come to yielding and deference, turn to proper form and order, and end up

60
Mencius 5A1–​4.
61
Mencius 3A4.
62
Xunzi 12.1. Also see 21.5a; 21.7d. After establishing institutional and character-​based theo-
ries as the two dominant models of Confucian political theory, Angle and Tiwald single out
Xunzi as the paragon of character-​based theory by drawing on Xunzi 12.1 and related passages.
See Stephen C. Angle and Justin Tiwald, Neo-​Confucianism: A Philosophical Introduction
(Cambridge: Polity, 2017), pp. 191–​193. I do not deny that Xunzi, just like any Confucian
would as far as one subscribes to the paradigm of Confucian virtue politics, emphasizes the piv-
otal importance of the ruler’s moral character and virtue, but I think that his ultimate concern
lies with rules and regulations that bring about and maintain order. Interestingly, Angle and
Tiwald enlist the help of the Song scholar Hu Hong’s 胡宏 (1101–​1161) interpretation of the
passage in order to reinforce their claim but, in my view, the point of Hu Hong’s argument does
not seem to lie in the importance of the ruler’s moral character per se but the critical importance
of reforming rules (and by implication, attaining good rules) that create order. Unfortunately,
Angle and Tiwald do not discuss how Mencius’s political theory would square with the two
models.
80 Confucian Constitutionalism

becoming controlled … Now without teachers or proper models for people, they will be
deviant, dangerous, and not correct. Without ritual and yi, they will be unruly, chaotic,
and not well ordered. In ancient times, the sage kings saw that because people’s nature is
bad, they were deviant, dangerous, and not correct, unruly, chaotic, and not well ordered.
Therefore, for their sake they set up ritual and yi, and established proper models and
measures. They did this in order to straighten out and beautify people’s inborn dispositions
and nature and thereby correct them, and in order to train and transform people’s inborn
dispositions and nature and thereby guide them, so that for the first time they all came to
order and conformed to the Way.63

Understanding the people, unregulated, as essentially acting on desire for material

interest and (antisocial) passions, Xunzi is strongly convinced that such desires
and passions would drive them to unending struggle, and ultimately to a fatal
state of disorder. In Xunzi’s view, the power that can overcome such an archaic
state of nature should be sought “outside” of human nature, concretized in var-
ious moral-​political (hence “artificial”) institutions undergirding ritual and yi. For
anybody in the state of nature to enter into the state of ritual and yi, he must be
re-​formed (wei 僞) by the ritual institutions, originally created by ancient sage-​
kings and now maintained by the incumbent ruler, whoever he may be.64 Xunzi
makes this point clear when he says, “In order for people to live, they cannot
be without community. If they form communities but lack social divisions then
they will struggle with each other. If they struggle with each other then there will
be chaos, and if there is chaos they will be impoverished. Thus, to lack social
divisions is the greatest harm to people, and to have social divisions is the root
benefit for the whole world. And the lord of men (jun) is the pivot and crucial
point in controlling social divisions.”65
For Xunzi, therefore, the essence of the sage-​kings lies not so much in their
world-​transforming moral virtues as such, but in their creation, (virtuous)
maintenance, and transmission of the “model” of Confucian ritual-​based polit-
ical order, or ritual constitutionalism.66 Now sages are long gone (hence his
repeated claims to study the “later kings” [hou wang 後王]), but Xunzi believes
that as long as kingship (occupied by any ruler) is pivoted around this supreme
Confucian political mission, even if the ruler in question may not be supremely
virtuous as the ideal of Confucian virtue politics stipulates, a reasonably viable

63
Xunzi 23.1a–​2a.
64
Inspired by Xunzi, therefore, Japanese Confucian theorist Ogyu Sorai (荻生狙徠, 1666–​1728)
famously revivified the notion of zuo zi wei zhi sheng 作者謂之聖 (“The maker is called a
sage”), which had been dismissed by the Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​Confucians. See Masao Maruyama,
Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, trans. Mikiso Hane (Tokyo: University
of Tokyo Press, 1974), pp. 69–​134.
65
Xunzi 10.4. Here Xunzi does not stipulate that the “lord of men” be a sage-​king. His definition
of jun is strictly institutional without any association to the ruler’s moral character.
66
Barring some exceptional cases, for Xunzi the term “fa” means not so much the “law” nar-
rowly conceived (as the Legalists later used it) but the “model” of social, political, and cultural
institutions.
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 81

moral-​political order of the Confucian polity could still be secured.67 In fact, as

will be discussed in Chapter 5, it is precisely on this ground that Xunzi, con-
trary to Mencius, finds badao morally acceptable and further investigates its
normative standard from a Confucian standpoint.
Thus understood, what is of critical importance in Xunzi’s political theory
is not necessarily the transfer of power from one virtuous king to another,
because the continuity of the Confucian civil and moral-​political order (or,
more comprehensively, “constitutional order”) rests on ritual institutions, the
bulwark against the chaotic state of nature. Thus the salient question for Xunzi
is how Shun as a ruler preserved the Confucian model that he had inherited
from Yao, rather than what kind of person he was (as a son, for instance, a
point that was so important for Mencius) –​hence his repeated saying, “One
Yao succeeds another Yao, so what switch is there?” Whereas for Mencius the
ruler’s moral character is of crucial political significance because of its spe-
cial ability to achieve a cosmic unity between Heaven and humans, for Xunzi
its importance consists mainly in its power to maintain ritual institutions,
consisting of, among other things, the criminal legal system and governmental
bureaucracy, against all kinds of situational variations.68
To be sure, though Xunzi denies the cosmological correlation between the
Way of Heaven and the Way of humans, which is the metaphysical foundation
of Mencius’s moral and political theory, and despite his closer attention to
the institutional dimensions of Confucian virtue politics, Xunzi never makes
the Machiavellian suggestion of separating politics from morality, nor does

67
Kurtis Hagen presents Xunzi’s ritualism as one of “Confucian constructivism” and distinguishes
it from mere conventionalism. See his The Philosophy of Xunzi: A Reconstruction (Chicago,
IL: Open Court, 2007), pp. 32–​35. Hagen understands “constructivism” as a concept of phi-
losophy of science but when approached with reference to Xunzi’s political theory, I find some
interesting resonance between my idea of Confucian ritual constitutionalism and his political
re-​appropriation of Confucian constructivism, at the core of which lies “the practical realiza-
tion of social harmony through an intelligent use of moral categories and norms” (32n58).
Of course, one important difference between Hagen and me is that while I believe that Xunzi
believed in only one right construction of the sociopolitical world (“the Way,” as he called it),
Hagen subscribes to the view that it is contingent upon the social circumstances to decide which
specific mode of social construction should be adopted. For a helpful discussion on this meta-​
ethical question in relation to Xunzi’s philosophy, see David B. Wong, “Xunzi’s Metaethics,” in
Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi, ed. Eric L. Hutton (Dordrecht: Springer, 2016), pp.
139–​164. For a conventionalist interpretation of Xunzi, see Chad Hansen, A Daoist Theory of
Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992),
pp. 319–​334.
68
Therefore, I find Eric Hutton’s following statement more germane to Xunzi (and Confucius)
than to Mencius, though it broadly concerns Confucian virtue politics: “[I]‌f there are people
who do have robust character traits and are resistant to situational variation, they can design
and reliably maintain the broad range of institutions and situations that facilitate good behavior
for everyone else.” See Eric L. Hutton, “Character, Situationism, and Early Confucian Thought,”
Philosophical Studies 127:1 (2006), pp. 37–​58, at p. 50.
82 Confucian Constitutionalism

he explore the Confucian concept of “the political” with its own moral stan-
dard internal to its (purely) political institutions, a point to which I return
in Chapter 5. At the same time, however, Xunzi does part company with
Mencius, whose commitment to the Confucian Way he generally shares, when
Mencius makes Confucian virtue politics essentially pivoted on the ruler’s per-
sonal moral virtue, which helps him garner voluntary political compliance
from the people, or, in the nonideal situation where most rulers lack such
all-​encompassing moral power, on the ministers’ moral virtue countervailing
the (less-​than-​virtuous) ruler’s desire for private interests and arbitrary use of
power.69 Subscribing neither to Realpolitik of the kind that fascinated many of
his contemporaries (including some Legalists) nor to virtue constitutionalism
of the Mencian strand, Xunzi places his distinct yet still Confucian political
theory somewhere between the two by proposing ritual-​based Confucian polit-
ical institutionalism (i.e., ritual constitutionalism), which gives more emphasis
to positive Confucianism than Mencian virtue constitutionalism allows.

Against the Third Abdication Legend

Finally, Xunzi counters the third popular claim, that “[w]‌hen Yao and Shun
grew old and went into decline, they relinquished the throne,” by arguing:
Again, this is not so … As for the Son of Heaven, his power has the utmost weight,
and his body has the utmost ease. His heart has the utmost happiness, and nowhere
do his intentions suffer being turned back. His body does not endure toil, because he
receives reverence unsurpassed. For his garments, people clothe him in the five regular
colors, intersperse the mixed colors, provide copious patterning and embroidery, and
add further adornment to this with pearls and jade. For his meals, they provide copi-
ously the Grand Livestock, prepare precious and unusual dishes, and assemble fragrant
and flavorful ingredients … The three dukes support the yoke or steady the reins. The
feudal lords steady the wheels, flank the car, or go before the horse. Behind are arrayed
the greater marquises, and next are the grand ministers … The ordinary people scurry
away and hide, with none daring to look upon him. Thus, when he inhabits the palace,
he is like a supreme spirit, and when he is on the move, he is like Heavenly Shang Di.
For holding off old age and fortifying against decline, is there anything better than this?
Those who do not suffer from old age are well rested, and for resting, is there anything
as comfortable, enjoyable, pleasing, and happy as this? And so I say: There is such a
thing as old age for the feudal lords, but there is no such thing as relinquishing the
world. Ancient times and the present are one and the same in this.70

69
For example, see Mencius 1A7; 4A4; 4A20; 7A1; 7A4. This, however, is not to argue that
Mencius had no interest in actual sociopolitical and economic affairs that require active political
engagement (youwei 有爲). Not only did Mencius propose to implement the well-​field system as
the socioeconomic backdrop of the Kingly Way, he also thought that a disciplined use of coer-
cion, punishment, or even (just) war was inevitable in the nonideal world. See Mencius 2A4;
3A3; 4A14. For a discussion of the philosophical connection between self-​cultivation and the
political order in Mencius, see Kwong-​loi Shun, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought (Stanford,
CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), pp. 163–​173.
70
Xunzi 18.5c.
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 83

Considering Xunzi’s repeated insistence that the kernel of kingly government

lies in the king’s timely and proper appointment of his ministers to various
governmental posts and his delegation of the details of governance and admin-
istration to them,71 the claim that the king, because of his supreme position,
is most “comfortable, enjoyable, pleasing, and happy” makes sense. However,
this utterly idealistic depiction of the king’s utmost ease and happiness seems
to be critically at odds with Xunzi’s astute sense of political reality. How can
he not see any realistic possibility of the tension, even rivalry, between the
ruler and his ministers, which is one of the most central concerns of Han Fei,
his famous Legalist student?72 Moreover, his assertion that the king’s body
does not suffer old age and is fortified against decline (so that he never has to
relinquish the world) is neither scientific nor reasonable. In fact, at first glance,
Xunzi’s reasoning sounds more like that of a Daoist than that of a Confucian
when he implicitly identifies sagely statecraft with the “rule by effortless action”
(wuwei zhengzhi 無爲政治).73 However, it is a mistake to characterize Xunzi as
an unorthodox Confucian based on his description of the essence of kingship
(and by implication rulership in general) in terms of wuwei statecraft, because
Confucius and Mencius essentially do the same.74 Yet, when praising the kings
for their wuwei statecraft, Confucius’s focus, and even more so Mencius’s, is
always on their world-​transformative moral charisma. According to Confucius,
“The rule of virtue (de) can be compared to the Polar Star which commands
the homage of the multitude of stars without leaving its place.”75 Similarly,
Mencius illustrates Shun’s brilliant moral virtue by observing that “when Shun
lived in the depth of the mountains, he lived amongst trees and stones, and
had as friends deer and pigs. The difference between him and the uncultivated
man of the mountains then was slight. But when he heard a single good word,

71
Xunzi 13.1–​2. Also see El Amine, Classical Confucian Political Thought, pp. 118–​124. In this
regard, I agree with Yuri Pines, when he says that “[t]‌he price for [the monarch’s] omnipotence [in
Xunzi’s political theory] is refraining from exercising their limitless power,” even though Xunzi
is simultaneously persuaded that as the foundation of the sociopolitical order, “the power of the
monarch should be theoretically limitless.” See Yuri Pines, Envisioning Eternal Empire: Chinese
Political Thought of the Warring States Era (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2009),
p. 106.
72
So Han Fei writes, “The ruler must not reveal his desires; for if he reveals his desires his ministers
will put on the mask that pleases him. He must not reveal his will; for if he does so his ministers
will show a different face. So it is said: Discard likes and dislikes and the ministers will show
their true form; discard wisdom and wile and the ministers will watch their step” (Hanfeizi 5).
The English translation is adopted from Han Fei Tzu: Basic Writings, trans. Burton Watson
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), p. 16.
73
On the Daoist-​Wuwei dimension in Xunzi’s thought, see Edward Slingerland, Effortless Action:
Wu-​wei as Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2003), pp. 246–​264.
74
Most notably, Confucius extols Shun’s wuwei statecraft in The Analects 15.5. See Chapter 1n79
for my earlier discussion of the Confucian understanding(s) of wuwei politics.
75
The Analects 2.1.
84 Confucian Constitutionalism

witnessed a single good deed, it was like water causing a breach in the dikes of
the Yangzi or the Yellow River. Nothing could withstand it.”76
What distinguishes Xunzi from his Confucian predecessors is his finding that
the real locomotive of the wuwei government is the moral-​political institutions
that the ancient sage-​kings have created (and transmitted to later generations),
not so much their personal moral characters that attract people to virtue. It is
by virtue of such sacred institutions that the kings were able to bring the people
from the state of nature to civil order and educate them in morality. The king,
as a person, might appear to do nothing, but the kingship (or rulership more
generally) as a political institution (and other institutional/​bureaucratic appa-
ratuses undergirding it) ceaselessly and unfailingly achieves all kinds of things.
The more vigorously the institutions operate (i.e., youwei 有爲), the less the
king has to do and the more energetic and formidable his “body” becomes. It
is therefore worth noting that Xunzi concludes his refutation of the third abdi-
cation legend by hinting at the “body” that is more institutional than personal.
As for saying, “Yao and Shun relinquished the throne and yielded it to others” –​this
is empty talk. It is a rumor circulated by shallow people, a doctrine spoken by boorish
people. They are people who do not understand the patterns of what is conflicting and
what is agreeable, and do not understand what changes happen to greater and lesser
entities, supreme and non-​supreme ones. They are people who have never been able to
take part in attaining the greatest order in the world.77

According to Xunzi, people who propagate the abdication legend do not

understand the “patterns” of what is conflicting and what is agreeable and
the “changes” that happen to the greater or supreme entity called the world
(i.e., the former Zhou kingdom), which is distinguished from the feudal states
as subparts of the Zhou body politic.78 That is, such people do not under-
stand how the state (ideally the world) as a “body politic” operates as a funda-
mental tool for kingly government and how “the greatest order in the world”
is achieved and maintained. Michael Nylan insightfully captures this expansive
notion of the “body” of the king in the following way:
In early Confucian theory, geographic boundaries are emphatically (a) permeable and
(b) expandable, because the health of the body and body politic is thought to depend
always on flow and change, rather than on fixedness. In addition, (c) neither the body

76
Mencius 7A16.
77
Xunzi 18.5c.
78
Note that one of my key assumptions throughout this book is that whenever Xunzi alludes to
the Son of Heaven or the king, or the world, his otherwise universalist argument is generally
applicable to the now independent and sovereign states, all claiming “kingship” for themselves,
in the context of the Warring States period. Therefore, although Xunzi’s statement about the
formidability of the “body politic” here does not in principle apply to the former feudal states,
which were integral parts of the Zhou kingdom, it generally applies to the states (guo) under the
unique political circumstances of the late Warring States period.
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 85

nor the state is ever seen as the “possession of one man.” Instead, both are conceived
as entities held in trust, in effect “works in progress” extending over space and time.
To the Confucian, these obvious “facts” attesting to the blurry boundaries of the body
and body politic by no means precluded order, for (d) order in the Confucian tradition
emanates from a stable –​precisely because it is not rigidly placed –​center attuned to
social and cosmic patterns. In the body, the center was defined as the heart/​mind, locus
of the proper motivations for social interaction; in the body politic, as the ruler or, in
the absence of a good and wise ruler, the sage.79

Thus, by the “healthy body of the king” Xunzi seems to signify a viable body
politic represented by a well-​operating kingship. That is to say, when Xunzi
says that the king’s body does not suffer old age and is fortified from decline, he
is emphasizing not only the ease of the king’s daily life but, more profoundly,
the imperishability of the kingship as a representation of the civil and political
order of the Confucian state and its various institutional embodiments. The
following statement by Xunzi best presents the supreme significance of the
state in his political theory.
[T]‌he state is a heavy responsibility to bear. If one does not use what has been accumu-
lated to support it, then it will not stand. [Perhaps someone might ask:] But the state
is such that what it relies upon to support it is new with each generation. That way of
doing things would be to reject change fearfully … That being the case, how can there
be any state that securely remains firm for a thousand years? I say: Take hold of a
model (fa) that is trustworthy for a thousand years to support it, and then run the state
together with men who are trustworthy for a thousand years. [Perhaps someone might
ask:] But people do not even have longevity of a hundred years, so how can there be
men who are trustworthy for a thousand years? I say: Those who use a model that is
trustworthy for a thousand years to support themselves are men who are trustworthy
for a thousand years.80

Xunzi’s message is clear: even though the ruler as a person is bound to perish,
his model (fa) and the state that it underpins are permanent. And it is by means
of such a model of government, which makes Confucian virtue politics more
institution-​oriented, that the state as the tool representing the Confucian body
politic can be sustained for 1,000 years. In this view, the virtuous ruler is one
who is committed to the model of Confucian ritual institutionalism and is able
to employ it wholeheartedly against all situational variations.81

Right to Rebellion?
Would Xunzi’s political theory allow the right to rebellion? Earlier we saw
that, contrary to the conventional view, Mencius’s abdication doctrine does not

79
Michael Nylan, “Boundaries of the Body and Body Politic in Early Confucian Thought,” in
Boundaries and Justice: Diverse Ethical Perspectives, eds. David Miller and Sohail H. Hashmi
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001), pp. 112–​135, at p. 115.
80
Xunzi 11.2b.
81
My argument in this section, based on the reinterpretation of the king’s physical body in
terms of the body politic, may be found question-​begging for some readers because, after all,
86 Confucian Constitutionalism

necessarily entail the popular right to rebellion or tyrannicide, which would

further exacerbate the constitutional crisis. Recall that in Mencius’s political
theory ministers (ideally sage-​ministers) play the role of Heaven-​appointed
officers not only in preventing constitutional crises (by means of remonstrance),
but more critically (though very rarely), in resolving them, by, for instance,
deposing the incumbent ruler.82 Surprisingly, Xunzi’s political theory, which
strongly emphasizes the permanence of the Confucian ritual-​based political
order (or fa in Xunzi’s own term), turns out to be in a better position to justify
the popular right to rebellion or tyrannicide, although it, like Mencius’s, does
not allow laypeople to rise against the ruler, despite its renewed attention to
the normative conception of the people. Xunzi justifies the killing of Jie and
Zhòu as follows:
It is not the case that Tang and Wu snatched away the world. They cultivated their ways
and carried out what was yi for them, they established benefits for the whole world and
eliminated harms to the whole world, and the world then went over to them. It is not
the case that Jie and Zhòu abandoned the world. They went against the virtue of Tang
and Wu and disrupted the social divisions that come from ritual and yi. Their beastly
conduct accumulated in them what was ruinous and made complete in them what was
bad, and the world then abandoned them. When the world goes over to a person, he
is called king (wang 王), and when the world abandons a person, he is called perished
(wang 亡). And so, from this it can be confirmed that Jie and Zhòu did not possess the
world, and that Tang and Wu did not commit regicide against their lords.83

Accordingly, Xunzi’s position does not seem to be appreciably different from

Mencius’s: not only does Xunzi claim that tyrants such as Jie and Zhòu lost
the world because they lost the people, but he also attributes the (ritually sanc-
tioned) right to remove the ruler (in this case the universal king) only to selected
agents, feudal lords in particular. That said, there are two important differences
between Mencius and Xunzi with regard to tyrannicide.

Nylan’s historical analysis of the early Confucian conception of the body and the body politic
notwithstanding, Xunzi provides no philosophical account for the connection between the
two. However, if we interpret Xunzi’s third refutation of the abdication legend in light of the
arguments advanced in his first two refutations –​focused on the indivisibility of the ruler’s
sovereign power and the unchangeability of the Confucian model respectively –​his final argu-
ment, as I interpret it here, about the imperishability of the Confucian state as the body pol-
itic, makes perfect sense, rendering later refutations systematically built on the earlier one(s).
Although there is no way to know with any certainty whether Xunzi (or the later compilers
of the Xunzi) indeed deliberately arranged the three abdication legends and his subsequent
refutations of them in this way, this way of reading Xunzi seems to do justice to the systematic
nature of his political theory. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me with
this question.
82
See Mencius 5B9: “If the prince made serious mistakes, they [ministers of royal blood] would
remonstrate with him, but if repeated remonstrations fell on deaf ears, they would depose him
… If the prince made mistakes, they [ministers of families other than the royal house] would
remonstrate with him, but if repeated remonstrations fell on deaf ears, they would leave him.”
83
Xunzi 18.2. Also see 13.9.
Virtue, Ritual, and Constitutionalism 87

First, unlike Mencius, Xunzi is completely silent about the Mandate

of Heaven in deposing a tyrannical ruler and enthroning a new ruler. Its
political implication is rather striking, because Xunzi does not have to get
embroiled in the philosophical conundrum of who is qualified to be the
Heaven-​appointed officer during a constitutional crisis. In fact, Xunzi shows
no interest in who is entitled to choose the next ruler, the prerogative that
Mencius, enlisting the authority of Zhou political practice, ascribes to the
(virtuous) ministers of the noble families. Skipping this question altogether,
Xunzi offers a much more straightforward procedure by which the constitu-
tional crisis can be overcome. According to Xunzi, if, after the king’s death,
the one who is supposed to inherit his throne is unfit and inadequate to
carry the world, one of the feudal lords, who is ranked right below the Son
of Heaven in terms of ritual status, should “step in,” though as a champion
of Confucian virtue politics he stipulates this procedure under the condi-
tion that the feudal lord in question “is able to have virtue that shines and
power to inspire awe that piles up.”84 The point is that Xunzi does not allow
ministers to arbitrate the selection process, although it remains quite ambig-
uous how similar constitutional crises within the independent and sovereign
states of his time should be resolved. That said, Xunzi’s silence on the vir-
tuous arbitrator(s) among the ministers, holding a Heaven-​given right to
depose and/​or select the ruler, is remarkably consistent with his notion of
indivisibility of the sovereign power.
The second difference is closely related to the first one: Xunzi’s apparent
nonchalance toward the Mandate of Heaven enables him to focus directly on
“harm to the people” or “the people’s enthusiastic support” as the two sides
of a single justification for tyrannicide. As I show in Chapter 6, this is a phil-
osophical stance, at which Mencius, too, will ultimately arrive, especially in
the course of his philosophical struggle with moral justifiability of punitive
expedition during the Warring States period in the virtual absence of the Son
of Heaven, the institution representing the Mandate of Heaven. But Xunzi
makes it abundantly clear that it is none other than the people’s well-​being
that justifies political authority and by implication the right to tyrannicide.
Again, Xunzi does not explicitly grant this right to laypeople, but he seems to
hold a far more positive view on their political agency than Mencius, when he
says, “When the common people feel at ease with the government, only then
will the gentleman feel at ease in holding his position. There is a saying, ‘The
lord is the boat. The common people are the water. The water can support the
boat. The water can also overturn the boat.’ ”85 For Xunzi, people are not mere
thermometers or gauges that only passively “indicate” the success of govern-
ment. From Xunzi’s normative perspective, they do have power to overthrow

84
Ibid.
85
Xunzi 9.4.
88 Confucian Constitutionalism

the ruler.86 He just does not relate his new normative conception of the people
with an equally new vision of political representation.
Ultimately, the reason Xunzi finds Jie and Zhòu deserving of removal from
the throne (and even killing) boils down to their utter failure in fulfilling their
institutional roles as kings. When Xunzi notes that Jie and Zhòu were a wang
not in the sense of king (王) but in the sense of “being perished” (亡),87 he
draws our attention to their colossal failure in maintaining any viable govern-
ment, let alone the model of kingly government –​hence, as will be discussed in
Chapter 5, his endorsement of badao as a morally decent mode of government
despite its distance from the Kingly Way. In short, what is at stake here is not so
much (or not merely) the ruler’s personal moral failure as his political failure to
secure the civil-​political order of the Confucian state that “kingship” represents.

Conclusion
In this chapter, I have identified two distinct models of Confucian virtue pol-
itics advanced by Mencius and Xunzi –​virtue constitutionalism and ritual
constitutionalism –​by a close reading and reinterpretation of the texts in
which they grapple with the legend of abdication involving ancient sage-​kings.
Countering a conventional view that attributes Mencius and Xunzi to political
idealism and political realism, respectively, I have argued that both Mencius
and Xunzi developed fairly realistic political theories, and that the difference
between the two lies mainly in their preferred mode of Confucian virtue poli-
tics (character-​centered versus ritual-​centered). More specifically, I have shown
that, underneath Mencius’s and Xunzi’s contrasting views on abdication, there
is important disagreement between the two with regard to the meaning of
kingship (or rulership in general) within the context of Confucian civil-​political
order –​personal or institutional. In the next chapter, I explore the implications
of the different modes of Confucian constitutionalism advanced by Mencius
and Xunzi on their differing conceptualizations of virtue –​moral and civic.

86
It may be objected that all I have shown so far is that Xunzi seems to allow the laypeople the
power to overthrow the tyrannical ruler, but not the right to do so. In this regard, it can be said,
Xunzi, like Mencius, may not support the popular right to rebellion. This is a reasonable objec-
tion but hardly an insurmountable one. First, my argument here is not to show that Xunzi actu-
ally advocated the popular right to rebellion (including tyrannicide) but that this right is implicit
in his political theory when it is systematically reconstructed. Second, the distinction between
power and right is not always straightforward. In fact, in one of the Hohfeldian conceptions of
right, right is a form of power. On this view, allowing the laypeople the power to rebellion is
concomitantly to acknowledge that they hold the political right to do so, although this right, as
newly vindicated, is not sanctioned by traditional Zhou political ritualism that Xunzi otherwise
subscribes to. For the Hohfeldian conceptions of right, see Wesley N. Hohfeld, Fundamental
Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning, ed. Walter W. Cook (London: Routledge,
[1919] 2016). I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me to clarify this issue.
87
Note that the Chinese characters王 and 亡 have the same phonetic sound.
3

Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue

One of my core arguments in previous chapters has been that the different
modes of Confucian virtue politics advanced by Mencius and Xunzi (virtue
constitutionalism versus ritual constitutionalism in particular and negative
Confucianism versus positive Confucianism to a lesser degree) are closely
connected with the classical Confucians’ contrasting accounts of human nature
and moral self-​cultivation. The underlying assumption was that Confucian
ethics, as conceived by both Mencius and Xunzi, despite important differences
in their moral and political philosophy, is a kind of virtue ethics, focused on
human flourishing and moral development, and that Confucian virtue ethics
gives rise to a uniquely Confucian form of virtue politics, which recalibrates
the key political concerns –​namely, order and stability –​toward good form
(wen) undergirded by Confucian rituals (li), and good government (zheng)
committed to the moral and material well-​being of the people.
An important question has not yet been addressed, however, and that is how
to understand the structure of Confucian virtue ethics, especially in relation to
li, when it is understood in classical Confucianism both as one of the cardinal
moral virtues and as sociopolitical institutions that undergird an ordered civil
polity. Is li a virtue of intrinsic value or is it an instrument for moral develop-
ment that leads to virtue? Or, is li a virtue of both intrinsic and instrumental
value? If the latter, how should we understand li’s two dimensions, especially
in relation to politics? If we analytically disentangle li’s instrumental dimension
from its intrinsic moral dimension, what fresh light can it shed on the political
philosophies of Mencius and Xunzi? In short, how should we understand the
nature of li as virtue in classical Confucian ethics and political theory?
Despite, or because of, the critical importance of li in Confucian moral
and political theory, existing studies offer multiple and radically different
interpretations of li as virtue. For instance, drawing from The Analects, Sor-​
hoon Tan claims that li is primarily the constitutive means of a Confucian

89
90 Confucian Constitutionalism

community1 and as a complex set of rituals, ceremonies, and etiquettes it

creates a “semiotic structure” in which the members of the community commu-
nicate with one another by using “signs,” or, in other words, by ritualistically
performing their given social roles.2 In Tan’s interpretation, li is understood
primarily as a means that can produce social virtues that help one to become
a good member of the community in complex relationships with others and
within his or her variegated social roles. However, in this interpretation, it
is unclear precisely in what sense li itself is a virtue, as was suggested by the
classical Confucians, or whether it has an instrumental or noninstrumental
connection with the formation of moral character, the central concern for both
Mencius and Xunzi.
While Tan’s Analects-​inspired understanding of li is focused on its social
dimensions, obfuscating its nature as virtue that constitutes moral character,
Eric Hutton’s interpretation of early Confucianism, in part motivated as a
virtue-​ethical response to the so-​called “situationist critique,”3 highlights the
intimate connection between li and a robust moral character. Hutton claims,
“Xunzi makes it clear that a proper ruler is an expert in ritual himself and
promotes ritual practice generally, and that this is crucial for transforming the
people. Considering these points, one can see how acknowledging situationist
concerns might actually drive one to emphasize the importance of robust, vir-
tuous character even more, rather than less.”4 Unlike Tan, Hutton’s main con-
cern is to illuminate li’s noninstrumental contribution to the formation of a
good and stable character. However, by presenting this aspect of li as equally
proscribed by key early Confucians (Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi in partic-
ular) Hutton largely dismisses notable differences between Mencius and Xunzi
in their characterizations of li as virtue, and, consequently, the important polit-
ical dimension in their accounts of virtue. More specifically, Hutton does not
sufficiently articulate whether for Mencius and Xunzi moral character refers to
the same set of inner traits, or that some inner traits are more important than
others under special political circumstances, given their contrasting accounts
of human nature.

1
Sor-​hoon Tan, “From Cannibalism to Empowerment: An Analects-​Inspired Attempt to Balance
Community and Liberty,” Philosophy East and West 54:1 (2004), pp. 52–​70, at p. 54.
2
Ibid., pp. 57–​61. For similar accounts of the li, see Herbert Fingarette, Confucius: The Secular
as Sacred (New York: Harper, 1972); Chenyang Li, “Li as Cultural Grammar: On the Relation
between Li and Ren in Confucius’ Analects,” Philosophy East and West 57:3 (2007), pp.
311–​329.
3
The situationist critique of virtue ethics draws attention to psychological findings that suggest
the vulnerability of character traits in the face of situational pressures and thus the weakness of
virtue ethics as it is pivoted on the notion of virtue as stable character traits. On this character-
ization of the situationist critique, see Edward Slingerland, “The Situationist Critique and Early
Confucian Virtue Ethics,” Ethics 121:2 (2011), pp. 390–​419.
4
Eric L. Hutton, “Character, Situationism, and Early Confucian Thought,” Philosophical Studies
127:1 (2006), pp. 37–​58, at pp. 50–​51.
Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue 91

Why are there markedly different characterizations of li in contemporary

studies –​a roles-​enabling semiotic structure on the one hand and a virtue that
is constituent of formidable moral character on the other? This seeming puzzle,
however, is hardly surprising if the monistic structure of Confucian virtue ethics
is taken into account, which I capture in Chapter 5 in terms of virtue monism.
Confucian virtue monism draws attention to the structural aspect of Confucian
virtue ethics that does not allow the (Republican) separation between private and
public and between moral and civic. The distinction between moral and civic (or
lack thereof) is especially germane to the present context where we investigate the
nature of li as a Confucian virtue.
As William Galston aptly notes in reference to the Western political tradition,
moral virtue is one thing and civic virtue is another: while moral virtue is a human
virtue that is “desirable for its own sake [and] for all individuals,” civic virtue
is “valued instrumentally, for its contribution to sustaining a political commu-
nity,” making the two hardly congruent with one another.5 Even perfectionist
republicans such as Paul Weithman, who challenge the civic republicans’ stark
severance of civic virtue from moral virtue, do not deny the important difference
between them, one mainly concerned with human excellence and flourishing and
the other directly undergirding political community. Rather, their core argument
is to uphold the comprehensive and monistic grounding of civic virtue on human
excellence, emphasizing the foundational importance of moral virtue vis-​à-​vis
civic virtue, not so much the wholesale denial of the latter’s significance.6
Confucian virtue monism acknowledges no distinction, let alone a cate-
gorical separation, between moral virtue and civic virtue. On the one hand,
Confucian virtue can be viewed plainly as civic virtue as it is related with
the performance of given social roles. In this interpretation, used by Tan and
other Confucian “role-​ethicists,”7 community is constitutive of a person and
thus “personal growth and communal growth are interdependent both qual-
itatively and quantitatively.”8 There is no moral virtue independent of one’s

5
William A. Galston, “Pluralism and Civic Virtue,” Social Theory and Practice 33:4 (2007), pp.
625–​635, at p. 625. Note that Galston does not use the term “moral virtue” but his notion of
“human virtue” is generally congruent with what I mean by moral virtue in contradistinction
with civic virtue.
6
Paul Weithman, “Political Republicanism and Perfectionist Republicanism,” Review of Politics
66:2 (2004), pp. 285–​312. For the contrast between Galston and Weithman, see Sungmoon Kim,
Public Reason Confucianism: Democratic Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in East Asia
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 177–​180.
7
For instance, see Roger T. Ames, Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary (Honolulu, HI: University
of Hawaii Press, 2011); Henry Rosemont, Jr., “Rights-​Bearing Individuals and Role-​Bearing
Persons,” in Rules, Rituals, and Responsibility, ed. Mary I. Bockover (Chicago, IL: Open Court,
1991), pp. 71–​101; A. T. Nuyen, “Moral Obligation and Moral Motivation in Confucian Role-​
Based Ethics,” Dao 8:1 (2009), pp. 1–​11.
8
Tan, “From Cannibalism to Empowerment,” p. 54 (my emphasis). For Tan’s more detailed
account on this point, see her Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction (Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 2003), pp. 17–​62.
92 Confucian Constitutionalism

social positions or roles in the community as such, as there is no human (hence

human excellence or flourishing) separate from one’s social identities. On the
other hand, there can be the claim, similar to perfectionist republicanism, that
civic virtue, which concerns one’s standing as a member of the political com-
munity, is grounded in one’s human excellence, which, by Mencius’s account,
is acquired by being responsible for Heaven’s decree innate in one’s nature and
therefore, in principle, there can be no civic virtue without being personally
good, that is, being ren and yi. Given the monistic structure of Confucian virtue
ethics, should we conclude that in the Confucian tradition the philosophical
distinction between moral virtue and civic virtue is completely irrelevant?
In this chapter, I probe into the question of how we should understand the
moral and civic dimensions of Confucian virtue with special focus on li. Instead
of revisiting much-​discussed questions of how li is internally related with ren9
or whether practicing li involves moral agency,10 here I focus on the nature of
li as virtue by examining the two classic accounts of it suggested by Mencius
and Xunzi, still within the shared paradigm of Confucian virtue monism –​li
primarily as moral virtue and li primarily as civic virtue. The central purpose
of this chapter is to examine how their different accounts of human nature
and their equally different understandings of the state of nature (i.e., the pre-​li
state) led them to approach the nature of li differently in relation to politics.11

Mencius on Ritual Propriety as Moral Virtue

The First Description of the State of Nature
Xunzi is often compared with Thomas Hobbes because of his portrayal of the
pre-​li state as chaotic, full of self-​interested individuals permanently mired in a

9
Tu Wei-​ming,“The Creative Tension between Jen and Li,” in Humanity and Self-​Cultivation: Essays
in Confucian Thought (Berkeley: Asian Humanities Press, 1979), pp. 5–​16; Kwong-​loi Shun, “Jen
and Li in the Analects,” Philosophy East and West 43:3 (1993), pp. 457–​479.
10
Sin Yee Chan, “The Confucian Notion of Jing 敬 (Respect),” Philosophy East and West 56:2
(2006), pp. 229–​252; Karyn Lai, “Li in the Analects: Training in Moral Competence and the
Question of Flexibility,” Philosophy East and West 56:1 (2006), pp. 69–​83.
11
It is worth noting that, the plethora of studies on Mencius’s moral philosophy notwithstanding,
none of them are (centrally) devoted to the investigation of the place of li in Mencius’s philo-
sophical system. For instance, none of the contributors in an important volume on Mencius’s
moral philosophy edited by Xiusheng Liu and Philip J. Ivanhoe (Essays on the Moral Philosophy
of Mengzi [Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2002]) pay attention to li. In contrast, there is indeed a
great deal of studies on li in Xunzi’s thought but most of them are predominantly interested in
its moral and religious implications and rarely in its civic-​political importance. See, for instance,
T. C. Kline III and Philip J. Ivanhoe (eds.), Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi
(Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000); T. C. Kline III and Justin Tiwald (eds.), Ritual and Religion
in the Xunzi (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2014); Antonio S. Cua, Human
Nature, Ritual, and History: Studies in Xunzi and Chinese Philosophy (Washington, DC: The
Catholic University of America Press, 2005); Kurtis Hagen, The Philosophy of Xunzi: A
Reconstruction (Chicago, IL: Open Court, 2007).
Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue 93

life-​and-​death struggle.12 Indeed, Xunzi begins his political theory based on the
account of a bad human nature (xing-​e) by presenting civil government, at the
core of which lie kingship and ritual institutions, as a remedy for the ineluc-
table pathologies arising from the state of nature. Xunzi’s political theory is
foundationalist in the sense of being grounded on the underlying assumptions
of human nature and the state of nature. The systematic nature of Xunzi’s
political theory, as we have seen in the previous chapters, is generally attrib-
utable to its clearly foundationalist mode of reasoning.
Mencius, however, does not self-​consciously ground his theory of govern-
ment, which he calls “benevolent government,” on the foundationalist statement
of the state of nature. In fact, Mencius provides no theory of the state of nature
in relation to either the xing-​shan thesis or his political theory, despite his highly
sophisticated philosophical account of human nature. Put differently, Mencius
does not attempt to derive an account of the state of nature from his theory
of human nature in order to lay the foundationalist ground for his political
theory. And the absence of psycho-​political foundationalism in Mencius’s polit-
ical thought makes it difficult to understand it in a structurally coherent manner,
which I believe partly explains the paucity of contemporary studies on Mencius’s
political theory relative to those investigating Xunzi’s political philosophy.13
The fact that Mencius’s political thought does not rely on any foundational
account of the state of nature does not mean, however, that he is completely
silent on this topic. Interestingly, there are two seemingly contrasting accounts
of the state of nature in the Mengzi and in both cases the overcoming of the
state of nature is entwined with the origin of li both as a set of sociopolitical
institutions and as the moral virtue of ritual propriety. Interestingly, though, the
absence of a systematic foundational account of the state of nature in Mencius
only implies that he has more freedom in depicting the natural state, both nor-
matively and descriptively, without compromising the internal coherence of his
moral and political philosophy. By investigating Mencius’s complex account of
the state of nature, we can come to a clear understanding of the nature of li as
virtue in his philosophical system.
First, in his conversation with Yi Zhi, a Mohist, who criticizes Confucianism’s
special attention to family affection and its emphasis on mourning rites from
the perspective of “inclusive care,”14 Mencius forcefully defends this particular

12
See, for instance, Heiner Roetz, Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age (Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press, 1993), pp. 68–​74.
13
For seminal studies on the overall outlook of Xunzi’s political philosophy, see Henry Rosemont
Jr., “State and Society in the Xunzi: A Philosophical Commentary,” in Virtue, Nature, and Moral
Agency in the Xunzi, eds. T. C. Kline and Philip J. Ivanhoe (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000),
pp. 1–​38; Eirik L. Harris, “Xunzi’s Political Philosophy,” in Dao Companion to the Philosophy
of Xunzi, ed. Eric L. Hutton (Dordrecht: Springer, 2016), pp. 95–​138.
14
My translation of jian ai as “inclusive care” is indebted to Chris Fraser, The Philosophy of the
Mozi: The First Consequentialists (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016).
94 Confucian Constitutionalism

Confucian ritual practice (and graded love) by asserting that it is a natural

expression of the innate moral sentiment of ren, which, as a moral virtue, is
“singularly” rooted (ben 本) in filial and fraternal responsibility (xiaoti 孝悌).15
What is interesting is that while justifying the mourning rites (and by exten-
sion Confucian ritual practice in general) as an expression of care,16 Mencius
unwittingly reveals his view of the state of nature wherein ritual institutions
and practices have yet to arise.
Presumably there must have been cases in ancient times of people not burying their
parents. When the parents died, they were thrown in the gullies. Then one day the sons
passed the place and there lay the bodies, eaten by foxes and sucked by flies. A sweat
broke out on their brows, and they could not bear to look. The sweating was not put
on for others to see. It was an outward expression of their innermost heart. They went
home for baskets and spades. If it was truly right for them to bury the remains of
their parents, then it must also be right for all dutiful sons and benevolent men to do
likewise.17

According to Mencius, the state of nature is not a state of war; it is not a

state where, as Hobbes describes it, individuals are madly driven by their bois-
terous unsocial passions such as envy, jealousy, hatred, and resentment, and
thus mutually entangled in a life-​and-​death struggle for self-​preservation. Nor
is it a state of scarcity where, as Xunzi describes it, people have a natural desire
for profit, and thus they contend with one another without any sense of shame,
equity, or justice.18 In Hobbes’s political theory, individuals, who are fearful of
violent death, are necessitated to resort to rationality that enables them to enter
into a social contract in which they transfer their natural rights to the sover-
eign body and attain security in return. In Xunzi’s political theory, individuals,
whose nature, under the condition of radical equality, disposes them to act in
a disorderly manner, are given moral and sociopolitical order by the group of
sage-​kings who created ritual institutions as the complex mechanism for socio-
political coordination and, eventually, moral edification of the people. There is
nothing, however, that would drive man to a civil state in Mencius’s account
of the state of nature. Man in the Mencian state of nature is neither irrational
nor self-​interested. Strikingly, there is no meaningful difference between the

15
Mencius criticizes Mohists for making the root of ren two, namely, filial piety and inclusive care
(encompassing the universal care for strangers). According to Qingping Liu, however, Mencius’s
reinterpretation of ren in terms of compassion does make him vulnerable to the very criticism
that he raises to Mohists. See his “Is Mencius’ Doctrine of ‘Commiseration’ Tenable?” Asian
Philosophy 11:2 (2002), pp. 73–​90.
16
In various places in the Lunyu, Confucius (and his disciples) pays extra attention to mourning
ritual as one of the most sacred moral obligations owed by a filial son to his parents and thus
presents it as the core of Confucian ritual practice. See The Analects 1.9; 17.21; 19.17.
17
Mencius 3A5.
18
On the critical difference in the account of the state of nature between Hobbes and Xunzi,
see Sungmoon Kim, “From Desire to Civility: Is Xunzi a Hobbesian?” Dao 10:2 (2011), pp.
291–​309.
Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue 95

natural state and the civil state, whose distinction is marked only by the sons’
“sweat” upon witnessing the remains of their parents being preyed upon by
animals and insects.19 As the demarcation between the natural state and the
civil state is socially tenuous, Mencius presumes no fantastic transformation of
the self in transitioning from the natural state to the civil state marked by the
establishment of the mourning rites, of a kind that is found, for instance, in the
Rousseauean democratic social contract.20
In the passage, however, the sons’ “sweat” is not a mere physical reaction.
Though there seems to be no dramatic transformation from “a stupid, lim-
ited animal into an intelligent being and a man,” sweat reveals that some-
thing remarkable has happened within the self. Previously, a man had only an
archaic or primordial relationship with his parents and presumably with other
family members. Family at this stage must be primarily a unit of labor (e.g.,
for hunting, collecting, and, possibly, for a rudimentary form of agriculture) as
well as the place of procreation, and thus it probably does not have any eth-
ical significance to its members. It may have been formed naturally, possessing
a socioeconomic significance to the people, but not a legal or political one.
The archaic man must have been in awe of the inscrutable nature, and may
have even developed a primordial religious sensibility (e.g., fear) toward the
unknown(able) deity behind it, which the people of Shang later called Shangdi
上帝 (Lord-​on-​High). But the sacred is still too far from the man. Nothing yet
has happened within himself, something that would signal the dawn of what
Karl Jaspers calls the axial age.21

19
I admit that Mencius’s example of the man breaking a sweat is situated in the context of his
response to the Mohist challenge, attempting to show that people’s affection for those who
stand in special relationship to them are indeed stronger. That is, Mencius does not present this
story in terms of political theory, nor in the context of natural versus civil. In this respect, the
story alone may not be able to substantiate my argument here that man in the Mencian state of
nature is neither irrational nor self-​interested and undergoes no fantastic self-​transformation.
However, this objection does not pose a formidable challenge for my overall claim because, as
will be clearer shortly, my goal here is only to demonstrate that Mencius’s view of the pre-​li
state is consistent with his view of human nature and thus it is qualitatively different from both
Hobbesian and Xunzian accounts of human nature.
20
Rousseau says: “The transition from the state of nature to the civil state produces a very
remarkable change in man, by substituting in his behavior justice for instinct, and by imbuing
his actions with a moral quality they previously lacked … his faculties are used and developed;
his ideas are expanded; his feelings are ennobled; his entire soul is raised … and [therefore he is]
transformed from a stupid, limited animal into an intelligent being and a man.” See Jean-​Jacques
Rousseau, The Social Contract, pp. 166–​167 in The Social Contract and The First and Second
Discourses, ed. Susan Dunn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000).
21
Karl Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953).
For a similar attention to Mencius 3A5, see Sangjun Kim, Maenjaŭi ttam sŏngwangŭi
p’i: Chungch’ŭnggŭndaewa tongasia yugyomunmyŏng [Sweat of Mencius, Blood of the Sacred
Kings: Confucian Civilization and Universal Human Values] (Seoul: Akanet, 2011), pp. 96–​103,
though Kim relates Mencius’s sweat metaphor to the emergence of religious sensibility in the
Confucian tradition and further to the genealogical evolution of human species.
96 Confucian Constitutionalism

The sons’ “sweat” reveals the world-​historic moment of self-​awareness,

an earth-​shattering realization that man is not merely an animal under the
sway of a ruthless nature or a mere unit of (re)production.22 The sweat reveals
ex post facto that man possesses and has always possessed an inner world
(xin 心) that is internally connected with Heaven, the cosmic bastion of morals.
As Mencius puts it, “For a man to give full realization to his heart (xin) is for
him to understand his own nature, and a man who knows his own nature will
know Heaven. By retaining his heart and nurturing his nature he is serving
Heaven.”23 Therefore, man is by nature oriented toward morality, if not being
fully moral from the beginning. Mencius expresses this natural predisposition
to morality that is pre-​reflective in terms of “the heart of not being able to
bear” (bu ren ren zhi xin 不忍人之心). After identifying the essential character-
istic of human goodness with the heart of compassion, he concludes:
As far as what is genuinely in him is concerned, a man is capable of becoming good.
That is what I mean by good … The heart of compassion is possessed by all men
alike; likewise the heart of shame, the heart of respectfulness, and the heart of right
and wrong. The heart of compassion pertains to benevolence, the heart of shame to
righteousness, the heart of respectfulness to ritual propriety, and the heart of right and
wrong to wisdom. Benevolence, righteousness, ritual propriety, and wisdom are not
welded on to me from the outside; they are in me originally. Only this has never dawned
on me. That is why it is said, “Seek and you will find it; let go and you will lose it.”24

The sons’ sweat represents his Heaven-​given heart of respectfulness (cirang

辭讓) and this heart, according to Mencius, pertains to ritual propriety. Upon
breaking a sweat, which is an instant (or even instinctive) response of the
body (shen 身) to Heaven-​endowed nature,25 the archaic, primordial human
relationships (primarily and most importantly, family relationships) are given
a fresh meaning in which they become ethical relationships. Mencius’s point,

22
This is not to say that self-​awareness here is equivalent to the sudden self-​enlightenment empha-
sized in Zen Buddhism and Wang Yang-​ming’s moral philosophy. In a fuller sense, Mencian
moral self-​cultivation requires a sustained period of cultivating the “sprouts” of moral virtue,
subsequently accompanied by a training in moral reflection (si) (see Mencius 6A15 for Mencius’s
emphasis of moral reflection). My point here is simply that in Mencius moral reflection or
concentration begins with certain “pre-​reflective moral tendencies.” For the importance of pre-​
reflective moral tendencies in Mencius’s program of moral self-​cultivation, which distinguishes
him form other moral self-​cultivationists including Aristotle, see Philip J. Ivanhoe, “Confucian
Self Cultivation and Mengzi’s Notion of Extension,” in Essays on the Moral Philosophy of
Mengzi, eds. Xiusheng Liu and Philip J. Ivanhoe (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2002), pp. 221–​241,
at p. 234.
23
Mencius 7A1.
24
Mencius 6A6 (translation modified).
25
Here no Cartesian separation between mind and body is posited. For a helpful essay on the
early Confucian conception of body and its relation to li, see Jane M. Geaney, “Guarding
Moral Boundaries: Shame in Early Confucianism,” Philosophy East and West 54:2 (2004), pp.
113–​142.
Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue 97

though implicit, is that Confucian ritual practices such as mourning rites are
possible only after man’s self-​awakening in the voice of innate morality or
Heaven’s decree.26 Put differently, it is not the complex model of the ritual
institutions consisting of (codified) rites and ceremonies (also called li 禮, nar-
rowly construed), music (yue 樂), penal codes (xing 刑), and royal ordinances
(zheng 政) that transform a primordial, archaic man into a moral person. On
the contrary, according to Mencius, it is by possessing the heart of respectful-
ness (primarily toward parents) that a man can be morally awakened in the
virtue of ritual propriety, and by practicing ritual property steadily and taking
delight in its good form can he become morally good or virtuous.27
From the investigation of Mencius’s passing allusion to the state of nature
before the origin of (mourning) ritual in his conversation with Yi Zhi, we can
glean two important points regarding the nature of li in his moral and political
thought. First, it is not so much the sociopolitical institutions of li, allegedly
created by the ancient sage-​kings, but the innate sense of ritual propriety and
its arduous social practice that really matter in enabling man to become a true
human being. Otherwise stated, it is through the practice of ritual propriety, a
moral virtue of human excellence, that the state of nature is transformed into
the civil state. For Mencius, ritual institutions and practices are not external
to one’s inner world; rather, they are the latter’s external expressions and coa-
lesced social forms. Recall that in Mencius’s story the protagonists do not stop
with moral self-​ awareness upon realizing the utter inappropriateness (and
inhumaneness) of leaving the remains of their parents unburied, which has
created a deep tension in their inner heart of respectfulness, the sprout of li,
which is possessed by all humans. All the more remarkable is the fact that the
protagonists, the sons, put their moral awareness into a specific moral action
by burying their parents in a manner corresponding with their inner heart,
which signals the beginning of the mourning rites, and, more significantly,
albeit presumably, the beginning of ritual practice more generally given the
primordial nature of the child–​parent relationship, the first human relation-
ship whose proper conduct requires ethical guidance and regulation. Ritual
institutions only follow once people have been awakened in the sense of ritual
propriety. As social institutions they are given concrete forms and are slowly
developed by sages who possess the profound understanding of how to design
them in ways to resonate properly with the innate sense of ritual propriety
possessed by all humans.

26
Of course, whether or not one practices li well by earnestly developing one’s innate moral poten-
tial is a different matter.
27
On the importance of long and arduous practice to the development of moral character in
early Confucianism, see Philip J. Ivanhoe, “Character Consequentialism: An Early Confucian
Contribution to Contemporary Ethical Theory,” Journal of Religious Ethics 19:1 (1991), pp.
55–​70. Also see Eric L. Hutton, “Moral Connoisseurship in Mengzi,” in Essays on the Moral
Philosophy of Mengzi, eds. Xiusheng Liu and Philip J. Ivanhoe (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2002),
pp. 163–​186 for the centrality of a developed ethical taste in Mencius’s moral philosophy.
98 Confucian Constitutionalism

Second, and relatedly, for Mencius ritual propriety is primarily a moral

virtue, the self-​awareness and subsequent practice of which helps reinvent the
archaic, primordial man into an authentic human being. Again, it is impor-
tant to recall that the archaic man in Mencius’s story is far from uncivil.
Unsociability, which was Hobbes’s lifelong political problem in the face of a
seemingly perpetual English civil war,28 was never the Mencian problem, even
if Mencius found himself in a much more violent situation during the late
Warring States period. As we have seen, Mencius’s natural man is only unculti-
vated ethically because he is not yet morally awakened and has yet to cultivate
the sprouts of virtue. What is critically lacking in the Mencian state of nature
and thus what Mencius is concerned about most is not so much civility or
civic virtue that undergirds political order by overcoming social chaos (again,
Mencius’s portrayal of the state of nature is far from chaotic as there is no life-​
and-​death struggle among the people), but character traits that make a person
a good or a flourishing human being.29
This is not to say that Mencius dismisses the value of civic virtue wholesale
(as I understand it here following civic republicans), which is a ludicrous claim
given his profound concern with good government and order.30 Quite the con-
trary, what my discussion thus far shows, contra El Amine’s claim denying the
foundational value of virtue in Confucian political theory, is that for Mencius
civic virtue (and by implication politics) does not stand independently of the
moral virtue of ritual propriety. For the character traits that enable one to
become a good member of moral communities (including the political com-
munity), which constitute one’s social self, are extended from the traits that
make one a good man qua human being. In Mencius, therefore, there is no
separation between moral virtue and civic virtue. Moral virtue and civic virtue
are weaved as one thread of virtue ethics, which generates a virtue-​based form
of politics, and this seamless continuum between moral virtue and civic virtue

28
Richard Boyd, Uncivil Society: The Perils of Pluralism and the Making of Modern Liberalism
(Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004), chap. 1.
29
In Western social and political theory, civility, understood as a distinctively modern and liberal-​
individualistic set of character traits, which helps bring strangers into a shared public space
(i.e., civil society) as citizens, is often distinguished from the traditional republican vision of
civic virtue, which is more organic and community oriented. In this chapter, I dismiss subtle
characteristics that conceptually distinguish civility from civic virtue and employ the two inter-
changeably by focusing on their shared civic implications. For a conceptual distinction between
civility and civic virtue in the Western philosophical tradition, see Adam B. Seligman, “Public
and Private in Political Thought: Rousseau, Smith, and Some Contemporaries,” in The Problem
of Trust (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 103–​123.
30
Though El Amine’s claim that in early Confucian political theory “political order, not moral
edification, is the end [and] that political order is an end in itself, not a means toward virtue”
is certainly overstated, I agree that for both Confucius and, especially, Xunzi “the development
of civic-​like qualities” in the people was an important concern. See Loubna El Amine, Classical
Confucian Political Thought: A New Interpretation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2015), p. 15.
Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue 99

(and between virtue ethics and virtue politics) affirms the core stipulations of
Confucian virtue monism, rendering Mencius a strong virtue monist.

The Second Description of the State of Nature

Elsewhere in the Mengzi, however, we encounter a seemingly very different
account of the state of nature, a far more institutionalist explanation of the
emergence of the civil state.
In the time of Yao, the Empire (tianxia) was not yet settled. The flood still raged
unchecked, inundating the Empire … birds and beasts encroached upon men, and their
trail criss-​crossed even the Central Kingdom. The lot fell on Yao to worry about this
situation. He raised Shun to a position of authority to deal with it … Hou Ji taught the
people how to cultivate land and the five kinds of grain. When these ripened, the people
multiplied. This is the way of the common people: once they have a full belly and warm
clothes on their back they degenerate to the level of animals if they are allowed to lead
idle lives, without education and discipline. This gave the sage-​king further cause for
concern, and so he appointed Xie as the Minister of Education whose duty was to teach
the people human relationships (jiao yi renlun 敎以人倫): love between father and son,
duty between ruler and subject, distinction between husband and wife, precedence of
the old over the young, and faith between friends … The sage worried to this extent
about the affairs of the people.31

In this passage, too, Mencius does not offer a detailed account of how
individuals in the natural state interacted with one another. In this regard,
Mencius is notably different from Xunzi and other philosophers of his time,
including Han Fei, Shang Yang, and Mozi, who each built their political the-
ories on their accounts of the state of nature. Mencius says that “once they
have a full belly and warm clothes on their back, the people degenerate to the
level of animals, without education and discipline” without clarifying what it
means to live at “the level of animals” –​irrationality, self-​interestedness, both,
or something else? Does such a life naturally entail a Xunzian chaos and pov-
erty? What is certain, though, is that the opposite, namely, “[life at] the level of
human beings,” implies a state in which people are educated and disciplined in
the five cardinal relationships of humanity, which should be regulated by ritual
propriety.
Once again, what we see here is typical Mencius as a virtue monist who
blurs both the analytical and practical distinctions between moral and civic
virtue: the virtues that regulate the five relationships are human/​moral virtues
that rescue the people from the level of animals and make them authentic
human beings, and simultaneously social/​ civic virtues that animate, sus-
tain, and invigorate the ritual institutions and practices that undergird social
relationships and ultimately political order.
What is notable in the passage above is the introduction of the sage-​king
(and his sagacious ministers) as the discoverer and educator of the virtues,

31
Mencius 3A4.
100 Confucian Constitutionalism

especially ritual propriety, implied in the proper conduct of the cardinal human
relationships. This finding, however, gives a twist to our investigation of the
nature of ritual propriety as virtue in Mencius’s thought thus far. From Mencius
3A5, we have learned that for Mencius ritual propriety is primarily a human/​
moral virtue, the potential of which is inherent in human nature and whose
awareness and even the practice of it does not necessarily depend on political
leaders and existing ritual institutions. The subsequent argument was that for
Mencius, a spontaneous awakening in the heart by Heaven’s decree motivates
the people to create rituals in ways that can correspond with their sense of
ritual propriety and further enables them to practice rituals in order to express
the virtue of ritual propriety in sustained and socially recognizable manners,
ultimately resulting in their long-​ term institutionalization. Now, Mencius’s
seemingly “new” position revealed in Mencius 3A4 seems to point to a different
direction, implying that Confucian virtues are the institutional products of the
sagely government, which renders them primarily civic virtues, virtues that
not only make the people sociable (i.e., “educated and disciplined”) but are
instrumental to sustaining the sociopolitical institutions. Here Mencius does
not articulate whether there is an inherent resonance between the sociopolitical
institutions created by the sage-​king(s) and human nature, nor does he claim
that the purpose of state education and discipline is to develop all commoners
to become a sage, which is an impossible project. In any event, Mencius’s emi-
nent concern here seems to be the problem of (moral) governance.
This attention to the sociopolitical institutional dimension of Confucian
politics in Mencius brings us to the point that he is not merely a moral phi-
losopher of human nature and moral self-​cultivation but a political theorist of
Confucian constitutionalism, as we have learned from the preceding chapters.
That being said, this institutional interpretation of the transition from the state
of nature to a civil state in Mencius’s political thought is fully consistent with
his view of human nature. Even when he draws attention to the institutional
dimension of Confucian politics, his focus is not so much on political order
as such, or the virtues (i.e., civic virtues) that are directly conducive to it, but
rather on the way in which ritual institutions can help foster the virtue of
ritual property and other Confucian moral virtues, whose capacities are innate
in human nature, in the people as well as in the ruler –​hence virtue constitu-
tionalism. In other words, despite his presentation of core Confucian ethical
relationships as the institutional products of the sagely government, ritual pro-
priety (and other Confucian moral virtues) is not presented as the character
trait that is politically necessary in overcoming the pathological situations
arising from the state of nature.
As such, for Mencius, conforming to the ritual institutions created by the
former sage-​kings is not so much motivated by political problems internal to
the state of nature, but is rather propelled internally as a social expression of
the heart of respectfulness. In this perspective, all that the sage-​kings had done
was to discover, over a long period of time, the forms of ritual institutions that
Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue 101

best correspond with the heart of respectfulness. Not surprisingly, in Mencius’s

moral narrative, sage-​kings resemble moral teachers or moral exemplars (as is
best shown in his depiction of Shun) more so than political leaders, who suc-
cessfully gather disorderly people, create a political community, and coordinate
their socioeconomic transactions by allotting proper social roles, as Xunzi’s
quite formalistic definition of “the ruler” (jun) describes.32
In short, in Mencius’s philosophical system, politics is subsumed by ethics
and civic virtue by moral virtue. At the core of Mencius’s political thought is
the moral virtue of ritual propriety that transforms an animal-​like man into
an authentic human being, not so much the sociopolitical institutions of li
and civic virtues associated with them that function as a civil bulwark against
political disorder and social unrest. In the Mencian moral-​political system, one
becomes good in the holistic moral sense by developing moral virtues including
ritual propriety, virtues of human excellence and flourishing. Here it is not pri-
marily civic and prudential motivations that bring one to conform to the ritual
institutions.

Xunzi on Ritual Propriety as Civic Virtue

The Rise of Ritual Institutions
In the previous section, we noted that Mencius does not present the state of
nature as an uncivil state or a state of unending social conflict. Nor does he
understand man’s natural condition in terms of unsociability, whatever its
cause may be, irrationality or unchecked self-​interest. According to Mencius,
the defining characteristic of man’s natural condition is the lack of moral self-​
awareness and the subsequent development of the self.
In contrast, Xunzi understands the state of nature as an absence of civility.
In Xunzi’s view, the state of nature must be overcome, not out of necessity, as
Mencius narrates, due to the threat of animals or for fear of natural disasters,
but because of the social perils that naturally arise, namely, perennial social
contentions and the resulting political disorder and poverty. According to
Xunzi, li as ritual order or as a set of ritual institutions, not only as a sense of
ritual propriety, arose through conscious effort by the ancient sage-​kings in the
course of coping with the perilous human condition of unsociability.
From what did ritual arise? I say: Humans are born having desires. When they have desires
but do not get the objects of their desire, then they cannot but seek some means of satisfac-
tion. If there is no measure or limit to their seeking, then they cannot help but struggle with
each other. If they struggle with each other then there will be chaos, and if there is chaos
then they will be impoverished. The former kings hated such chaos, and so they established
rituals and yi in order to divide things among people, to nurture their desires, and to sat-
isfy their seeking. They caused desires never to exhaust material goods, and material goods

32
Xunzi 9.16a; 12.6. Also see Harris, “Xunzi’s Political Philosophy,” p. 102.
102 Confucian Constitutionalism

never to be depleted by desires, so that the two support each other and prosper. This is
how ritual arose.33

While the Mencian civil state, which is closer to a civilized or morally cultivated
state than a politically constituted community, is marked by “sweat” and the con-
scious effort to become a true human being by developing one’s nascent moral
virtues, including ritual propriety, the Xunzian civil state is overtly political.34 This
point is worth further investigation.
As we have seen, at the heart of the transformation from the natural state to
the civil state in Mencius’s thought is man’s ethico-​religious self-​transformation.
Xunzi, too, pays attention to self-​transformation that occurs during this transi-
tion when he stipulates that li “nurtures” the desires of men and, presumably, men
then develop a disposition to observe the li. More specifically, according to Xunzi,
In ancient times, the sage kings saw that because people’s nature is bad, they were
deviant, dangerous, and not correct, unruly, chaotic, and not well ordered. Therefore,
for their sake they set up ritual and yi, and established proper models and measures.
They did this in order to straighten out and beautify people’s inborn dispositions and
nature and thereby correct them, and in order to train and transform people’s inborn
dispositions and nature that thereby guide them, so that for the first time they all came
to order and conformed to the Way.35

Unlike Mencius, who understands li primarily as a moral virtue (whether

potential or developed) and rarely pays attention to its sociopolitical and insti-
tutional aspect as a means of authoritative social coordination, Xunzi is evi-
dently fascinated by the remarkable power of the ritual institutions, invented
by the ancient sage-​kings, in bringing order to a chaotic state of nature.36
Whereas for Mencius ritual institutions are the social expression or extension
of ritual propriety as moral virtue that is internally originated (even though
its proper exercise requires education and social guidance), for Xunzi it is the
ritual institutions that originate and require the virtue of ritual propriety in

33
Xunzi 19.1a.
34
Although, “the political” in Xunzi’s political thought is still tied with “the ethical.” For a more
detailed argument on this point, see Chapter 5 of this book.
35
Xunzi 23.1b.
36
Elsewhere, Xunzi further elaborates how properly nurturing desires in accordance with the
heart’s approval can bring about good order: “All those who say that good order must await
the elimination of desires are people who lack the means to guide desire and cannot handle the
mere having desires. All those who say good order must await the lessening of desires are people
who lack the means to restrain desire and cannot handle abundance of desires … If what the
heart approves of conforms to the proper patterns, then even if the desires are many, what harm
would they be to good order? … If what the heart approves of misses the proper patterns (li**
理), then even if the desires are few, how would it stop short of chaos? Thus, order and disorder
reside in what the heart approves of, they are not present in the desires from one’s dispositions”
(Xunzi 22:5a). For Xunzi, what the people’s heart approves of and that which conforms to
“proper patterns” comes from externally by the sage-​kings, the inventors of ritual institutions,
and, accordingly, good order, too, is externally originated.
Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue 103

the people who are otherwise boorish (lu) and lack any sense of goodness.
Externally motivated, socially required, and aimed at good political order,
ritual propriety in the Xunzian civil state is primarily civic in nature.
What is worth special attention here are the key qualities that Xunzi attributes
to ritual propriety as civic virtue (or, more accurately, as will be shown shortly, as
a constellation of civic virtues). In the passage above, ritual propriety is presented
as a set of character traits that are directly opposed to being “deviant, dangerous,
and not correct, unruly, chaotic, and not well ordered.” And based on the saliently
antisocial characteristics of these pre-​li traits, Xunzi claims that human nature is
bad. In his famous critique of Mencius, Xunzi says,
Mencius says: people’s nature is good. I say: this is not so. In every case, both in ancient
times and in the present, what everyone under Heaven calls good is being correct,
ordered, peaceful, and controlled. What they call bad is being deviant, dangerous,
unruly, and chaotic. This is the division between good and bad. Now does he really
think that people’s nature is originally correct, ordered, peaceful, and controlled? Then
what use would there be for sage kings? What use for ritual and yi? Even though there
might exist sage kings and ritual and yi, whatever could these add to its correctness,
order, peacefulness, and self-​control?37

Note that nowhere in the Mengzi does Mencius define goodness of human
nature in terms such as “correct, ordered, peaceful, and controlled” and it is
unclear what Mencius would make of these virtues in relation to his idea of
moral self-​cultivation or in the context of his political thought. Yet, interest-
ingly, for Xunzi, it is these sorts of virtues –​civic virtues, or what Jonathan
Schofer calls “preservative virtues” –​that are (to be) first formed with the rise
of ritual institutions because it is by virtue of them that men in the natural con-
dition are transformed into citizens of the Confucian polity.38 Thus, they may
be called Xunzi’s first virtues.
This, however, is not to say that preservative virtues are the most important
for Xunzi. Certainly, correctness, order, peacefulness, and self-​control are short
of being full moral virtues of the sort valorized by Mencius such as ren and yi,
as they do not directly concern human excellence and moral perfection. For
Mencius, none of these virtues would make one a sage, however arduously

37
Xunzi 23.3a.
38
In reference to “strength of will,” “endurance,” and “guardedness,” Schofer argues that in Xunzi
“preservative virtues [are] needed by people who are in the process of shaping their desires and
emotions” (Jonathan W. Schofer, “Virtues in Xunzi’s Thought,” in Virtue, Nature, and Moral
Agency in the Xunzi, eds. T. C. Kline III and Philip J. Ivanhoe [Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000],
pp. 69–​88, at p. 91). Schofer also adds that “one cannot create a full description of virtues in
Xunzi’s ethical outlook by examining only, or even primarily, Xunzi’s discussion of ren, yi, and
li. Passages in which Xunzi describes virtuous qualities using unconventional terms of art are
crucial for understanding the subtleties of his thought; in fact, they may be more important than
his discussions of ren, yi, and li” (p. 75). I find this statement quite revealing. One important
difference between me and Schofer is that I identify several key “preservative virtues” as the core
attributes of li rather than ethical qualities standing independent of or parallel to it.
104 Confucian Constitutionalism

practiced. Xunzi, too, is clearly aware of the critical limitations of such virtues,
each of which constitutes the totality of ritual propriety as civic virtue, in cul-
tivating one toward moral perfection, the ideal that he shares with Mencius.
Even for Xunzi, ritual propriety in its fullest sense ought to be one of moral
virtues, concerned with human excellence and moral flourishing, which should
be in perfect harmony with other key moral virtues, as he states, “The gen-
tleman dwells in ren by means of yi, and only then is it ren. He carries out yi by
means of ritual, and only then is it yi. In implementing ritual, he returns to the
roots and completes the branches, and only then is it ritual. When all three are
thoroughly mastered, only then is it the Way.”39
Correctness, order, peacefulness, and self-​control (and other related civic
virtues) are Xunzi’s first virtues in the sense that they are most urgently needed
in transforming the natural state into a civil state as well as in undergirding
civil relationships among the people and securing political order. They make
people live well, orderly, and peacefully with each other in the political com-
munity. Though their relation to moral self-​cultivation to become a sage is nei-
ther direct nor obvious, they are indispensable to social order and sustenance
of the political community.
As a sum of preservative virtues, therefore, for Xunzi, ritual propriety works
as a civil bulwark against unsociability and chaos that defines the human con-
dition in its natural state. Xunzi’s following statement offers a vivid illustration
of the civic character of ritual propriety required in order to comply with the
ritual institutions that are externally imposed against their original nature.
Now people’s nature is such that they are born with a fondness for profit in them. If they
follow along with this, then struggle and contention will arise, and yielding and defer-
ence will perish therein. They are born with feelings of hate and dislike in them. If they
follow along with these, then cruelty and villainy will arise, and loyalty and trustwor-
thiness will perish therein. They are born with desires of the eyes and ears, a fondness
for beautiful sights and sounds. If they follow along with these, then lasciviousness and
chaos will arise, and ritual and yi, proper form and order, will perish therein. Thus,
if people follow along with their inborn dispositions and obey their nature, they are
sure to come to struggle and contention, turn to disrupting social divisions and order,
and end up becoming violent. So, it is necessary to await the transforming influence of
teachers and models and the guidance of ritual and yi, and only then will they come
to yielding (ci 辭) and deference (rang 讓), turn to proper form and order, and end up
becoming controlled.40

According to Xunzi, a man is able to observe the virtues of yielding and defer-
ence (ci rang), or simply “respectfulness,” as Lau defines it, which, as we have
noted, Mencius understands as the sprout of ritual propriety, only through

39
Xunzi 27.21. For a helpful interpretation of this passage, see Eric L. Hutton, “Ethics in the
Xunzi,” in Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi (Dordrecht: Springer, 2016), pp. 67–​93,
at pp. 74–​77.
40
Xunzi 23.1a.
Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue 105

the instructions of a teacher (including and most importantly, a “teacher-​king”

[junshi 君師], who is, in principle, the sage-​king) and by means of the models
and ritual institutions created by the sage-​kings. Ritual institutions play two
important functions.
First, as we noted in Chapter 1, ritual institutions divide (fen) the people and
make distinctions (bie) among them in order to satisfy the desires of all as well
as in an orderly manner, which for Xunzi is the best way to coordinate com-
plex socioeconomic transactions among the people, thereby attaining social
harmony.41 Social harmony at this stage, however, is primarily concerned with
sociopolitical control than with the overcoming of dangerous unsociability.
One can be sociopolitically governable by being controlled when his or her
natural desires are satisfied under hierarchical coordination mechanisms, but
governability is still short of being equivalent to civility.
As we have seen, for Mencius, civic virtue is extended socially from moral
virtue, and, from a political standpoint, what makes this extension smooth
is the tenuous distinction between the natural state and the civil state, which
allows no dramatic change in human nature in the transformation of the
former into the latter. By understanding civic virtue as extended or developed
from moral virtue without qualitative change, Mencius thus reveals not only
his faith in virtue monism, but, more crucially from a political standpoint,
civic optimism: moral self-​ cultivation can ultimately and in principle lead
everyone to sagehood and being a good son or brother makes one holistically
(or monistically) good in both moral and civic senses,42 requiring no addi-
tional vigilance toward incivility. For Mencius, being a good son or brother is
directly tantamount to being a good citizen.43 Likewise, Mencius acknowledges
no political virtue for the ruler independent of moral virtue; all the ruler has

41
Xunzi says, “If divisions of goods are all even, then they cannot be made ample enough.
If people’s authority is all equal, then they cannot be unified. If all the masses are equal in
status, then they cannot be put to use. However, just as there is Heaven and Earth, there is
a difference between above and below … As for the fact that two nobles cannot serve each
other, and two base men cannot employ each other, this is the Heavenly order of things. If
people’s authority and position are equal and their desires and dislikes the same, then goods
cannot be made sufficient for them, and they will certainly struggle. If they struggle then there
will certainly be chaos, and if there is chaos then they will be impoverished. The former kings
hated this chaos, and so they established ritual and yi in order to divide up mankind, so as to
cause raking of poor and rich and noble and base, so that they might take charge of them. This
is the basis for nourishing all under Heaven” (Xunzi 9.3). Also see Xunzi 10.1; 10.4; 10.7;
12.7; 19.1c.
42
Explaining the relationship of ren, yi, li, and zhi, the four cardinal Confucian moral virtues,
Mencius says, “The content of ren is the serving of one’s parents; the content of yi is obedience
to one’s elder brothers; the content of zhi is to understand these two and to hold fast to them;
the content of li is the regulation and adornment of them” (Mencius 4A27).
43
Most notably, Mencius says, “The Way lies at hand yet it is sought afar off; the thing lies in the
easy yet it is sought in the difficult. If only everyone loved his parents and treated his elders with
deference, the Empire would be at peace” (Mencius 4A11).
106 Confucian Constitutionalism

to do is to extend his care for his own family members to the people and treat
them as if they were his own children.44

The Principle of Civility

Xunzi is not, however, a civic optimist, even though he generally subscribes to
virtue monism. In his view, even when people are subject to ritual institutions
(primarily for prudential reasons, as we have discussed in Chapter 1), and
are thereby being controlled, they are no less susceptible to unsociability than
they were in the pre-​li state. For Xunzi, the trouble remains that while the civil
state is sure to help the people overcome impoverishment, if undergirded by
ritual and yi, which prescribe proper allotments and distinctions, it is never
perfectly insulated from incivility, a subject Mencius hardly addresses in his
account(s) of the origin of the civil state. The second and more profound role
that the ritual institutions play, therefore, lies in overcoming unsociability that
characterizes much of the social relationships in the civil state. Xunzi says,
Uncontrolled rage will cause you to perish, even though you are full of life. Jealousy
will cause you to be maimed, even though you have keen intelligence. Slandering others
will cause you to face impasses, even though you are broadly learned. An uncontrolled
mouth will cause you to be stained all the more, even though you try to purify yourself.
Indiscriminate associations will cause you to starve all the more, even though you try
to fatten yourself. Being combative will cause you to be unpersuasive, even though you
argue well. An attitude of superiority will cause you not to be recognized, even though
you take an upright stance. Oppressiveness will cause you not to be honored, even
though you are principled. Greediness will cause you not to be feared, even though you
are courageous. Inflexibility will cause you not to be respected, even though you are
trustworthy.45

Vices such as “uncontrolled rage,” “jealousy,” “slandering,” “an uncontrolled

mouth,” “indiscriminate associations,” “being combative,” “an attitude of
superiority,” “oppressiveness,” “greediness,” and “inflexibility” are not traits
or tendencies that men in the state of nature alone are susceptible to; they
can be possessed by anyone, even a more or less good person who is “broadly
learned,” “principled,” “upright,” “courageous,” or “trustworthy.” Put differ-
ently, they are vices that anyone can perpetrate when situated in complex social
relationships in a civil(ized) society. What is interesting in the above statement
is that unlike Mencius, who does not concern himself with the ways in which
vice beats virtue due to his unflinching faith in the happy continuum between

44
Consider the following statement by Mencius: “Treat the aged of your own family in a manner
befitting their venerable age and extend this treatment to the aged of other families; treat your
own young in a manner befitting their tender age and extend this to the young of other families,
and you can roll the Empire on your palm” (Mencius 1A7). In Chapter 5, I discuss Xunzi’s view
of political virtue from the perspective of what I call tempered virtue monism and contrast it
with Mencius’s monistic moral vision of political virtue.
45
Xunzi 4.2.
Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue 107

moral virtue and civic virtue, Xunzi draws attention to the possible disjunc-
ture between the two by insightfully capturing two dimensions of sociability, a
distinction which remains largely obscure in Mencius –​social sociability (i.e.,
civility) and unsocial sociability (i.e., incivility).
To be sure, Xunzi does not go as far as distinguishing between a good
man and a good citizen, as Aristotle does.46 Nor does he claim that there is
an inherent tension between human/​moral virtue and political/​civic virtue.
However, unlike Mencius, Xunzi realizes that civility, which is a virtue that is
context-​dependent, is not always or necessarily an extension of being “good”
as a person. Insomuch as the Kingly Way consists in not only negating the state
of nature, which can be attained by top-​down social control alone, but, more
importantly, in making a society genuinely civil, something more is necessary
than “good character” as Mencius understands it, which can be directly con-
ducive to sociability.
Xunzi’s insight is that even the civil state is vulnerable to conflict, and “civil
conflict” arises not only from desire for material goods or other self-​interested
desires. Whereas all men are bad or petty (xiaoren 小人) in the state of nature,
some persist in incivility in the civil state while some behave more or less
civically without (or only rarely) breaking ritual norms and practices, thus
without invoking enmity or resentment from others.47 As Xunzi sees it, the
most salient mode of civil conflict is one around the subjective and highly con-
tentious judgment on right and wrong, or, more specifically, who is right (the
gentleman) and who is wrong (the petty man).48
Every person who engages in brawling is sure to think himself right and the other
wrong. If he thinks himself resolutely right and the other person resolutely wrong, then
this is to consider himself a gentleman and the other a petty man, and to use the enmity
between gentleman and petty man to harm and kill others. He forgets his own person
below, forgets his family in the middle, and forgets his lord above. Is this not a grave
fault!49

It should be noted that like Mencius, Xunzi, too, holds a moral distinction
between the gentleman and the petty man, that the gentleman is a morally
cultivated person while the petty man is not.50 Unlike Mencius, however,
Xunzi does not always define the gentleman as an immaculate moral par-
agon who “lives in the spacious dwelling [of ren], occupies the proper position

46
Aristotle, The Politics of Aristotle, ed. and trans. by Ernest Barker (London: Oxford University
Press, 1958), p. 1276b34.
47
Confucius points to resentment (yuan 怨) as the single greatest vice that could disrupt ritually
ordered and harmonious social relationships (The Analects 5.23; 5.25). Also see Chapter 1 (n12).
48
Notice that Xunzi (and all classical Confucians, for that matter) never pays attention to class
conflict, though it is, arguably, the most serious “civil conflict” that has preoccupied Western
political theory since Aristotle.
49
Xunzi 4.3.
50
Xunzi 2.12.
108 Confucian Constitutionalism

[according to li], and goes along the highway [of yi] of the Empire.”51 Without
necessarily denying that the highest ideal of the gentleman lies in moral self-​
cultivation toward Confucian sagehood,52 Xunzi simultaneously understands
the gentleman pronouncedly in civic terms, as one who does not persist in self-​
righteousness and avoids, among other things, incurring resentment in others,
that is, as one who attempts to keep the civil state from deteriorating into a
state of disorder.53 Thus, Xunzi says, “The gentleman is tolerant yet not lax,
principled yet not oppressive. He debates but is not quarrelsome, investigates
keenly but does not aim to astound. He stands along without being superior,
and is strong without being violent. He is flexible and yielding yet not unscru-
pulous. He is respectful and cautious yet congenial … When he points out
another’s faults with straight talk and direct accusation, it is not slander or
calumny.”54 The petty man behaves in the exact opposite way, in ways that
provoke others: “If great-​hearted, then [the petty man] is arrogant and violent.
If small-​hearted, then he is perverse and dissolute. If he is smart, then he is a
greedy thief and works by deception. If he is unlearned, then as a poisonous
villain he creates chaos. If he is heeded, then he is avaricious and arrogant. If
he is disregarded, then he is resentful and dangerous. If he is happy, then he is
flippant and capricious.”55
Notice that in contrasting the gentleman and the petty man Xunzi’s concern
is not merely the monistic moral difference between the two, that one is good
and the other is bad. As a political theorist of the state of nature, his more pro-
found concern seems to be to emphasize that the line dividing the gentleman
and the petty man in the post-​li state is primarily civic, whether one conducts
oneself in a manner that upholds or disrupts ordered social relationships. In the
civil state, what can be called “reverse self-​transformation” happens when one,
moral training by ritual and yi notwithstanding, becomes the petty man. This
does not happen simply because one is totally bad as he once was in the pre-​li
state but because he conducts himself in an uncivil manner toward others. In
Xunzi’s view, even though poverty is overcome under the ritual institutions
and desire for material interest per se is no longer the main cause of social con-
flict in the civil state, conflict around moral opinions will continue to invoke
boisterous passions in the people, driving them to perpetual brawl and mutual
distrust. One of the most common ways in which one becomes uncivil is to self-​
righteously persist in what one deems to be right, thus departing from or going

51
Mencius 3B2.
52
Xunzi 2.10.
53
Apparently, Xunzi has two different kinds of gentlemen in mind when he says, “If the gentleman
is great-​hearted then he reveres Heaven and follows the Way. If he is small-​minded then he cau-
tiously adheres to yi and regulates himself” (Xunzi 3.6). For the sake of conceptual distinction,
we may call the gentleman with a great heart a moral gentleman and the gentleman with a small
heart a civic gentleman.
54
Xunzi 3.4–​5.
55
Xunzi 3.6.
Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue 109

against what is objectively good, which is embodied in the Way, the single right
path toward moral truth. The gentleman is one who speaks the truth or in
accordance with the Way.56
Not surprisingly, as a Confucian virtue monist singularly committed to the
Way, Xunzi is persuaded that the best and surest way to end the state of inci-
vility caused by moral conflict between the gentlemen and the petty men is to
uphold the former, who (are believed to) have the right understanding of what
the Way, the good, or the truth consists of.57 It may be subject to a contemporary
debate whether it is desirable to understand moral conflict in terms of conflict
between the gentleman and the petty man or whether the monistic resolution
of moral conflict by resorting to the one right Way is morally appealing.58
However, what is more important in the present context is that in order to
resolve moral conflict, the Xunzian civic gentleman does not simply impose on
others what he deems good, even if it accords with the Way, because doing so
would likely exacerbate the ongoing moral (and, by extension, social) conflict
among the people, virtually all of whom claim that they have grasped the Way
and see themselves as gentlemen. The method that resolves moral conflict most
effectively according to Xunzi is moral persuasion, and it is the method that is
worth our special attention as it stipulates what can be called “the Confucian
principle of civility”:
The method of persuasive speaking: practice it with respect and dignity, live it with hon-
esty and integrity, uphold it with firmness and strength, explain it with divisions and
differentiations, illustrate it with analogies and examples, and present it with joyfulness
and sweetness … If you do so, then rarely will your persuasions fail to be accepted, and

56
Xunzi 5.9. In this regard, Xunzi is differentiated from Confucius, who is generally abhor-
rent of the use of language in moral persuasion and prefers moral persuasion by example.
See The Analects 2.20; 12.17; 12.19; 13.1; 13.4; 13.6; 13.13; 14.41; 19.21. Also see J. G. A.
Pocock, “Ritual, Language, Power: An Essay on the Apparent Political Meaning of Ancient
Chinese Philosophy,” in Politics, Language and Time: Essays on Political Thought and History
(New York: Atheneum, 1971), pp. 42–​79. This does not mean, however, that Xunzi is unaware
of the potential danger of words. For instance, he says, “Arrogance and haughtiness are the
downfall of people, but reverence and restraint can halt even the five weapons, for the sharpness
of spears and lances is not as good as the keenness of reverence and restraint. Thus, giving
someone kind words is more warming than hemp-​cloth and silk, while hurtful words cut people
more deeply than spears and halberds. So if there is some place on the broad, flat earth where
you cannot tread, it is not because the ground itself is not safe. Rather, it is entirely your own
words that endanger your stop and leave you nowhere to tread” (Xunzi 4:1). Nevertheless,
Xunzi is seen to understand moral speech as an indispensable component of sociability.
57
Xunzi says for example that “[w]‌hatever words do not agree with the former kings [who
understood the Way] or do not accord with ritual and yi are to be called vile words” (Xunzi
5.6). On Xunzi’s monistic commitment to the one right and holistic Way, see Paul R. Goldin,
Confucianism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011), pp. 84–​88.
58
Bryan Van Norden singles out (classical) Confucianism’s insensitivity to pluralism as one of
its weaknesses. See his Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Confucian Philosophy
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 329.
110 Confucian Constitutionalism

even if you do not succeed in persuading people, no one will fail to value you. This is
called being able to ennoble what one values.59

At the heart of the Confucian principle of civility is tolerating others, especially

the petty men whose view deviates from the Way, and the ability to incur no
resentment in them. Xunzi captures the essence of the Confucian principle of
civility in terms of “the method of inclusiveness.”
[The gentleman] achieves completely what he wants to express, but does so without
causing hurt. [It is because] in measuring himself, [he] uses an ink-​line, but in dealing
with others, he uses lenience. He measures himself with an ink-​line, and so he can be a
model and standard for all under Heaven. He uses lenience in dealing with others, and
so he can be tolerant and respond to their needs, and thereby accomplish the greatest
affairs in the world. Hence, the gentleman is worthy but can tolerate the sluggish. He
is wise but can tolerate the foolish. He is broadly learned but can tolerate the shallow.
He is refined but can tolerate the impure. This is called the method of inclusiveness (jian
shu 兼術).60

Admittedly, Xunzi’s idea of inclusiveness is qualitatively different from the plu-

ralist inclusion of others who are different on various accounts of social identity
including gender, race, ethnicity, and religion –​the kind advocated by con-
temporary political theorists valorizing the “politics of difference.”61 Indeed,
nowhere in the Xunzi is Xunzi found to proactively acknowledge difference
as a value in itself, directly conducive to human flourishing and (democratic)
co-​existence. Instead of hailing the value of inclusion as such, for Xunzi the
method of inclusiveness holds an instrumental value to the principle of civility
that buttresses social harmony and order. It keeps the state of nature at bay,
which always lurks in through the mantle of (ostensible) civility.
Seen in this way, what are central to the Xunzian principle of civility are the
following two propositions: first, that moral conflict between the gentlemen and
the petty men should be resolved neither by forceful imposition of (what one
deems to be) truth nor humiliating speech, but by means of respectful and tol-
erant moral persuasion, and, second, that for moral persuasion to happen, even
the petty men should be acknowledged as partners of civil conversation, though
for Xunzi the ultimate purpose of civil conversation lies in their moral correction
and cultivation.
In Xunzi’s political theory, therefore, social harmony is not tantamount to mere
sociopolitical control by means of the li-​based social divisions and distinctions,
however important they are for orderly satisfaction of natural desires as well

59
Xunzi 5.8. Compare this with the following statement by Confucius: “There are three things
which the gentleman values most in the Way: to stay clear of violence by putting on a serious
countenance, to come close to being trusted by setting a proper expression on his face, and to
avoid being boorish and unreasonable by speaking in proper tones” (The Analects 8.4).
60
Xunzi 5.7.
61
See, for instance, Iris M. Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2000).
Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue 111

as for the initial overcoming of the state of nature. Nor can it be attained by
state censorship and forced suppression of moral opinions that have arguably
derailed from the Way. In its most genuine sense, social harmony can be achieved
when all people subscribe to the Way, which in reality is represented most viv-
idly by the ritual institutions created by the sage-​kings,62 and when they are civ-
ically transformed via inclusive moral persuasion into sociable members of the
civil state.
What does the principle of civility discussed thus far have to do with ritual
propriety? For Xunzi, it is none other than the virtue of ritual propriety that
helps ensure civility in social interactions that are frequently relegated to moral
conflict. And it is by making moral conflict civil that ritual propriety further
helps conserve the ritual institutions introduced by the sage-​kings as the civil
bulwark against the state of nature (and, more fundamentally, bad human
nature). More specifically, ritual propriety sets proper boundaries or limits in
one’s speech and conduct so that he does not transgress the norms of civility
and is kept from provoking others. In its civic understanding, the gentleman
is one who conducts himself within the limits of ritual-​based civility: “The
gentleman’s discourse has an outer boundary; his conduct has an outer limit
… Whether high or low, small or great, he does not go beyond the limit. It is
through this that the gentleman keeps his will and intellect from galloping
beyond the outer boundary or their proper dwelling.”63 In Xunzi’s view, in
its most profound sense, human conduct (xing 行) should be understood
as “[properly] conducting ritual” (xing li 行禮) by “treating the noble with
respect, the elderly with filiality, the senior with deference, and the young with
kindness, and the lowly with generosity.”64

Conclusion
Undoubtedly, in classical Confucianism, ethics and politics, and moral virtue
and civic virtue, are inextricably intertwined, and it is ludicrous to present any
classical Confucian thinker as purely a moral or political philosopher. Neither
Mencius nor Xunzi fundamentally modified the paradigm of virtue politics
originally advanced by Confucius, even when they each developed a distinc-
tive mode of Confucian constitutionalism, and they generally subscribed to

62
Though for Xunzi (and for other Confucians) the Way is far more capacious than ritual in its
role as the guidance of moral choice and action, it is hardly disputable that ritual approximates
the good order of the social patterns that have been countlessly tried and affirmed in actual
human experiences. For the complex relations between the Way, ritual, and good order (li** 理)
in Xunzi’s philosophical system, see Eric L. Hutton, “Moral Reasoning in Aristotle and Xunzi,”
Journal of Chinese Philosophy 29:3 (2002), pp. 355–​384.
63
Xunzi 8.13 (the English translation here is adopted from John Knoblock, Xunzi: A Translation
and Study of the Complete Works, Vol. 2 [Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990]).
64
Xunzi 27.16.
112 Confucian Constitutionalism

Confucian virtue monism. None of my argument in this chapter departs from

or denies the common ground that Mencius and Xunzi share as Confucians.
In fact, many of the contemporary studies on the philosophy of Xunzi, which
has long been neglected because of the Mencian orthodoxy that occupied the
mainstay of the Confucian tradition in East Asia, are largely concentrated on
the similarities that he shares with Mencius, despite their contrasting accounts
of human nature. Their core argument is that Xunzi is no less a virtue ethi-
cist than Mencius, and there is no qualitative difference between Xunzi and
Mencius as far as their ideal politics and the nature of virtue ethics they espouse
are concerned. As virtue ethicists, it is often claimed, what differentiates one
from the other is just the differing modes of moral self-​cultivation –​develop-
ment versus re-​formation –​that nevertheless lead to the shared ideal of the gen-
tleman and, ideally, sagehood.65 While in the preceding chapters I challenged
the received assumption that takes for granted the single mode of Confucian
virtue politics and Mencius’s and Xunzi’s equal subscriptions to it, my aim in
this chapter has been to shed new light on the subtle differences in the modes
of virtue ethics developed by Mencius, a strong virtue monist, and Xunzi, a
tempered virtue monist, especially in relation to their notably different modes
of Confucian constitutionalism.
My central argument has been threefold: first, there is significant parallelism
between Mencius’s and Xunzi’s accounts of human nature and their equally
different descriptions of the state of nature understood in this chapter (and
throughout the book) as the pre-​li state; second, Xunzi’s political theory devel-
oped with the view to overcoming the state of nature pays special attention to
ritual propriety as civic virtue, composed of several preservative virtues that
directly underpin the ritual institutions introduced as the civil bulwark against
social chaos and political disorder; and third, deeply concerned with social har-
mony and order in the post-​li state, Xunzi upholds what I call “the Confucian
principle of civility,” which renders moral conflict between the gentlemen and
the petty men civil, thereby keeping the civil state from deteriorating into a
state of resentment and unending brawl.
That being said, one may still find the distinction between moral virtue and
civic virtue in Xunzi’s political theory arbitrary. After all, it may be pointed
out, this distinction is my attribution to Xunzi and it is not Xunzi’s own philo-
sophical concept with which he advanced his political theory. But, it should be
recalled, Xunzi also did not (nor did Mencius) self-​consciously present himself
as a theorist of virtue ethics in the way in which the theory is understood in
contemporary ethics and moral philosophy. What seems more important to
me is whether this distinction is helpful in illuminating the nature of Xunzi’s
virtue ethics and politics in comparison with Mencius’s and whether it can be
supported by the sayings of classical Confucians, most importantly Confucius.

65
See, most notably, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Confucian Moral Self Cultivation (Indianapolis, IN:
Hackett, 2000).
Before and after Ritual: Moral Virtue and Civic Virtue 113

Now consider the following conversation between Confucius (C) and

Yuansi (Y).
Y: If in one’s conduct one refrains from intimidation (ke 克), from self-​
importance (fa 伐), from ill will (yuan 怨), and from greed (yu 欲), can
one be considered ren?
C: I would say that this is hard to do but I don’t know that [refraining from
such things would] make one ren.66
“Intimidation,” “self-​importance,” “ill will,” and “greed” present a list of the
quintessential vices in The Analects, which relegate civil society to a state
of disharmony and mutual struggle. According to the passage, Confucius
acknowledges the importance of overcoming them, supposedly by means of
li,67 although he thinks that refraining from such antisocial passions is still
short of being ren. If we understand “intimidation,” “self-​importance,” “ill
will,” and “greed” as Confucian incivilities, Confucius’s refusal to equate the
overcoming of them directly with ren can help us to see the middle ground,
implicitly acknowledged by Confucius, between incivilities and moral virtues,
namely, the space of Confucian civilities, the virtues that are more proximately
concerned with sociability (and social harmony and order) but whose relation-
ship with genuine human excellence and flourishing (i.e., the telos of moral
virtue) is less obvious, even convoluted.
If my interpretation of Confucian civilities as the middle ground between
incivilities and moral virtues is not far-​fetched, it can be concluded that Xunzi
further develops Confucius’s seminal insight in a more explicitly political
context in which the civil state ought to be created by overcoming the disor-
derly state of nature. In Xunzi’s political theory, ritual propriety is featured
primarily as a civic virtue composed of several preservative virtues and it is
instrumental to the preservation of civilities that undergird the backbone of the
ritual institutions. In contrast, firm and quasi-​religious belief in the goodness
of human nature, which renders the state of nature far from uncivil and vio-
lent, appears to have led Mencius to pay less attention to the political project
of carving out a civil ground standing between incivility and moral perfec-
tion and identifying the virtues that buttress it. Instead, Mencius was far more
attracted than Xunzi to a strong form of virtue monism that does not (explic-
itly) acknowledge virtue’s instrumental connection to politics in its valorization
of pure moral motivation and its intrinsic relation with the formation of moral
character.
Thus understood, we can conclude that it is Mencius, not Xunzi, who parted
more radically with Confucius insomuch as his political theory is concerned.

66
The Analects 14.1 (the English translation is adopted from Roger T. Ames and Henry Rosemont
Jr., The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation [New York: Ballantine Books,
1998]).
67
Cf. The Analects 12.1.
114 Confucian Constitutionalism

The fact that Xunzi’s political theory is more faithful to Confucius’s original
position will be given additional textual (and interpretive) support when we
turn to Xunzi’s positive attitude toward badao in Chapter 5. But before doing
so, let us first investigate how Mencius’s strong virtue monism is internally
connected with his advocacy of negative Confucianism.
Part II

WANG, BA, AND INTERSTATE RELATIONS

4

The Psychology of Negative Confucianism

In Chapter 2, I argued that Mencius’s and Xunzi’s contrasting attitudes

toward the abdication doctrine, and, more importantly, their differing visions
of Confucian constitutionalism, ultimately have to do with their differing
conceptualizations of kingship –​personal (Mencius) and institutional (Xunzi).
It should be cautioned, however, that like most other dyadic theoretical
frameworks employed in this book, including “negative and positive,” “virtue
constitutionalism and ritual constitutionalism,” and “moral virtue and civic
virtue,” the distinction between personal and institutional does not imply a
stark dichotomy. It is far from my intention to claim that by emphasizing the
personal dimension of kingship (or rulership in general) Mencius has completely
dismissed its institutional dimension or that Xunzi has likewise sidelined the
personal dimension of kingship in his strong emphasis of kingship as the core
organ of ritual constitutionalism. Committed to the paradigm of Confucian
virtue politics, they both believe that good government, fully devoted to the
people’s material and moral well-​being, is predicated on the ritual institutions
and that it is the ruler’s formidable moral character that helps maintain such
institutions –​the “model” of Confucian constitutionalism –​against all sorts of
situational variations.1 Like other dyadic frameworks employed in this book,
the “personal versus institutional” framework is only to clarify the distinctive
philosophical contributions that Mencius and Xunzi each make to the political
theory of Confucian virtue politics.
With this clarification, I now turn to Mencius’s understanding of kingship
and its implications for his idea of negative Confucianism. Although in the
Introduction I set out the concept of negative Confucianism in terms of

1
The following ancient saying quoted by Mencius best illustrates the close connection between
good character and social-​legal-​political institutions under the paradigm of Confucian virtue
politics: “Goodness alone is not sufficient for government; [t]‌he law unaided cannot make itself
effective” (Mencius 4A1).

117
118 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

constraining the ruler’s pursuit of private interests and arbitrary exercise of

political power by means of ritual and (the ministers’) virtue and discussed
why Mencius’s political theory is more oriented toward it than Xunzi’s with
special focus on its ethico-​religious characteristics, readers may have found
it puzzling that in Chapter 1 I drew attention to how Mencius’s political
theory goes “beyond negative Confucianism” (and has something interesting
to say about positive Confucianism) without articulating precisely how the
ethico-​religious nature of Mencius’s political theory gives rise to such a polit-
ical orientation. In fact, considering that the central aim of that chapter was
to illuminate the philosophical connection between the prudential concerns
implicated in Xunzi’s otherwise virtue-​based political theory and the theory’s
orientation toward positive Confucianism, one may think that my examination
of the general structure of Mencius’s political theory is incomplete, unless the
parallel examination revealing the ethico-​religious underpinning of Mencius’s
negative Confucianism is conducted in a philosophically persuasive way. That
is what this chapter aims to achieve.
I delayed this task for two reasons in Chapter 1, when I was reconstructing
negative and positive Confucianism in Mencius’s and especially Xunzi’s polit-
ical theory. The first reason is that our investigation of Mencius’s philosoph-
ical inclination toward negative Confucianism offers an important clue to
his extremely negative view of badao, which in turn provides the intellectual
backdrop against which the philosophical meaning and historical signifi-
cance of Xunzi’s normative reconstruction of badao as a morally acceptable
and politically viable mode of governance can be best illuminated, the subject
around which the following chapter (Chapter 5) is organized. The more impor-
tant reason, though, is that by examining the ethico-​religious underpinning
of Mencius’s idea of negative Confucianism, we can tackle a political theory
question of far-​reaching implications that deserves its own focus –​how we
should understand Confucian virtue-​based political theory (Mencius’s polit-
ical theory in particular) against the background of what it actively opposes,
namely Realpolitik, which largely defines the dominant domestic and inter-
state political reality during the late Warring States period. Therefore, in this
chapter I attempt to illuminate the gist of Mencius’s political theory of nega-
tive Confucianism by investigating the philosophical struggle in the context of
which he constructed his Confucian political theory as the normative antithesis
of the prevailing Realpolitik of his time.
Since part of the aim of this chapter is to understand Mencius’s “philo-
sophical struggle” with Realpolitik (especially its psychological foundation)
and reconstruct his political theory from the perspective obtained by such an
understanding, I adopt a different methodology here than that which I have
used in previous chapters, though still continuing to engage with philosophical
interpretations of the text. First, I approach Mencian negative Confucianism
not merely as a political disposition geared toward constraining the ruler’s
political power and private interest, but more profoundly (and boldly), as
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 119

a Confucian argument for “political liberty” similar to the way in which

Wm. Theodore de Bary attributes the “liberal” tradition to Confucianism.2
Second, I reconstruct philosophically the psychological origin and key polit-
ical characteristics of Realpolitik, a mode of politics completely decoupled
from any moral or ethical concerns, with reference to Nietzsche’s concept of
the “higher man” (Übermensch) and by interpreting it as the political ruler
idealized in Realpolitik. My central argument is that in Mencius’s political
theory Confucian moral power, though originally a purely individual quality,
undergoes remarkable transformation in the course of vigorous engagement
with Realpolitik into a form of political liberty, thereby giving rise to a pow-
erful political (and constitutional) claim to negative Confucianism.

From Moral Heroism to Political Liberty: De Bary Revisited

Wm. Theodore de Bary is one of the first contemporary Confucian scholars
who gives the Confucians’ moral virtue and their strong sense of this-​worldly
transcendental mission of attaining and transmitting the Way a (distinctively
Confucian-​ style) “liberal” interpretation, as the moral-​political locomotive
pushing the Confucians to confront the mundane Realpolitik.3 While vindi-
cating the liberal tradition in Confucianism, originated from Confucius’ and
especially Mencius’s moral and political thought, in terms of “moral individu-
alism,” de Bary also presents moral freedom, an important byproduct of moral
self-​cultivation, as constitutive of political liberty against the Realpolitik of
autocratic power.4

2
In other words, by “political liberty” I mean a particular version of power originated in (a partic-
ular interpretation of) Mencius’s political theory, which was creatively re-​appropriated by later
Mencian Confucians. Therefore, it is not my intention to imply that Western-​style liberalism is
found in Mencius’s political theory or was an integral part of the later development of Mencian
Confucianism.
3
See Wm. Theodore de Bary, The Liberal Tradition in China (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1983). For the this-​worldly transcendental character of Confucianism (especially Mencian
Confucianism and Neo-​Confucianism influenced by it), see S. N. Eisenstadt, “This Worldly
Transcendentalism and the Structuring of the World: Weber’s ‘Religion of China’ and the
Format of Chinese History and Civilization,” Journal of Developing Societies 1 (1985), pp.
168–​186; Benjamin I. Schwartz, “The Age of Transcendence,” in China and Other Matters
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 65–​68. For the “liberal” reinterpretation
of Confucianism, see John W. Dardess, Confucianism and Autocracy: Professional Elites in the
Founding of the Ming Dynasty (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983); Tu Wei-​
ming, Way, Learning, and Politics: Essays in Confucian Intellectual (Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press, 1993); Alan T. Wood, Limits to Autocracy: From Song Neo-​Confucianism to
a Doctrine of Political Rights (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 1995).
4
To capture the essence of (Mencian) Confucianism mainly in moral individualistic terms may
seem to be counterintuitive given the Confucian emphasis on the importance of ritual and
affective human relationships. But the kernel of de Bary’s argument lies in the observation that
the social and political values of Confucianism stem from one’s profound interest in his or her
120 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

According to de Bary, the dialectical relation between moral freedom (or

moral virtue) and political liberty in Confucianism is made possible by the
“repossession of the Way” in which an individual discovers new meaning in
the earlier tradition and realizes his fundamental connectedness with Heaven,
allowing him to make a critical stance from the mundane world and to attack
prevalent evils and press for reform. Confucians, Mencius in particular, are
convinced that the repossession of the Way can be attained only through the
“learning for the sake of one’s self (wei ji zhi xue 爲己之學),” which emphasizes
a purely individual “responsibility for the Way (zi ren you dao 自任於道)”
and its actual “attainment in one’s self (zi de 自得).”5 De Bary captures this
Confucian aspiration of self-​empowerment by virtue of a creative reclaim of
the Way, as “the cult of individual moral heroism,” tracing the idea back to
Mencius with special focus on his famous notions of the “great man (da zhang
fu 大丈夫)” and “extraordinary scholar (hao jie zhi shi 豪傑之士).”6
De Bary notes that this Mencian-​Confucian notion of “heroism” is strictly
moral, thus going against the term’s conventional understanding. By quoting
Wu Cheng 吳澄(1249–​1333), one of the leading Confucian classicists during
the Yuan period, he highlights the moral dimension of the Confucian notion
of hero: “The world thinks of ‘heroes’ as men capable of spectacular feats of
military prowess, great drinking capacity, and extraordinary poetic gift, like
Cao Cao and the bold spirits in the Jin period. But these types only glorified
themselves and turned their backs on humanity.”7 Central to de Bary’s liberal
interpretation of Mencian Confucianism is that it is in mediation of moral her-
oism that a person (i.e., the Confucian gentleman) can further transform his
Heaven-​given moral freedom into a vigorous claim to political liberty, which
de Bary believes generated a “liberal” tension between the monarch and his
Confucian scholar-​bureaucrats in traditional Confucian politics.
To be sure, history attests that, rigorous self-​discipliners themselves, Mencian
Confucians (Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​Confucians in particular) firmly believed that
the essence of government lies in moral self-​cultivation, which in their view
should begin with the ruler’s self-​rectification. This conviction, argues de Bary,
“obliged the minister [the Confucian scholar-​bureaucrat], in his relation to the
ruler as defined in the Five Constant Relations … to assist the emperor in his

moral perfection. Put differently, social and political values are the consequences of the creative
socialization of the self, which eventually transcends the polarization of individual and society.
This very circularity of the argument, according to de Bary, “conveys the sense of life as a sacred
continuum of affective relations, from conjugal love to parental concern and filial devotion, all
centering on respect for the personhood of the individual” (Liberal Tradition, pp. 30–​31). For
a similar claim, see Tu Wei-​ming, Humanity and Self-​Cultivation: Essays in Confucian Thought
(Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1979), pp. 5–​34.
5
De Bary attributes the latter two elements of Confucianism critically to Mencius (Liberal
Tradition, p. 45).
6
Ibid., pp. 68–​72. For the references to Mencius, see Mencius 3B2; 7A10.
7
De Bary, Liberal Tradition, p. 69.
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 121

self-​cultivation and in the conduct of his moral life. In other words, he is to be

a minister in the sense of counselor, mentor, [and] preceptor.”8 In Julia Ching’s
judgment, the Confucians acted not only as the moral rectifiers of the ruler,
but, relying primarily on their own authority as self-​appointed interpreters of
the sacred message, “acted as moral judges of their sovereigns rather than as
dutiful ministers.”9
There appears, however, to be an important theoretical loophole in de Bary’s
attempt to link moral freedom to political liberty in Confucianism. Unless we
subscribe to the utterly naive presumption that moral freedom naturally gives
rise to political liberty, the question remains precisely how in Confucian pol-
itics moral freedom, which is originally inner-​directed, is transformed into a
vehicle for political liberty. To be sure, by illuminating the “constitutional”
dimension of Confucian politics (what I call negative Confucianism), which
he broadly captures in liberal terms,10 de Bary shows that Confucian polit-
ical ethics neither supports a Filmerian patriarchy nor is reduced to a mere
consanguinitism, despite its frequent family analogy of the political relation-
ship between the ruler and the ruled.11 Nevertheless, de Bary’s otherwise pen-
etrating insight into the transformation of moral freedom into political theory
(and Confucian constitutionalism) does not advance to a full-​blown Confucian
political theory that offers a philosophical articulation on the way in which
such transformation takes place and gains moral significance.
In order to directly come to terms with political liberty in Confucianism
exercised by Confucian ministers (if not by the people in general), or negative
Confucianism, it seems imperative to investigate the Confucian perception of
kingship, the very object to which the ministers’ (virtue-​based) political liberty

8
Ibid., p. 52. Also see Tu, Way, Learning, and Politics, p. 10.
9
Julia Ching, “The Goose Lake Monastery Debate,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 1:2 (1974),
pp. 161–​178, at p. 175 (quoted from de Bary, Liberal Tradition, p. 57). According to contempo-
rary constitutional scholar Tom Ginsburg, the relationship between the president and the con-
stitutional court in democratic South Korea and Taiwan is strikingly similar to that between the
emperor and Confucian scholar-​bureaucrats during the pre-​modern Confucian period in East
Asia, and this observation led him to capture the constitutional practices in both countries in
terms of “Confucian constitutionalism.” See his “Confucian Constitutionalism? The Emergence of
Constitutional Review in Korea and Taiwan,” Law and Social Inquiry 27:4 (2002), pp. 263–​299.
10
Wm. Theodore de Bary, “The ‘Constitutional Tradition’ in China,” Journal of Chinese Law
9 (1995), pp. 7–​34. Also see Wm. Theodore de Bary, “Introduction,” in Confucianism and
Human Rights, eds. Wm. Theodore de Bary and Tu Wei-​ming (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1998), pp. 1–​26, at pp. 16–​17 for an allusion to “constitutional culture” of traditional
Confucian politics.
11
For the inadequacy of the Filmerian interpretation of the Confucian state, see Fred R. Dallmayr,
“Confucianism and the Public Sphere: Five Relationships Plus One?” in The Politics of
Affective Relations: East Asia and Beyond, eds. Chaihark Hahm and Daniel A. Bell (Lanham,
MD: Lexington Books, 2004), pp. 41–​59, at p. 51. For an argument that Confucianism is essen-
tially a kind of consanguinitism, opposed to both individuality and sociality, see Qingping Liu,
“Filiality versus Sociality and Individuality: On Confucianism as ‘Consanguinitism’,” Philosophy
East and West 53:2 (2003), pp. 234–​250.
122 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

is directed. As we have seen in the preceding chapters, no classical Confucian,

not even Mencius, the champion of negative Confucianism, ever questioned
the legitimacy of a one-​man monarchy. After all, the political disagreement
between Mencius and Xunzi revolved around just what is more important –​
the ruler’s moral virtue (or moral character) or ritual institutions, though both
are necessary in actualizing Confucian virtue politics. My contention is that
Mencius’s recognition of an irrevocable internal break in the moral ideal of
sage-​kingship, espoused (and arguably reinvented) by Confucius, enabled him
in the political context of the Warring States period to impart new implications
to both sagehood and kingship: the moral (and spiritual) ideal of sagehood
became the question of universal moral self-​cultivation, accessible in principle
to anyone regardless of social pedigree, while kingship, now deprived of its
exclusive moral connection to Heaven and special claim to sagacity, was rele-
gated to a mere political institution, increasingly as the engine of Realpolitik.12
But what made Mencius rethink kingship, driving him to advocate negative
Confucianism, without denying the institutional authority of kingship as the
organ to fulfill the Mandate of Heaven? Absent Mencius’s own explanation,13
there is no way to know exactly what he had in mind when he reconstructed
Confucian virtue politics as predominantly oriented toward negative
Confucianism. However, taking a cue from Mencius’s acute realization of the
dangers internal to kingship as the institutional engine of pure power and also
from his unarticulated attempt to derive political liberty from moral freedom
(trusting de Bary’s seminal insight), I believe we can get close to Mencius’s
philosophical reasoning behind negative Confucianism. As noted earlier, my
strategy here is to make a considerable but necessary detour, first by inves-
tigating the psychological origin and political characteristics of Realpolitik,
the specter of which, as Mencius appears to have judged, is deeply implicated
with kingship, as reconfigured during the Warring States period, and against
which he offered Confucian virtue politics as an alternative political paradigm
with strong emphasis on its negative constitutionalism. I then make sense of
Mencius’s understanding of kingship from the perspective of the psychology
of Realpolitik. In other words, I present Mencius’s negative Confucianism and
moral claim to political liberty as the antithesis of Realpolitik. That being said,
I now turn to Nietzsche to philosophically reconstruct the psychological origin
of Realpolitik.

12
It is important to focus especially on sage-​kingship, not just any ordinary forms of kingship,
because only the break of this universal moral paradigm could entail and empower a new uni-
versally popularized claim to moral and political liberty as a critical individual entitlement in
Confucianism.
13
It is worth noting that no classical Confucian ever engaged in philosophical justification of
kingship as a mode of government, as if there were no other alternative forms of government
from which they could make a choice. For them, the moral legitimacy of kingship was largely
out of the question.
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 123

The Higher Man and the Will to Power

As is widely understood, Nietzsche, radically departing from the mainstream
Western political tradition, disparages man’s communal life as manifesting
collective mediocrity. Nietzsche captures the essence of the human condition
in terms of absolute “solitude” when he writes in a somewhat ironic tone that
“insofar as we are born, sworn, jealous friends of solitude, of our own most
profound, most midnightly, most middaily solitude: that is the type of man
we are, we free spirits!”14 In Nietzsche’s view, the only truth for a man of sol-
itude is the fact that life is saturated with pain, and therefore ceaseless and
inevitable suffering defines the human condition. Yet, in this otherwise nihil-
istic and frustrating situation, Nietzsche finds an exuberant source of spon-
taneity and power. Indeed, he even exclaims, “The discipline of suffering, of
great suffering –​do you not know that only this discipline has created all
enhancements of men so far?”15
Notwithstanding the apparent similarity with Hobbes’s natural man, whose
life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” Nietzsche’s solitary man, instead
of being preoccupied with self-​preservation by dominating others, utilizes vio-
lence solely for the purpose of an aesthetic construction of his own artistic life.
That is, for Nietzsche, power refers primarily to a psychological force ema-
nating from the unconscious whose expenditure, not preservation, is central
because, as he believes, a living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength.16
Life is nothing but a will to power. From this perspective, asserts Nietzsche,
“self-​preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results.”17
Precisely because of his explosive aesthetic spirit, however, Nietzsche’s nar-
cissist is a tragic “hero” who succumbs neither to the divine revelation of his-
tory nor to the instrumental calculation of profit. Because of the original act
of hubris, his life is led to a plethora of sufferings as seen, for example, in the
terrible triad of Oedipean fates: “[T]‌he same man who solved the riddle of
nature (the ambiguous Sphinx) must also, as murderer of his father and hus-
band of his mother, break the consecrated tables of the natural order.”18 The
greatness of this tragic soul lies in its never being daunted by agonizing pain
or frustrated by the fundamental chaos of life or the injustice in the universe
or of the gods. The Nietzschean tragic hero rather embraces nature as it is and
overcomes himself in the face of pain and suffering. He is a free spirit in that he

14
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. Walter
Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), § 44 (hereafter BGE).
15
BGE, § 225.
16
Keith Ansell-​Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Actor (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1994), pp. 46–​49.
17
BGE, § 13 (emphasis in original).
18
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy in The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals,
trans. Francis Golffing (New York: Anchor Books, 1956), p. 61. See also C. Fred Alford, The
Psychoanalysis of Greek Tragedy (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 41–​43.
124 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

is always prepared to squander his life in the pursuit of great deeds. To be great
is to stand willingly beyond good and evil.19
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche characterizes such a “terrible yet cre-
ative” tragic hero in terms of the “higher man” (Übermensch). Exactly who
Nietzsche means by the higher man is not so clear, however. In the prologue
to the work, Nietzsche portrays Zarathustra as the contemporary incarnation
of the higher man, but elsewhere primarily as a prophet heralding the advent
of the future higher man who in Zarathustra’s (or perhaps in Nietzsche’s own)
view will be “the true meaning of the earth” after the world-​historical event of
“the death of God.”20 In this second sense, the higher man is not merely a pro-
claimer of a new age21 but a lawgiver or legislator, the archetype of the political
hero and the symbol of greatness in ancient Greek thought.22 The higher man
thus interpreted is far from a philosopher attempting to consolidate the former
positings of values as “truths” that are safe for a civilized society composed of a
herd of the mediocre. Unlike the Enlightenment philosophers such as Kant and
Hegel, the genuine “philosophers” are, according to Nietzsche, commanders
and legislators whose “knowing is creating, whose creating is a legislation, and
whose will to truth is will to power.”23
Centering on the higher man’s inexhaustible creativity, Nietzsche draws a
compelling analogy between the higher man and the child in the famous meta-
phor of the three metamorphoses of human development, wherein the child –​
“innocent and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-​propelled wheel,
a first movement, a sacred ‘Yes’ ”24 –​is depicted as the final destination of
man who is, in his judgment, suspended on a rope, tied between beast and the
higher man over an abyss.25 What is important in this analogy is that the child
manifests man’s free spirit and untrammeled power; it represents the profound
appreciations of a life force –​a spontaneous yet violent effusion of primi-
tive impulse resting on man’s inner psyche or unconsciousness where “cruelty

19
Ansell-​Pearson, Introduction to Nietzsche, p. 106.
20
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter
Kaufmann (New York: Penguin Books, 1968), pp. 124–​125 (hereafter TSZ).
21
In Machiavelli’s language, therefore, the higher man is not so much an unarmed prophet but an
armed prophet like Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus. See Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince,
trans. Harvey C. Mansfield (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998), chap. VI.
22
Ansell-​Pearson, Introduction to Nietzsche, p. 103. This is not to claim, however, that this is the
only way to interpret Nietzsche’s enigmatic idea of the higher man. For instance, some scholars
do not associate the higher man directly with political leaders, paying more attention to the
greatness of the higher man’s soul, which goes beyond the mediocrity often affiliated with liber-
alism (as commonly practiced in the form of “rights discourse”) and democracy. For this alter-
native interpretation, see Paul Franco, “Tocqueville and Nietzsche on the Problem of Human
Greatness in Democracy,” Review of Politics 76:3 (2014), pp. 439–​467.
23
BGE, § 211.
24
TSZ, p. 139.
25
TSZ, pp. 126–​127.
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 125

precedes pity.”26 Thus Nietzsche urges us to reconsider cruelty in a positive and

life-​affirming sense: “Almost everything we call ‘higher culture’ is based on the
spiritualization of cruelty, on its becoming more profound: this is my proposi-
tion.”27 For Nietzsche, the pity that various religions preach is nothing but “a
hoarse, groaning, genuine sound of self-​contempt.”28
Being a total stranger to pity, therefore, Nietzsche’s higher man turns out to
be a narcissistic psychic whose absolute solitude could be perceived by others
as mysterious and potentially dangerous. But unlike Plato’s legislator of an
ideal city or philosopher-​king, for Nietzsche, the higher man is not merely a
hypothetical possibility, but real men in flesh and blood who have existed his-
torically.29 Famous examples include cruel yet heroic political rulers such as
Napoleon and Caesar Borgia.

The Psychological Origin of Realpolitik

Being a profound narcissist, Nietzsche’s higher man is a free spirit in the sense
that he does not develop the civilizing psychological tension between the
real ego and the ego ideal.30 In other words, Nietzsche’s higher man resists
what Freud calls the “process of identification”31 in which the real ego resists
succumbing to the object that is put in the place of the ego ideal. According to
Freud, identification occurs only within the “group” –​a concept that Nietzsche
never approaches positively –​where the group members (or the “horde,”
according to Freud) develop a libidinal relationship with the group leader. And
because the group leader does not belong to the group which he stands for,
argues Freud, he symbolizes an authentic individuality. Thus, for Freud, a true
individual is the father, chief, or ruler. Freud’s psychoanalysis helps suggest that
Nietzsche’s higher man can be best understood as a group leader. Consider the
following statement by Freud.

26
For this insight see Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, trans. James
Strachey (New York: Basic Books, 2000), p. 59 as well as Chapter XVII of Machiavelli’s The
Prince. For a nuanced examination of Nietzsche’s understanding of pity or compassion in rela-
tion to the higher man, see Michael L. Frazer, “The Compassion of Zarathustra: Nietzsche on
Sympathy and Strength,” Review of Politics 68:1 (2006), pp. 49–​78.
27
BGE, § 229.
28
BGE, § 222. Also see Max Horkheimer and Theodore Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment,
trans. Gunzelin S. Noerr and Edmund Jephcott (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002),
pp. 78–​90.
29
Paul F. Glenn, “Nietzsche’s Napoleon: The Higher Man as Political Actor,” Review of Politics
63:1 (2001), pp. 129–​158, at pp. 129–​130.
30
Sigmund Freud, Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, trans. James Strachey
(New York: Bantam Books, 1960), p. 52. Also see his Civilization and Its Discontents, trans.
James Strachey (New York: Norton, 1961), pp. 55, 76–​82.
31
Freud, Group Psychology, p. 57.
126 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

He, at the very beginning of the history of mankind, was the “superman” [or the higher
man] whom Nietzsche only expected [to emerge in] the future. Even today the members
of a group stand in need of the illusion that they are equally and justly loved by their
leader; but the leader himself need love no one else, he may be of a masterful nature,
absolutely narcissistic, self-​confident and independent.32

Though Freud’s idea that the higher man is only expected to emerge in the
future cannot be justified, as will be seen shortly, his interpretation of the
higher man as a group leader, especially a political leader, hits the mark. This is
evidenced by the fact that Nietzsche actually includes historical political figures
like Napoleon in his list of “the most profound and comprehensive men” of
his century.33 It is not that Nietzsche cared about the glorification of France,
or nationalism for that matter. In fact, he was a vehement critic of European
nationalism of the nineteenth century, regarding it as a sign of weakness and
decay.34 Nor was he fascinated by “public utility” to which the European
states of his time were singularly devoted, because for him, morality of utility
was deemed essentially a “slave morality.”35 Instead, Nietzsche characterizes
Napoleon as a higher man for who he was, not for what he did.36 The extraor-
dinary character of the man, not his accomplishments, makes him elevated. The
greatness of the higher man’s soul lies in the fact that it is a unified persona that
emerges out of the intense inner conflicts waged by formidable drives and pow-
erful instincts. In Nietzsche’s judgment, a higher man like Napoleon shapes and
molds his internal chaos into a coherent whole, thus accomplishing totality of
the self as the healthiest and highest of activities.37 In other words, Napoleon
represents a man of the higher culture of dominance and hence an antithesis to
the herd instinct of obedience.38 As Nietzsche sees it, Napoleon was the higher
man who declared a “war on the masses.”39
Absolutely independent, self-​confident, and narcissistic, a higher man, just
like a playing child absorbed in her own game, is also a “monological artist”
who discharges exuberant energy from his intense drive through his sole game,
the government. It is for this reason that Nietzsche lists Napoleon, along with
Confucius, the Roman emperors, and the late-​medieval popes deeply involved
in politics,40 as one of the “great artists of government.”41

32
Ibid., p. 71.
33
BGE, § 225.
34
BGE, §§ 241, 251, 256.
35
BGE, § 260.
36
Glenn, “Nietzsche’s Napoleon,” p. 133.
37
Ibid., p. 135. Also see Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York:
Vintage Books, 1968), § 1017 (hereafter WP).
38
See BGE, § 199.
39
WP, § 861.
40
WP, § 129. However, Nietzsche does not seem to have realized that unlike other higher men who
he acknowledges have historically existed, Confucius never held a position of political rulership.
41
Most notably, Machiavelli, the modern founder of Realpolitik, takes pains in The Prince to
teach an art of government to a new prince.
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 127

What is troubling, however, is that in the higher man’s fantasy, govern-

ment is not only envisaged but, all the more problematic, identified as his
own “body.” Put differently, the totality of his body is represented in terms of
“the body politic.”42 Understandably, the political manifestation of this fan-
tasy –​ namely, Realpolitik –​is pathological, because a higher man creates his
“body” by at once constructing and destroying it: his hammer is power and his
chisel is violence. Thus, Nietzsche repeatedly states that one misunderstands
the great person if one judges him from the viewpoint of public utility: the
monological artist does not care about the audience, and thus does not work
for the general welfare.43 Seen in this way, the higher man’s aesthetic construc-
tion of his fantasized body (i.e., the body politic) –​which is in effect driven
by the immense desire for his own growth and elevation –​may bring serious
harm to the people.
But why would the ruler hurt his own body? How can we make sense of the
ruler’s self-​mutilation? Recent psychoanalytical findings powerfully reveal a
counterintuitive fact that a self-​destructive action sometimes exerts a remark-
able healing effect from the perspective of the actor. Consider the following
observation by Armando Favazza:

Self-​mutilation … by a mentally ill person is a dramatically awesome act reminiscent

of a sacrificial rite. The bodies of some mentally ill self-​mutilators can be thought of as
a stage upon which is enacted a personal drama that reflects, in varying proportions,
personal psychopathology, social stresses, and cultural myths, especially those of a reli-
gious nature. The themes of these myths are suffering, dismemberment, blood sacrifice,
resurrection, rebirth, and the establishment (or reestablishment) of a new, prosperous,
healthy, and amicable order. Although an audience might regard the self-​mutilative act
as the tension-​heightening conclusion of a tragedy, the actors –​at least at the moment
of their self-​mutilation –​might regard it as a tension-​reducing, cathartic moment, or a
moment of clarification, or a moment that harbingers a new, more joyous conclusion to
the drama. For some, pain and blood are associated with death, but for others they are
associated with birth.44

For some, self-​mutilation is a morbid form of self-​help.45 For rulers in partic-

ular, political pathologies including purges, persecutions, and massacres can be
rationalized as an artistic endeavor to enable the rebirth of the body politic,

42
Recall the famous cover illustration of Hobbes’s Leviathan in which the king’s body is made
up of countless people. Hence, Michael Walzer states that “the political unity of the state has
no palpable shape or substance. The state is invisible; it must be personified before it can be
seen, symbolized before it can be loved, imagined before it can be conceived” (“On the Role
of Symbolism in Political Thought,” Political Science Quarterly 82:2 [1967], pp. 191–​204,
p. 194). In Chapter 2, though, I noted how Xunzi reconceived the Confucian body politic in
institutional-​constitutional terms.
43
Glenn, “Nietzsche’s Napoleon,” p. 143.
44
Armando R. Favazza, Bodies under Siege: Self-​Mutilation and Body Modification in Culture
and Psychiatry (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), pp. 45–​46.
45
Ibid., p. xix.
128 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

their own fantasized body. From the intellectuals’ viewpoint, however, the
ruler’s self-​mutilation or violent self-​help is nothing more than an irrational
and lunatic action, inevitably resulting in tyranny. To them, the ruler’s hammer
and chisel only signal a pathological use of violence and an arbitrary exertion
of political power.46
Admittedly, the Warring States period, during which Mencius and Xunzi were
active, was the political approximation in Chinese history of the seventeenth-​
and eighteenth-​century Europe when ambitious rulers violently competed for
supremacy and singularly pursued their personal glories.47 Put differently, it
was the moment of Realpolitik as vindicated by the final victory of Legalism
(especially of the version advanced by adept politicians like Li Si, if not Han
Fei, who developed a more principled form of Legalism equipped with its own
“moral” standard), with the reunification of “all under Heaven” by Qin, over
the Hundred Schools including (pre-​Qin) classical Confucianism advanced by
Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi.48 And it was during the late Warring States
period that “amongst the shepherds of men there [was] not one who [was] not
fond of killing.”49 Toward the prevailing Realpolitik, Confucians at large took
a critical stance, although some Confucians, including most notably Xunzi,
wrestled with creating a new mode of Confucianism (i.e., ritual constitution-
alism) with increased attention to social and political institutions through
which the spirit of Confucian virtue politics can be more effectively realized
than other alternative Confucian suggestions. But it was Mencius who leveled
the most poignant criticism at Realpolitik of the time and offered a thoughtful,
but hardly systematic, virtue-​based corrective to it. In the remainder of this
chapter, I reconstruct Mencius’s reasoning against Realpolitik and his advo-
cacy of negative Confucianism and political liberty by paying special attention
to his complex view of kingship.

Between Badao and Tyranny

Though the Mengzi records several anecdotes in which Mencius boldly
challenges the rulers, preoccupied with “enrichment of (his) state and the

46
Compare this observation –​the pathological use of violence rationalized in Realpolitik –​ with
Mencius’s and Xunzi’s endorsement of the legitimate use of military force from the perspective
of Confucian virtue politics in Chapter 6.
47
For this historical comparison, see Benjamin I. Schwartz, “The Chinese Perception of World
Order, Past and Present,” in The Chinese World Order: Traditional Chinas Foreign Relations,
ed. John K. Fairbank (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), pp. 278–​ 279;
Victoria Tin-​bor Hui, War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
48
But as noted in Chapter 2, the reunification of the world also enabled a rise of a new mode
of Confucianism, one adapted to the Legalistic institutional skeletons of the empire –​namely,
Legalistic Confucianism.
49
Mencius 1A6.
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 129

strengthening of (his) military (fu guo qiang bing),” he never criticizes kingship
itself as a form of government. Not only does he pay special attention to the
incumbent king’s final choice of a royal successor in his ultimate endorsement
of the first hereditary transmission of kingship, as we have seen in Chapter 2,
but he also acknowledges that ancient sages such as Yao and Shun brought
civilization to humankind by virtue of their political role as king.50 A literal
reading of the text may even tempt us to believe that Mencius was a cham-
pion of absolute monarchy, even when he occasionally chastised individual
kings of his time.51 In the end, it may be concluded that Mencius’s political
arguments revolve around kingship: teaching, illuminating, and restoring the
bygone sage-​kingship.
This said, however, Mencius neither expresses regret about the fact that
Confucius was not a political ruler nor is persuaded by the special connection
between kingship and sagehood, the paradigm Confucius appears to have
fully subscribed to. Moreover, notwithstanding his strong conviction that
Heaven has chosen him for the supreme role of awakening the people toward
morality and the ruler(s) toward the Kingly Way,52 Mencius at no point
complains about his own failure to become a political ruler or about Heaven
not bestowing such an opportunity on him. For him, kingship is something
that is already there, established by Heaven, something irrevocable and irre-
placeable. At the same time, for Mencius, kingship is no longer sacred as it
is, especially during his time when it is being claimed by the rulers of former
feudal states, though it originally belonged exclusively to the universal ruler of
the Zhou dynasty. What is worth noting is Mencius’s response to kingship that
has undergone radical reconceptualization during the Warring States period,
from the office of Heaven to the vehicle for Realpolitik –​namely his norma-
tive exaltation of the (virtuous) minister as the force countervailing the ruler’s
arbitrary use of power. Mencius’s normative position is best presented in the
following statement, in which he admonishes King Xuan of Qi in an excep-
tionally strong tone:
If a prince treats his [ministers] as his hands and feet, they will treat him as their belly
and heart. If he treats them as his horses and hounds, they will treat him as a stranger.
If he treats them as mud and weeds, they will treat him as an enemy.53

What is striking in this statement is the critical normative distance between

the king and the Confucian ministers. For some, the vehemence with which

50
Mencius 3A4.
51
Concluding his examination of Mencius’s account of abdication, Yuri Pines notes that “it is
solely the acting ruler’s prerogative to decide to whom to transfer power, and the idea of yielding
the throne is not supposed to undermine the absolute power of the sovereign” (Envisioning
Eternal Empire: Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States Era [Honolulu, HI: University
of Hawaii Press, 2009], p. 76).
52
Mencius 2B13.
53
Mencius 4B3.
130 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

Mencius contrasts the morally upright ministers to the ruler wielding his power
whimsically and tyrannizing his subjects may be rather surprising because the
Confucianism (that is, negative Confucianism) he presents here is not at all
consistent with its conventional image, popularized by Max Weber as a reli-
gion of “an adjustment to the world, to its orders and conventions.”54 Though
Mencius may seemingly be warning that a tyrannical ruler will and ought to be
disobeyed and further challenged by his (virtuous Confucian) ministers, under-
lying his normative contrast between the king, now decoupled from sagacity,
and the ministers, seems to be the deeper assumption that the king, as the car-
rier of Realpolitik, and the Confucian scholar-​ministers, whose political posi-
tion is open in principle to any virtuous (male) person, are completely different
kinds of beings.
It may be objected that the contrast Mencius has in mind is not necessarily
between any ruler and any minister or between kingship and ministership as
such, but rather a contrast between a tyrannical ruler and a virtuous minister
and therefore that his critical stance toward tyranny should not be extended
to kingship as such. But my argument about Mencius’s underlying assumption
finds an interpretative, albeit implicit, support in the later Confucian tradition.
More specifically, I submit that a political reading of Zhu Xi’s famous preface
to the commentary of Zhongyong 中庸 (The Doctrine of the Mean), where
Zhu Xi reconstructs a Confucian genealogy of the lineage of the Way or the
Sagely-​Line, lends strong support to my interpretation.55 Stated briefly, Zhu
Xi’s account of the Sagely-​Line goes as follows: The Way, once possessed, albeit
intermittently, by the sage-​kings, was resumed by Confucius, though he did
not attain a position of political authority. And the Way, lost after the demise
of Mencius, who had himself reclaimed it a hundred years after Confucius,
was mysteriously redeemed by the Neo-​Confucian moral heroes of the Song
dynasty after one millennium.56
In the Preface, Zhu Xi implies that the derailment of the Princely-​Line from
the Sagely-​Line upon the beginning of the hereditary kingship has brought
about a fundamental change to the conception of kingship. One of the key
assumptions in (Neo-​ )Confucian humanism is that the Way repossessed
through self-​cultivation transforms one’s self.57 Zhu Xi only reverses the rea-
soning –​that is, the loss of the Way equally transforms the self in the complete
opposite way. The two most notorious tyrants in Chinese history, Jie and Zhòu,
are the cases in point. King Xuan of Qi asks Mencius whether it is true that

54
Max Weber, The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, ed. and trans. Hans H. Gerth
(New York: The Free Press, 1951), p. 152.
55
It is important to note that Zhu Xi’s Neo-​Confucian lineage of the Way is indeed drawn from
Mencius’s seminal construction of the lineage of the Confucian Way. See Mencius 3B9.
56
For the full text, see de Bary, Liberal Tradition, p. 13.
57
Mencius 7A13.
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 131

sage-​king Tang, the founder of the Shang dynasty, banished Jie and whether
another sage-​king Wu, the co-​founder of the Zhou Dynasty, marched against
Zhòu. Mencius replies, “One who mutilates ren should be called a ‘mutilator.’
One who mutilates yi should be called a ‘crippler.’ A crippler and mutilator
is called a mere ‘fellow’ (yi fu 一夫). I have indeed heard of the execution
of this one fellow Zhòu, but I have not heard of it as the assassination of
one’s ruler.”58 Mencius’s point is strikingly Freudian: “They were worshipped
as a god one day but killed as a criminal the next.”59 The only difference is
that for Mencius, the loss of the Way is of pivotal significance in these reverse
self-​transformations.
Seen in this way, we can derive from (our interpretation of) Mencius’s account
two diametrically opposed human kinds: kings, the practitioners of Realpolitik
who are highly susceptible to tyranny, on the one side, and ministers, as carriers
of the Confucian Way, on the other. Jie and Zhòu are the two extreme cases
of the former, hence Mencius’s reference to them as mere “fellows.” But what
makes them “tyrants” in the Confucian sense? While Mencius offers no satis-
factory explanation, Zhu Xi’s commentary can help, when he notes that “if all
within the four seas turn toward someone, then he becomes the Son of Heaven.
If the world turns against him, then he becomes ‘a mere fellow.’ ”60 But that
Jie and Zhòu became mere fellows because the world turned against them
still does not explain why they lost the Mandate of Heaven, thereby causing
them to lose moral charisma as the king in its proper sense and the people to
turn against them. Precisely what did they do, causing them to be disfavored
by Heaven? Here some historical accounts may be useful. The chapter entitled
“Yin ben ji 殷本紀” of Shiji 史記 contains the following account of Zhòu:
Ti Zhòu [Emperor Zhòu] had a quick intelligence and discriminating powers, and was
fast in his hearing and eyesight, and had unusual physical strength, [and was known]
to have fought with strong beasts with his bare hands. He was intelligent enough to
resist criticism and had enough verbal faculty to cover up his wrongdoings. Dazzling
his subordinates with his ability and towering over all under Heaven with his talk,
he believed that all were beneath himself. He enjoyed wine and music and was fond
of women … He was negligent to ghosts and deities. He presided over orgies at Sand
Dunes, pouring wine into a pond and hanging meats like trees in a forest. He had men
and women undressed and chasing one another among them, drinking into the night.61

Admittedly, Zhòu’s character is in direct opposition to Shun’s, Mencius’s moral

hero, who is alleged to have simply “[held] himself in a respectful posture and

58
Mencius 1B8. The English translation here is adapted from Mengzi: With Selections from
Traditional Commentaries, trans. Bryan W. Van Norden (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2008).
59
Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo, trans. James Strachey (New York: Norton, 1950), p. 44.
60
Van Norden, Mengzi, p. 26.
61
Reprinted from Kwang-​chih Chang, Shang Civilization (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1980), pp. 13–​14.
132 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

[faced] due south” while ruling62 and who, according to Mencius’s narrative,
was concerned with being a filial son more than anything else.63 From the
Menciain Confucian perspective, Zhòu is nothing but a moral defunct. Quite
interestingly, however, from the Niezschean viewpoint, the above passage
reveals Zhòu’s extraordinary character: in this renewed perspective, Zhòu
is seen as a matchlessly powerful man whose action is solely driven by his
intense instinct and impulse. Zhòu’s enormous physical strength and remark-
able intelligence fits him more with such tragic heroes like Achilles than Yao
or Shun as narrated by the Confucians. In Shiji’s un-​Confucian account, Zhòu
presents himself as a Nietzschean narcissist who puts himself out of the reach
of criticism and acts as if there were no one but himself under Heaven.64 Even
ghosts and deities, to which he is to offer regular sacrifices because his power is
believed to rely on their blessing, are lowered to subservient positions. In short,
his narcissistic real ego refuses to succumb to the ego ideal or its substitutions
like ghosts and deities. Instead, in him the two egos are completely fused. Seen
in this way, the “mere fellow” Zhòu turns out to be a Nietzschean higher man.
It should now be clear that when evaluating Jie and Zhòu (or any immoral
ruler, for that matter) from the Confucian moral standpoint, Mencius’s concern
is not merely limited to assailing tyranny and protecting the people. A more pro-
found political project in which he is engaged is to turn the Nietzschean amoral
paradigm of ethics upside-​down. In Mencius, what Nietzsche takes to be “natural”
stands on its head. That is, Mencius reverses the Nietzschean order of distance
between the higher man and the common man, thereby transvaluating the moral
values between the two. The higher man’s self-​glorification is now devalued to
egotism and his strong impulse to sensuality; more importantly, his fantasized
game with his own “body” is recast in terms of tyranny.
Corresponding to this process of transvaluation of the Nietzschean natural
order is the reinvention of nature itself –​that is, the (re)discovery of Heaven
as the depository of morals and guarantor of cosmic harmony and sociopolit-
ical order.65 Nature, a totality of self-​contradiction permeated with pains and

62
The Analects 15.5.
63
Mencius 5A2–​4.
64
Note that Confucius singles out the following attitude of a ruler as being close to the way to ruin
the state: “I take no joy in being a ruler, except that no one dares to oppose what I say” (The
Analects 13.15). Also see Xunzi 32.3.
65
Modern Chinese archaeology attests that Heaven was rediscovered by the Zhou people when
they conquered the Shang dynasty and replaced the Shang people’s personified, allegedly inhu-
mane, ancestor-​god called Shang-​di by Heaven, impersonal universal moral god. Philosophically
speaking, though, it is Mencius who came up with a theory that coherently relates human
nature to Heaven. Thus, Julia Ching says, “[W]‌e [should] remember that with Mencius, the term
tian or Heaven has come to represent much more of a transcendent moral force, rather than
the supreme personal deity that it appeared to have been with Confucius” (Ching, Mysticism
and Kingship, p. 99). As discussed in Chapter 1, the distinctive nature of Xunzi’s Confucian
political theory can be attributed to the fact that he does not share this Mencian moral con-
ception of Heaven, although this does not make Xunzi’s political theory close to Nietzschean
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 133

sufferings in the Nietzschean system, thus turns into the cosmic and rational
hierarchy of moral order.66 In Mencius’s ethical thought, this process of moral
transvaluation of nature and the self culminates in his account of human nature
as good and his subsequent theory of self-​cultivation, the final goal of which is
to attain oneness with Heaven, thus becoming a sage.67 Mencius describes this
Confucian rational moral self-​transformation as follows: “For a man to give
full realization to his mind or heart is for him to understand his own nature,
and a man who knows his own nature will know Heaven. By retaining his
mind or heart and nurturing his nature he is serving Heaven.”68
Mencius’s transvaluation of the natural order, however, is not only against
tyranny. If that were the case, it would remain a great puzzle why he assails
badao with equal vigor and enmity, which is mainly consequentialist and more
“rational” (and apparently more ethical) than tyranny, starkly and norma-
tively contrasting it to the Kingly Way.69 Indeed, Mencius’s normative position
allows in principle no third way between (sage-​)kingship and tyranny; for him,
quoting Confucius, “there are two ways and two only: benevolence (ren) and
cruelty (bu ren 不仁).”70 Other than the Kingly Way are various ways to cruelty
and insomuch as they do not wholeheartedly subscribe to the Kingly Way, they
are all against it or bu ren, leading to cruelty.71 From the standpoint of this rig-
orous normative dichotomy, badao, to the extent that it does not comply with
the Kingly Way, falls under the way of cruelty.
At this point, one may raise a question as to whether or not it is adequate to
translate bu ren as cruelty because bu ren can mean the simple negation of ren,
rather than an active opposition to it, for which expressions such as fan ren
反仁 or fei ren 非仁 might be more suitable. My view, however, is that bu ren
as cruelty, which is D. C. Lau’s suggestion, best captures what Mencius, now

anti-​moralism either, given his simultaneous rejection of Realpolitik. For a detailed discussion
on the nature of Xunzi’s political realism, see Chapter 5.
66
By “rational” I mean “in accordance with moral order,” not in the sense of Western-​style ratio-
nalism, old and new. On Mencian rationalism, see Youngsun Back, “Confucian Heaven (天
Tian): Moral Economy and Contingency,” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8:1
(2016), pp. 51–​77.
67
On the moral and cosmic ideal of oneness in the Chinese (especially Confucian) philosophical
tradition, see Philip J. Ivanhoe, Oneness: East Asian Conceptions of Virtue, Happiness, and
How We Are All Connected (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017).
68
Mencius 7A1.
69
Among contemporary Chinese scholars Hui Jixing holds the view that for Mencius the true king
and the hegemon are diametrically opposed. See his Xunziyu zhongguowenhua 荀子與中國文化
[Xunzi and Chinese Culture] (Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chubanshe, 1996).
70
Mencius 4A2.
71
I return to Mencius’s normative dichotomy between ren and bu ren and/​or between the Kingly
Way and badao in Chapter 5, where I fully investigate his theoretical and practical accounts of
badao and reveal Xunzi’s distinct position in comparison. Readers should be reminded that in
Chapter 1 I engaged in the distinction between ren and bu ren from a different angle, that is,
with a view to morality of interest and positive Confucianism in Mencius’s (and Xunzi’s) polit-
ical theory.
134 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

enlisting the authority of Confucius, intends to convey, especially given the

context in which he clearly subscribes to the dualism of ren and bu ren when he
says ren yu bu ren er yi 仁與不仁而已. The context is unequivocally political.
First, the passage at hand in Mencius 4A2 follows an earlier discussion about
the Way of the former kings (xianwang zhi dao 先王之道) in 4A1, beginning
with the claim that similar to how “the compasses and the carpenter’s square
are the culmination of squares and circles, the sage[-​king] is the culmination of
humanity.” Second, Mencius relates the Way established by the sage-​kings to
the proper mode of rulership and subjectship, emphasizing that both the ruler
and the subject must model themselves after sage-​kings such as Yao and Shun.
Then, finally, Mencius claims that “[n]‌ot to serve one’s prince in the way Shun
served Yao is not to respect one’s prince; not to govern the people in the way
Yao governed his is to harm (zei 賊) one’s people,” leading to the statement
quoted here. The interpretation I support is that in Mencius’s political thought
any form of government or any mode of rulership that deviates from the Way
of the former kings or the Kingly Way is “simply bu ren” (bu ren er yi), which
inevitably harms (zei) the people, regardless of whether the actual instantia-
tion of bu ren is the extreme ill-​use (bao 暴) of the people or a lesser degree
of ill-​use, the payment for which is still politically expensive, not only for the
ruler but also for the people.72 I call this dualism in Mencius’s political theory
normative political dualism (i.e., normative dualism in relation to politics). The
fact that Mencius makes a practical, but not normative, distinction between
two instantiations of ill-​use of the people does not seem to support the view
that Mencius acknowledges a lesser degree of ill-​use as a viable political alter-
native between the Kingly Way and tyranny, because for him all cases of ill-​use
of the people, that is, all forms of deviation from the Kingly Way, are simply
bu ren or harmful to the people, as clearly evidenced in Confucius’s statement.
As will be shown in Chapter 5, Mencius does acknowledge, though implicitly,
the practical distinction between different instantiations of ill-​use of the people
and this indeed reveals his sense of reality. But, as will be detailed in the same
chapter, it is Xunzi who turns this seminal insight into a normative distinction
on which to justify badao as a morally acceptable middle way between the
Kingly Way and tyranny. In this regard, I think Bryan Van Norden’s translation
of bu ren as “nonbenevolence,” though conveying the term’s literal meaning,
does not seem to consider the political context of Mencius’s utterance suffi-
ciently.73 In contrast, Bloom, like Lau, pays close attention to Mencius’s polit-
ical intent when she translates bu ren as “inhumane.”74

72
Readers are reminded that in Mencius 1B8, Mencius calls Jie and Zhòu, notorious tyrants,
ones who “mutilate benevolence (zei ren zi 賊仁者).” Here again Mencius clearly associates the
term zei 賊 (which Lau translates in 4A2 as “harm”) with tyranny, intending that “harming the
people” is the way of bu ren, which goes against ren, not its mere deprivation.
73
Van Norden, Mengzi, p. 90.
74
Mencius, trans. Irene Bloom (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), p. 75. For the crit-
ical importance of the context of utterance and its relation to meaning-​formation, see James
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 135

Having sorted out this important philological question in relation to

Mencius’s normative political dualism, let us revisit the conversation between
Mencius and King Xuan of Qi, which we discussed in Chapter 1. When the
king confesses to Mencius that his fondness for money is his greatest weakness,
Mencius replies, “In antiquity Gong Liu [the alleged founder of the predynastic
Zhou 周 clan] was fond of material goods too … You may be fond of mate-
rial goods, but so long as you share this fondness with the people, how can it
interfere with your becoming a true king?”75 What is important in the present
context is that Mencius’s normative dichotomy between ren and bu ren and/​or
between the Kingly Way (or sage-​kingship) and the way of cruelty (or tyranny)
allows us to construct another parallel dyad of normative contrast –​between
Gong Liu as a practitioner of the Kingly Way and King Xuan as a subscriber
to the way of cruelty. In Mencius’s normative framework, whether or not King
Xuan’s (or King Hui of Liang’s) government is factually analogous to that of Jie
or Zhòu is less important. The point to be gleaned here is that Mencius never
attempts to draw a vivid line between tyranny and badao, which was driving
the governments of the ambitious rulers of his time such as King Xuan and King
Hui. In Mencius’s normative view, their practical difference is nearly negligible
if they are contrasted to sage-​kingship and the moral perfection it represents.
But how does Mencius justify his normative framework? Is it not far-​fetched
to directly identify badao as a form of tyranny? Interestingly, another conver-
sation between Mencius and King Xuan of Qi reveals a deeper psychological
connection between the two morally problematic ruling types. Upon King Xuan’s
confession that he has fondness for valor (as well as for money), Mencius advises
him not to be fond of “small valor” by contrasting the king’s valor with that of
ancient sage-​king Wu who allegedly brought peace to the people with “one out-
burst of rage.” Mencius says “To look fierce, putting your hand on your sword
and say, ‘How dare he oppose me!’ is to show the valor of a common fellow
which is of use only against a single adversary. You should make it something
great.”76 Here, the king’s psychotic intolerance of and use of violence against
anyone who opposes him, be it his subject or the ruler of a competing state, is
defined as “small valor” or “the valor of a common fellow.” Yet, in Mencius’s
moral viewpoint, “small valor” is not limited to pursuit of a mere personal ven-
detta. It includes the king’s political ambition concerned predominantly with his
psychological satisfaction such as personal glorification. In this regard, another
conversation between Mencius (M) and King Xuan (X) is further revealing:
M: Perhaps, you find satisfaction only in starting a war, imperiling your subjects
and incurring the enmity of other feudal lords?

Tully (ed.), Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1988). I am grateful to one of the anonymous reviewers for pressing me with
this important interpretative question.
75
Mencius 1B5.
76
Mencius 1B3.
136 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

X: No. Why should I find satisfaction in such acts? I only wish to realize my
supreme ambition.
M: Is it because your food is not good enough to gratify your palate, and your
clothes not good enough to gratify your body? Or perhaps the sights and
sounds are not good enough to gratify your eyes and ears and your close
servants not good enough to serve you? Any of your various officials surely
could make good these deficiencies. It cannot be because of these things.
X: No. It is not because of these things.
M: In that case one can guess what your supreme ambition is. You wish to
extend your territory, to enjoy the homage of [equally big and powerful
states such as] Qin and Chu, to rule over the Central Kingdoms and to
bring peace to the barbarian tribes on the four borders. Seeking the ful-
fillment of such an ambition by such means as you employ is like looking
for fish by climbing a tree.77
King Xuan’s key claim is that his most immediate concern is not to exploit
the people, thereby satisfying his trivial material and sensual desires; nor, as
the argument goes, is it to overcome other kings. In the conversation, King
Xuan is repeatedly frustrated by Mencius’s utter lack of understanding
that the king, like himself, in his political action, simply forgets the world.
What compels the king, implies King Xuan, is something within himself,
that is, his profound ambition to preside over all under Heaven.78 Whether
his action would harm the people, incur the enmity of other kings, or
bring good (utilitarian) results to his people is of secondary importance.
The political consequences of his action are merely contingent upon the
circumstances.
Thus understood, “the unification of the Central Kingdoms,” the greatest
concern for all warring kings, is not so much a reasoned political project as a
psychological fantasy. In this fantasy, whatever stands in the way of realizing
the ruler’s ambition must be removed –​both from within and without. It is this
great ambition that Mencius belittles by calling it “small valor.”79 It is then con-
cluded that Mencius’s criticism (and by implication his negative Confucianism)

77
Mencius 1A7.
78
So I disagree with Van Norden, who claims that what the king wants here is “moral esteem,”
revealing his innate moral sentiment, which for Mencius works as the ground for his moral
self-​cultivation. See Bryan W. Van Norden, “Mengzi and Xunzi: Two Views of Human Agency,”
in Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi, eds. T. C. Kline III and Philip J. Ivanhoe
(Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000), pp. 103–​134, at p. 114.
79
For the Nietzschean conception of greatness, see Ansell-​Pearson, Introduction to Nietzsche,
pp. 148–​150. In fact, the theme of greatness is consistently found in Western political theory
from classical political philosophy to modern liberalism and the radical absence of this theme
marks the distinctive characteristic of Confucian political theory, especially of the Mencian
strand. See Robert Faulkner, The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Critics (New
Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007); Sharon R. Krause, Liberalism with Honor (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 137

is directed toward the ruler’s narcissistic pursuit of fulfilling his inner needs,
to which any ruler, derailed from the Sagely-​Line, is highly susceptible. In the
end, for Mencius, King Xuan’s small valor can hardly be differentiated from
Zhòu’s fanatic narcissism. For him, both tyranny and badao only signify the
way of cruelty.

Between Sage-​King and Tyrant

In the Confucian tradition, sagehood and kingship were originally in congru-
ence –​or so the Confucians believed. It should be recalled that even Confucius
strenuously resisted allowing himself the credit of sagehood because in his
view sagehood was the sage-​king’s essential ethical quality with his Heaven-​
given mandate to rule.80 It was Mencius who boldly set out to break the con-
gruence between sagehood and kingship and exalted Confucius as a sage by
crediting him with the title of “uncrowned king” (su wang 素王). Furthermore,
having witnessed that actual kings of his time were far from virtuous, Mencius
judiciously attempted to redefine the concept, and, accordingly, the scope of
sagehood, by decoupling it from kingship and extending its accessibility to
virtually everyone.81
What is often glossed over, however, is that redefining sagehood inevitably
requires the redefining of kingship as well. As noted, in Mencius’s moral per-
spective, kingship, originally sage-​ kingship, had pejoratively deteriorated
during the Warring States period into a tool of the vainglorious psychic’s
Realpolitik. Put differently, Mencius sees the Nietzschean higher man’s great
soul as posing an imminent threat to the people’s welfare and the constitutional
order of the Confucian polity. And yet, his political conservatism in relation
to kingship, as noted in Chapter 2, does not allow him to actively explore an
alternative political arrangement. In order to make sense of Mencius’s com-
plex approach to kingship (that is, his profound respect for it as a Heaven-​
established institution accompanied by his desire to limit it), therefore, it is of
crucial importance to examine the ideal picture of kingship that he, following
Confucius, holds onto, and to see what vulnerabilities Mencius thinks are pre-
sent in the ideal kingship. Since we have already extensively discussed the first
question in the context of his defense of abdication in Chapter 2, let us only
briefly recapitulate Mencius’s take on ideal kingship and pay more attention
to the second question.
One of the key points of Chapter 2 was that Mencius, in principle, was
persuaded by the abdication doctrine implicated in the abdication legend
recorded both in the Canon of Yao (Yaodian 堯典) of the Shujing 書經 (The
Book of Documents), which must have been available to Mencius, and in The

80
See The Analects 6.30; 7.34.
81
Ching, Mysticism and Kingship, p. 101.
138 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

Analects.82 At the heart of the abdication doctrine are two stipulations: (1) the
sole qualification for one to become the Son of Heaven is possession of brilliant
moral virtue and (2) the throne must be transmitted from one virtuous person
to another equally virtuous person through abdication. The political implica-
tion of the abdication doctrine is, as noted by de Bary, the complete absence of
a power struggle or political antagonism around the throne,83 which signifies
not political power but virtue, as only one truly virtuous person at a time is
assumed be the deserving candidate, whose appointment is made, in theory, by
Heaven. In this picture, the king is the paragon of moral virtue and is totally
insulated from blood-​shedding violence, perhaps except for cases of punitive
expedition. Even in such a case, Mencius argues that the sage-​king’s punish-
ment cannot be violent, refuting the Shujing’s description of King Wu’s puni-
tive expedition of Zhòu: “If one believed everything in the Book of History,
it would have been better for the Book not to have existed at all. In the Wu
Cheng 武成 chapter I accept only two or three strips. A benevolent man has
no match in the world. How could it be that ‘the blood spilled was enough to
carry staves along with it,’ when the most benevolent waged war against the
most cruel?”84
According to Julia Ching, throughout Chinese history the sage-​king par-
adigm had exerted a persistent impact on Chinese spiritual and political life
across philosophical and religious traditions, and Confucianism, Mencian
Confucianism in particular, is no exception. If Ching is right, it can be assumed
that the sage-​king paradigm decisively shaped Mencius’s moral and political
ideal, driving him to struggle with this ideal under drastically altered polit-
ical circumstances created by the warring states that showed no signs of its
realization. In the face of a violence-​ridden political reality but refusing to
forfeit his avowed political ideal, the path Mencius opted for was, as we saw
in Chapter 2, a “constitutionalist” one –​to focus on the king’s political con-
straint and moral rectification by means of the ministers’ virtue countervailing
his political power. Therefore, in Mencius’s negative Confucianism, the (vir-
tuous) ministers’ ritually sanctioned right to remonstrance as a form of moral
education is recast as an expression of their “love for the ruler” with a view to
making him a sage-​king.85
But here arise thorny questions. What if the kings preempt the sage-​king
paradigm for their political advantage? What if they utilize certain selective,

82
Although it is doubtful that the final chapter of The Analects, which contains the legendary
cases of abdication between Yao and Shun and between Shun and Yu, was available in its extant
form in Mencius’s life time, it is quite likely that Confucius’s own subscription to the abdication
legend was widely acknowledged by the Warring States Confucians, including Mencius.
83
De Bary, Trouble with Confucianism, p. 2.
84
Mencius 7B3.
85
Mencius 1B4.
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 139

though “problematic” in light of Confucian ethics and moral ideals, qualities

of the ancient sage-​kings found in the extant “Confucian” canons, particularly
their military prowess and cruelty, for their immoral political purposes?86 We
have already noted earlier that Shujing, one of the oldest Chinese classics, does
hold a striking record of sage-​king Wu’s blood-​shedding battle with the people
of Shang in his punitive expedition of Zhòu. Mencius questions the credibility
of that particular part of the text by emphasizing the improbability of the
involvement of cruelty when “the most benevolent waged war against the most
cruel.” But can we not imagine a case where ambitious kings take full advan-
tage of this violent image of a sage-​king to pursue their personal ambitions and
promote their private interests? What if a self-​claimed “sage-​king” turns to vio-
lence for realizing his political ambition, justifying its use based on his putative
sagacity? In this way, sage-​kingship, the ideal moral rulership, can potentially
be the source of the problem.
In this regard, the conflicting descriptions of sage-​ king Tang across the
Confucian classics are worth special attention. First, The Analects presents a scene
in which Tang makes an oath to Shang-​di before embarking upon a punitive
expedition against Jie, a tyrant:
I, Lű [Tang’s name], the little one, dare to offer a black bull and to make this declaration
before the great Lord (Shang-​di). I dare not pardon those who have transgressed. I shall
present thy servants as they are so that the choice rests with Thee alone. If I transgress, let
not the ten thousand states suffer because of me; but if the ten thousand states transgress,
the guilt is mine alone.87

Here, in The Analects, Tang is portrayed as the paragon of impeccable moral virtue.
However, in the Shujing, Tang presents a strikingly different image. Consider the
following passage featuring Tang’s oration stirring the people to attack Jie:
Now I must go punish him. I pray you, assist me, the One Man [read: the Son of
Heaven], to carry out the punishment appointed by Heaven. I will greatly reward you.
On no account disbelieve me; I will not eat my words. If you do not obey the words

86
Note that classical texts such as the Shujing and the Shijing 詩經 (The Book of Poetry), two of
the most important texts in our context, precede Confucius and therefore Confucianism. It is
by Confucius and his later followers that these texts, which were widely revered as a bonum
commune by many different schools of thought in the pre-​Qin period, were re-​appropriated as
“Confucian classics” with extensive editing. As John Henderson puts it, “The Chinese classics, in
other words, became classics, were transformed from collections of ancient records on matters
related to politics and ritual into a set of canonical texts by a process of excision or expurga-
tion.” See John B. Henderson, Scripture, Canon, and Commentary: A Comparison of Confucian
and Western Exegesis (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 27. The remaining
problem for Mencius was the practical challenges posed by the still “problematic” components
in the extant (i.e., edited) “Confucian” classics to his ideal of kingship and Confucian virtue
politics more broadly.
87
The Analects 20.1.
140 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

I have spoken to you I will put your children to death with you. You will find no
forgiveness.88

To be sure, he also promises, by implication, that he will not commit the crimes
he was accusing Jie of: “[He] in every way exhausts the strength of his people
and exercises oppression in the cities.”89 Nevertheless, Tang’s menace is in
shocking contrast to Yao’s politics of inaction (wuwei) and Mencius’s idea of
the benevolent ruler’s matchless charisma. For a sage-​king, what is the need
for such an enormous action (youwei), especially in the form of military expe-
dition? Why such anxiety over non-​compliance? Above all, why such a severe
threat?
This difficulty indeed led Gongsun Chou, one of Mencius’s students, to raise
a similar question about a different king, King Wen, King Wu’s father and the
co-​founder of the Zhou dynasty. Gongsun Chou’s question can be recapitu-
lated as follows: why did King Wen, virtuous as he was, fail to extend his influ-
ence over the whole world, leaving the unfulfilled task of punitive expedition
to his son? If it is an easy matter for a virtuous man to become a true king and
garner the people’s voluntary compliance without the use of coercion all over
the world, as Mencius insists, does King Wen’s case not prove that he lacked
true virtue or that his virtue was not perfect, making him unworthy of the title
of “sage”?90
In response, Mencius draws attention to the traditionalized charisma of the
Shang dynasty, whose legitimizing effect was enjoyed even by an outcast like
Zhòu.91 But if the charismatic tradition does matter, what is wrong with that
of the Xia dynasty established by sage-​king Yu? Why was Tang’s punitive expe-
dition against Jie so easy, to the extent that “when he marched on the east,
the western barbarians complained, and when he marched on the south, the
northern barbarians complained, all saying, ‘Why does he not come to us first?’
and the people longed for his coming as they longed for a rainbow in time
of severe drought?”92 What is the justification for Mencius taking Shujing’s
record of Tang at face value, while attempting philosophical reinterpretations
on the bloody and prolonged expedition of Wen and Wu?
Despite his defense of the legendary sage-​ kings as moral paragons, for
Mencius, the sage-​kings’ violence, cruelty and, more fundamentally, moral
imperfections remain unresolved problems. Not only do various histor-
ical accounts of the ancient sage-​kings contradict the paradigmatic image of

88
James Legge (trans.), Shu Ching: Book of History, ed. Clae Waltham (Chicago, IL: Henry
Regnery Company, 1971), p. 68.
89
Chang, Shang Civilization, p. 200.
90
Mencius 2A1.
91
However, Mencius does so without explicitly acknowledging that moral charisma, essen-
tially an individual characteristic, can be routinized and eventually transformed into tradition.
I discussed this issue in Chapter 2 (n35).
92
Mencius 1B11.
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 141

the ideal sage-​king who governs the people without the use of coercion for
their compliance, not to mention the use of violence, but they are further at
extreme odds with Mencius’s own understanding of the Confucian sage who
“transforms where he passes, and works wonders where he abides. He is in the
same stream as Heaven above and Earth below.”93
Wrestling with the sage-​kings’ violence and cruelty, Mencius seems to have
come to the conclusion that even sage-​kings are not completely free from nar-
cissism and violence, the defining characteristics of the Nietzschean higher
man. Moreover, as will be discussed in Chapter 6, during Mencius’s time the
rhetoric of sage-​kingship and abdication by virtue, predicated on the theory of
the Mandate of Heaven, turned out to be highly susceptible to the ambitious
ruler’s political manipulation.94 Mencius himself observed how the image of
the sage-​king could be selectively taken for the rulers’ political advantages and
for the realization of their dangerous narcissistic fantasies.95 When it became
clear that sage-​kingship was not completely insulated from the temptation
of Realpolitik and its rhetoric was always exposed to political manipulation,
Mencius’s prescription was to turn to negative Confucianism.

Inventing Confucian Political Liberty: Toward Negative Confucianism

Once realizing the politico-​psychological problems attached to kingship and
their real threats to the people’s well-​being and the Confucian constitutional
order in general, Mencius finally redirects his political theoretical focus to con-
triving an antithetical power to the Realpolitik that is latent in the very institu-
tion of kingship, now decoupled from sagehood with the firm establishment of
hereditary succession, yet without giving up the ideal of sage-​king. Practically,
his eminent concern was to limit monarchical power without rejecting its sym-
bolic authority and to do so in a way consistent with his ideal of Confucian
virtue politics.
In order to do so, Mencius takes advantage of the de facto severance of
sagehood and kingship to positively reformulate the Confucian theory of

93
Mencius 7A13. Mencius does not even believe that the sages would get their “hands dirty” when
making tough political decisions. See Sungmoon Kim, “Achieving the Way: Confucian Virtue
Politics and the Problem of Dirty Hands,” Philosophy East and West 66:1 (2016), pp. 152–​176.
94
For the later historical cases of manipulation of the theory of the Mandate of Heaven by the
rulers drawn to Realpolitik, see Tze-​Ki Hon, “Military Governance versus Civil Governance: A
Comparison of the Old History and the New History of the Five Dynasties,” in Imagining
Boundaries: Changing Confucian Doctrines, Texts, and Hermeneutics, eds. Kai-​wing Chow,
On-​cho Ng, and John B. Henderson (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1999),
pp. 85–​105.
95
See Arthur Waley, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China (London: George Allen and Unwin,
1939), pp. 137–​143 for the manipulation of the sage-​king paradigm, the abdication doctrine in
particular, by rulers of Qi and Chu in their endeavors to conquer and divide Song, a small state,
between them. I return to this case in Chapter 6 (n55).
142 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

sagehood. That is, by positing that every human being possesses the sprouts of
the cardinal moral virtues such as ren, yi, li, and zhi as Heaven-​endowed human
qualities,96 he opens the door of sagehood to everyone. Otherwise stated,
Mencius redefines (or popularizes) what used to be the source of the sage-​
king’s (or the higher man’s) exclusive inner psychological power or charisma –​
in this case “moral charisma” –​into a universal moral quality available to all.97
We have already seen that Mencius transvaluated the Nietzschean higher man
into a moral outcast, or, in the case of political leader, a tyrant. Now he brings
this transvaluating project into completion by allowing everyone the possi-
bility of becoming a sage. According to Mencius, anyone, as the possessor of
Heaven-​endowed good human nature, is entitled to say, “What sort of a man
was Shun? And what sort of a man am I? Anyone who can make anything of
himself will be like [Shun].”98 One’s moral perfectibility, argues Mencius, essen-
tially hangs on his effort at moral self-​cultivation. The “great man,” which, as
noted earlier, de Bary presents as the Mencian-​Confucian ideal of the moral
hero, is what one becomes after rigorous moral development. For Mencius, the
great man is one who “lives in the spacious dwelling, occupies the proper posi-
tion, and goes along the highway of the Empire. When he achieves his ambition
he shares these with the people; when he fails to do so he practices the Way
alone. He cannot be led into excesses when wealthy and honored or deflected
from his purpose when poor and obscure, nor can he be made to bow before
superior force.”99
Seen in this way, the Mandate of Heaven is no longer the king’s exclusive
moral entitlement. The idea of power held in public trust is still there, inso-
much as the kingship exists as a political institution and the king’s symbolic
authority is revered, but Heaven’s decree is hereafter redeemed as an individual
mission and personal commitment to the service of the people’s material and
moral well-​being.100 Between two kinds of honor, one bestowed by Heaven
and the other by man,101 the great man relentlessly pursues the former instead
of the mundane satisfaction bestowed by man, presumably the ruler. De Bary
captures this special sense of this-​worldly transcendental mission in terms of
the Confucian prophetic voice and attributes it to, among others, Confucius
and Mencius.102 Mencius presents Yi Yin, who later became King Tang’s prime
minister, as one of the best examples of the great man. Though I already quoted
the following passage in Chapter 2, let me revisit it here in order to clearly

96
Mencius 2A6; 6A6; 7A21.
97
For a theoretical discussion of the psychological connection between man’s inner psyche and
charisma, see Donald McIntosh, “Weber and Freud: On the Nature and Sources of Authority,”
American Sociological Review 35:5 (1970), pp. 901–​911.
98
Mencius 3A1.
99
Mencius 3B2.
100
De Bary, Trouble with Confucianism, p. 4.
101
Mencius 4A6.
102
De Bary, Trouble with Confucianism, pp. 9–​17.
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 143

understand how Mencius develops negative Confucianism from his idealiza-

tion of Yi Yin:
Yi Yin worked in the fields in the outskirts of You Xin, and delighted in the Way of
Yao and Shun … When Tang sent a messenger with presents to invite him to court, he
calmly said, “What do I want Tang’s presents for? I much prefer working in the fields,
delighting in the way of Yao and Shun.” Only after Tang sent a messenger for the third
time did he change his mind and say, “Is it not better for me to make this prince a Yao
or Shun than to remain in the fields, delighting in the way of Yao and Shun? … Heaven,
in producing the people, has given to those who first attain understanding the duty of
awakening those who are slow to understand; and to those who are the first to awaken
the duty of awakening those who are slow to awaken. I am among the first of Heaven’s
people to awaken. I shall awaken this people by means of this Way. If I do not awaken
them, who will do so?”103

This story powerfully conveys Mencius’s thesis of “moral aristocracy of

everyone”104 as it highlights Yi Yin’s remarkable moral ascension from farmer
to sage. That said, the story has far-​reaching political implications: with the
popularization of sagehood, not only can a man achieve moral perfection cul-
minating in sagehood, but he can also be politically empowered.105 The case
of Yi Yin clearly demonstrates Mencius’s political conviction that a morally
enlightened man, regardless of his social origin, is politically capable and well-​
prepared for public office, even able to become a prime minister. What is more,
Mencius implies that the actual government must be entrusted to a man of
moral excellence (like Yi Yin or Mencius himself) even when under the rule
of a sage-​king, given the ever-​existing temptation of Realpolitik lurking in the
very institution of kingship. The best government, in Mencius’ view, is one that
“honor[s]‌the good and wise and employ[s] the able so that outstanding men
are in high position” for only then “other men of virtue throughout the world
will be only too pleased to serve at [the king’s] court.”106 As such, in Mencius’s
fully developed political theory of Confucian virtue politics, charismatic moral
virtue is deeply connected to political empowerment.
Thus interpreted, in Mencius’s political theory, virtuous Confucians who
entertain their own special moral blessing and political mandate by Heaven
(i.e., responsibility for the people’s material and moral well-​being) cannot be
regarded merely as the ruler’s docile subjects. Though originally powerless, their
charismatic moral virtue is transformed, when in government, into a powerful

103
Mencius 5A7.
104
This expression is indebted to the title of Benjamin R. Barber’s book, An Aristocracy of
Everyone: The Politics of Education and the Future of America (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1992).
105
For a more detailed discussion on this point, see Sungmoon Kim, Public Reason Confucianism:
Democratic Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in East Asia (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2016), chap. 6.
106
Mencius 2A5.
144 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

political weapon, into a political claim to political liberty as the ritually sanc-
tioned right to constrain the ruler. Mencius illuminates the moral foundation of
Confucian political liberty by enlisting the authority of ancient sages,
[T]‌he sages of antiquity delighted in the Way, forgetting the exalted position of others.
That is why kings and dukes could not get to see them often except by showing them
due respect and observing due courtesy. If just to see them often was so difficult, how
much more so to induce them to take office?107

Quite surprisingly, according to Mencius, it is on the ruler’s demand (or request)

that a sage (or a virtuous Confucian scholar) takes office. Though the conven-
tional political hierarchy between the ruler and the subject remains intact, their
moral hierarchy has critically turned upside-​down when the minister positions
are taken by virtuous Confucian scholars: the virtuous minister is elevated
above the king in this moral hierarchy, thereby creating an important moral
space in which he can freely, that is, without fear, engage in political criticism.
I interpret such a moral space as a space of public freedom and the minister’s
ritually sanctioned right to political criticism as political liberty.108
In a different place in the Mengzi, Mencius offers a more revealing case to
show how the Confucian’s moral charisma turns into political power in the
political context. When asked why he is not eager to meet the kings, Mencius
explains the reason by alluding to the conversation that allegedly took place
between Zi Si, Confucius’s grandson (one who Mencius believes had succeeded
the Way after Confucius), and Duke Mu of Lu:
Duke Mu frequently went to see Zi Si. “How did kings of states with a thousand chariots in
antiquity make friends with virtuous Confucian scholars?” he asked. Zi Si was displeased.
“What the ancients talked about,” said he, “was serving them, not making friends with
them.” The reason for Zi Si’s displeasure was surely this. “In point of position, you are the
prince and I am your subject. How dare I be friends with you? In point of virtue, it is you
who ought to serve me. How can you presume to be friends with me?”109

In this way, Mencius crystallizes –​or in a Freudian terminology sublimates –​

what initially began as moral anger toward Realpolitik into a moral claim to
political liberty, which, like moral virtue, is available to everyone capable of

107
Mencius 7A8.
108
Thus conceived, the Mencian notion of political liberty is meaningfully differentiated both
from the traditional republican ideal of political liberty, the essence of which lies in freedom
as nondomination, and from the liberal idea of public freedom, which is concerned mainly
with rule of law and the right to political participation. For the republican ideal, see Quentin
Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Maurizio
Viroli, Republicanism (New York: Hill and Wang, 2002) and for the liberal account of polit-
ical liberty, see Richard Dagger, Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); James E. Fleming and Linda C. McClain,
Ordered Liberty: Rights, Responsibilities, and Virtues (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2013).
109
Mencius 5B7.
The Psychology of Negative Confucianism 145

moral self-​cultivation in the same way in which his account of political meri-
tocracy enables everyone who is morally cultivated (in varying degrees) to take
a public office, as high up as the position of prime minister.
Famously, in The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche characterizes the priest
caste’s transvaluation of the warrior caste’s master morality in terms of “an act
of spiritual vengeance,” although with reference to the Jew: “with frightening
consistency, [they] dared to invert the aristocratic value equations good/​noble/​
powerful/​beautiful/​happy/​favored-​of-​the-​gods and maintain, with the furious
hatred of the underprivileged and impotent, that only the poor, the powerless,
are good; only the suffering, sick, and ugly, truly blessed.”110 Aside from salient
differences between Confucianism and Christianity as religious or philosoph-
ical doctrines, given there is no institutional equivalent to the Church in the
Confucian moral-​political tradition, the Confucian scholar-​minister can hardly
be identified in terms of priesthood –​hence de Bary’s “prophet” analogy. Yet,
Nietzsche’s profound insight into the transvaluation between the two castes
bears greatly on the transvaluation between the kings of political power and
the Confucian scholar-​ministers of moral charisma or between the Realpolitik
of kingship derailed from the Sagely-​Line and negative Confucianism.

Conclusion
Tu Wei-​ming once argued that the Confucian intellectual’s practical reasoning
“urged him to confront the world of Realpolitik and to transform it from
within.”111 In this chapter, I have attempted to show that there is something
more than “practical reasoning” in the Confucian intellectual, especially in
Mencius as he confronts Realpolitik, culminating in his invention of Confucian
political liberty and negative Confucianism more generally.
From the perspective of Western modern constitutionalism, Mencius’s nega-
tive Confucianism might appear to lack the robust institutional mechanism to
constrain or enable the ruler, in a politically effective way. Even from the stand-
point of Xunzi’s more sophisticated vision of Confucian constitutionalism,
predicated on ritual institutions, Mencius’s negative Confucianism would be
deemed to depend too much for its constitutional viability on the political
power of the minister’s moral virtue, on the assumption that ministers are all
selected based on their virtue (unlike the king, whose selection is based on
hereditary right).112 In fact, one of my core arguments in Chapter 2 was that
it was precisely because of the critical institutional deficit in Mencius’s polit-
ical theory of Confucian virtue politics that Xunzi, in his endeavor to defend
the paradigm of Confucian virtue politics against other competing schools of

110
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, trans. Francis Golffing (New York: Anchor
Books, 1956), p. 167.
111
Tu, Way, Learning, and Politics, p. 10.
112
Most notably, see Mencius 6B13.
146 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

thought during the late Warring States period, was led to grapple with devel-
oping a more institutionally formidable form of Confucian constitutionalism.
My point, however, is not to claim that Mencius’s negative Confucianism is a
fully developed constitutional theory, even within the Confucian political tradi-
tion. Later Korean and Chinese Confucians such as Chŏng Tojŏn 鄭道傳 (1342–​
1398) and Huang Zhongxi 黃宗羲 (1610–​1695), who were also avid followers
of Mencius, indeed developed much more sophisticated Confucian constitu-
tional theories, equipped with detailed accounts of philosophical justifications
for and institutional mechanisms of constraining the ruler,113 although some
modern Western scholars cast skepticism on the constitutionalist character of
their (and other later Confucians’) more advanced Confucian political theo-
ries.114 Nor is it my argument that Mencius advanced a philosophically refined
conception of political liberty, which in itself can be embraced by modern East
Asians as an alternative to various Western conceptions of political liberty.
What is important here is that Mencius was the first Confucian theorist who
paid close attention to the political danger internal to (the Warring States con-
ception of) kingship, decoupled from the Sagely-​Line, as well as to the problem
of the sage-​king’s violence and the vulnerability of the very Confucian ideal of
sage-​kingship (especially the abdication doctrine) to the ambitious ruler’s polit-
ical manipulations, driving him to find a way to limit the ruler within the para-
digm of Confucian virtue politics. And, as we have seen, his solution was to fully
utilize Confucian virtue ethics, instead of going beyond it in search of “rule of
law,” for moral and political empowerment of the Confucian scholar-​ministers
in order to constrain the ruler’s arbitrary use of power and, ultimately, enhance
the people’s material and moral well-​being. Put differently, we can acknowl-
edge and appreciate the important contribution of Mencius’s political theory to
Confucian constitutionalism only against the backdrop of Confucius’s original
political thought, which does not fully address Confucianism’s constitutional
potential. And by acknowledging Mencius’s originality in the Confucian polit-
ical tradition, we can make proper sense of Xunzi’s profound intellectual debt
to Mencius (despite many disagreements with him) as much as his remark-
able philosophical innovations, still within the paradigm of Confucian virtue
politics.

113
For Chŏng Tojŏn’s and Huang Zhongxi’s Confucian constitutionalism, see Chai-​ sik
Chung, “Chŏng Tojŏn: ‘Architect’ of Yi Dynasty Government and Ideology,” in The Rise
of Neo-​ Confucianism in Korea, eds. Wm. Theodore de Bary and JaHyun K. Haboush
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), pp. 59–​ 88 and Wm. Theodore de Bary,
“Introduction,” in Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince –​Huang Tsung-​Hsi’s Ming-​i
tai-​fang lu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 1–​85, respectively.
114
For strong skepticism, see Hwa Yol Jung, “On Confucian Constitutionalism in Korea: A
Metacommentary,” in Confucianism, Law, and Democracy in Contemporary Korea, ed.
Sungmoon Kim (London: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2015), pp. 191–​207. For mild
and sympathetic skepticism, see Tom Ginsburg, “Constitutionalism: East Asian Antecedents,”
Chicago-​Kent Law Review 88 (2012), pp. 11–​33.
5

Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil

In the Confucian political tradition, badao (the Way of the hegemon) is

commonly identified as the mode of statecraft that is squarely opposed to
the Kingly Way, the ideal statecraft that relies on virtue and ritual, allegedly
practiced by the ancient sage-​kings.1 Both Mencius and Xunzi understand
badao as intimately associated with Realpolitik, though the most enthusiastic
practitioners of badao during the Warring States period frequently rationalized
it as motivated by ren or care for the people. Mencius offers perhaps the most
authoritative definition of badao as “statecraft relying on force” when he says,
“One who uses force (li 力) while borrowing from ren will become ‘leader of
the feudal lords’ (ba) … [whereas] one who puts ren into effect through the
transforming influence of moral virtue will become a true king.”2 However, this
definition of badao is hardly exhaustive as it is solely focused on the means it
employs. Fortunately, as we have seen in Chapter 1, Mencius clarifies, albeit
indirectly, the end of badao in his famous conversation with King Hui of Liang,
where he puts morality (ren and yi), the end of the Kingly Way, in stark oppo-
sition to the desire for profit (li*).3 Taken together, the most comprehensive

1
The most casually adopted English translation of badao is “hegemonic rule.” I do not think this
is an infelicitous translation, as during the Warring States period the bazhe 覇者 (the hegemonic
ruler) referred to the hegemonic force in the interstate world. Nevertheless, and in part to be con-
sistent with other chapters, I employ the original Chinese term badao to illuminate its statecraft
dimension.
2
Mencius 2A3.
3
Mencius 1A1. As we saw in Chapter 2, however, a close reading of the Mengzi reveals that
Mencius does not subscribe to a stark dichotomy between morality and material interest, despite
his dualistic political rhetoric, which brings us to the reasonable conclusion that he also would
not uphold a stark opposition between badao and the Kingly Way insomuch as his practical
political thinking is concerned. What is interesting about Mencius is that he nonetheless presents
himself as a normative political dualist, pitting the Kingly Way against all forms of govern-
ment deviating from it, including badao. As shown in Chapter 4, there is (or at least seems to
be) a deeper reason that Mencius is drawn to normative dualism in relation to politics, which

147
148 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

definition of badao can be a mode of statecraft that relies on the use of force in
order to maximize the state’s wealth and power.4
However, once the concept of badao was reconceptualized by Mencius
as opposition to the Kingly Way, it was rarely given further serious philo-
sophical scrutiny with regard to how it is conceptually and practically dis-
tinct from tyranny (or, as Xunzi calls it, “the way to ruin the state”) and
exactly how it is opposed to the Kingly Way. In traditional Chinese polit-
ical settings, what was more important than the concept of badao was the
rhetorical use of it in vilifying those who attempted institutional reforms
that seemed to drift from the Kingly Way, mostly due to its utilitarian goals
such as wealth and military strength of the state.5 Since the time of Mencius,
badao tended to be perceived negatively, that is, as the essential character-
istic of Realpolitik, or, sometimes, of Legalism rather than of Confucianism.
The tendency to view it as anti-​Confucian further intensified during the Song
and Ming periods, as Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​Confucianism, which was strongly
influenced by Mencian Confucianism, established itself as the ideological
orthodoxy.6 Under this Mencian orthodoxy, badao was rarely given serious

Xunzi does not seem to share, leading the latter to overcome the tension between normative
dualism and sense of reality in Mencius’s political theory. Whereas in Chapter 4 I investigated
the psychological origin of Mencius’s normative political dualism (and negative Confucianism),
this chapter illuminates his practical political thinking, on which Xunzi’s more elaborate and
coherent Confucian political theory is built.
4
In the Mengzi, Mencius never uses the term badao. However, it is indisputable that when
Mencius contrasts ba and wang, it is precisely ba as a particular mode of statecraft (i.e., badao)
that concerns him.
5
For example, Wang An-​shi, the famous reformer of Northern Song, was vehemently criticized
by Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​Confucians as a “treacherous subject” whose utilitarian policies, in their
judgment, only precipitated the fall of the Northern Song dynasty. Due to his utilitarian concerns,
Wang was often called a “badaoist.” For Wang’s reform and its Neo-​Confucian critiques, see James
T. Liu, Reform in Sung China: Wang An-​shih (1021–​1086) and His New Policies (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1959); Peter K. Bol, This Culture of Ours: Intellectual Transitions
in T’ang and Sung China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992), pp. 212–​253.
6
See Hoyt C. Tillman, Utilitarian Confucianism: Ch’en Liang’s Challenge to Chu Hsi (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). Seung-​Hwan Lee understands the debate during the Song
dynasty between Chen Liang, an advocate of badao, and Zhu Xi, an unwavering champion of
the Kingly Way, in terms of the conflict between consequentialism and moral motivism in the
Confucian tradition and traces the origin of this conflict back to Mencius and Xunzi, attrib-
uting to the former moral motivism and to the latter consequentialism. See Seung-​Hwan Lee,
“Chujawa chinnyangŭi wangp’aenonjaeng” [The Wang-​Ba Debate between Zhu Xi and Chen
Liang], in Yugasasangŭi sahoech’ŏrakchŏk chaejomyŏng [A Social Philosophical Reexamination
of Confucian Thought] (Seoul: Korea University Press, 1998), pp. 286–​321. As will be clear
later, I do not agree with Lee’s understanding of Mencius and Xunzi as it fails to appreciate
the former’s practical political thinking while dismissing the latter’s absolute commitment to
the Confucian Way. Nevertheless, I agree with Lee’s observation that many Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​
Confucians including Zhu Xi himself held a moralistic attitude toward badao, regarding it as
starkly opposed to the Kingly Way, and this tendency in part results from Mencius’s normative
political dualism, which frequently shadows the practical aspect of his political thought.
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 149

philosophical investigation, whether it has a morally acceptable normative

standard of its own or whether it is at all practically conducive to actualizing
the Kingly Way. Even today, the moral and political importance of badao is
largely neglected, and therefore its practical meaning and value, particularly
in the Confucian context, remains obscure.7
Does this mean that there is no “Confucian” value in the idea and prac-
tice of badao? Interestingly, Xunzi believed there is an important Confucian
value in badao. But does that matter, given Xunzi’s reputation as Mencius’s
archrival in the Confucian tradition? Since, one may argue, Xunzi, contrary to
Mencius, held a pessimistic view of human nature, flatly rejected the abdication
doctrine,8 and most importantly, was the teacher to several key founders of
Legalism such as Li Si and Han Fei, isn’t it to be naturally expected that he as a
harbinger of Legalism would find a certain political value in badao?
What is interesting about Xunzi is that while he, like Mencius, was uncom-
promisingly committed to the Kingly Way (and the morality of ren and yi), he,
unlike Mencius, believed that the operating principle of badao was pivoted
around xin (trust or trustworthiness), one of the core moral virtues that
Confucius identified as essential to both good character9 and good govern-
ment.10 Moreover, as I shall argue, Xunzi believed that although badao is not
necessarily directed toward moral edification of the people through Confucian
rituals, which is the supreme goal of the Kingly Way, it can provide a crit-
ical moral-​political bulwark against the anarchic (pre-​li) state of nature and
help achieve a certain feature of the Kingly Way. While disagreeing with the
means (force or other non-​ritualistic measures such as reward and punishment)
that badao occasionally relies on, Xunzi was able to appreciate the Confucian
moral-​political effect it generally produces. In short, rather than seeing badao
as starkly opposed to the Kingly Way, Xunzi understood it as falling short of,
yet approximating, the Kingly Way.
My primary aim in this chapter is to investigate Xunzi’s political theory of
badao. I begin with Mencius, though, who, as investigated in Chapter 4, con-
sidered badao to be the antithesis of the Kingly Way in principle, but never-
theless recognized its practical value under non-​ideal political circumstances.

7
A few important exceptions include Wei Zhentong, Xunziyu gudaizhexue 荀子與古代哲
學 [Xunzi and Ancient Philosophy] (Taibei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1992); Hyŏn-​kŭn
Chang, Sunja: Yeŭiro sesangŭl parojamnŭnda [Xunzi: To Correct the World by Ritual and
Yi] (Seoul: Hangilsa, 2015), chap. 6; Eirik L. Harris, “Xunzi’s Political Philosophy,” in Dao
Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi, ed. Eric L. Hutton (Dordrecht: Springer, 2016), pp. 95–​
138; Loubna El Amine, Classical Confucian Political Thought: A New Interpretation (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), pp. 51–​61.
8
See Chapter 2.
9
The Analects 7.25; 12.10; 15.6; 15.18.
10
Most notably, while mentioning sufficient food, sufficient arms (for defense) and people’s trust in
the government (or the ruler) as the three essential components of good government, Confucius
singles out people’s trust as the most critical element (The Analects 12.7).
150 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

I argue that Xunzi’s practical philosophy of badao was developed, consciously

I believe, in the course of resolving the tension between theory (i.e., normative
political dualism) and practice (i.e., tacit acknowledgement of practical utility)
latent in Mencius’s account of badao, thereby enriching the scope of Confucian
political philosophy. My central claim is that contrary to Mencius, who left
the aforementioned tension unresolved and therefore offered no deep polit-
ical philosophical reflection on badao, Xunzi creatively re-​appropriated badao
as a “morally decent” statecraft, within the overall parameter of Confucian
virtue politics. After examining Xunzi’s political philosophical articulation of
the moral and political value of badao in both domestic and interstate gov-
ernance during the Warring States period, I conclude by arguing that Xunzi’s
defense of badao should be understood in the context of what I call positive
Confucianism in Chapter 1, which speaks for the enabling and more politically
prudential aspect of Confucian virtue politics than negative Confucianism,
which is concentrated on the moral-​political critique and constraint of the
ruler’s private interest and political power.

Mencius on Badao: Between Theory and Practice

As discussed in Chapters 1 and especially 4, one of the distinctive features of
Mencius’s political theory is his stark contrast between what is the Kingly Way
and what is not.11 As we examined in Chapter 4 with special focus on Mencius
4A2, for Mencius the Kingly Way established by the ancient sage-​kings such
as Yao and Shun represents the immutable moral standard, which must be
followed faithfully by all social classes, especially by the ruler who possesses the
power to go against it, a point with which Xunzi fully agrees.12 In Mencius, the
observation that the Kingly Way is starkly opposed to anything that deviates
from it establishes a normative stance, which stipulates that, in principle, any
mode of government that falls into the category of the latter is bu ren and the
Way of bu ren is worthless, whatever limited practical good it may produce.
Implicit in Mencius’s normative political dualism is the conviction that a bu
ren government will not only fail to make the people virtuous, the long-​term
goal of good government, but will inevitably harm them. Put differently, in

11
It is worth reemphasizing that this logical/​theoretical contrast between the Kingly Way and
whatever deviates from the Kingly Way does not mean that they are polar opposites in practice.
My point is that despite tacit acknowledgment of the practical utility of badao, Mencius never
attempted to integrate this acknowledgment into his normative political theory. As I argue in
this chapter, it is Xunzi who resolved the tension between normative political dualism and polit-
ical reality in Mencius’s political theory by giving up the former and deriving a new normative
standard from the latter with a view to badao.
12
Xunzi 8.3; 19.2d; 20.2; 21.9; 23.1b; 23.2a; 24.5; 30.1.
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 151

Mencius’s view, whatever is deviant from the Kingly Way proactively militates
against it –​hence only two ways and nothing in between.13
Throughout the Mengzi, Mencius’s description of the Way of bu ren is
quite grotesque, when he criticizes the governments of King Hui of Liang and
King Xuan of Qi, two most ardent followers of badao in Mencius’s time. No
statement could be harsher than the following offered by Mencius with regard
to badao.
Confucius rejected those who enriched rulers not given to the practice of benevolent
government. How much more would he reject those who do their best to wage war
on their behalf? In wars to gain land, the dead fill the plains; in wars to gain cities, the
dead fill the cities. This is known as showing the land the way to devour human flesh.
Death is too light a punishment for such men. Hence those skilled in war should suffer
the most severe punishment; those who secure alliances with other feudal lords come
next, and then come those who open up waste lands and increase the yield of the soil.14

Here Mencius does not present the content explicitly in terms of badao, but
only as a rulership “not given to the practice of benevolent government.”
That said, even though the passage’s eminent focus is on the immorality of
(aggressive) war, Mencius’s real concern seems to be not so much the condem-
nation of war as such but the bad consequences that the Way of bu ren ineluc-
tably brings to the people, including unjust wars.15 Since badao is surely not
given to the practice of benevolent government, and given Mencius’s stark nor-
mative dichotomy between ren and bu ren, it would not be far-​fetched to read
Mencius’s statement above as a critique of badao. In fact, history attests that
the gist of the government exercised by the five hegemons during the Spring
and Autumn period –​most famously by Duke Huan of Qi16 –​can be summed
up as “securing alliances with other feudal lords” and “opening up waste lands
and increasing the yield of the soil.”17

13
More precisely, if the extreme ill-​use of the people represents the way of cruelty, a lesser ill-​use of
the people points to the way toward cruelty. In Mencius’s normative political dualism, however,
this otherwise significant practical distinction is given no philosophical attention. See Chapter 4.
14
Mencius 4A14. Though by “benevolent government” Mencius means to be in practice a good
government that serves the people’s moral and material well-​being, it can be formally defined as
a mode of government that follows the Kingly Way.
15
I discuss Mencius’s idea of just and unjust wars in Chapter 6. In the present context, it seems to
suffice to say that Mencius thought that only defensive wars and punitive expeditions are mor-
ally justified, or, in his own words, righteous (yi).
16
The other four, according to Xunzi, include Duke Wen of Jin, King Zhuang of Chu, King Helű
of Wu, and King Goujian of Yue (Xunzi 11.1c).
17
See Sydney Rosen, “In Search of the Historical Kuan Chung,” Journal of Asian Studies 35:3
(1976), pp. 431–​440. It is worth noting that Mencius 4A14 begins with Mencius’s explanation
of why Confucius criticized Ranqiu, his own student, who assisted the bu ren rule by the family
of Ji who usurped the political power of the state of Lu, Confucius’s home country, and relent-
lessly pursued the footsteps of the previous practitioners of badao.
152 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

What is important here is that Mencius condemns the practice of badao as

inherently predisposed to be cruel, regarding it as no better than, almost equiv-
alent to, tyranny. As we have seen in Mencius 4A2, a ruler practicing badao not
only creates hardship for his people, but he himself is always in danger and is
doomed to have his state reduced. Mencius is persuaded that even a man hailed
by the world as the greatest statesman should be the object of moral contempt
if that state is not in accordance with the Kingly Way. The following conver-
sation between Mencius (M) and Gongsun Chou (G) about Guan Zhong, the
legendary prime minister of Qi who allegedly helped Duke Huan to become
the first and arguably the most powerful hegemon,18 best illustrates Mencius’s
attitude toward badao.
G: If you, Master, were to hold the reins of government of Qi, could a rep-
etition of the success of Guan Zhong and Yanzi [the legendary Prime
Minister of Lu] be predicted?
M: You are very much a native of Qi. You know only of Guan Zhong and
Yanzi. Someone once asked Zengxi … “How do you compare with Guan
Zhong?” Zengxi looked offended. “Why do you compare me with such
a man as Guan Zhong? … Guan Zhong enjoyed the confidence of his
prince so exclusively and managed all his affairs for so long, and yet his
achievements were so insignificant. Why do you compare me with such a
man?” If it was beneath even Zengxi to become a Guan Zhong, are you
saying that I would be willing?
G: Guan Zhong made his prince leader of the feudal lords, and Yanzi made
his illustrious. Are they not good enough for you to emulate?
M: To make the King of Qi a true king is as easy as turning over one’s
hand … Even at the height of their power, the Xia, Yin [Shang] and Zhou
never exceeded a thousand li square in territory, yet Qi has the requisite
territory. The sound of cocks crowing and dogs barking can be heard all
the way to the four borders. Thus Qi has the requisite population. For Qi
no further extension of its territory or increase of its population is neces-
sary. The King of Qi can become a true king just by practicing benevolent
government, and no one will be able to stop him … [A]‌nd the people have
never suffered more under tyrannical government (nue zheng 虐政) than
today. It is easy to provide food for the hungry and drink for the thirsty.19

18
Ancient records (such as Zuo Zhuan 左傳 and Guoyu 國語) have different accounts about when
and precisely how Guan Zhong assisted Duke Huan of Qi. On this, see Rosen, “In Search of the
Historical Kuan Chung.” What is important in the present context, though, is not so much the
historical Guan Zhong but rather a unique normative personality reconstructed by Mencius and
Xunzi for their philosophical purposes.
19
Mencius 2A1. While Bloom, like Lau, translates nue zheng as “tyrannical government” (Mencius,
trans. Irene Bloom [New York: Columbia University Press, 2009]), Van Norden translates it as
“ferocious government,” highlighting the government’s extreme ill-​use of the people (Mengzi,
trans. Bryan W. Van Norden [Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2008]).
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 153

It appears that Gongsun Chou thinks highly of Guan Zhong for his great polit-
ical achievement, leading him to compare Guan Zhong with his own teacher.
Mencius’s attitude toward Guan Zhong is clearly negative, even contemptuous,
when he, obviously placing himself above Zengxi, the younger son of Zengshen
(better known as Zengzi, one of Confucius’s most beloved students), dismisses
the comparison, citing the anecdote that features Zengxi taking offense from
a similar comparison.
The conversation itself does not clearly tell us on what basis Mencius finds
Guan Zhong unworthy of comparison, except that he deems Guan Zhong’s
achievements insignificant. But given Mencius’s normative political dichotomy
between the Kingly Way and badao, it is not difficult to infer from his (indirect)
remark on Guan Zhong’s “insignificant achievement” that, in his view, what-
ever one could have “achieved” by means of badao, which is nothing more
than the Way of bu ren (say, extension of territory and increase in population)
is not a real achievement, as it does not concern the people’s moral and, argu-
ably, material well-​being and thereby stands in the way of realizing a benev-
olent government. Not surprisingly, Mencius then quickly turns to what he
deems to be a tyrannical government under the incumbent ruler (King Xuan)
of Qi and starts to discuss how easily the situation could be changed, were the
king to practice benevolent government. On a different occasion where King
Xuan of Qi himself asks Mencius about the hegemons such as Duke Huan of
Qi and Duke Wen of Jin, he likewise dismisses the question and initiates his
lengthy lecture on the Kingly Way.20
The conversation quoted above is revealing from a different angle as well.
Though Mencius describes King Xuan’s government as a “tyrannical govern-
ment,” it is quite doubtful that King Xuan was as brutal a tyrant as Jie or
Zhòu, the two most notorious tyrants in Chinese history. As discussed in detail
in Chapter 4, the king confessed to Mencius that he never found satisfaction in
starting a war, imperiling his subjects, or incurring the enmity of other feudal
lords; nor was it his ultimate objective to eat delicious foods or wear beau-
tiful clothes. Rather, his supreme ambition was “to extend [his] territory, to
enjoy the homage of Jin and Chu, to rule over the Middle Kingdom and to
bring peace to the barbarian tribes on the four borders.”21 In other words, he
20
Mencius 1A7. Based on Mencius 2A1 and 5A9, El Amine claims that “Mencius is more ambiv-
alent about Guan Zhong than is generally recognized” (Classical Confucian Political Thought,
p. 55). Her textual evidence is that in such passages, Guan Zhong is described by Mencius
as an accomplished statesman along with other worthy statesmen including Shun, Jiao Ge,
and Boli Xi. However, in 2A1 Guan Zhong is not listed “along with” the statesmen Mencius
speaks highly of. It is only after Gongsun Chou asks him about the sagely governments under
Kings Wen and Wu and Duke of Zhou that Mencius begins to talk about “the [ancient] worthy
men” (xianren 賢人) such as Shun, Jiao Ge, and several others, and in mentioning them in this
subsequent conversation, he clearly highlights how remote Guan Zhong is from these ancient
worthies. All the more puzzling, Guan Zhong is not even mentioned in 5A9, which is wholly
devoted to the illumination of Boli Xi’s moral character.
21
Mencius 1A7.
154 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

seems to have desired only to emulate Duke Huan, his ancestor, and realize
once again the splendor of a hegemon. What is important is that King Xuan’s
moral potential22 and his non-​tyrannical political motives notwithstanding,
Mencius calls his government “tyrannical,” thereby denying any qualitative
moral difference between him and the ancient tyrants.23
Thus far, I have shown that Mencius deliberately equated badao with tyr-
anny by holding a sharp normative distinction between ren and bu ren and,
by implication, between the Kingly Way and anything that deviates from it. In
actuality, however, Mencius’s understanding of badao is far more complicated
than what this theoretical and rhetorical account conveys. Despite his dispar-
agement of it from a normative viewpoint, in several other places in the Mengzi,
not only does Mencius distinguish badao from tyranny in terms of political
consequences, but he also recognizes, albeit tacitly, its (limited) practical utility.
In the remainder of this section, I probe into Mencius’s positive evaluation of
badao, which is in deep tension with his normative political dualism, and dis-
cuss how it surprisingly anticipates Xunzi’s renewed Confucian political theory
of badao.
On one occasion Mencius says: “The people under a leader (ba) of the feudal
lords are happy (huan yu ru 驩虞如); those under a true king are expansive and
content (hao hao ru 皞皞如). They bear no ill-​will when put to death, neither
do they feel any gratitude when profited. They move daily towards goodness
without realizing who it is that brings this about.”24 The primary purpose of
this passage is undoubtedly to extol the brilliant power of the Kingly Way
that achieves everything effortlessly (wuwei). However, it is debatable whether
Mencius here understands badao in contradistinction to the Kingly Way as he
often does. “Hao hao ru 皞皞如” describes an air of deep contentment, which
is a more profound mental and moral state than that which the expression
“huan yu ru 驩虞如” conveys, which is simply a state of joy.25 In this regard,
Mencius still cherishes the Kingly Way over badao. However, badao here is
given a positive connotation and does not seem to be starkly opposed to the
Kingly Way. Quite surprisingly (in light of his normative political dualism),

22
Mencius thought that King Xuan possessed the moral potential to become a benevolent king
especially when he witnessed that King Xuan felt pain while watching a sacrificial ox proceeding
innocently to death (Mencius 1A7). On King Xuan’s moral potential and Mencius’s desire to
introduce him to the training of moral self-​cultivation, see Philip J. Ivanhoe, “Confucian Self
Cultivation and Mengzi’s Notion of Extension,” in Essays on the Moral Philosophy of Mengzi,
eds. Xiusheng Liu and Philip J. Ivanhoe (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2002), pp. 221–​241, at
pp. 226–​234.
23
When Mencius vilifies the rulers of his time for being “fond of killing” (Mencius 1A6), he seems
to point out what practicing badao practically brings about rather than to claim that rulers are
motivated to kill the people.
24
Mencius 7A13.
25
According to Zhu Xi, this expression describes “the appearance of enlargement and self-​
possession.” See James Legge (trans.), The Chinese Classic, vol. 2 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press, 1970), pp. 454–​455.
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 155

Mencius seems to appreciate an important practical distinction between badao

and tyranny, under which people can in no way be happy.
Mencius’s implicit acknowledgment that badao can contribute to a morally
decent form of government is most unequivocally presented in the following
(lengthy) statement.
The Five Leaders of the feudal lords [read: five hegemons] were offenders against the
Three [ancient sage-​]Kings; the feudal lords of today are offenders against the Five
Leaders of the feudal lords; the Counselors of today are offenders against the feudal
lords of today … [T]‌he Emperor punishes (tao 討) [the ill-​governed feudal states] but
does not attack (fa 伐), while a feudal lord attacks (fa) but does not punish (tao). The
Five Leaders of the feudal lords intimidated feudal lords into joining them in their
attacks (fa) on other feudal lords. That is why I said, “The Five Leaders of the feudal
lords were offenders against the Three Kings.”
Of the Five Leaders, Duke Huan of Qi was the most illustrious. In the meeting of
Kui Qiu … [t]‌he first item of the pledge was, “Sons who are not dutiful are to be
punished; heirs should not be put aside; concubines should not be elevated to the
status of wives.” The second was, “Honor good and wise men and train the talented
so as to make known the virtuous.” The third was, “Respect the aged and be kind
to the young; do not forget the guest and the traveler.” The fourth was, “Gentlemen
should not hold office by heredity; different offices should not be held concurrently
by the same man; the selection of Gentlemen (shi 士) should be appropriate; a feudal
lord should not exercise sole authority in the execution of a Counselor.” The fifth
was, “Dykes should not be diverted; the sale of rice to other states should not be
prohibited; any fief given should be reported” … The feudal lords of today all violate
these five injunctions.26

Here Mencius’s argument is twofold. On the one hand, as a mode of interstate

governance, badao is morally inferior to and further violates the Kingly Way,
which is a typical Mencian argument. Accordingly, only the ruler of Zhou,
the son of Heaven, has the authority to punish (tao) a feudal lord, his subject,
who went astray from or critically violated the model of good government by
mobilizing the armies of the other feudal states.27 In this Zhou ideal of a just
war, to which Mencius subscribes wholeheartedly, an attack (fa) on a feudal
state by another feudal lord is illegitimate, morally as well as politically, given
their equal status in light of Zhou political ritualism. Therefore, for Mencius,
the hegemons are culpable because they, being merely feudal lords, did (or
attempted to do) what the Son of Heaven alone is morally entitled to do by the
Mandate of Heaven for the sake of interstate order and the cultural integrity
of the Zhou civilization. And what is worse, the hegemons did so not by the
influence of moral excellence but by means of their power.

26
Mencius 6B7.
27
Also see Mencius 7B2, in which Mencius submits that “[a]‌punitive expedition (zheng 征) is
a war waged by one in authority against his subordinates [i.e., the feudal lords].” I discuss
Mencius’s political theory of just war in Chapter 6.
156 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

On the other hand, though, and more importantly in the present context,
badao undergirds a certain moral (domestic and interstate) governance that,
though it may fall short of the benevolent government predicated on the Kingly
Way, is nevertheless significantly superior to the tyrannical governments of the
kind that prevailed during Mencius’s time. The statement that “[t]‌he feudal
lords of today are offenders against the Five Leaders of the feudal lords”
illustrates, albeit implicitly, that badao has a moral standard of its own and
that Mencius’s equation of badao with tyranny is tenable only when applied
to the badao-​inspired rulers who fail to live up to its moral standard (not to
mention the ideal of the Kingly Way), thereby failing to realize the political
potential latent in it.
Interpreted in this way, Mencius’s understanding of badao is tension-​ridden.
In theory, it is almost equivalent to tyranny. Yet, in reality, it contains its own
moral standard, which distinguishes it from tyranny that holds no moral stan-
dard at all, and when that moral standard is met, the state is made politically
strong, economically sufficient, and socially viable.
If Mencius were pressed to respond to this charge of inconsistency, he may
say that I have read too much into his simple discussion of badao. (It would
only produce an immoral government! Or so he may say.) As noted earlier,
Mencius’s normative political dualism of “badao versus wangdao” offered the
Confucians of later generations a powerful political rhetoric against any mode
of government that deviates from the Kingly Way, but Mencius’s recognition
of the moral value of badao was never taken seriously by his most ardent
followers, due to their preoccupation with the orthodox “Mencian” political
dichotomy. It is partly because Mencius himself, being the strongest advocate
of the ideal of the Kingly Way, never gave a serious philosophical reflection on
the moral value and political utility of badao, which he only tacitly acknowl-
edged. However, the recognition of the moral and political value of badao raises
a number of important political-​philosophical questions that any thoughtful
political theorist cannot afford to ignore: what is the moral standard of badao,
and is that standard a Confucian one? Is the moral standard of badao prac-
tically attainable under the most horrible political conditions wherein rulers
are permanently engaged in war? Does badao, when its moral ideal has been
realized, really make the state morally better, as well as politically ordered and
stable? Finally, is it politically important that badao is qualitatively different
from, and indeed morally superior to, tyranny?
In the next section, I argue that Xunzi answers all of these questions posi-
tively. This, however, does not mean that Xunzi objects to Mencius’s judgment
that badao is morally inferior to the Kingly Way. What he takes issue with
instead is Mencius’s guiding philosophical framework of normative political
dualism, which cannot accommodate Mencius’s own insight into practical
utility and (qualified) moral value of badao. Xunzi resolves the tension latent
in Mencius’s political theory by articulating the normative value of badao in
Confucian terms, thereby revamping Mencius’s normative political dualism.
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 157

Duke Huan of Qi and His Virtue

Before delving into Xunzi’s discussion of badao, it is important to resist the
common tendency to simply view Mencius as an “idealist” and Xunzi as a
“realist.”28 After all, Xunzi never advocates badao as the Confucian moral
ideal; he only defends it as a reasonable mode of moral statecraft in a way
philosophically coherent with his xing-​e thesis, with a penetrating eye on
“warring states,” political circumstances that defined his own time, and, admit-
tedly, by which his account of human nature was profoundly inspired. Given
Xunzi’s wholehearted commitment to the paradigm of Confucian virtue pol-
itics, his key argument, as I shall present below, must be understood to mean
that badao, with all its deficiencies in relation to the Kingly Way, should not
be placed in direct opposition to it –​the fallacy, in Xunzi’s view, that Mencius
seems to have committed.29
Then, how was Xunzi able to appreciate certain moral-​ political values
of badao more proactively while still regarding it as morally inferior to the
Kingly Way? To answer this question, it is necessary to begin with Xunzi’s most
straightforward assessment of the nature of badao. Consider the following
statement by Xunzi on Duke Huan of Qi and the badao he allegedly exercised:
Among the disciples of Confucius, even the young lads considered it shameful to speak
in praise of the five hegemons. How can this be the case? … Duke of Huan of Qi was
the most successful of the five hegemons, but among his early deeds he killed his elder
brother and seized the state. In conducting internal family matters, there were seven
of his sisters and aunts whom he did not marry off. Within his private chambers he
indulged in extravagant entertainments and music. He was presented with the whole
state of Qi as his portion, but he did not consider it sufficient. In foreign affairs, he
deceived Zhu and ambushed Ju, and he annexed thirty-​five states. Such was the impet-
uousness, corruption, perversion, and extravagance of his affairs and conduct. Simply
how could he be worthy of praise in the school of the great gentleman!
Even though he was like that, how is it that he did not perish but on the contrary
became a hegemon? … Duke Huan of Qi adopted the greatest measures (dajie 大節)
in the world … At a glance, he saw that Guan Zhong’s ability was sufficient to entrust
him with the state –​this was the greatest wisdom (dajie 大知) in the world. The Duke
let rest and forgot his anger at Guan Zhong, and he cast out and forgot their enmity.
He thereupon established him as “Uncle” –​this was the greatest decision (dajue 大
決) in the world … The noble and the lowly, elders and the youth alike, all with due
order followed Duke Huan in honoring and respecting him. These were the greatest
measures (dajie) in the world. If a feudal lord were to take just one such measure,
then no one could make him perish. Duke Huan combined all these measures and had

28
In part, based on Mencius’s “more purist attitude toward the hegemonic system” of Guan Zhong,
Benjamin Schwartz describes Mencius’s political theory in terms of the “soaring and defiant
idealism.” See Benjamin I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China (Cambridge,
MA: Belknap, 1985), p. 286.
29
Also see Wei, Xunziyu gudaizhexue, pp. 126–​130.
158 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

them complete. How, indeed, could he have perished! It was fitting that he become a
hegemon! That was not because of luck. Rather, that was due to the number of things
(shu 數) that he did right.30

Given Mencius’s appreciation of certain practical utility and limited moral value
of badao, there is ambiguity as to why Mencius believes that badao is inher-
ently immoral (bu ren), hence analogous to tyranny, and roundly rejects it as an
improper mode of statecraft. Interestingly, Xunzi’s account of Duke Huan offers
an important insight as to why Mencius does so.
Admittedly, for Mencius, who does not make an analytical distinction between
the government and the ruler, the most important criterion by which to make a
moral judgment on the quality of government is whether or not the ruler possesses
excellent moral virtue. Only if the ruler recognizes the importance of morality and
makes it part of his policies, Mencius believes, would he be able to devote himself
to the moral and material well-​being of the people. For Mencius, an alternative
road is logically closed as both material and moral ends of the Confucian benev-
olent government cannot be realized unless the ruler is virtuous.31 This would not
be allowed by Heaven, which Mencius understands as the cosmological repository
of morals. It is for this reason, as discussed in Chapter 4, that Mencius engages
primarily in the project of negative Confucianism, at the core of which lies moral
rectification of the ruler absorbed in the pursuit of Realpolitik by means of badao,
the way of or toward tyranny.32 In short, Mencius is firmly convinced that the
benevolent government, toward which the Kingly Way is directed, is a Heavenly
bliss that only a virtuous ruler and his felicitous people could enjoy.
Duke Huan of Qi in Xunzi’s depiction diametrically counters this Mencian
ideal of the virtuous ruler and, by implication, that of benevolent govern-
ment. From Mencius’s perspective, Duke Huan, who is “impetuous, corrupted,
perverse, and extravagant,” is nothing more than a tyrant and, accordingly,
his government is doomed to fail (or so goes the reasoning). Given that for
Mencius the seamless continuum from personal morality to government can
never be broken or modified, if he were to read the paragraphs quoted above,
he would stop at the end of the first paragraph (the depiction of the person of
Duke Huan) and not even bother to read the rest, where Xunzi discusses the
Duke’s political success.33

30
Xunzi 7.1.
31
On both material and moral ends of the Confucian benevolent government, see Mencius 3A4.
For Mencius, material sufficiency is only a prerequisite for the good life and, accordingly, in
Mencius’s political theory of Confucian virtue politics, moral enhancement of the people is
conditional on the improvement of their socioeconomic conditions. See Sungmoon Kim, “The
Secret of Confucian Wuwei Statecraft: Mencius’s Political Theory of Responsibility,” Asian
Philosophy 20:1 (2010), pp. 27–​42.
32
Mencius 4A20; 4B8; 5B9; 6B8.
33
Sumner Twiss and Jonathan Chan argue that there appears to be an inconsistency between
Xunzi’s view here of Duke Huan of Qi and his later position regarding the hegemon, by
believing that Xunzi’s evaluation of Duke Huan here is wholly negative. See Sumner B. Twiss
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 159

As a committed Confucian, Xunzi, while refusing to embrace the moral cos-

mology of Heaven on which Mencius’s ethico-​political system is predicated,
still fully agrees with Mencius’s judgment that Duke Huan is morally defi-
cient. For him, however, this is not the end of story, hence the second para-
graph. Unlike Mencius, Xunzi pays extra attention to the historical fact that
not only was Duke Huan (and his state) not destroyed, but he actually became
the most successful hegemon.34 The reason, according to Xunzi, is that Duke
Huan adopted the “greatest measures” (dajie) in the world.
It is not clear exactly what Xunzi meant by “dajie 大節,” because the term
is highly abstract in comparison with dazhi 大知 and dajue 大決. But I believe
that we can identify the term’s specific meaning here with reference to the polit-
ical context in which it is being used. Following Hutton, I understand dajie as
the combination of several “(greatest) measures” that Xunzi presents as the
key to the success of the Duke’s government –​namely, the greatest wisdom
(dazhi) which he exercised in recognizing Guan Zhong’s ability and the greatest
decision (dajue) that he made in employing Guan Zhong, honoring him, and
exalting his status.35 And it is in this context that Hutton translates the term
shu 數 at the end of Xunzi’s statement above as “the number of things he did
right,” implying that shu literally refers to the “number” of the right measures
that the Duke employed, enabling him to become a successful hegemon.36
In my view, dajie refers to the totality of the Duke’s “actions” (as Hutton
interprets) or, as I will submit shortly, his “virtue,” which encompasses all the
specific “measures” he took that Xunzi presents. Though compatible with
Hutton’s interpretation, my interpretation of dajie as an all-​ encompassing
virtue pays extra attention to the political context narrated by Xunzi in the
second paragraph in which Duke Huan is shown to have employed dajie for
political purposes. The key point of the paragraph is that Duke Huan, despite

and Jonathan Chan, “The Classical Confucian Position on the Legitimate Use of Military Force,”
Journal of Religious Ethics, 40:3 (2012), pp. 447–​472, at p. 453n7. The second paragraph in
the quote, however, clearly shows that Xunzi is quite positive toward Duke Huan’s remarkable
political achievements, when he sets out to account for the reason of the Duke’s success despite
his personal moral deficiencies.
34
More than once in the Xunzi, Xunzi says that if the ruler follows what he prescribes, “At his
greatest, he can become a true king (wang), and at the least he can become a hegemon (ba)”
(Xunzi 11.9b and 12.1). Here, ba is given a very positive rendition.
35
Knoblock translates dajie as the “greatest opportunities” and renders the whole sentence at issue
as “Duke Huan of Qi had the talent to take advantage of the world’s greatest opportunities.”
Although this way of rendering Duke Huan’s talent would be perfectly consistent with the con-
ventional (Neo-​Confucian) image of him as an amoral political realist, it does not seem to do
justice to Xunzi’s own understanding of him, which, as will be shown shortly, is importantly
moral in light of the virtue of xin (trust or trustworthiness).
36
Specifically, Hutton presents the following as the “four distinct elements” of the Duke’s behavior
that Xunzi approves: (1) recognizing a person as having talent (the “greatest wisdom”),
(2) employing that person as a minister (the “greatest decision”), (3) showing respect for that
person, and (4) giving that person material rewards (Xunzi: The Complete Text, p. 48n7).
160 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

personal enmity toward Guan Zhong,37 recognized his ability, showed respect
and honored him, and, most importantly, entrusted all state affairs to him,
thereby enabling Qi to become the most illustrious state during the Spring
and Autumn period. Here we learn that dajie, which Xunzi singles out as the
greatest thing Duke Huan was capable of, is the ruler’s political virtue indis-
pensable to “the Way” (dao 道) that helps make the state strong, at the heart
of which is the restraint of private, especially negative, emotions such as anger,
enmity, and/​or resentment that stand in the way of attaining the Way.38 What
is important is that “the Way” here is not so much the Kingly Way, which, as
conceived by Mencius, aims for achieving moral congruence between the Way
of Heaven and the Way of humans, but rather a political principle necessary
for ensuring the survival and further prosperity of the state, which thereby
undergirds a particular mode of statesmanship that has no obvious or direct
internal connection with personal moral virtue (such as ren and yi). This is
exactly what badao implies –​the “Way” (dao) that makes the state strong
but has no straightforward connection with the ruler’s personal moral virtue.
While the Kingly Way is animated by the ruler’s inner moral virtue like ren and
yi,39 badao, which is a more politically attuned “statecraft,” is heavily depen-
dent on the ruler’s ability to take a number (shu) of right measures for good
political consequences.40

37
Duke Xiang of Qi had two sons, Prince Xiao Bai (later Duke Huan) and Prince Jiu. After the
assassination of Duke Xiang by one of his subjects, Prince Xiao Bai and Prince Jiu (helped by
Guan Zhong) fought in a bloody struggle for the throne, which ended with Prince Xiao Bai’s
victory. Upon the enthronement, Duke Huan killed his elder brother and put Guan Zhong into
prison.
38
Legalists would assert that in the political arena, private emotion, be it negative or positive,
is completely irrelevant and thus must be concealed from it. For them, at issue is not so much
whether emotion is negative or positive but whether private emotion can be well hidden under
the agent’s public persona. See Philip J. Ivanhoe, “Hanfeizi and Moral Self-​Cultivation,” Journal
of Chinese Philosophy 38:1 (2011), pp. 31–​45.
39
For Xunzi, such inner qualities are not inherently present in human nature, but rather acquired
through ritual practice and moral education.
40
Notice that Knoblock translates the term shu as “method and calculation.” Although this ren-
dering à la Legalism seems to better capture Duke Huan’s amoral political realism, it, like the
translation of dajie as “greatest opportunities,” tends to obscure an important moral basis of
Xunzi’s positive appraisal of his badao. It is interesting to note that, among Korean scholars,
while Hak-​chu Kim generally agrees with Knoblock by approaching shu in terms of “tactics
and stratagems” (shu 術), the trademark of the famous Legalist Shen Buhai’s (395?–​337 bce)
political theory, Wun-​ku Yi interprets it in terms of ding ming 定命 (literally, the determination
of fate). See Hak-​chu Kim (trans.), Sunja [Xunzi] (Seoul: Ŭlyumunhwasa, 2001), p. 161 and
Wun-​ku Yi (trans.), Sunja [Xunzi], vol. 1 (Seoul: Han’gilsa, 2006), p. 158, respectively. Given
Xunzi’s explicit refutation of the superstitious belief in fate (Xunzi 8.8), I think Yi’s interpre-
tation is mistaken. On Shen Buhai’s political theory of shu, see Herrlee G. Creel, Shen Pu-​Hai,
A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century b.c. (Chicago, IL: The University of
Chicago Press, 1974).
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 161

Then, what constitutes the content of political virtue of dajie that Xunzi
believes is indispensable to the statecraft of badao? Does badao have any sub-
stantial content that is functionally (or even morally?) equivalent to ren and yi
of the Kingly Way? To be sure, staunch champions of Realpolitik would refuse
to presuppose any moral content in the principles of governing, which could ulti-
mately result in the destruction of the state. For them, the only thing that matters
is the ruler’s personal security (including the survival of the state deemed as the
ruler’s private possession), and, insomuch as this goal can be attained, anything
goes.41 Xunzi, however, believes badao does have content, in fact a moral content,
thereby differentiating it from the content-​less, hence amoral, methods to govern
the state, of the kinds his contemporary (proto-​)Legalists such as Shen Dao and
Shen Buhai propagated, such as shi 勢 (often translated as “power”) and/​or shu
術 (tactics and stratagems).42
For Xunzi, the political virtue that Duke Huan exercised is his extraordi-
nary ability to “moderate” (jie 節) his personal enmity toward Guan Zhong
and turn it into “trust” (xin).43 Given the philological connection between

41
By staunch champions of Realpolitik, I mean the most politically ambitious rulers and ministers
during the Warring States period, perennially engrossed in power struggle and warfare, not nec-
essarily some principled Legalists, Han Fei in particular. Navigating the complex middle ground
between staunch Realpolitik, which rejects whatever constraint on the exercise of power, be it
moral or political, and Confucian virtue politics, which grounds politics on virtue, Han Fei’s
Legalism embraces a principled, though amoral, constraint on the way the ruler conducts him-
self and governs the state as long as it is conducive to the order and stability of the state. For
this line of interpretation of Han Fei, see Eirik L. Harris, “Han Fei on the Problem of Morality,”
in Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei, ed. Paul R. Goldin (Dordrecht: Springer,
2013), pp. 107–​131. I am not sure though if this aspect of Han Fei would make him either a
republican or a constitutionalist. For arguments in favor of this new and highly controversial
interpretation of Han Fei’s political philosophy, see David Elstein, “Han Feizi’s Thought and
Republicanism,” Dao 10 (2011), pp. 167–​185 and Henrique Schneider, “Legalism: Chinese-​
Style Constitutionalism?” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38:1 (2011), pp. 46–​63, respectively.
42
Shen Dao (circa 350 bce) is known as the most famous advocate of shi 勢 (power) during
the Warring States period. On Shen Dao’s political philosophy, see Eirik L. Harris, “Aspects
of Shen Dao’s Political Philosophy,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 32:3 (2015), pp. 217–​
234. For ancient Chinese Legalism more generally, see Zhenyuan Fu, Chinese Legalists: The
Earliest Totalitarians and Their Art of Ruling (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996); Ch’un-sik Yi,
Ch’unch’uchŏn’guksidae-​ŭi pŏpch’isasang-​kwa se · sul [A Study on Legalism of the Chunqiu
and Zhanguo Periods] (Seoul: Akanet, 2002). Xunzi’s criticisms of Shen Dao and Shen Buhai
can be found in Xunzi 6.5 and 21.4.
43
A textual support for this interpretation is found in Xunzi 22.5a, where Xunzi says “凡語治
而待寡欲者 無以節欲 而困於多欲者也,” which Hutton translates as “All those who say good
order must await the lessening of desires are people who lack the means to restrain desire and
cannot handle abundance of desires” (emphasis added). Here jie (in jie yu 節欲) is translated
as “restrain” and I think that the same rendition of jie can apply to the present case of dajie. In
the note explicating Xunzi’s usage of the concept of jie, Knoblock says, “Xunzi’s point is that
Duke Huan, whatever else he may have been, had the ability to recognize and take advantage
of an opportunity. This passage is understood quite differently by Yang Liang, who takes jie 節
[as] ‘opportunity’ in the sense of ‘modesty’ ” (vol. 2, p. 277n8). Knoblock’s translation, however,
does not flow smoothly in the context in which Xunzi praises Duke Huan’s extraordinary ability
162 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

jie and xin,44 I suggest that dajie can be understood as the world’s “greatest
moderation,” the virtue –​a political virtue –​which enables a ruler to over-
come his personal enmity for the sake of his supreme political concerns. Thus
interpreted, Duke Huan’s virtue of trust, one of the core Confucian virtues,
derives from the political virtue of moderation.45 This politically motivated
moral virtue of trust –​hence political virtue –​or the trust devoted primarily
to “political goods” such as wealth and military strength of the state, rather
than the moral elevation of the people, constitutes the core of the principle of
governing, or badao, that Duke Huan was able to keep.
But can this interpretation be justified on philosophical grounds as well?
Precisely in what sense is moderation a virtue that leads to trust?46 One way
to make sense of the connection between moderation and trust is by noting
that moderation measures things out by putting proper bounds on and reg-
ulating them in a principled way and that a principled regulation of oneself
can not only foster the virtue of trustworthiness but it can further elicit trust
from others.47 So understood, what is central to moderation is not so much
camouflaging anger or enmity for personal advantage, which even those
coached by Legalism may be capable of, but rather the complex internal pro-
cess that involves moral self-​cultivation in which one reflects upon the rela-
tionship between him and the one toward whom he otherwise holds negative
emotions, examines the political circumstances that require him to form a
proper judgment (zhi) and make a proper decision (jue) for the sake of the
order and wealth of the state, and finally overcomes his negative emotions so as
to arrive at the proper judgment and the proper decision. Whereas the goal of
“overcoming one’s self and returning to ritual propriety” (ke ji fu li 克己復禮)
is to become a good (ren) person,48 moral self-​cultivation involved in badao

to entrust the state with Guan Zhong, his former enemy. I find Yang’s rendition of jie (which is
more harmonious with the word’s original meaning, namely, the segment of the bamboo) more
appealing, especially if the meaning of modesty can be understood to encompass “moderation.”
44
Note that, albeit rarely, in some ancient Chinese classics, the word jie connotes xin. See Tetsuji
Morohashi, Dai kan-​wa jiten 大漢和辭典 [The Great Chinese-​Japanese Dictionary], vol. 9
(Tokyo: Taishukan shoten, 1968), p. 8953.
45
As will be discussed shortly, the virtue of moderation does not simply imply one’s ability to
“lessen” one’s boisterous passions that would otherwise drive one to form bad judgment and
make reckless decisions. At the heart of this virtue is precisely one’s ability to form good judgment
and make good decisions by (1) carefully assessing the (political) circumstances in which one
finds oneself, (2) regulating one’s passions in a way apposite for the given circumstances, and
(3) re-​channeling them into a productive moral quality (i.e., judgment, decision, or action) that
can bring about good (political) outcomes. Largely consequentialist in character, the virtue of
moderation is qualitatively different from typical Confucian moral virtues such as ren and yi
that Xunzi, like Mencius, valorizes and, in my view, it is in drawing attention to this sort of
political virtue that the distinctive nature of Xunzi’s political theory lies.
46
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me with this question.
47
I am grateful to P. J. Ivanhoe for discussing this issue with me.
48
See The Analects 12.1.
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 163

is aimed at political goods that a ruler is required to promote, making him an

effective political leader. The virtue that results from this politically motivated
moral self-​cultivation is trust and trustworthiness, both an ability to trust even
one’s former enemies for the sake of the political good and an ability to make
oneself trustworthy not only to the people, the ruled, but even to his (former
and potential) enemies.
In Xunzi’s political theory, therefore, badao is not only appreciated as an
efficacious statecraft, but is given a fresh moral significance. Xunzi shows that
the success of badao hangs critically on the ruler’s political virtue of modera-
tion and the moderation-​induced moral virtue of trust, specifically his ability to
render himself trustworthy to the ruled, including former enemies, employ any
capable person in his government (again, even enemies), and appoint the most
capable one as the prime minister.49 Seen in this way, Xunzi’s political realism,
clearly evidenced in his recognition of badao, is not only distinguished from
Han Fei’s Legalism, which acknowledges no ethical standard for government
and is primarily concerned with political order itself, but also, contrary to El
Amine’s provocative claim, from various forms of political realism that are
currently captivating many political theorists in Western political theory, at the
center of which are the related ideas of “the independent realm of the political”
and the normative standard of politics that is internal to its institutions and
practices without any connection with ethics.50

The Moral Principle of Badao

For Xunzi, the ruler’s ability to trust a capable subject, whoever he may be,
does not exhaust the moral content of the government of badao. While under-
standing trust as political morality (morality that is politically motivated, not
morality that is purely “political”) that a ruler in the practice of badao must

49
According to Xunzi, the successful government governed by the Kingly Way or badao depends
on the ruler’s ability to choose the “right” prime minister (ideally morally excellent but at the
very least politically competent) and to entrust the administrative details of government to him
(see Xunzi 11.2c; 11.5a–​b; 11.9b; 11.11).
50
See El Amine, Classical Confucian Political Thought, pp. 194–​195. For the recent trend of polit-
ical realism in political theory, see Bernard Williams, In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism
and Moralism in Political Argument, ed. Geoffrey Hawthorn (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2008); Raymond Geuss, Philosophy and Real Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2008); William A. Galston, “Realism in Political Theory,” European Journal
of Political Theory 9 (2010), pp. 385–​411; Mark Philip, “What Is To Be Done? Political Theory
and Political Realism,” European Journal of Political Theory 9 (2010), pp. 466–​484. Influenced
by (neo-​)Roman republicanism (Machiavelli in particular), Philip pays special attention to the
categorical difference between moral virtue and political virtue. It is important to note that
the notion of political virtue that I attribute to Xunzi is qualitatively different from this sort of
political virtue that has no internal (direct or indirect) connection with moral virtue. Xunzi, not
to mention Mencius, cannot be called a “political realist” if political realism is understood to be
premised on the assumption of the categorical separation between ethics and politics.
164 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

possess, Xunzi ascertains simultaneously that for a state to be firmly established

in badao, understood as a less-​than-​ideal but still successful mode of govern-
ment, it should be able to garner the people’s trust. Put differently, Xunzi makes
trust the quintessential political virtue for a ruler practicing badao, while also
extending its political value to a moral relationship between the ruler and the
people. According to Xunzi,
There are some who, even though virtue is not yet completed in them and yi is not yet
perfected in them, nevertheless order and control for all under Heaven advances under
them. Their punishments and rewards and their promises to allow or not to allow things
are trusted by all under Heaven. Their ministers and subordinates all clearly know that
one can make pacts with them. When governmental orders have been put forth, then
even though they see opportunities for gain or loss, they will not cheat their people.
When covenants have been settled upon, then even though they see opportunities for
gain or loss, they will not cheat their allies.
When it is like this, then their soldiers will be energetic and their city walls solidly
defended, and rival states will fear them. Their own state will be united and its funda-
mental standards clear, and their allied states will trust them. Then, even though they
may reside in a remote and backward state, their power to inspire awe will shake the
whole world. Such was the case with the five hegemons. They did not base themselves
on government through education. They did not strive to become exalted and lofty.
They did not pursue the extremes of culture and good order. They did not make people’s
hearts submit willingly. They inclined to tactics and stratagems, paid attention to fatigue
and rest for troops, were careful to store up provisions, and prepared the equipment
necessary for war. Those above and those below had mutual trust as tight as the way
one’s upper and lower teeth come together, and no one under Heaven dared stand up to
them … This is what I mean by saying, “If trustworthiness is established as your foun-
dation, then you will be a hegemon (xin li er ba 信立而覇).”51

As the passage clearly shows, for Xunzi, a government animated by the ruler’s
moral virtue and guided by the moral principle of yi is the most authentic
Confucian government. It is the government of the Kingly Way, or what
Mencius calls benevolent government, which rests on moral education rather
than punishments and rewards.52 As Xunzi puts it, yi, the operating moral prin-
ciple of the Kingly Way, is “something that, inside, brings proper regulation to
the person, and outside, brings proper regulation to the myriad of things [and
i]t is something that, above, brings security to the ruler, and below, brings con-
cord to the common people.”53 When yi is firmly established as the governing
principle and superiors conduct themselves as teachers to their subordinates,
argues Xunzi, “[t]‌he way that subordinates harmonize with their superiors is

51
Xunzi 11.1c.
52
This, however, does not mean that the Kingly Way never involves coercive measures in relation
to penal code, prohibition, and punishment. According to Xunzi, even legendary sage-​kings such
as Tang, Wen, and Wu used such measures, albeit very rarely. See Xunzi 7.1; 18.4; 23.3a; 27.64.
Also see The Analects 13.3 for Confucius’s position on this issue.
53
Xunzi 16.8.
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 165

comparable to the way an echo responds to one’s sound or the way a shadow
resembles one’s form.”54
Compared with this highest and most noble government, which leads the
people largely by means of non-​coercive measures and promotes harmony
between the ruler and the ruled, Xunzi admits that the government of badao
is less than ideal (as he says, “of all the things that are crucial for presiding
over the world, yi is most fundamental, and trustworthiness comes next”),55
because, among other things, it frequently resorts to punishments and rewards,
which Han Fei famously argues are the two most important tools by which the
Legalist ruler controls the people.56 What differentiates badao from Legalism is
that while in the latter the measures of punishment and reward are employed
singularly for the purpose of controlling the people, thus making them docile
subjects, in the former, punishment and reward are implemented not only con-
sistently, something that Legalists also stress, but, more importantly, faithfully
in a way that enhances mutual trust between the ruler and the ruled, which
Legalists do not prioritize. Precisely because of its reliance on the virtue of
trust, Xunzi is convinced, the government of badao, though falling short of
being the Kingly Way that operates on yi, can nonetheless produce a decently
moral state.57
By “decently moral state” I mean a state that is politically ordered, socially
peaceful, militarily secure, and materially sufficient. What is instrumental in
bringing about these political goods is trust between the ruler and the ruled,
which, as we have seen, originates from the ruler’s moral self-​cultivation for the
sake of political goods and in the service of the material (but not necessarily
moral) well-​being of the people, which makes him trustworthy. In a decently
moral state, the ruler (1) employs punishment and reward in a way that is prin-
cipled, transparent, and impartial, (2) recruits, promotes, and demotes public
officials and soldiers on the basis of merit and contribution, and (3) devotes
himself first to the protection of the territory and second to its reasonable
expansion if it is deemed to be the best way to protect the material well-​being
of both his people and the people to be annexed. Simply put, the decently
moral state is a state governed by badao. Since badao is morally inferior to the
Kingly Way, which undergirds a benevolent government, predicated on ritual
institutions and moral education, a decently moral state is not fully moral. But
to the extent that a decently moral state maintains its own moral standard and

54
Ibid. Also see Xunzi 12.4; 18.1 for similar imagery.
55
Xunzi 16.8.
56
Hanfeizi 6.
57
The idea of “the decent state” here is inspired by John Rawls’s celebrated idea of “decent society.”
See John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). But
as will be detailed shortly, the specific conditions that make the state decent in Xunzi’s political
theory are qualitatively different from the decency criteria that Rawls stipulates.
166 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

thereby clearly distances itself from tyranny or the Way of bu ren, it can hardly
be called immoral, even if it fails to live up to the Confucian moral ideal.58
As such, Xunzi resists Mencius’s stark normative political dichotomy
between the Way of ren and the Way of bu ren that accordingly (and mistak-
enly, in Xunzi’s view) renders the Kingly Way and badao as polar opposites.
Xunzi advances a more sophisticated account of virtue politics than Mencius
by associating yi, which he believes is the critical method, along with ritual, by
which to carry out ren,59 with the Kingly Way and trustworthiness (xin) with
badao, respectively.60 Again, Xunzi’s point is that although badao is short of the
Kingly Way, it still has moral and political value and this moral dimension of
badao should never be obscured as it is significantly different from the immoral
mode of government that endangers and eventually destroys the state. From
Xunzi’s political standpoint, Mencius’s normative political dualism, whatever
rhetorical value it may have in chastising the practitioners of Realpolitik, fails
to do justice to what lies in between morality and cruelty or between the Kingly
Way and tyranny –​a middle ground where the state can be considerably well-​
ordered and morally decent.

Achieving Decent Morality in Domestic and Interstate Governance

In Book 9 of the Xunzi, titled “The Rule of a True King (wangzhi 王制),”
Xunzi discusses extensively the different grades of rulers (or of their ruler-
ship) –​the rulers who possess instruments of policy by which they can become
(1) a true king or (2) a hegemon; (3) a ruler who barely survives securely;
(4) a ruler who will be endangered; and (5) a ruler who will be destroyed.
Conceptually and practically, however, these five modes of rulers (or of ruler-
ship) are not clearly distinguishable from one another –​particularly between

58
One way to explain the social origin of the decently moral state is in terms of acquisition of
disposition. A well-​regulated fiduciary society inculcates a habit and expectation of behavior
according to shared norms. Over time this gives rise to a sense of social trust and this is the
beginning of a decent society. The Legalist does not believe in such habituation and hence must
always rely on reward and punishment. I am grateful to P. J. Ivanhoe for drawing my attention
to this important point.
59
Xunzi 8.3. For a philosophical analysis of Xunzi’s unique juxtaposition of ritual and yi (together
liyi), see Winnie Sung, “Ritual in the Xunzi: A Change of the Heart/​Mind,” Sophia 51 (2012),
pp. 211–​226.
60
For Xunzi, while the essence of the Kingly Way lies in the moral transformation of the disor-
derly or bad human nature into ordered and, ultimately, virtuous character, the moral essence of
badao lies in the moral legitimacy of political relationship, which, however, does not necessarily
involve personal moral growth of the kind both Mencius and Xunzi valorize. Badao, however,
is qualitatively different from Legalism à la Han Fei, in which “trust” is emphasized not as a
matter of the ruler’s moral legitimacy but as the instrument by which the ruler can secure his
political position. In Han Fei’s political theory, for instance, trust is nothing more than the
people’s confidence in the impersonal implementation of the law, the primary concern of which
is the political security of the ruler and the order of his state.
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 167

(2) and (3) and between (4) and (5). In fact, in Book 11, Xunzi simplifies these
five modes into three, presumably by combining (2) with (3), and (4) with
(5): “[i]‌f yi is established as your foundation, then you will be a true king. If
trustworthiness is established as our foundation, then you will be a hegemon.
If intrigues and schemes are established as your foundation, then you will
perish (wang 亡).”61
Since we have already examined the difference between the Kingly Way and
badao, we now turn to how badao is distinguished from the Way of destroying
the state or wangdao 亡道, which is pronounced in the exact same way as the
Kingly Way (wangdao). Xunzi describes this second meaning of wangdao, now
as the Way of destroying the state, as the following:
There are some who take hold of the state so as to call forth personal accomplishments
and profit. They do not work at developing yi or getting trustworthiness (xin) in order –​
they seek only profit. Within the state, they are not afraid to deceive their people and
obtain meager profits thereby. Outside the state, they are not afraid to deceive their
allies and obtain great profits thereby. Within the state, they do not cultivate and set
straight what they already hold, but they frequently desire the holdings of others.
When it is like this, the ministers, subordinates, and common people will all use decep-
tive hearts in dealing with their superiors. When superiors deceive their subordinates
and subordinates deceive their superiors, then this is a case where superiors and
subordinates are divided. When it is like this, then rival states will look down on them,
and allied states will be suspicious of them. Their intrigues and schemes may advance
daily, but the state cannot avoid being endangered or having its territory diminished,
and at the most extreme it will be destroyed.62

For Xunzi, a ruler who employs the Way of destroying the state is not only
morally deficient as a person, but, as a ruler, he is incapable of extending the
moral principle of yi or xin to politics, thus achieving neither the Kingly Way
nor badao.63 Absorbed in securing private interest with no concern for morality
or moral statesmanship, a bad ruler relies solely on deception and other treach-
erous schemes, only to make him estranged from his subjects. After all, this is
exactly what Jie and Zhòu did, who, in Xunzi’s description, were corrupt, arro-
gant, grasping, contentious, greedy, and profit-​minded.64

61
Xunzi 11.1a.
62
Xunzi 11.1d.
63
Xunzi describes the immoral character of a ruler who destroys his state, or simply a tyrant,
as follows: “[I]‌n establishing one’s character, one may be arrogant and violent. In carrying
out affairs, one will engage in overthrows. In promoting and demoting people, ennobling and
debasing them, one will elevate dark and dangerous men, men who are deceitful and act for ulte-
rior motives. The way such a person interacts with the common people below is to be fond of
using their dying efforts, but to be slow in recognizing their labors and merit. He is fond of using
their tax revenues, but forgets about their fundamental works. Such a one will be destroyed”
(Xunzi 9.19c).
64
Xunzi 16.4.
168 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

As for Jie and Zhòu, their understanding and deliberations about things were shaky to
an ultimate degree, the things to which they directed their thoughts were benighted to
an ultimate degree, and their practice of these resulted in chaos to an ultimate degree.
Those who were originally close grew distant from them, those who were worthy
looked down on them, and all the common people living then detested them. Even
though they were the successors to Yu and Tang, they did not get even a single person
to stand with them. With acts like the evisceration of Bi Gan and the imprisonment of
Jizi, they came to die and their states perished. They became the greatest disgraces in
the world, and discussions by subsequent generations about those who are bad are sure
to mention them. Theirs is a way of arranging things that will not keep even a wife or
child by one’s side.65

As I noted in the preceding chapters, Xunzi was no less committed to the

Kingly Way than Mencius was. He shared Mencius’s scorn toward Jie and
Zhòu66 and even endorsed his trademark statement that punishing such tyrants
by death would not be considered regicide; it would essentially be the killing of
private individuals (pi fu).67 What Xunzi did not quite understand, I surmise,
was why badao, which underpins a decently moral state, should be understood
as directly analogous to the tyrannical rule exemplified by that cruel rulers like
Jie and Zhòu. In Xunzi’s judgment, badao, which makes the state politically
viable and also contributes to world peace, is normatively as well as practically
distinguished from a flately bad rule (including tyranny), which precipitates
the estrangement between the ruler and his subjects and invites invasion from
other states. First, let us look into the value of badao as a mode of domestic
governance.
[O]‌n the day when one has things aright, accordingly one will still one’s military and
rest one’s subjects, and take loving care of the common people. One will open up
fields and grasslands, fill up the granaries, and make ready supplies. Accordingly, one
will carefully recruit and select by review men of talent and skill. Thereafter, one will
advance honors and rewards in order to encourage them, and make strict penalties
and punishments in order to prevent them from doing wrong. One will select men
who understand affairs and cause them to lead and control each other. Then one will
engage in ample storing up and repairing, and goods and supplies will become suffi-
cient … When things are thus, then the others will daily accumulate faults, and I will
daily accumulate perfections. The others will daily accumulate poverty, and I will daily
accumulate wealth. The others will daily accumulate toils, and I will daily accumulate
ease. While through harshness the relation between lord and ministers, superiors and
subordinates will daily become more estranged and hateful among the others, through
kindness it will become more close and loving on my side … Accordingly, one who uses
his state to do these things will become a hegemon.68

65
Xunzi 18.2.
66
Cf. Mencius 1B8.
67
Xunzi 15.1c. See Chapter 2 for fuller discussion on this.
68
Xunzi 9.19b.
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 169

As has been shown in the case of Duke Huan of Qi, a badao-​practicing ruler
should be capable of the virtue of jie (moderation or self-​restraint), thereby
being able to trust another, even a former enemy, if he is talented and able, as
well as to render himself trustworthy to his subjects. If the person in question
proves to have an exceptional ability to run the government, the ruler must
overcome his desire to control all state affairs himself, which is the surest road
to ruin the state, and entrust it to the qualified person, because it is the best
way to attain the public good of the state, including material sufficiency of the
people. Although, as Xunzi admits, this politically motivated virtue of trust
is far short of being able to transform the hearts of the people and to make
them good, which is the supreme goal of the Kingly Way, he is convinced that
it would still be able to garner the people’s trust in the ruler and his govern-
ment, an important value recognized in Confucian political theory.69 In the
paragraph just quoted, Xunzi further explains how badao actually elicits trust
from the people.
First, badao’s otherwise utilitarian public policies, such as “opening up the
fields and grasslands” and “filling up the granaries and storehouses,” which
Mencius criticizes as essential elements of the government that make the lives
of the people miserable,70 in effect contribute to the welfare of the people.
To be sure, badao is not so much concerned with the moral re-​formation of
the originally self-​interested (thus conflict-​prone) people, but is rather devoted
to their material security, which makes it morally inferior to the Kingly
Way. Nevertheless, Xunzi seems to claim that without decent socioeconomic
conditions and basic political order as prerequisites, the moral ideal at which
the Kingly Way aims would be unattainable. In Xunzi’s more expanded vision
of Confucianism, badao is not necessarily contradictory to the Kingly Way; it
highlights the material precondition that is necessary in actualizing the Kingly
Way and strives to secure it, although we must note that this –​using badao as
a pragmatic vehicle toward the Kingly Way –​was probably not what the his-
torical hegemons had in mind. In Xunzi’s Confucian reinterpretation of badao,
the problems often associated with badao such as cruelty and violence do not
inhere in badao as a mode of statecraft as such; many of its problems result
from the deliberate exploitation of it by the rulers allegedly subscribed to it, as
they, almost without exception, pursue it to satisfy their private interests, either

69
In this regard, Joseph Chan’s following statement is worth noting: “According to the Confucian
conception of political relationship, however, ‘trust’ refers to the confidence and faith people
have in their rulers, and trustworthiness is a virtue by which rulers gain the trust of the people”
(Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times [Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2014], p. 43). Interestingly, Chan does not seem to notice that the virtue of
trust is equally cherished by the practitioners of badao as much as ones committed to the Kingly
Way and thus does not grapple with how badao should be understood in or as Confucian polit-
ical theory.
70
Mencius 4A14.
170 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

material or psychological, or both.71 Put differently, for Xunzi badao is a new

normative concept justified on the Confucian moral ground.
Second, badao values the ability and talent of scholars and makes it a prin-
ciple to appoint the people in government according to this standard only.
Mencius would have taken issue with Xunzi’s extolment of ability and talent
because for him a scholar’s moral excellence was the most important criterion
in selecting officials (and perhaps the only meaningful one).72 However, it is
doubtful that Xunzi cherishes ability and talent while not cherishing moral
virtue as he, like Mencius, makes it a general rule that prior to entering the
government, a would-​be public official must be morally cultivated, though of
course in varying degrees.73 In my view, Xunzi makes the modest claim that for
a state to be internally viable and externally strong the bureaucrats who prac-
tically run the government should be recruited and governmental posts distrib-
uted according to transparent and socially useful criteria such as ability and
talent. Only with such objective criteria, Xunzi suggests, can a ruler implement
punishment and reward in a non-​discretionary manner and thereby gain trust
from his subjects, including those within the government. Again, even though
badao falls short of making the state morally good, it is still far from bad rule,
which neither respects scholars nor cherishes their ability and talent. Under the
Way of destroying the state, punishment and reward are executed whimsically,
and because of the ruler’s hubris and the bad moral climate that it is certain to
generate the state is doomed to be ruined.
The value of badao is not limited to its contributions to domestic gover-
nance, however. Its political value is equally significant in maintaining peace
and order in the interstate arena. As shown by its common English translation
“hegemonic rule,” badao is usually understood as the Realpolitik statecraft to
make a state the hegemonic power in the world74 –​hence Mencius’s famous
condemnation that the hegemonic ruler relies on force, notwithstanding his
ostensible interest in Confucian moral virtues, particularly ren. Xunzi, how-
ever, describes the implications of badao in the interstate context quite differ-
ently. Consider his following statement:
[The hegemon] protects the weak and suppresses the violent. If he does this all without
a heart bent on taking over others, then the feudal lords will have affection for him. If
he cultivates a way of befriending his rivals, he treats the feudal lords with reverence,

71
Seen in this way, the five hegemons –​the only hegemons recognized by Xunzi to have existed
during the Spring and Autumn period –​are remarkable exceptions to this general tendency.
72
See Mencius 4B13 for Mencius’s heavily moralistic stance with regard to qualification for
employment in government.
73
See Books 1 and 2 of the Xunzi. For to what extent this rule is defeasible in classical Confucian
political reality, see El Amine, Classical Confucian Political Thought, pp. 143–​175.
74
For a classic “realist” account of the hegemon in international relations and international polit-
ical economy in particular, see Robert Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987).
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 171

then the feudal lords will delight in him … If there should be any appearance of making
them subjects, then the feudal lords will abandon him. Hence, he makes clear to them
that his conduct really does not aim at taking over others, and he gets them to trust that
his way really is to befriend his rivals. If there is no true king or hegemonic ruler in the
world, then he will always be victorious.75

Central to Xunzi’s argument is that badao in his Confucian reinterpretation

does not aim to promote Realpolitik in interstate relations, as was believed
by many of its advocates of his time, as well as its critics such as Mencius. In
his new normative account of badao, the practitioner of badao, if he wishes to
maintain political leadership among the rulers of now only nominally “feudal”
but de facto independent states, he ought to present himself as equal to other
feudal lords and be able to establish mutually reciprocal relationships with
them by cultivating trustworthiness and friendship, instead of resorting to
brute force.76
How is the virtue of trust or trustworthiness, which is to assure reciprocal
interstate relations, connected with the political virtue of dajie, the greatest
moderation? Even though Xunzi’s narrative on the Duke Huan of Qi does not
extend to discuss how the Duke’s ability of dajie enabled him to become the
hegemon among the feudal states, it is not difficult to glean from it a philosoph-
ical implication that supports the intrinsic connection between jie (moderation)
and trust among states. As we examined in Chapter 4 and as amply attested
by the cases of King Hui of Liang and King Xuan of Qi, Mencius’s famous
interlocutors, the ruler, standing at the pinnacle of an unchecked monarchical
system and perennially engrossed in warfare in pursuit of becoming a universal
king, tends to see the world solely through the solipsistic lens of his own ambi-
tion, regarding other rulers, whose political status is actually equal to him, not
as competitors equally vying for universal kingship but as critical obstacles to
be eliminated. For him, other states are objects to conquer, rather than politi-
cally organized homes of all people under Heaven, to whom his care ought to
be extended. In other words, what drives the warring king is not loving care or
compassion but various sorts of boisterous passions such as pride, vainglory,
envy, jealousy, and resentment.
Now recall the process of moral self-​cultivation required by the political
virtue of jie, which results in trust. Earlier, we examined this process in the
domestic context with special focus on the formation of trust between the ruler
and the ruled (including the ruler’s former enemy). The same reasoning can
apply to the relationship between the rulers who are all vying for supremacy.
What Xunzi seems to have in mind is that when a ruler who ardently practices

75
Xunzi 9.8.
76
In this regard, Xunzi’s idealized badao system seems closer to Keohane’s cooperative inter-
national system during and after hegemony than what Gilpin’s realist version describes. For
Keohane’s account of hegemony, see Robert O. Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and
Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984).
172 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

badao (rightly understood) “moderates” (jie) his most supreme passion for uni-
versal kingship by acknowledging other rulers’ equal political standing and
more importantly by extending his care to all under Heaven, he can present
himself to his competitors (and to the whole people of the world) as trust-
worthy, and as someone to whom the role of the hegemon can be entrusted on
reciprocal grounds as a leader among equals. The virtue of jie is still politically
motivated, for the sake of the interstate public good and the well-​being of all
under Heaven, but trust secured in this way has significant Confucian moral
implications, even if it falls short of turning the hegemon into a true king.
Only against this backdrop, I argue, can we clearly understand what Xunzi
means by the terms sheng 勝, literally “victorious,” which according to him
the ruler who employs badao will eventually be able to attain. In short, it does
not refer to domination of one powerful state over others. Nor, it appears,
does Xunzi think of something equivalent to the system of balance of power in
which interstate morality is radically absent. In my view, the interstate world
Xunzi envisions seems to be much closer to the international society proposed
by eighteenth-​century Western philosophers like Christian Wolff and Emerich
de Vattel, a society in which all self-​determining states are politically equal and
morally reciprocal, like civil society in the nation-​state but on a worldly scale.77
Of course, there is an important difference between Xunzi and modern
Western advocates of the “morality of states.” Xunzi believes that a state “well-​
ordered” by badao will become the leader of the interstate society, and the
existence (and importance) of the hegemon is not an integral part of inter-
national political theory that Wolff or Vattel envisioned.78 Strictly speaking,
however, this leadership (or “being victorious”) is in essence more of a “moral”
authority than a political domination. As in the case of domestic governance,
at the heart of a moral-​political leadership, which the hegemonic state ought
to exercise in the interstate arena, is its prominent virtue of trustworthiness,
that is, a moral capacity to elicit trust from other states. Therefore, in Xunzi’s

77
See Charles Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1979), pp. 50–​66 for the eighteenth-​century Western modern ideal of interna-
tional society. In this respect, I disagree with Harris, who believes that the kernel of the difference
between the hegemon and the true king lies in the scope of political influence, assuming that the
hegemon’s influence does not extend to all people under Heaven. See Harris, “Xunzi’s Political
Philosophy,” pp. 128–​130.
78
In a sense, it is a bit of a stretch to directly compare Xunzi to the eighteenth-​century Western
advocates of the morality of states who treated sovereign nation-​states as moral equals by lik-
ening them to morally autonomous persons. For one, Xunzi is a complete stranger to such
Western-​modern international political concepts such as sovereignty, moral equality before nat-
ural law, and the state of nature (as a pre-​law state). Furthermore, Xunzi never specifies the
“rights” and “obligations” of each state in the interstate system. Nevertheless, especially in
comparison with Mencius, who rationalizes a moral hierarchy between strong/​large states and
weak/​small states in the Warring States context, Xunzi’s understanding of the interstate system
appears to be much more egalitarian. I elaborate on Mencius’s idea of interstate moral hierarchy
in Chapter 6.
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 173

view, even though badao would not be able to bring the world now divided
into many independent and mutually competing states under the universal rule
of a sage-​kingship as the Kingly Way is believed to be able to, it can still make
the world well-​ordered and peaceful.

Tempered Virtue Monism

A question then naturally arises: what is Confucius’s own attitude toward
badao? Given Xunzi’s effort to reinterpret badao as a decent Confucian state-
craft toward the Kingly Way, how does it square with Confucius’s original
construction of the tradition?
Throughout The Analects, Confucius is never seen alluding to the term ba
or badao directly, but he does mention several times Duke Huan of Qi and
Guan Zhong, the paragons of badao. For instance, in his appraisal of Duke
Wen of Jin and Duke Huan of Qi, two iconic hegemons whose rulership was
generally revered and eagerly pursued by many of his contemporaries (largely
in misguided ways according to Xunzi’s new normative standard), Confucius
says that while Duke Wen of Jin “being devious (jue 譎) in his conduct was
not proper (bu zheng 不正), [Duke Huan of Qi,] being proper (zheng 正) in
his conduct[,]‌was not devious (bu jue 不鷸).”79 Clearly, Confucius’s attitude
toward Duke Huan is positive, but from this isolated remark alone it is dif-
ficult to infer whether what Confucius refers to here are the two hegemons’
contrasting personal characters or the different ways they ruled.80 Even if the
latter turns out to be the case, it is still unknown precisely what aspect of Duke
Huan’s governing style Confucius finds “proper” (zheng 正), in terms of which
he famously defines a good government (zheng 政).81 A more telling evidence
for Confucius’s positive attitude toward badao can be gleaned from his subse-
quent conversations with Zilu (ZL) and Zigong (ZG) regarding Guan Zhong.
ZL: When Duke Huan had his elder brother Prince Qiu killed, the
tutor Shao Hu died with him, but Guan Zhong did not. In this
instance, did Guang Zhong fall short of ren?
Confucius: Many times did Duke Huan assemble the various feudal lords,
and it was always through Guan Zhong’s influence rather than
a resort to arms. Such was his ren, such was his ren.

79
The Analects 14.15. This and the subsequent English translations of the Lunyu 論語 in this
chapter are adapted from The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, trans. Roger
T. Ames and Henry Rosemont. Jr (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998).
80
According to Edward Slingerland, the traditional explanation of Confucius’s positive appraisal
of Duke Huan, based on the Han commentators such as Zheng Xuan and Ma Rong, points
to the fact that he “dedicated himself to public duty at the expense of his own interests” (The
Analects, trans. Edward Slingerland [Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2003], p. 160).
81
The Analects 12.7; 13.6; 13.13.
174 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

ZG: Was it that Guan Zhong really was not a man of ren? When Duke Huan
had his elder brother Prince Qiu killed, not only did Guan Zhong not
die with him, he became the prime minister for Duke Huan!
C: When Guan Zhong served as prime minister for Duke Huan, he enabled
the duke to become leader of the various feudal lords, uniting and
bringing order to the world. Even today the people still benefit from his
largesse. If there were no Guan Zhong, we would likely be wearing our
hair loose and folding our robes to the left [which is the custom of the
Di barbarians82]. Should we expect that he would have the earnestness
of some country yokel, managing to strangle himself in an irrigation
ditch with no one the wiser?83
Confucius’s attitude toward Guan Zhong is not always positive, notwith-
standing his praise of Guan Zhong as a practitioner of ren. In one instance,
Confucius, just as Mencius is shown to do in Mencius 2A1, bluntly comments
that “Guan Zhong’s vessel was of small capacity” (to become the statesman
of the Kingly Way) and (or because) he failed to understand ritual propriety.84
How, then, can we make sense of the apparent tension between Confucius’s
positive appraisal of Guan Zhong’s great statesmanship of badao85 and his
limited (moral) ability as a person?86
As we discussed earlier, though Mencius acknowledges that there is an
appreciable difference between badao and tyranny, albeit implicitly, he never
explicitly embraces Confucius’s positive appraisal of Guan Zhong. In fact,
there is immense difficulty in coming to terms with the tension under investi-
gation from the perspective of Mencius’s monistic method of extension, which
derives moral statecraft and/​or benevolent government directly from the ruler’s
moral sentiment (or his moral character more broadly). The tension in question
arises from Confucius’s implicit acknowledgment of the possible incongruence

82
For this reference, see Ames and Rosemont, Jr., The Analects, p. 260.
83
The Analects 14.16–​17 (translation slightly modified).
84
The Analects 3.22. Here I follow Slingerland’s translation, which pays close attention to
Confucius’s judicious usage of the word “vessel” (qi 器), by the analogy of which he famously
defines the petty man, the polar opposite of the Confucian moral gentleman (The Analects 2.12).
For Confucius’s emphasis on the centrality of ritual propriety in making a person virtuous (ren),
see The Analects 12.1.
85
Also see The Analects 14.9, where Confucius gives a positive account on Guan Zhong by
highlighting that even those who were punished by him found his actions appropriate and rea-
sonable. For this interpretation, see Slingerland (trans.), The Analects, p. 157.
86
In his seminal discussion on this issue, Tillman submits that “Confucius did not see [Guan
Zhong] as a symbol of pragmatic politics independent of morality but as an example of the har-
monious balance between inner virtue and social accomplishments.” See Hoyt C. Tillman, “The
Development of Tension between Virtue and Achievement in Early Confucianism: Attitudes
toward Kuan Chung and Hegemon (pa) as Conceptual Symbols,” Philosophy East and West
31:1 (1981), pp. 17–​28, at pp. 19–​20. As will be discussed shortly, even though I agree with the
first part of Tillman’s statement, I disagree with the second part, which stresses the “harmony”
between inner virtue and political accomplishments.
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 175

between one’s personal moral character and one’s great and benevolent polit-
ical achievements, a problem with which Mencius never struggled.
Admittedly, Confucius’s focus in the conversations above is not so much on
whether Guan Zhong possesses the moral virtue of ren or directs his political goal
toward moral cultivation of the people. Rather, what seems to be important to
Confucius is the far-​reaching moral-​political implications of Guan Zhong’s prac-
tice of badao for the cultural and political integrity of the Zhou kingdom under
the leadership of Duke Huan –​the fact that by unifying the Middle Kingdom by
means of badao, Guan Zhong was able to protect it from the infiltration by bar-
barian tribes who posed a critical threat to the Zhou civilization, which Confucius
was always eager to revive by proudly calling it “this culture of ours” (si wen
斯文).87 Put differently, in Confucius’s view, badao, “rightly exercised,” offered a
moral-​political and cultural bulwark against barbarianism. Even though Guan
Zhong lacked ren and ritual propriety as a person, he was able to exert the polit-
ical efficacy of ren.
Confucius’s view of the moral-​political efficacy of badao strongly resonates
with Xunzi’s position, which does not subscribe to a strong form of virtue
monism as Mencius advocates. Recall Xunzi’s un-​Mencian statement on the
hegemon that “[t]‌here are some who, even though virtue is not yet completed
in them and yi is not yet perfected in them, nevertheless order and control
for all under Heaven advances under them.”88 Neither Confucius nor Xunzi
denies the foundational importance of the ruler’s moral virtue for a good gov-
ernment, which is the kernel of Confucian virtue politics, and to this extent all
three giants of classical Confucianism are virtue monists.89 By acknowledging
the practical chasm between the ruler’s personal moral virtue and his effica-
cious statesmanship in the service of the broadest sense of ren, however, both
Confucius and Xunzi present themselves as the defenders of what can be called
tempered virtue monism, a mode of virtue monism that weaves personal moral
virtue and good political consequences –​“good” from the perspective of the
broadest sense of ren –​in a non-​straightforward way.90 Distinguishing himself

87
The Analects 9.5. Also see 3.14 and 7.5 for Confucius’s cultural commitment to the Zhou civ-
ilization. For an illumination of the Zhou culture (wen 文) and its influence on Confucius, see
Vitaly A. Rubin, Individual and State in Ancient China: Essays on Four Chinese Philosophers
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 9–​15; Kung-​chuan Hsiao, History of Chinese
Political Thought, vol.1, trans. Frederick W. Mote (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1979), pp. 93–​101.
88
Xunzi 11.1c.
89
See, for instance, Xunzi 12.1.
90
For more on tempered virtue monism, see Sungmoon Kim, Public Reason Confucianism: Democratic
Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in East Asia (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2016), chap. 5. However, this is not to claim that there is no element of tempered virtue monism
in Mencius’s political theory. For instance, Mencius’s notice of the potential tension between
moral principles and situational demands leads him to embrace the practice of “expedient
measure” (quan 權), thereby tempering his strong virtue monism of extension. I discuss this
kind of tempered virtue monism in greater detail (though without employing this concept)
176 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

from Mencius in this way, therefore, Xunzi reconstructs Confucius’s political

realism with sophistication and philosophical rigor.

Conclusion
In this chapter, I have examined Xunzi’s renewed Confucian attention to the
moral and political value of badao, often associated with the Realpolitik of
Legalism and thus believed to be in stark opposition to the Kingly Way, espe-
cially in comparison with Mencius, the first political theorist who grappled
with badao as a particular mode of statecraft and government in his political
thought. Special attention has been paid to how, in Xunzi’s view, badao can
make both the state and the interstate society well-​ordered and morally decent.
In this concluding section, I discuss the broader Confucian political theoretical
implications of Xunzi’s normative account of badao.
Due to the staggering influence of the “Mencian orthodoxy” in later
Confucianism (especially orthodox Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​Confucianism) and because
of Mencian Confucianism’s ethico-​religious aspiration toward sagehood, by
which, as discussed in Chapter 4, Mencius’s negative Confucianism was pro-
pelled, we tend to forget that Confucius never dismissed the moral-​political and
cultural significance of the equally important Confucian commitment, which
is to protect and maintain Confucian cultural and moral-​political (or “consti-
tutional”) order from disintegrating or “barbarianism.” In Chapter 1, I called
this enabling aspect of Confucian virtue politics positive Confucianism, which
stipulates that the ruler, irrespective of whether or not he is fully virtuous as a
person, exercises political power authoritatively and with substantive popular
support.
Finding himself in the most violent moment in Chinese history and struggling
to espouse the Confucian ideal of virtue politics in such a hostile environment,
Xunzi rediscovered the immense moral-​political value of Confucius’s great
insight into tempered virtue monism and its profound political implications
for positive Confucianism, encompassing badao “rightly practiced.” Xunzi’s
insight, gained in the course of his critical engagement with Mencius and
creative revisit to Confucius’s original thought, was that barbarianism does
not merely come from the outside (from “the barbarians,” for instance); it is
always latent within us, within our uncultivated human nature. Seen in this
way, the social chaos that Xunzi attempted to overcome by means of ritual
and yi is nothing more than the sociopolitical expression of such disorderly
human nature.91 Yet, the Way of destroying the state was another political

in Sungmoon Kim, “Achieving the Way: Confucian Virtue Politics and the Problem of Dirty
Hands,” Philosophy East and West 66:1 (2016), pp. 151–​176.
91
Precisely for this reason, Xunzi thinks that power or force, an important tool for badao, is nec-
essary for not only making right disorderly human nature but also creating sociopolitical order.
Put differently, Xunzi’s attention to power/​force is closely related to his moral psychology and
virtue ethics focused on the transformation of the self.
Hegemonic Rule: Between Good and Evil 177

expression of disorderly human nature, though its evil stems largely from the
ruler’s internal disorder.
For Xunzi, badao held an important value insofar as it helped create a
moral and political space in which people can develop certain dispositions –​
the virtues (i.e., civic virtues) which prevent the Confucian polity from disin-
tegration –​and the ruler and the ruled can be interdependent with each other
by means of mutual trust. Though not good enough to achieve the ideal of
Confucian virtue politics, Xunzi believed, badao can serve the critical purpose
of positive Confucianism.
6

Responsibility for All under Heaven

In the previous chapter, I argued that while Mencius’s staunch normative

dichotomy between the Kingly Way and badao is propelled by his unswerving
commitment to strong virtue monism, Xunzi’s (and Confucius’s) far more
nuanced attitude toward badao is attributable to his embrace of tempered
virtue monism, which recognizes the potential tension between personal moral
virtue and good political consequences. Despite this important difference,
I stress once again that Mencius and Xunzi both subscribe to the foundational
assumption that ideal Confucian politics is a form of virtue politics. Or, more
accurately, they are both committed to the normative belief that a good gov-
ernment ought to be predicated on moral virtue.
This otherwise simple statement, however, encompasses two important
moral stipulations. First, it is primarily the ruler’s moral virtue, which he
acquires from Heaven through strenuous moral self-​cultivation, that animates
Confucian politics and makes it a form of virtue politics.1 In the classical
Confucian moral-​political imagination, strongly influenced by Zhou political
theology, the ruler was conceived as the Son of Heaven, presiding over all under

1
It is important to note that etymologically, 德 (virtue) is closely connected with 得 (to acquire),
which enables the interpretation, especially in the post-​Zhou context, that virtue, particularly,
the ruler’s virtue, is Heaven’s beneficence that he has acquired in himself through moral self-​
cultivation. See The Analects of Confucius: A Philosophical Translation, trans. Roger T. Ames
and Henry Rosemont, Jr. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1998), p. 57. Compare this interpreta-
tion with Arthur Waley’s argument that “[de] never (except by some accident of context) has in
early Chinese the meaning of virtue as opposed to vice,” attributing to it “the specific quality or
‘virtue’ latent in anything [like the Latin virtus].” See The Analects of Confucius, trans. Arthur
Waley (New York: Vintage, 1989), p. 33. Although I agree with Waley that the meaning of de in
the Shang dynasty is indeed close to potency or “power,” his claim, denying its association with
one’s inner moral character, seems to be exaggerated, failing to note that the concept of de –​ like
that of ren from “manliness” into moral virtue –​underwent a significant, though slow, process of
transvaluation during the subsequent Zhou dynasty, and certainly in Confucius’s ethical thought.

178
Responsibility for All under Heaven 179

Heaven.2 It was believed, most notably by Mencius, that this universal ruler
was granted Heaven’s beneficence and his mission is to pass it on to the people
who he governs by means of his moral virtue, the channel through which he
mediates between Heaven and the people, attracting the latter to become “the
subjects of Heaven” (tianmin 天民).3 Though, according to Confucian polit-
ical theory, virtuous Confucian politics involves benevolent public policies that
create and sustain socioeconomic conditions under which the people can enjoy
economic sufficiency and live a flourishing moral life,4 the source of such public
benevolence is always the ruler’s moral virtue as Heaven’s gift (tian yu 天與).
However, Confucian virtue politics is not solely about the ruler’s vertical
relationship with Heaven –​hence the second stipulation. While the classical
Confucians struggled to turn at least one of their contemporary rulers into
a sage-​king, they also emphasized that the central purpose of Confucian
virtue politics is to make the people morally elevated by educating them by
means of rituals instituted by the former sage-​kings.5 The classical Confucians
were strongly convinced that good government is only possible if politics is
predicated on moral virtue of both the ruler and the ruled: while the ruler’s
stellar moral character (or moral charisma) inspires the people toward moral
goodness, the morally elevated people support the government that is run by
the virtuous ruler not merely on prudential and instrumental grounds but sin-
cerely from their hearts, finding its good form (wen 文) enjoyable, morally
edifying, and thus intrinsically valuable, as we discussed in Chapter 1. As such,
the two stipulations of Confucian virtue politics speak for the ruler’s moral
authority on the one side and moral legitimacy on the other, which combine
to make a government, which is in principle of a global scale stretching to all
under Heaven, a good government.
Ironically, though, the classical Confucians developed this global vision of
virtue politics in the midst of perhaps the most turbulent period in Chinese his-
tory. During the late Warring States period the Zhou dynasty, whose founders

2
For a more detailed discussion on Zhou political theology, in which early Confucian political
theory is deeply embedded, see Benjamin I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1985), pp. 46–​55. On the origin and the changing notions of the
idea of “all under Heaven” in ancient China, see Yuri Pines, “Changing Views of Tianxia in Pre-​
Imperial Discourse,” Oriens Extremus 43 (2002), pp. 101–​116.
3
Mencius 7A19. According to Edward Machle, Xunzi also embraces this political theology of
Heaven: “In Xun[zi]’s view of administration, the sage-​king attracts the people into orderliness
by his DE, the winsome power of his moral perfection … But the sage has been attracted into his
orderliness by the DE of Tian, and, in the administration of the cosmic hierarchy, is put by Xun
into the role of the minister of Tian’s order, ‘completing Tian’s work’ ” (Nature and Heaven in the
Xunzi: A Study of the Tian Lun [Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993], p. 176).
Machle’s view, however, dismisses the prudential motivation behind the common people’s polit-
ical compliance before moral transformation as well as the ruler’s voluntary subscription to
ritual, as discussed in Chapter 1.
4
Mencius 1A7; 1B5; 2A5; 3A3; 3B8; 7B27 and Xunzi 9.4; 9.13; 10.2–​3b; 11.12; 27.52.
5
The Analects 2.3.
180 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

Wen and Wu had justified their conquest of the previous Shang dynasty and
the foundation of a new dynasty based on the Mandate of Heaven, collapsed
completely (256 bce), and the feudal states formerly under the authority of
the Zhou king began a life-​and-​death struggle for supremacy, only to end with
Qin’s reunification, a state armed with Legalism. After the Qin Empire’s sudden
collapse, Han Confucians re-​ appropriated the classical Confucians’ global
theory of virtue politics in the service of the empire’s everlasting stability and
order by (among other things) calling the emperor the Son of Heaven.
How Han Confucians re-​appropriated classical Confucianism in the ser-
vice of the empire, undergirded by Legalistic-​Confucian political institutions
and laws, is itself an interesting question.6 But my main interest in this chapter
is how Mencius and Xunzi accommodated their global vision of virtue pol-
itics to the drastically altered political circumstances created by ceaseless
warfare, annexation, and the emergence of new “sovereign” states, making
neither virtue politics nor a global political philosophy seemingly plausible
for all under Heaven. How did they attempt to reinvent the global vision of
Confucian virtue politics in a way plausible to their contemporary rulers who
were preoccupied with Realpolitik? How did they make their global polit-
ical theory relevant for the former feudal but now formidably independent
rulers, singularly engrossed in the political project of “enriching (one’s own)
state and strengthening (one’s own) military,” rather than benefitting all under
Heaven? In short, how did the classical Confucians make their political theory
of virtue politics relevant in the new interstate context without compromising
the theory’s global vision?
In this chapter, I argue that Mencius and Xunzi, despite their many
differences, were able to successfully meet both the political and philosoph-
ical challenges arising from the collapse of Zhou’s universal moral-​political
authority with regard to the morality of war and legitimate interstate relations
on the one hand and their global vision of virtue politics on the other, by jus-
tifying a virtuous ruler’s punitive expedition (even annexation) of a tyrannical
state. Both Mencius and Xunzi reformulated Confucian politics by creatively
re-​appropriating the core stipulations of Confucian virtue politics, centered
around the ruler’s care and moral-​ political responsibility for the people,
in a way relevant to the new interstate context in which there is no visible
political institution representing the Mandate of Heaven, which previously
undergirded Zhou’s universal kingship. I show that finding themselves in the
most violent period in Chinese history, Mencius and Xunzi offered a prin-
cipled way in which military force could be used legitimately as a critical
instrument to extend the ruler’s care and responsibility for the well-​being of
all under Heaven.

6
For the evolution of Confucianism during the Han period, see generally Toshikuni Hihara,
Kandai shisō no kenkyū 漢代思想の硏究 [A Study on the Thoughts of the Han Dynasty]
(Tokyo: Kenbunshuppan, 1986).
Responsibility for All under Heaven 181

New Interstate Moral Hierarchy

When Confucius was alive, the house of Zhou, though having significantly lost
its political power, still existed and wielded moral authority (albeit very lim-
ited) as the Son of Heaven over the feudal lords. Therefore, even the most pow-
erful feudal lord, such as Duke Huan of Qi (assisted by Guan Zhong), was only
able to assume the role of primus inter pares among the feudal states as the
hegemon whose primary task was to “uphold the royal house of Zhou” (zun
wang) and “protect it from external threats, especially from the ‘barbarians,’
the people outside the Zhou kingdom” (rang yi). And, as we saw in Chapter 5,
it is precisely because of Guan Zhong’s remarkable success in this task that
Confucius, though raising serious questions about his personal moral char-
acter, praised him as the protector of Zhou’s civilizational integrity.
Though Confucius was deeply worried about the emerging new world
order marked by unruly intrastate and interstate relations that seriously vio-
lated Zhou political ritualism, his most eminent concern was how to restore
the Zhou civilization that he admired the most among the three dynasties
of Chinese antiquity7 by keeping the feudal lords in their right (i.e., ritually
ordered) places.8 Most tellingly, when Chen Chengzi, a minister, assassinated
Duke Jian of Qi, a serious moral and political violation of the Zhou ritual
order, Confucius, having cleansed himself ceremonially, went to court and
asked Duke Ai, the incumbent ruler of his own state Lu, to send an army
on behalf of the Zhou king to “punish” (tao 討) Chen.9 For Confucius, the
emerging sovereign authority of the states still subjected, albeit nominally, to
the Zhou ritual order did not in itself create an independent philosophical
question as long as Zhou’s traditional moral and cultural authority could be
reinvigorated.
Mencius and Xunzi belonged to quite a different world, however. Zhou’s
moral authority as the universal king was no longer respected by the feudal
states, now de facto independent and sovereign, and several powerful rulers
sought to become the “king,” which originally meant the ruler of the whole
world,10 while most of the rulers of small states were struggling for mere sur-
vival.11 Although both Mencius and Xunzi never departed from Confucius’s
global vision of virtue politics and held an unflagging belief that the world
could be reunified only if a ruler (any ruler) were to become truly virtuous and
exercise the Kingly Way, they were keenly aware that restoration of Zhou’s

7
Confucius once said, “The Zhou dynasty looked back to the Xia and Shang dynasties. Such a
wealth of culture! I follow the Zhou” (The Analects 3.14; Ames and Rosemont Jr.’s translation).
8
See, for instance, The Analects 3.1.
9
The Analects 14.21.
10
See Chapter 2 (n51).
11
One example is Duke Wen of Teng, who asked Mencius the following question: “Teng is a small
state. If it tries with all its might to please the large states, it will only bleed itself white in the
end. What is the best thing for me to do?” (Mencius 1B15).
182 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

ritual-​based universal political order was no longer possible given the radically
changed political circumstances. In the face of this unprecedented political
challenge, they had no choice but to admit that Confucian political theory must
embrace a new world of multiple sovereign independent states. The immediate
challenge posed to them, then, was how to accommodate Confucius’s original
political vision, focused on a general and global theory of virtue politics, to the
contemporary interstate reality marked by the absence of any higher moral-​
political authority.
One of Mencius’s distinct contributions to Confucian political theory is
that he reaffirmed the moral hierarchy among the states without positing the
institutional authority of a universal kingship entertained by the Zhou king.
Mencius’s idea of interstate moral hierarchy departs significantly from the pre-
vious Zhou version, because he grounded the hierarchical interstate order on
the reciprocal relationships between the now independent states of various
size and power. Of the “Way” (dao) to promote good relations between such
states,12 Mencius says,
[O]‌nly one who is ren is able to serve (shi 事) a small state with a large one, as was the
case when Tang served Ge and King Wen served the Kun tribes. Only the wise (zhi) are
able to serve a large state with a small one, as was the case when Tai Wang served the
Xunyu and Goujian served Wu. One who with a large state serves a small one delights
in Heaven, while one who with a small state serves a large one is in awe of Heaven.
Through delighting in Heaven one preserves all under Heaven, and through being in
awe of Heaven one preserves his state.13

The recognition of the discrepancy in size and power among the states reveals
the realistic dimension of Mencius’s political theory. But the key to maintaining
interstate hierarchy, otherwise based on political realism, nevertheless lies
in the rulers’ moral virtues such as ren and zhi and the reciprocal relation-
ship among states that such virtues help generate. Here, Mencius makes two
moral and politically practical suggestions: (1) that it is both moral (ren, hence
delighting in Heaven) and advantageous (in terms of realizing the goal of pre-
serving all under Heaven) for a large state to serve (or, I interpret, to “take care
of”) a small state and (2) that it is both moral (or zhi, hence being in awe of
Heaven) and practically advantageous (in terms of preserving one’s state) for a
small state to serve a large state. Thus, Mencius subjects each state’s otherwise

12
As will be clear in my subsequent arguments, the “Way” here is not so much the ideal Kingly
Way but a realistic method by which to promote a good relationship among the independent
sovereign states, although even here Mencius seems to be looking forward to the eventual real-
ization of the Kingly Way.
13
Mencius 1B3. The English translation of this passage is adapted from Mencius, trans. Irene
Bloom (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). Note that while Lau translates shi 事 as
“submit to,” Bloom translates it as “serve,” which in my view renders Mencius’s moral vision
more explicit.
Responsibility for All under Heaven 183

narrow political interest to the morality of ren and zhi, with a view to gener-
ating interstate moral harmony and public good.14
What is worth special attention here is that Mencius seems to understand
self-​determination of the state as a core prerequisite for the well-​being of the
people, when he claims that it is the small states’ concern with self-​determination
that motivates them to serve the large states. Admittedly, in the modern Western
political discourse, self-​determination of the state is understood in the context
of the morality of the states. Opposing the Hobbesian view of international
relations as the global version of the state of nature and therefore the abso-
lute skepticism of morality in international relations, the eighteenth-​century
European moral philosophers such as Christian Wolff and Emerich de Vattel
advanced the analogy of states and (moral) persons and the resulting analogy
of nonintervention and self-​autonomy. This view holds that just as the liberty
to govern oneself must be absolutely respected in terms of self-​autonomy or
self-​government in the liberal civil society of moral individuals (here domestic
justice is predicated on the so-​called morality of individuals), in the interna-
tional society of sovereign states individual states’ self-​determining autonomies
must be acknowledged (here international justice being based on the morality
of the states). Put differently, the world should be envisioned not so much as
an anarchic state but as an international “community” of largely self-​sufficient
states that interact only in marginal ways.15
In Chapter 5, I noted an interesting parallel between the modern Western
international political theorists and Xunzi, especially in the latter’s normative
justification of badao as a mode of interstate governance. Like Xunzi, Mencius
also advocates a moral community among politically independent and self-​
governing states. The critical difference between the two is that while Xunzi
emphasizes that a hegemon can play a significant moral and political role in
sustaining such a community, Mencius is completely silent about a hegemon’s
potential contribution to that effect. Moreover, despite his espousal of inter-
state community among self-​governing states, the vision largely shared by
Xunzi, Mencius clearly parts company with the modern European advocates
of the morality of states, when he submits that a small state’s voluntary sub-
mission to a large state for the sake of territorial integrity and the people’s
well-​being does not necessarily compromise its political self-​determination. For
Mencius, the mutual serving of the large state (in terms of care) and the small
state (in terms of deference) does not imply a relationship of domination and
subjugation; rather, it creates a moral hierarchy that is mutually beneficial to

14
Notice an interesting parallel between the transformation of (narrow) political interest by means
of ren and zhi into the interstate public good here and the transformation of private interest into
public interest by means of ren and yi, discussed in Chapter 1.
15
Charles R. Beitz, Political Theory and International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1979), p. 65.
184 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

both parties.16 That said, it appears that in Mencius’s judgment, the success of
interstate moral hierarchy hangs primarily on the moral character of the rulers
of the large and strong states. Consider the following statement:
When the Way prevails in the world men of small virtue serve men of great virtue, men
of small ability serve men of great ability. But when the Way is in disuse, the small serve
the big, the weak serve the strong. Both are due to Heaven. Those who are obedient to
Heaven are preserved; those who go against Heaven are annihilated … Now the small
states emulate the big states yet feel ashamed of being dictated to by them. This is like
disciples feeling ashamed of obeying their masters. If one is ashamed, the best thing is
to take King Wen as one’s model. He who models himself on King Wen will prevail over
the whole world, in five years if he starts with a big state, and in seven if he starts with
a small state.17

Here Mencius makes the Way a moral prerequisite of interstate moral hier-
archy –​that is, only if the Way prevails can there be an interstate moral hier-
archy. But in reality, in order for the Way to prevail in the interstate world
under the political circumstances of the Warring States period, interstate moral
hierarchy between large/​strong and small/​weak states must be established and
securely maintained in the first place. In other words, rulers of small virtue
must serve those of great virtue while rulers of small ability must serve those of
great ability. However, when moral hierarchy between large/​strong states and
small/​weak states deteriorates into a power-​based hierarchy (i.e., the patholog-
ical relationship of domination and subjugation), not only does it signal the
disappearance of the Way but it also gives justification to the small/​weak states
to refuse commands from the large/​strong states that are now power-​seeking
and thereby disrupting the interstate moral hierarchy.
At first glance, Mencius does not seem to encourage the small states
to actively resist or remonstrate against the large power-​seeking states, but
merely exhorts them to turn to the Kingly Way. Nonetheless, it should not be
overlooked that turning to the Kingly Way also implies refusing to submit to
aggressive powers of large and strong states and in this regard this action can
be considered a political form of resistance, which is likely to invite a serious
military threat or even an invasion. In fact, it was exactly this kind situation
that Duke Wen of Teng, an ardent pursuant of the Kingly Way,18 found himself
in between the two strong states of Qi and Chu. Mencius advises Duke Wen
as follows:
In antiquity, when [T]‌ai Wang was in Bin, the Di tribes invaded the place. He tried to
buy them off with skins and silks; he tried to buy them off with horses and hounds …

16
If we bracket Mencius’s explicit refutation of badao as a mode of interstate governance, his
insight here is remarkably consistent with Xunzi’s vision of interstate order based on mutual
trust under the leadership of the hegemon.
17
Mencius 4A7 (slightly modified).
18
Mencius 3A2.
Responsibility for All under Heaven 185

but all to no avail. Then he assembled the elders and announced to them, “What the Di
tribes want is our land. I have heard that a man in authority never turns what is meant
for the benefit of men into a source of harm to them. It will not be difficult for you, my
friends, to find another lord. I am leaving.” And he left Bin, crossed the Liang Mountains
and built a city at the foot of Mount Qi and settled there. The men of Bin said, “This is
a benevolent man. We must not lose him.” They flocked after him as if to market. Others
expressed the view, “This is the land of our forebears. It is not a matter for us to decide.
Let us defend it to the death.” You will have to choose between these two courses.19

According to Mencius, when a small state like Teng is surrounded and threat-
ened by large and powerful states that are single-​mindedly driven by badao in
their attempts to expand their territories, thereby critically violating the norms
of interstate moral hierarchy, the only moral option is the continuous practice
of the Kingly Way, which leaves two realistic political strategies: either fighting
the intruders to the death,20 or giving up the land of their forebears (which is
as equally painful as death in the Confucian culture of ancestral worship) and
continuing the Kingly Way in a new place. These options available to a small
state, however, should not be seen as simply a matter of rational choice for the
ruler because the criterion for political decision here is the moral relationship
between the ruler and his people and it is having such a moral relationship in
mind that Mencius encourages Duke Wen to “try his best to do good.”21 Put
differently, in either case (fighting to death or giving up the land), the ruler’s
course of action depends on his relationship with the people, and, in a deep
sense, it is the people who will inform his decision.22
Two important points can be gleaned from the discussion thus far. On the
one hand, Mencius is deeply concerned with the political autonomy of small
states in the face of the pathological Realpolitik of war and aggression –​a
political self-​determination, which he believes is attainable only under the
well-​ordered interstate moral hierarchy between large/​strong and small/​weak
states.23 For Mencius, a (small) state’s political autonomy is an important good

19
Mencius 1B15.
20
In a different place, Mencius says to Duke Wen of Teng, “There is only one course of action I can
suggest. Dig deeper moats and build higher walls and defend them shoulder to shoulder with the
people. If they would rather die than desert you, then all is not lost” (Mencius 1B13), implying
that self-​defense is a type of war that is morally justified.
21
Mencius 1B14.
22
This point should remind us of the essential moral-​political significance of intrastate relations in
Mencius’s interstate political theory.
23
In his critique of Michael Walzer’s valorization of membership in a particular community from
the Mencian perspective, Bell argues that for Mencius “there is no moral force attached to val-
uing one’s particular culture or language or religion or distinctive form of political association,
and he would certainly reject the idea that valuing particular ties or exclusive forms of
common life can justify the resort to armed force in the international arena” (Daniel A. Bell,
“Just War and Confucianism: Implications for the Contemporary World,” in Beyond Liberal
Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2006], pp. 23–​51, at p. 45). Bell is right that in Mencian interstate Confucian virtue
186 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

that is critically instrumental to the people’s well-​being, a more fundamental

Confucian good to which the Kingly Way is committed. Yet, on the other hand,
he clearly understands that despite mutual reciprocity involved in interstate
moral hierarchy, interstate order and peace would be practically impossible
without heavier moral commitment and responsibility from the large/​strong
states. Therefore, in order to create an interstate political environment in which
the states’ (especially small states’) political autonomy can be firmly secured,
Mencius reasons, they all should subscribe to the shared understanding and
practice of morality in relation to, among other things, the five cardinal moral
relationships (wulun).24 In other words, Mencius espouses the states’ political
autonomy without simultaneously making it a cultural autonomy.25 A small
state’s political autonomy would be respected only if it abides by the moral
and cultural norms of the wulun while a large state’s non-​oppressive political
authority over small states must be derived from its respectful observance of
the wulun.
In this section, we have examined how Mencius successfully met the the-
oretical challenge of reestablishing interstate moral hierarchy in the face of
a (near-​)complete breakdown of the moral-​political institution of universal
kingship held previously by the Zhou king from the perspective of Confucian
virtue politics. One may be puzzled over Mencius’s complete silence as to how
to establish and secure a similar moral relationship among the large and strong
states who were vying violently with one another for the ultimate domination
of the world. One explanation, of course, is that Mencius hoped that at least
one of them would earnestly exercise the Kingly Way and become a true king –​
hence his efforts to convince powerful rulers of his time such as King Xuan of
Qi and King Hui of Liang of the value of the Kingly Way. Nevertheless, given
Mencius’s sense of reality shown in his embrace of the new interstate order,

politics, a state’s political autonomy does not hold an intrinsic moral and political value inde-
pendent of the good it aims to serve, namely, the people’s moral and material well-​being. That
said, I think Bell’s statement is more relevant to Mohism (than Confucianism), which gives less
attention to differential attachment and special moral obligation. Moreover, Bell dismisses the
fact that Mencius attaches to home and neighboring countries differing degrees of moral sig-
nificance by citing Confucius’s markedly different modes between leaving his home country Lu
and leaving the state of Qi (i.e., “the way to leave the state of one’s father and mother” and “the
way to leave a foreign state”). See Mencius 7B17. Contrary to Bell’s expectation, Mencius seems
to hold that Confucian universalism is a form of partial cosmopolitanism that does not dismiss
the particular moral ties and obligations including one’s special affection and obligations to his
home country.
24
For the centrality of the wulun in Mencius’s universal ideal of Confucian civilization (established
by former sage-​kings reigning over all under Heaven), see Mencius 3A4. Also see Xunzi 27.31.
25
This clearly distinguishes Mencius’s idea of political self-​ determination from the modern
Western notion of national self-​determination. On the cultural pluralist assumptions behind
the notion of national self-​determination, see David Miller, On Nationality (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995); Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977),
pp. 53–​58, 87–​91.
Responsibility for All under Heaven 187

it is indeed puzzling that he does not discuss relations among the large and
powerful states. Apparently, Xunzi’s affirmation of the ba system as a morally
acceptable (but not ideal) mode of interstate governance was to attempt to
address this important caveat in Mencius’s interstate political theory, his ulti-
mate political optimism in particular.
This completes the brief summary of the political backdrop against which
the classical Confucians struggled to advance their global vision of Confucian
virtue politics during the Warring States period. The question posed to them
was: how can Heaven’s beneficence, which in principle can only be passed to
all under Heaven in mediation of the universal king’s brilliant moral virtue as
the Son of Heaven, reach all people of the world, when the world is divided
into independent sovereign states and the modus vivendi of interstate moral
hierarchy is frequently violated by ambitious rulers? I begin to investigate
Mencius’s and Xunzi’s (shared) response to this challenge by, first, revisiting
Mencius’s famous conversation with King Hui of Liang.26

Extended Responsibility
In his conversation with King Hui in the opening pages of the Mengzi, Mencius
offers a powerful answer to the question I just raised by saying that the ruler
must devote himself to the virtues of ren and yi, instead of preoccupying himself
with how to profit his own state. Mencius says, “If Your Majesty says, ‘How
can I profit my state?’ and the Counsellors say, ‘How can I profit my family?’
and the Gentlemen and Commoners say, ‘How can I profit my person?’ then
those above and those below will be trying to profit at the expense of one
another and the state will be imperiled.”27 Notwithstanding his seemingly mor-
alistic stance, as we saw in Chapter 1, Mencius’s real intent here is not to put
ren and yi in stark opposition to interest. In fact, in this conversation with one
of the most powerful and war-​mongering rulers of his time, Mencius intends
to convey a deeper political message than to simply espouse morality over
profit. Consider the subsequent conversation between him (M) and King Hui
of Liang (H).
H: I have done my best for my state. When crops failed in Ho Nei I moved
the population to Ho Tung and the grain to Ho Nei, and reversed the
action when crops failed in Ho Tung. I have not noticed any of my
neighbors taking as much pains over his government. Yet how is it [that]
the population of the neighboring states has not decreased and mine has
not increased?

26
Several paragraphs in this section have been drawn, with significant modifications, from
Sungmoon Kim, “Mencius on International Relations and the Morality of War: From the
Perspective of Confucian Moralpolitik,” History of Political Thought 31:1 (2010), pp. 33–​56
with permission from Imprint Academic.
27
Mencius 1A1.
188 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

M: … If you can see that, you will not expect your own state to be more
populous than the neighboring states. If you do not interfere with the
busy seasons in the fields, then there will be more grain than the people
can eat; if you do not allow nets with too fine a mesh to be used in
large ponds, then there will be more fish and turtles than they can eat;
if hatchets and axes are permitted in the forests on the hills only in the
proper seasons, then there will be more timber than they can use. When
the people have more grain, more fish and turtles than they can eat,
and more timber than they can use, then in the support of their parents
when alive and in the mourning of them when dead, they will be able to
have no regrets over anything left undone. This is the first step along the
Kingly Way.28
According to conventional (largely Western-​modern) political sensibility, King
Hui’s action appears to be reasonable, even admirable. It is commonly believed
that a ruler should be concerned with the well-​being of his people and when
the people are put into a dire situation (due to a natural disaster, for instance),
he must rescue them and find a way for them to continue their lives. This is
exactly what King Hui did and, he claims, other rulers failed to do. King Hui
thinks that he benefited his people and he now wants Mencius to tell him how
to profit his state. Surprisingly, however, Mencius finds that the king’s self-​pride
is misguided and his concern for his people is insincere. In fact, in Mencius’s
view, the king is almost delusional because he did nothing when people were
dying of starvation in the streets and blamed the poor harvest instead of dis-
tributing food when his own dogs and pigs ate food intended for people.29 It
is difficult to know whether Mencius’s accusation is accurate or whether King
Hui was indeed a terrible ruler (or a tyrant), as described by Mencius.30 What
is interesting is that Mencius’s advice to King Hui is focused not merely on how
to profit his state, or his people, but how to benefit the people of the world.
In other words, by encouraging the king to exercise the Kingly Way, a uni-
versal moral statecraft intended for all under Heaven, Mencius shifts the king’s
attention from his own state to the people in general.
With the collapse of Zhou’s universal moral-​political authority, the “feudal”
lords, including King Hui of Liang, rapidly turned to Realpolitik, making their
own states’ strength and global dominance their supreme concern. In this polit-
ical milieu, Mencius, neither yearning to restore the bygone golden age nor

28
Mencius 1A3 (emphasis added).
29
Ibid.
30
But consider a contemporary historian’s following statement on King Hui: “He also assumed the
use of royal regalia and chariots patterned on those ascribed to the Xia dynasty, whose supposed
capital had been his own. This act of hubris was followed by a disastrous military defeat in
341 b.c.” (Mark E. Lewis, “Warring States Political History,” in The Cambridge History of
Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 b.c., eds. Michael Loewe and Edward L.
Shaughnessy [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999], p. 603).
Responsibility for All under Heaven 189

resigning to the Realpolitik of the time, seems to have nevertheless seen a pos-
sibility of a middle way: while adhering to Confucius’s global vision of virtue
politics, at the core of which is universal sage-​kingship, Mencius, as discussed
in the previous section, is realistic enough not to dismiss as completely illegiti-
mate the new reality of interstate relations simply because of its deviance from
Zhou’s ritual-​based global political order. For Mencius, it seems, the most prac-
tically effective way to achieve this middle way was to make the incumbent
rulers feel responsible for the well-​being of the people of other state(s) (and
ultimately all under Heaven) and to care for them, without encouraging them
to actively pursue the position (or the title) of universal kingship by means of
a strong army or economic power.
Seen in this way, Mencius’s blunt response to King Hui of Liang’s inquiry
about how to profit his state is not only due to the king’s failing government
but also because of his single-​minded pursuit of his own state’s interest at the
expense of the well-​being of the people of other states. In Mencius’s judgment,
the king is “inhumane” (bu ren) because he has failed to “extend his love
from those he loves [e.g., his family members] to those he does not [neces-
sarily] love.”31 Though by “those he does not love” Mencius primarily means
the people under the ruler’s direct rule, there is no reason to limit the scope
of the people domestically. In this regard, Mencius’s following description of
King Wu’s punitive expedition of the Yin people of the Shang dynasty is quite
revealing:
When King Wu marched on Yin, he had [only] three hundred war chariots and three
thousand brave warriors. He said, “Do not be afraid. I come to bring you peace, not
to wage war on the people.” And the sound of the people knocking their heads on the
ground was like the toppling of a mountain. To wage a punitive war (zheng 征) is to
rectify (zheng 正) [a bad ruler].32

In Mencius’s narrative, King Wu initiated war against Zhòu, the last ruler of the
Shang dynasty, because of his extended sense of responsibility for the well-​being
of the Yin people who had long suffered from Zhòu’s tyranny (and it is this
sort of moral responsibility that King Hui, or any other warring rulers during
Mencius’s time, seems to have lacked). Mencius captures punitive expeditions
against a bad ruler in terms of “rectification” (zheng), by which Confucius ear-
lier famously defined a good government (zheng 政).33 In so doing, Mencius
implies that one of the critical aims of government is to bring order to society
by putting every member of the society in his or her proper place, which in
Confucius’s view begins with the ruler being a ruler in the proper sense.34 By
identifying punitive war in terms of rectification, then, Mencius shows the

31
Mencius 7B1 (my translation).
32
Mencius 7B4.
33
The Analects 12.17.
34
Confucius says, “Let the ruler be a ruler, the subject a subject, the father a father, the son a son”
(The Analects 12.11) and calls this method of ordering “rectification of names” (zhengming 正名)
190 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

inextricable intertwinement between domestic politics (政) and interstate poli-

tics (征) within the overall framework of Confucian virtue politics. Put differ-
ently, in Mencius’s political vision, in the absence of a universal rulership, the
task of government does not end with securing the well-​being of the people
within the territorial boundaries of a state but extends to the well-​being of
those belonging to other states, starting with neighboring states.
Interestingly, despite his many criticisms of Mencius, Xunzi’s (X) following
conversation with Chen Xiao (C), his student, offers a revealing explanation as
to how the classical Confucians justified the punitive expedition launched by a
virtuous ruler against a tyrant.
C: When debating military affairs, you, sir, always take ren and yi as what
is fundamental. One who is ren cares for others, and one who is yi
follows good order. If this is so, then what use does one have for mili-
tary forces? The reason why one has military forces is for struggle and
contention.
X: Things are not as you understand them. The person of ren indeed cares
for others, but it is because he cares for others that he hates for people to
harm them. The person of yi indeed follows good order, but it is because
he follows good order that he hates for people to throw it into chaos.
Indeed, military forces are that by which one prohibits violence and does
away with what is harmful. They are not for struggle and contention.
Thus, wherever the military forces of a person of ren reside, that place
enjoys a spirit-​like state [a state that is extremely good]. Wherever he
passes by, that place is transformed, like the falling of a timely rain, and
all are pleased with them.
Thus, Yao attacked the Huan Dou. Shun attacked those who controlled
the Miao. Yu attacked the Gong Gong. Tang attacked the one who con-
trolled the Xia [i.e., Zie]. King Wen attached Chong. King Wu attacked
the tyrant Zhòu. These four emperors and two kings all employed a
military approach based on ren and yi in conducting their campaigns
throughout the world. And so, those nearby drew close to their goodness,
and far away regions admired their virtue. The blades of their weapons
were not stained with blood, but people far and near came and submitted
to them. Such was the abundance of their virtue, and its effects reached
to the limits of all four directions.35
At the heart of Chen Xiao’s question is how virtues such as ren and yi, the
backbone of Confucian virtue politics, can be compatible with military forces.
Chen Xiao’s question touches upon one of the most troubling aspects of

(The Analects 13.3). In various places of The Analects, Confucius says that “rectification” begins
with the ruler’s effort to correct himself and thus become good (The Analects 12.17; 13.6;
13.13). Also see Xunzi 9.15.
35
Xunzi 15.2.
Responsibility for All under Heaven 191

Confucianism as a political theory, namely, the use of violence by a sage-​king: if

a ruler is virtuous, then what is the need for the use of violence?36 Indeed, in
describing Shun’s “effortless” (wuwei) government by likening it to the North
Star to which the multitude of stars pay tribute, Confucius never made the use
of violence an integral part of Confucian statecraft.37 Rather, as noted earlier,
Confucius seemed strongly convinced that in attaining a good government,
all a virtuous ruler has to do is to put everyone, including himself, in a proper
(i.e., ritually ordered) place, and this is an important step toward “caring”
(ai 愛) for others.38
Xunzi does not deny that a virtuous ruler cares for the people. Xunzi might
even believe that if a ruler is truly virtuous and cares for his own people, per-
haps the use of violence would not be necessary except in cases of foreign
invasion. But, it is important to note that what is at stake in the conversation
between Xunzi and Chen Xiao is not so much the use of military force for
defensive purposes. Rather, Chen Xiao’s question points to the ruler’s proac-
tive military engagement with other states, which, in his view, would inevitably
result in struggle and contention.
In dealing with this important challenge to the paradigm of Confucian virtue
politics, Xunzi shifts the focus from a virtuous ruler’s care for the people to
the ruler’s hatred of those who harm them. Or, more accurately, Xunzi draws
our attention to how a virtuous ruler’s care for the people motivates his righ-
teous anger toward those who harm them, which further motivates as well as
justifies the use of military force against them.39 The reasoning is that because
a virtuous ruler loves all people under Heaven, he would not tolerate the rulers
who are actively harming their own people. Here the key is the virtuous ruler’s
extended sense of moral responsibility, motivated by his general care, toward
the people of foreign states under tyrannical rule.40

36
For an insightful discussion on this question, see Sangjun Kim, Mengja-​ŭi ttam sŏngwang-​ŭi
p’i: Chungch’ŭnggŭndae-​wa tongasia yugyomunmyŏng [Sweat of Mencius and Blood of the
Sacred Kings: Confucian Civilization and Universal Human Values] (Seoul: Akanet, 2011), pp.
123–​171.
37
The Analects 2.1.
38
Though Confucius explains ren in various ways, at one point, he defines it as “caring for the
people” (ai ren 愛人) (The Analects 12.22; my translation).
39
On Xunzi’s (and Mencius’s) concern with moral legitimacy in conducting punitive expedition,
see Sumner B. Twiss and Jonathan Chan, “The Classical Confucian Position on the Legitimate
Use of Military Force,” Journal of Religious Ethics 40:3 (2012), pp. 447–​472.
40
Thus, Glanville presents the ancient Confucian conception of sovereignty, represented by
Mencius’s (and, I add, Xunzi’s) political theory of punitive expedition, as one powerful instan-
tiation of the idea of sovereignty as “responsibility to protect.” See Luke Glanville, “Retaining
the Mandate of Heaven: Sovereign Accountability in Ancient China,” Millennium 39:2 (2010),
pp. 323–​343. For a similar observation, see Sumner B. Twiss and Jonathan Chan, “Classical
Confucianism, Punitive Expeditions, and Humanitarian Intervention,” Journal of Military
Ethics 11:2 (2012), pp. 81–​96.
192 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

Although Mencius does not directly refer to the benevolent ruler’s hatred of
those who are cruel and violent toward their people, the gist of his moral justi-
fication of Tang’s punitive expeditions, first against the state of Ge, which had
been suffering under serious misrule by the local ruler, then ultimately against
the Xia dynasty, lies precisely in the sage-​king’s hatred of the politics of cruelty,
which stems from his care for the people. In Mencius’s narrative, Tang, then
one of Xia’s feudal lords, is shown to have been deeply concerned with the
local ruler’s negligence in failing to conduct sacrificial duties, prompting him
to send the ruler of Ge gifts of sacrificial animals and food as well as the people
who can help Ge’s agriculture. But Tang’s benevolent action is met by the local
ruler’s brutal killing of the innocent people, including a boy bearing millet and
meat. Mencius says that it was “for killing the boy” and “[in order to] aveng[e]‌
common men and common women” that Tang waged a war against Ge, which
turned out to be the first of many similar punitive expeditions, resulting in
the overthrow of the Xia dynasty.41 What is worth noting here is Mencius’s
normative belief that punitive expedition is (or ought to be) a war to punish
a tyrant for the purpose of avenging the common people. No doubt, the pro-
found moral sentiment underlying the intervening ruler’s action is his care (ren)
toward all under Heaven, but, apparently, the proximate motivation of his use
of violence is anger toward a bad ruler, one who subscribes to the Way of cru-
elty (bu ren).42
If there were a universal king (i.e., the Zhou king), bad “feudal” rulers,
who were ranked below him according to Zhou’s ritual order, would have
been rightly punished by him in the capacity of the Son of Heaven or by his
delegate(s) as the Heaven-​appointed officer, and this is the true meaning of a
punitive expedition. Put differently, without positing the moral-​political hier-
archy between the universal king and his feudal subjects, there could be no
punitive expedition, as far as Zhou political ritualism is concerned. And it is
for this reason that Mencius asserts that “[i]‌n the Spring and Autumn Annals
there were no just wars. There were only cases of one war not being quite as
bad as another. A punitive expedition (zheng 征) is a war (fa 伐) waged by one
in authority against his subordinates. It is not for peers to punish (zheng) one
another by war.”43
In fact, punitive expedition, as practiced during the Eastern Zhou period (oth-
erwise known as the Spring and Autumn period), was the war of punishment

41
Mencius 3B5.
42
See Chapters 1 and especially 4 for Mencius’s attitude toward the Way of bu ren. For a philosoph-
ical investigation on the contribution of emotions –​both positive such as caring and compassion
and negative such as resentment and outrage –​to the sense of justice, see Robert C. Solomon,
A Passion for Justice: Emotions and the Origins of the Social Contract (London: Rowman and
Littlefield, 1995).
43
Mencius 7B2. Also see 6B7. In Xunzi 15.1f, Xunzi makes a similar normative distinction
between punitive punishment (zhu 誅) and a mere aggressive war (zhan 戰). I will come back to
this distinction in Xunzi’s political theory shortly.
Responsibility for All under Heaven 193

by the Heaven-​appointed officer –​the Zhou king himself or his delegate who
vicariously fulfills the Son of Heaven’s moral-​political mission –​against those
who threaten the house of Zhou and the political order and civilization that
it represents. And such “threats” could come either internally (by ambitious
feudal lords, among others) or externally (by the so-​called “barbarians”) of
the Zhou kingdom. The ba system, which Xunzi reconstructed as a morally
acceptable new moral interstate order as discussed in Chapter 5, had been
initially formed under the significantly weakened Zhou authority to allow the
most powerful feudal lord to play the role of the Heaven-​appointed officer,
with the title of the “senior one” (which is the literal meaning of ba) among
the equals.44
With the complete breakdown of Zhou’s universal moral-​political authority
during the late Warring States period, however, Zhou’s former feudal states
became politically independent and morally equal, which made the practice of
“punitive expedition” (by the superior to the inferior) impossible in principle.
And it was against this background that Mencius and Xunzi struggled to find
a new yet still morally justifiable way to “punish” bad rulers by making the
intervening ruler’s care the central, and arguably the only, criterion to justify
his use of violence.
In the end, for both Mencius and Xunzi, two conditions must be met for
a state to justifiably punish a tyrannical state: (1) the agent delivering the
Heavenly punishment must care for the people suffering from tyranny and
(2) there must be sufficient and active harm done by the tyrant, against whom
the punitive expedition is to be launched. But far more important than these
conditions is the ruler’s extended sense of moral responsibility. While the two
conditions render his punitive expedition morally justified, it is his extended
sense of responsibility that motivates his punitive expedition in the first place.

From Heaven to People

There is one important caveat in the discussion thus far. The examples both
Mencius and Xunzi draw from in their justifications of punitive expedition

44
After Duke Huan of Qi was elected in a conference attended by rulers of Lu, Song, Chen, and
Zheng in 667 bce, King Hui of Zhou (r. 676–​652 bce) conferred on him the title of ba with the
privilege of undertaking military actions on behalf of the royal court, and subsequently Duke
Huan embarked upon a series of punitive expeditions against those who threatened the Zhou
king’s authority as well as those engaged in external aggressions, thereby presenting him as the
guardian of the Zhou kingdom. See Cho-​yun Hsu, “The Spring and Autumn Period,” in Loewe
and Shaughnessy (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to History of Ancient China, pp. 545–​586,
at p. 555. Also see Feng Li, Early China: A Social and Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2013), pp. 163–​167 for formation and development of the ba system. Lastly,
for the centrality of the hegemon’s de understood as “virtuous potency” in securing the mutual
trust that guaranteed adherence to the league that he is to lead, see Mark E. Lewis, Sanctioned
Violence in Early China (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), p. 68.
194 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

in the new interstate world composed of morally equal, independent states

all involve former sage-​kings who are dynasty founders. And we should not
forget that the dynasties they founded are all universal kingdoms in Mencius’s
and Xunzi’s Confucian narratives.45 The obvious question is, can these cases
be emulated in a world divided by independent sovereign states engaged in
mutual struggle? The ancient cases involve the transfer of the Mandate of
Heaven from tyrannical suzerains to virtuous feudal rulers who have launched
a Heaven-​authorized punitive expedition on their political superiors, the nom-
inal possessors of the Mandate of Heaven. In these ancient cases, the people in
the world are seen to enthusiastically welcome the sagacious feudal lord’s puni-
tive expedition against the universal ruler who has lost the Mandate of Heaven
and thus has become no different than a commoner (pifu or yifu),46 and their
enthusiastic welcoming brings this moral hero to the world, making him the
next universal ruler. The following offers the standard Confucian narrative,
extracted from the Shujing, on the collapse of the preceding universal kingdom
resulting from a virtuous feudal lord’s punitive expedition. Once again, I cite
Mencius’s narrative on Tang’s first punitive expedition.
In his punitive expeditions Tang began with Ge. With this he gained the trust of the
whole world, and when he marched on the east, the western barbarians complained,
and when he marched on the south, the northern barbarians complained. They all said,
“Why does he not come to us first?” The people longed for his coming as they longed
for a rainbow in time of severe drought … He punished the rulers and comforted the
people, like a fall of timely rain, and the people greatly rejoiced.47

Xunzi’s earlier remark that “[t]‌he blades of their weapons were not stained
with blood, but people far and near came and submitted to them. Such was
the abundance of their virtue, and its effects reached to the limits of all four
directions” makes perfect sense in the context of the transfer of the Mandate
of Heaven. If the feudal lord delivering Heavenly punishment on the bad uni-
versal ruler is indeed a new possessor of the mandate to rule all under Heaven,
then, in principle (and as Mencius complains), the following description of
King Wu’s punitive expedition against Zhòu in the Shujing (i.e., the case of the
most ren man attacking the most bu ren man) cannot be true: “[T]he blood
spilled was enough to carry staves along with it.”48
In the Warring States context, however, what is at stake is not so much the
transfer of the Mandate of Heaven from one universal king to another, typically

45
Note that all former sage-​kings who Mencius and Xunzi freely cite precede the formation of
Confucianism and accordingly they cannot be properly called “Confucian.” It is through the
Confucian moral re-​telling of the stories about them that the early Confucians were able to
reinvent the “Confucian” moral (and political) heroes.
46
Mencius 1B7 and Xunzi 15.1d; 18.2.
47
Mencius 1B11 (modified). For similar and related narratives, see also Mencius 7B4 and Xunzi
9.19a; 15.3; 15.6b; 16.4.
48
Mencius 7B3.
Responsibility for All under Heaven 195

a former feudal lord, namely the foundation of a new universal kingdom, but
the obligation and entitlement of an independent, de facto sovereign, state to
interfere with another state that is morally equal (according to Zhou political
ritualism), in order to rescue the people from tyrannical rule.49 The trouble is
that no ruler can claim the Mandate of Heaven to rule the whole world and
no state is entitled to “punish” others, however bad they are, because the tra-
ditional moral hierarchy between superiors and inferiors is now obsolete. The
dissolution of the universal kingship means collapse of the Zhou theory of
the Mandate of Heaven and in the absence of Heaven’s Mandate or its visible
institutional agent there is no standard upon which to call a particular mili-
tary engagement righteous or just (yi). Ultimately, then, the challenge for the
Warring States Confucians such as Mencius and Xunzi can be recapitulated
as this –​how can a state, presumably governed by a virtuous ruler, justifiably
invade a tyrannical state, which is in principle of equal moral status, in the vir-
tual absence of an institutional body representative of the Mandate of Heaven
and without necessarily aiming at universal kingship (i.e., the title of the Son
of Heaven)?
This is the problem Mencius struggled with, when Shen Tong, a minister
of Qi, asked him whether it would be justifiable for Qi to attack (fa 伐) Yan,
a state of almost equal size and strength. Mencius replied, “It may,” which Qi
took as an approval, and subsequently attacked and annexed Yan. When asked
if Mencius indeed encouraged Qi to attack Yan, however, he replied as follows:
No. Shen Tong asked whether Yan might be chastised (fa); I replied that it might
(ke 可). They went ahead and attacked it. Had he asked, “Who may chastise it?” I would
have replied that a minister appointed by Heaven might chastise it. Now suppose there
were a murderer. If some asked, “May he be put to death?” I would reply that he might.
If he asked, “Who may put him to death?” I would reply that the chief judge might put
him to death. How would I have advised that one Yan should chastise another Yan?”50

In Mencius’s view, Shen Tong’s misunderstanding has resulted from two

confusions –​first, between the punitive expedition (zheng) that Yan deserves
and mere military aggression (fa) that is simply unjust, and second, between
the fact that Yan deserves a punitive expedition and who is entitled to carry out
the punishment.51 Does Mencius himself offer a convincing way to avoid these

49
For the central importance of the Mandate of Heaven in the Confucian theory of righteous war
(yizhan 義戰), see Julia Ching, “Confucianism and Weapons of Mass Destruction” and Philip J.
Ivanhoe, “‘Heaven’s Mandate’ and the Concept of War in Early Confucianism,” both in Ethics
and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives, eds. Sohail H. Hashmi
and Steven P. Lee (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 246–​269 and pp. 270–​
276, respectively. Also see Glanville, “Retaining the Mandate of Heaven.”
50
Mencius 2B8 (Bloom’s translation).
51
Unfortunately, Mencius does not clarify why he thinks Yan deserves a punitive expedition. Two
explanations, though related, are possible. The first points to the recent illegitimate transmission
of the throne in Yan between the incumbent ruler (Lord Zikuai) and his prime minister (Zizhi).
The story is as follows: Pan Shou, one of Zizhi’s stalwarts, coaxed Zhkuai to yield the throne to
196 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

confusions? The problem is that Mencius does not seem to be sure who should
assume the role of Heaven-​appointed officer in the dramatically altered world
where there is no institution that presumably, even vicariously, represents the
Mandate of Heaven. Qi (or any other “feudal” state for that matter) may
be permitted (ke) to punish Yan, a tyrannical state, as it certainly deserves
Heavenly punishment. But who can authorize Qi’s war of punishment and on
what basis can Qi’s action be justified? From the perspective of Zhou polit-
ical ritualism pivoted around universal kingship, to which Mencius frequently
appeals, Qi (or, again, any other “feudal” state) has no authority to punish Yan,
however well-​intended its punitive expedition may be, because the two states
are equal in their moral standing vis-​à-​vis the house of Zhou, which has yet to
formally collapse when Mencius is wrestling with this problem.52
What is interesting is that while seemingly subscribing to Zhou’s global
political ritualism, Mencius creates a new source of justification for interstate
intervention, when he says, “How would I have advised that one Yan should
chastise another Yan?” Here Mencius’s message is clear: Qi is not qualified to
intervene in the internal affairs of Yan not only because of their equal moral

Zizhi by manipulating the well-​known legend of sage-​king Yao having abdicated his position to
his virtuous minister Shun. Stressing the absence of royal sanction from the Zhou king, Mencius
asserts that “Zikuai had no right to give Yan to another; neither had Zizhi any right to accept
it from Zikuai” (Mencius 2B8). As such, the first explanation focuses on the illegitimacy of the
handover of the throne in the light of Zhou political ritualism. For a story about Zikuai’s abdi-
cation, see Hanfeizi 35. Also see Eric L. Hutton, “Han Feizi’s Criticism of Confucianism and its
Implications for Virtue Ethics,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 5 (2008), pp. 423–​453. According
to the second explanation, though, the reason that Yan deserves punitive expedition is that since
Zikuai’s reign, the people of Yan had suffered under tyrannical rule, which only became worse
with Zizhi’s takeover of the throne. As will be discussed shortly, Mencius’s position shifts from
the first, centered on Zhou political ritualism, to the second, focused on the people’s well-​being
as well as the ruler’s virtue.
52
In his interpretation of Mencius’s puzzling position (i.e., his seeming approval of Qi’s attack on
Yan and his later revocation of it), Glanville writes, “Mencius may not have believed that King
Xuan, the ruler of Qi, had the moral authority to wage war, yet he arguably did still lend his
tacit support to the punishment of Yan” (“Retaining the Mandate of Heaven,” p. 336). I find
this view mistaken in that it fails to give due attention to Mencius’s struggle to reconcile his
philosophical commitment to Confucian virtue politics with his cultural allegiance to Zhou
political ritualism, undergirded by the discourse of the Mandate of Heaven, the result of which
was, as we have noted earlier, his new vision of interstate moral hierarchy. Specifically, Glanville
glosses over the theoretical conundrum surrounding the Heaven-​appointed officer in Mencius’s
statement. In this regard, I find Waley’s seminal interpretation of “the Yan episode” (as he calls
it) equally problematic, when he concludes that “[t]‌his [i.e., Mencius’s remark on the Heaven-​
appointed officer as the only legitimate carrier of punitive expedition] however would have been
tantamount to saying that [Yan] ought not to be chastised. For there was no State at the time
which Mencius could have regarded as ‘worthy to act as a ministrant of Heaven.’ Mencius must
have known very well that his actual answer could only be interpreted as a recommendation
that [Qi] should ‘chastise’ [Yan].” See Arthur Waley, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China
(London: George Allen and Unwin, 1939), pp. 153–​154.
Responsibility for All under Heaven 197

status as “vessel states,” but, perhaps more importantly, because its internal
situation is just as bad as Yan, which makes it “another Yan.” This reasoning,
however, does not follow straightforwardly from his earlier remark on the
Heaven-​appointed officer and, by implication, his appeal to the Mandate of
Heaven. While the first part in Mencius’s statement singles out Heaven or its
delegate as the source of authorization for the punishment of Yan, the second
part (i.e., Mencius’s conclusion) highlights the fact that Qi is unqualified to
assume the role of Heaven-​appointed officer on the basis of the equally inhu-
mane (bu ren) nature of its government.
This shift from Heaven (and its institutional representative) to ren (or
virtue) in Mencius’s political theory is of crucial importance because he is now
opening a new way, consistent with his new idea of interstate moral hierarchy,
in which interstate intervention, motivated by “humane” purposes,53 can be
morally justified without relying on the existence of an institutional represen-
tative of Heaven. Mencius creates this remarkable innovation in Confucian
political theory by reinterpreting virtue, originally Heavenly grace that can
reach the people in mediation of the (universal) king’s good government, as
any ruler’s developed inner disposition or moral character. The following con-
versation between Mencius (M) and King Xuan of Qi (X) clearly illuminates
this Mencian innovation, which renders the Confucian ideal of virtue politics
directly relevant in interstate relations among the warring states.
X: Some advise me against annexing Yan while others urge me to do so.
The occupation of a state of ten thousand chariots by another of equal
strength in a matter of fifty days is a feat which could not have been
brought about by human agency alone. If I do not annex Yan, I am afraid
Heaven will send down disasters. What would you think if I decided on
annexation?
M: If in annexing Yan you please its people, then annex it. There are examples
of men in antiquity following such a course of action. King Wu was one. If
in annexing Yan you antagonize its people, then do not annex it. There are
also examples of men in antiquity following such a course. King Wen was
one. When it is a state of ten thousand chariots attacking another of equal
strength and your army is met by the people bringing baskets of rice and
bottles of drink, what other reason can there be than that the people are
fleeing from water and fire? Should the water become deeper and the fire
hotter, they would have no alternative but to turn elsewhere for succor.54

53
See Sungmoon Kim, “Confucian Humanitarian Intervention? Toward Democratic Theory,”
Review of Politics 79:2 (2017), pp. 187–​213. Note that several passages in this section are
drawn, with substantive modifications, from this paper with permission from Cambridge
University Press.
54
Mencius 1B10.
198 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

Interestingly, it is King Xuan who, clearly demonstrating his awareness of the

old rule that renders interstate intervention as morally legitimate, appeals to
Heaven in justifying his further annexation of Yan after defeating it. The king’s
argument is that defeating and occupying a state as large as Yan is not possible
without Heaven’s authorization and annexing Yan (and thereby expanding
the territory of Qi) is a natural course of action in order for him to further
carry out Heaven’s authorization. Implicit in King Xuan’s argument is that his
successful occupation (and annexation) of Yan is a sign of Heaven’s blessing
for him to become a universal ruler.
Completely sidelining the question of Heaven, however, Mencius’s response
is exclusively focused on whether by annexing Yan Qi can please its people.
Whether or not Qi is a Heaven-​appointed officer in the light of Zhou polit-
ical ritualism is not an issue anymore, as Mencius clearly sees that the dis-
course of Heaven can easily be manipulated by a politically ambitious ruler
like King Xuan, in the absence of a formal institution of the Son of Heaven
to which Zhou rulers had privileged access.55 Therefore, without denying the
foundational importance of the Mandate of Heaven in the legitimation of
interstate warfare as well as territorial expansion via annexation, Mencius
declares that the well-​being of the people of the annexed state is the only
visible criterion by which to judge whether or not the annexation is morally
justified.56
Thus understood, both Mencius and Xunzi, who otherwise had deep dis-
agreement about human nature and the proper way to cultivate the self, were
creating a new Confucian virtue political theory specifically tailored for the
world of the warring states. At the core of this new theory are two mutu-
ally interrelated stipulations: (1) the enhancement of the well-​being of the
people under serious misrule is the only justification for military intervention
of another state, particularly for the removal of a tyrant (or a usurper) and
restoration of the political order and (2) the ruler’s extended sense of moral
responsibility toward the people suffering from tyranny, usurpation, or foreign
aggression is the only legitimate motivation for punitive expedition.

55
For example, Song, another small state, was a victim of its powerful neighbors’ manipulation
of the discourse of the Mandate of Heaven. The rulers of Qi and Chu, in their scheme to divide
Song, engaged in anti-​Song propaganda that the ruler of Song –​who according to Wan Zhang,
Mencius’s student, was “on the point of practicing Kingly government (wang zheng 王政)”
(Mencius 3B5) –​is unprincipled and oppressive and thus deserves Heavenly punishment. For the
story of Song, see Waley, Three Ways of Thought, pp. 137–​143. Also see Glanville, “Retaining
the Mandate of Heaven,” pp. 338–​339.
56
Like Mencius, Xunzi does not oppose the annexation of a tyrannical state by a virtuous ruler,
although it is obvious that he never witnessed any case of annexation by virtue in his lifetime
(Xunzi 15.16a–​b). Unlike Mencius, however, Xunzi does not find the hegemon’s punishment of
an aggressive (or tyrannical) state completely illegitimate (Xunzi 9.8). For Xunzi, a hegemon,
rightly understood, can play a limited role of the Heaven-​appointed officer in interstate relations
and military affairs. See Twiss and Chan, “The Classical Confucian Position,” pp. 457–​458.
Responsibility for All under Heaven 199

The Interstate Politics of Virtue

In the previous section, we noted that by decoupling virtue from the universal
political institution representative of Heaven57 and by redefining it as a person’s
(hence any ruler’s) developed inner disposition or moral character, achievable
now without the mediation of the formal agent of Heaven, Mencius has found
a way to justify what looks like a “humanitarian intervention” –​still couched
in the traditional Zhou discourse of “punishment” –​by a virtuous ruler in a
world where there is no longer a visible institutional political agent of Heaven.
Despite significant philosophical disagreement with Mencius, Xunzi seems to
have embraced this aspect of Mencius’s political thought focused on the ruler’s
extended sense of moral responsibility for the people of another state and, ulti-
mately, all people under Heaven.
Two important questions remain. Why should, or how can, a ruler feel
responsible for the suffering of the people of another state that he did not
cause? And what is the proper way for him to take care of the people of other
states in his military intervention? Let us begin with the first question.
As noted, Xunzi generally agrees with Mencius’s interstate theory of
Confucian virtue politics by drawing attention to a virtuous ruler’s righteous
anger toward those who (actively) harm their own people, such as Jie and Zhòu.
But righteous anger alone does not fully explain why a ruler, who in principle
has no causal responsibility for the misery of the people of another state, should
extend his care and moral responsibility to them. Moreover, even though righ-
teous anger could be a powerful motivational force in removing a tyrant, the
direct target of anger, it falls short of carrying out the more important task of
extending the ruler’s benevolent heart to the people. This time, Mencius relieves
Xunzi of this difficulty by challenging our conventional understanding of polit-
ical responsibility. To see this, let us go back to Mencius’s conversation with
King Hui of Liang in Mencius 1A3. The remainder of the passage is as follows:
Now, when food meant for human beings is so plentiful as to be thrown to dogs and
pigs, you fail to realize that it is time for garnering, and when men drop dead from star-
vation by the wayside, you fail to realize that it is time for distribution. When people
die, you simply say, “It is none of my doing. It is the fault of the harvest.” In what way is
that different from killing a man by running him through, while saying all the time, “It
is none of my doing. It is the fault of the weapon.” Stop putting the blame on the harvest
and the people of the whole world will come to you.

Here Mencius refuses to apply the logic of causality mechanically to moral, and
by extension political, responsibility. Indeed, King Hui’s argument is not totally

57
This does not mean that Mencius has completely decoupled virtue from Heaven itself. For him,
virtue is still originated in Heaven’s decree. But, following Confucius, he denies the exclusive
connection between Heaven’s decree and universal kingship, as originally stipulated in the Zhou
account of the Mandate of Heaven.
200 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

unreasonable when he says that it was mainly because of a bad year that people
are dying of starvation (and as noted earlier he indeed took actions to rescue the
people suffering from natural disasters). However, Mencius finds the king’s argu-
ment unacceptable because in his view, whatever is the actual cause of the people’s
suffering, it is the ruler who bears responsibility for them.58
One way to understand this non-​causal responsibility is to attribute it to the
ruler’s unique political standing itself –​that is, it is an integral part of the polit-
ical standing of the (sovereign) ruler to take political, not moral, responsibility for
whatever situation his people are in and however “irrational” the world turns out
to be.59 The difficulty with this interpretation is that it does not adequately cap-
ture the salient moral-​sentimental dimension of Mencius’s notion of responsibility.
Notice that Mencius’s argument is not so much that the ruler’s political status
requires him to take full responsibility for the political realm under his control,
regardless of how he feels for the people, but that a benevolent ruler cannot bear to
see his people suffering from misery, regardless of its cause. The following conver-
sation between Mencius (M) and King Xuan of Qi (X) powerfully illuminates the
internal process in which a ruler’s rudimentary feeling of commiseration develops
into a sense of moral-​cum-​political responsibility for the people.
X: How virtuous must a man be before he can become a true king?
M: He becomes a true king by bringing peace to the people. This is something
no one can stop.
X: Can someone like myself bring peace to the people?
M: Yes, I heard the following from Hu He [that] the king was sitting in the
upper part of the hall and someone led an ox through the lower part.
The king noticed this and said, “Where is the ox going?” “The blood of
the ox is to be used for consecrating a new bell.” “Spare it. I cannot bear
to see it shrinking with fear, like an innocent man going to the place of
execution.” “In that case, should the ceremony be abandoned?” “That is
out of the question. Use a lamb instead.” … The heart behind your action
is sufficient to enable you to become a true king.60
According to Mencius, protection of the people is the supreme responsibility of
the ruler, and a true king is one who is able to protect the well-​being of all people

58
For a fuller discussion of Mencius’s non-​causal conception of moral responsibility, see Sungmoon
Kim, “The Secret of Confucian Wuwei Statecraft: Mencius’s Political Theory of Responsibility,”
Asian Philosophy 20:1 (2010), pp. 27–​42 and, especially, “Contingency and Responsibility in
Confucian Political Theory,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 44:6 (2018), pp. 615–​636, where
I present the non-​causal conception of responsibility as the gist of the Mencian (constitutional)
project of reverse moral economy.
59
This is Max Weber’s view in his idea of ethic of responsibility. See his “Politics as Vocation,”
in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, eds. and trans. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 77–​128.
60
Mencius 1A7. For an illuminating analysis of this conversation from a moral psychological
perspective, see David B. Wong, “Reasons and Analogical Reasoning in Mengzi” and Philip
Responsibility for All under Heaven 201

under Heaven –​hence no one can stop him!61 Mencius’s point is that a ruler’s
ability to carry out his supreme political responsibility stems from his feeling
of commiseration for all living beings. Though the feeling itself, which Mencius
calls the sprout of ren,62 has no political component in it, its empathetic exten-
sion can motivate the ruler to take active responsibility for the people both
within and outside his state. Only one who is indeed capable of extending his
care to all people of the world and turn it into political responsibility for their
well-​being, especially the well-​being of the worst-​off, can become a true king,
a true carrier of the Kingly Way.63 For Mencius, therefore, it is by virtue of the
feeling of commiseration (or care, more broadly) that a benevolent ruler is kept
from applying the logic of causality to his political responsibility.64 As such, a
true king defies the logic of causality in his exercise of benevolent government.
Furthermore, he transcends state borders in extending his benevolent govern-
ment to all under Heaven. In this way, he unifies the world.
The implication of this global vision of sentimentalist Confucian virtue pol-
itics for Mencius’s contemporary rulers is obvious: any follower of the Kingly
Way should strive to extend his care and political responsibility to the people
of other states, and under the current interstate circumstances the most prac-
tical way to exercise this Confucian ethic of responsibility is to intervene in the
states under tyrannical rule, rescue the people, and restore the socioeconomic
conditions under which they can live flourishing moral and economic lives.
This brings us to our second question: what is the proper way for an inter-
vening ruler to take care of the well-​being of the people of the intervened state?
Xunzi offers perhaps the most illuminating statement of what can be called the
Confucian criteria of jus in bello.65

J. Ivanhoe, “Confucian Self Cultivation and Mengzi’s Notion of Extension,” both in Essays
on the Moral Philosophy of Mengzi, eds. Xiusheng Liu and Philip J. Ivanhoe (Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett, 2000), pp. 187–​220 (esp. pp. 189–​199) and pp. 221–​241, respectively.
61
Also see Mencius 4A9; 4B16; 7B4.
62
Mencius 2A6.
63
Depicting King Wen’s virtuous government, Mencius says, “Old men without wives, old women
without husbands, old people without children, young children without fathers –​these four
types of people are the most destitute and have no one to turn to for help. Whenever King Wen
put benevolent (ren) measures into effect, he always gave them first consideration” (Mencius
1B5). Also see Xunzi 9.4.
64
Compare this Confucian position with Han Fei’s 韓非, a famous Legalist and Xunzi’s former
student, which strictly adheres to the logic of causality, when he says, “The lazy and extrava-
gant grow poor; the diligent and frugal get rich. Now if the ruler levies money from the rich in
order to give alms to the poor, he is robbing the diligent and frugal and indulging the lazy and
extravagant” (Henfeizi 50). The English translation of the Hanfeizi 韓非子 is adopted from Han
Fei Tzu: Basic Writings, trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964),
p. 121.
65
At this point, one may wonder whether Xunzi also subscribes to sentimentalist Confucian virtue
politics. It is indeed true that since Xunzi believes that original human nature is bad, lacking
moral sentiments, and thus needs external measures for moral transformation (such as rituals
202 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

Do not kill the old and the feeble. Do not trample down people’s crops. Those who
surrender are not to be treated as captives … In all cases of executions, one is not to
execute the common people. Rather, one is to execute those who bring disorder to the
common people … A true king may carry out execution (zhu 誅), but will not have to
do battle (zhan 戰). He will not assault cities that are heavily fortified. He will not attack
military forces that are boxed in. If, among enemies, superiors and inferiors delight in
one another, then he congratulates them. He does not slaughter cities. He does not lay
his armies in wait for ambushes. He does not station mass occupations. His campaigns
do not exceed a single season. And so, the people of chaotic states take joy when he
launches war, because they are not at ease with their own superiors, and instead desire
his arrival.66

Drawing from this passage (and related passages in the Mengzi), some scholars
argue that the classical Confucian idea(s) of limiting the legitimate use of mili-
tary force is not merely a matter of prudence in designing an effective military
strategy but has a strong deontological moral element given its connection with
“the normative ideal of initiating true humaneness and peace for all people”
or the “moral principle as defined by the Confucian Way.”67 It is true that
the classical Confucian political theory of righteous interstate relations and
legitimate military engagement cannot be understood adequately without con-
sidering the background normative ideal within which the whole Confucian
interstate theory is nested. The question is whether or not the normative ideal
of Confucianism or the Kingly Way can be understood in deontological terms.
Our discussion thus far, however, offers no philosophical evidence to support
the deontological interpretation. Rather, the early Confucian theory of inter-
state relations and righteous war works consistently within the global vision of
Confucian (sentimentalist) virtue politics, accommodated to the world of the
Warring States period, where there is no visible institutional authority repre-
sentative of the Mandate of Heaven.
In the statement above, Xunzi does not stipulate the limits on the use of mil-
itary force during “humanitarian” intervention or annexation in terms of moral

and teachers), he cannot endorse Mencius’s sentimentalist virtue ethics, central to which is the
assumption that moral sentiments are innate. However, Xunzi’s rejection of the innateness of
moral sentiments does not necessarily prevent him from supporting sentimentalist virtue poli-
tics because a morally educated ruler can develop care toward (his own and other) people, and,
as we have seen, Xunzi justifies a benevolent ruler’s military intervention in another state pre-
cisely on the basis of his care for the people suffering from tyranny. In this regard, it is revealing
that Han Fei’s criticism of Confucianism is concentrated on the sentimentalist dimension of
Confucian virtue politics (Hanfeizi 49, p. 101 in Watson’s translation). Also see Sungmoon Kim,
“Virtue Politics and Political Leadership: A Confucian Rejoinder to Hanfeizi,” Asian Philosophy
22:2 (2012), pp. 177–​197. For a revealing argument for the critical importance of caring in
Xunzi’s overall ethical system, see Eric L. Hutton, “Ethics in the Xunzi,” in Dao Companion
to the Philosophy of Xunzi, ed. Eric L. Hutton (Dordrecht: Springer, 2016), pp. 67–​93, esp.
pp. 86–​90.
66
Xunzi 15.1f.
67
Twiss and Chan, “The Classical Confucian Position,” pp. 462–​463.
Responsibility for All under Heaven 203

maxim –​that the intervening ruler ought to (or ought to not) do some thing
because it is the right (or wrong) thing to do (according to some universal
principles), regardless of his care and responsibility for the people in question. As
we have seen, Xunzi justifies a virtuous ruler’s military intervention or annexation
on the basis of the ruler’s care for the people and his righteous anger toward the
tyrant. Now, Xunzi emphasizes this point once again in the above passage, when
he says that “in all cases of executions, [the intervening/​annexing ruler] is not to
execute the common people [but rather] to execute those who bring disorder to
the common people.”
Thus understood, for Xunzi, as for Mencius, while the ruler’s motivation
to intervene with another state originates in his (developed) moral sentiments
such as ren and yi, his self-​imposed yet principled (hence not merely prudential)
limits on the use of military force in his punitive expedition come from his moral
character. What is important is that Xunzi’s (and Mencius’s) turn to the ruler’s
moral character as the sole criterion for moral legitimacy of the purpose as well
as the conduct of war was necessitated by the radical absence of universal moral
authority and the collapse of Zhou-​centered feudal order of interstate moral hier-
archy. Like Mencius, who employs the term zheng to describe and justify punitive
expedition of a tyrant by a virtuous ruler under his newly conceived interstate
moral hierarchy, Xunzi justifies the execution of a bad ruler by a virtuous ruler –​
of equal moral standing according to Zhou political ritualism –​in terms of the
traditional, hierarchical, concept of zhu, insinuating that what determines moral
hierarchy among the states in new interstate relations is the quality of the indi-
vidual ruler’s moral character, which includes his ability to extend his care and
political responsibility to the people of another state.
Not surprisingly, it is precisely because of the violation of the Confucian
morality of war (both in purpose and in conduct) that Mencius says Qi’s already
illegitimate annexation of Yan (given King Xuan’s lack of virtue and questionable
intention of launching the “punitive” war) is now facing not only vehement resis-
tance from the people of Yan, but also imminent attack from the alliance of other
states. Mencius admonishes King Xuan as follows:
Now when you went to punish Yan which practiced tyranny over its people, the people
thought you were going to rescue them from water and fire, and they came to meet your
army, bringing baskets of rice and bottles of drink. How can it be right for you to kill
the old and bind the young, destroy the ancestral temples and appropriate the valuable
vessels? Even before this, the whole world was afraid of the power of Qi. Now you
double your territory without practicing benevolent government. This is to provoke the
armies of the whole world. If you hasten to order the release of the captives, old and
young, leave the valuable vessels where they are, and take your army out after setting
up a ruler in consultation with the men of Yan, it is still not too late to halt the armies
of the world.68

68
Mencius 1B11 (slightly modified).
204 Wang, Ba, and Interstate Relations

Apparently, what King Xuan did in Yan was the exact opposite of what Xunzi
describes as the way of the benevolent ruler: instead of delivering the people
from tyranny, he tyrannized them by “kill[ing] the old and bind[ing] the
young” as well as by “destroy[ing] the ancestral temples and appropriat[ing]
the valuable vessels.” Again, what has been violated is not so much a maxim
derived deontologically from universal moral principles but the core stipulations
of Confucian virtue politics –​simply put, King Xuan’s utter failure to care for
the people of Yan and extend his political responsibility to them.
What is worth noting is Mencius’s reasoning that by expanding the terri-
tory without practicing benevolent government, King Xuan has made himself
a target of punitive expedition by the alliance of other states. It is unclear
whether Mencius requires that this type of punishment (i.e., the punishment
of an aggressor) should always be conducted multilaterally or can be carried
out unilaterally by another powerful and virtuous state, if one were to exist.
Nevertheless, the point is that Mencius finds such a punishment morally justi-
fied, which in principle (i.e., according to Zhou political ritualism) is the exclu-
sive right and obligation of the universal king, who is directly accountable to
Heaven for the well-​being of all people under Heaven. In this case, Mencius
stipulates, the purpose of the military campaign is restoration of the occupied
state’s constitutional order, at the heart of which is setting up a ruler,69 and
this must be done in consultation with the people of Yan.70 Ultimately, what is
expected is restoration of the interstate status quo with a notable improvement
of the occupied state’s domestic situation.

Conclusion
In this chapter, I have attempted to show how Mencius and Xunzi –​despite
their important differences, especially with regard to the role of the hegemon
under the new interstate circumstances –​were able to accommodate
Confucius’s global vision of virtue politics, centered on the ruler’s (sentimen-
talist) moral virtues of ren and yi, to their contemporary political context in
which the world, previously under Zhou’s universal kingship representing the
Mandate of Heaven, was divided into a multitude of independent, de facto
sovereign states. My central argument has been that notwithstanding the total
collapse of Zhou’s moral authority as the suzerain of all under Heaven and

69
Xunzi describes the pivotal importance of the ruler (jun) as follows: “The lord is sundial. [The
common people are shadow.] If the sundial is straight, then the shadow will be straight. The
lord is a basin. [The common people are water.] If the basin is round, then the water will be
round. The lord is a bowl. If the bowl is square, the water will be square” (Xunzi 12.4). Also
see Yuri Pines, Envisioning Eternal Empire: Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States Era
(Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2009), pp. 44–​53.
70
As noted in Chapter 2, by “people” (zhong 衆) here Mencius seems to have in mind Yan’s
“trusted ministers of noble families” (shichen 世臣) rather than the multitude of commoners.
Responsibility for All under Heaven 205

the accompanying disintegration of Zhou-​centered hierarchical ritual order

among the feudal states, Mencius and Xunzi were nevertheless able to uphold
the morality of war, first by conceiving of a new virtue-​based interstate moral
hierarchy among the now independent sovereign states, then by justifying the
virtuous ruler’s use of military force against a tyrannical state in terms of “pun-
ishment” (zheng 征) or “execution” (zhu 誅), a ritually sanctioned right that
had been held exclusively by the Zhou king (as the Son of Heaven) or his agent
against immoral feudal rulers –​tyrants, aggressors, and usurpers.
Both Mencius and Xunzi were strongly convinced that in the absence of a
visible institution representative of the Mandate of Heaven, any virtuous ruler
can intervene in a tyrannical state militarily in order to protect the well-​being
of the tyrannized people by extending his care as well as his care-​motivated
moral-​political responsibility to them (in principle all people under Heaven).
The shift in attention from the bygone universal institution of Heaven to the
people’s well-​being implies a fundamental innovation in Confucian political
theory because the new theory endorses what we now call “humanitarian inter-
vention,” a military intervention whose sole purpose is to protect the people
suffering from tyrannical rule or external aggression, rather than simply to
punish the tyrant or the external aggressor.71 Equally important, in this new
Confucian political theory, it is not so much an external moral standard or a
universal moral maxim but the intervening ruler’s moral character that sets the
limits on his military conduct in the course of the punitive expedition.

71
In contrast, in Zhou political ritualism, the primary purpose of military intervention is to punish
one who has violated his Heavenly mission of assisting the Son of Heaven. Of course, the
Heavenly mission in question is to serve the moral and material well-​being of the people but
here the point of justification lies in the Zhou king’s authority (or the Mandate of Heaven)
rather than in the well-​being of the people as such. In this regard, Lewis’s following statement
is worth close attention: “The key point to note about the Chinese theory of the ‘just war’ or
yi bing was that it was primarily a justification of the role of the ruler within a centralized
state, and thus a defense of the power of the emperor” (Mark E. Lewis, “The Just War in Early
China,” in The Ethics of War in Asian Civilizations: A Comparative Perspective, ed. Torkel
Brekke [New York: Routledge, 2006], pp. 185–​200, at p. 197).
Conclusion: Between Old and New

In this book, I have examined how Mencius and Xunzi developed two
different, though related, versions of Confucian virtue politics under new polit-
ical circumstances ushered in by the rise of independent and sovereign states
during the Warring States period. That is, I argued, in their struggle to adapt the
Confucian paradigm of virtue politics to the political context of the warring
states, which I have reconstructed as consisting of four key propositions –​the
virtue proposition, the virtue politics proposition, the moral education prop-
osition, and the material condition proposition –​they radically innovated the
content of Confucian virtue politics while expanding its scope by developing
political theories from their foundational assumptions of human nature (good
or bad) and thus in a way very consistent with their contrasting accounts of
moral self-​ cultivation (developmental or re-​ formational). My central argu-
ment has been that, despite notable differences, Mencius’s and Xunzi’s polit-
ical theories can be best understood as “realistic” responses to the challenge
of Realpolitik that in the post-​Zhou context drove the states into perpetual
struggle and disorder. I captured the classical Confucians’ political realism
in terms of “Confucian constitutionalism” by drawing attention to both its
power-​constraining and liberty-​creating dimension (negative Confucianism)
and its authority-​ enabling and interest-​ coordinating dimension (positive
Confucianism). I also distinguished virtue constitutionalism from ritual consti-
tutionalism based on the primary (but not exclusive) resource, between virtue
and ritual, on which the ruler’s political authority is predicated and by which
his otherwise arbitrary power and self-​interest can be checked or re-​channeled
toward the public interest, at the core of which lies the people’s well-​being.
Recasting the realistic side of Confucian virtue politics from a constitutional
standpoint has also provided us with a fresh perspective by which to understand
some of the elements of Confucian political theory that appear to sit uncom-
fortably with the paradigm of Confucian virtue politics. First, this approach

206
Conclusion 207

enables us to understand badao as a specific mode of positive Confucianism,

though unconstrained by the logic of negative Confucianism. Traditionally,
mainly because of the Neo-​Confucian influence, badao has been thought to be
diametrically opposed to Confucian virtue politics, and it is arguably because
of Xunzi’s acknowledgment of badao as a morally acceptable mode of state-
craft that the Confucians in the mainstream Mencian strand, Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​
Confucians in particular, regarded him as an unorthodox Confucian, at times
even as a borderline heretic.1 From the perspective of our new framework, how-
ever, badao, as interpreted by Xunzi, refers to positive Confucianism, which is
predominantly concerned with the establishment of political authority, coordi-
nation of competing desires and socioeconomic transactions, and creation of
the public good. What makes badao inadequate to be a model of good govern-
ment, namely the Kingly Way, is threefold: first, it is not effectively constrained
by the logic of negative Confucianism; second, it does not aim at moral eleva-
tion of the people; and, third, therefore, it does not rely on ritual and yi, even
when, like the Kingly Way, it employs social divisions and allotments (fen) as
its key coordination mechanism.2 Sor-​hoon Tan once claimed that “Mencius’s
distinction between hegemony and true kingship does not preclude the possi-
bility of a developmental process connecting the two.”3 In my interpretation,
it is Xunzi who offers a substantive philosophical account for this possibility,
unexplored by Mencius due to his normative political dualism as discussed in
Chapter 4, by understanding badao as a statecraft that has yet to develop into
the Kingly Way, instead of one that is starkly opposed to it, its clear normative
inferiority notwithstanding.
The second advantage of employing the constitutional framework in under-
standing the realistic side of Confucian virtue politics is that it helps us to
understand the place of “civic virtue” in Confucian virtue politics, even though
its foundational virtue ethics does not, in principle, allow a normative space
for civic or political virtue that holds moral value of its own, independent of
moral virtue that is concerned with human excellence and flourishing, or, as
the Confucians call it, sagehood. In my framework, character traits or quali-
ties that directly buttress the scaffolding of negative and positive Confucianism
are glossed as civic virtues and they are conceptually distinguished from moral
virtues, the strenuous cultivation of which are believed to ultimately lead one to
sagehood. For instance, political liberty, which I reconstructed in Chapter 4 from

1
This negative view toward Xunzi was the strongest among Korean Neo-​Confucians during the
Chosōn dynasty (1392–​1910). See Jaesang Jung, “Xunzi and Pre-​Modern Korean Thinkers,” in
Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi, ed. Eric L. Hutton (Dordrecht: Springer, 2016), pp.
503–​534.
2
For this point, see Eirik L. Harris, “Xunzi’s Political Philosophy,” in Dao Companion to the
Philosophy of Xunzi, pp. 95–​138.
3
Sor-​hoon Tan, Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction (Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press, 2003), p. 197.
208 Conclusion

the Confucian scholar’s (or Confucian scholar-​minister’s) moral power (or moral
character) to counterbalance the ruler’s sheer political power is an example of a
civic virtue that is critical for the effective operation of negative Confucianism.
That said, since civic virtue is generally concerned with effective socioeco-
nomic coordination, acknowledgment and support of political authority (trust
between the ruler and the ruled, in other words), creation of the public interest,
and, above all, the sustenance of political order and system, its connection with
positive Confucianism is more obvious. Here, too, it is confirmed that badao,
operating on the principle of trust (xin), is predicated on what I call civic virtues,
but not further buttressed by, nor aimed to cultivate, moral virtues, whose eth-
ical concern goes far beyond institutional stability and political order. In con-
trast, as an ideal constitutional order of Confucian virtue politics, the Kingly
Way encompasses both civic virtue and moral virtue, understanding the former
as instrumental to the socioeconomic conditions in which moral virtue can be
steadily cultivated. In the end, then, what differentiates the Kingly Way from
badao from a constitutional standpoint is that the constitutional order of the
Kingly Way is more firmly grounded in human excellence and flourishing both
of the ruler and, to a lesser degree, the people, who the Confucians argue should
voluntarily subject themselves to the ruler’s moral leadership. I discussed this
complex connection between moral virtue and civic virtue especially in Xunzi’s
political thought with reference to his dual accounts of ritual as moral virtue
in terms of ritual propriety on the one hand and civic virtue on the other,
as a constellation of “preservative virtues” that make people ordered, correct,
peaceful, and controlled, character traits that have only an indirect connection
with one’s moral self-​cultivation toward sagehood.
Seen in this way, and despite my critique of El Amine in the Introduction
and other parts of this book, my central concern does not seem to be so dis-
tanced from hers when she declares the gist of her “new interpretation” of
classical Confucianism as consisting in the belief that “the approach to poli-
tics offered in the Classical Confucian texts does not follow from Confucian
ethics in any straightforward manner.”4 Precisely what El Amine means by the
“un-​straightforward” relationship between ethics and politics in Confucianism
has been subject to debate between El Amine and her critics and still remains
a matter of controversy. However, when she identifies “qualities pertaining to
orderliness” in terms of “civic-​like qualities” and distinguishes them from “full-​
fledged Confucian virtues” such as ren and yi,5 it is obvious that she has in
mind what I call “civic virtue” as a special kind of virtue that is directly service-
able to the institutions of Confucian politics and political order.6

4
Loubna El Amine, Classical Confucian Political Thought: A New Interpretation (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), p. 9.
5
Ibid., pp. 15, 30–​34, 60, 82.
6
In fact, this similarity between El Amine and myself is hardly surprising because she occa-
sionally draws on my previous writings where I introduced the notion of “Confucian civility”
Conclusion 209

That being said, it must be noted that the agreement between El Amine and
me is significantly qualified. After all, she does not investigate, in the manner
I did in Chapter 3, how the practical distinction between moral virtue and civic
virtue, acknowledged by Xunzi, is intimately related to his foundational account
of the state of nature as well as his broader political (or constitutional) theory and
how this distinction bears on his complex idea of ritual both as a trait of human
excellence and as a constellation of “preservative virtues.” Nor does she extend
this finding to Xunzi’s far more civic interpretation of the Confucian gentleman
in comparison with Mencius. Finally, she does not seem to pay close attention to
the fact that acknowledging the practical distinction between moral virtue and
civic virtue can be compatible with recognizing “a certain tension” between the
two within the overall monistic structure of Confucian virtue ethics. In this book,
I understood this potential tension in terms of the tension between strong virtue
monism and tempered virtue monism, thus without making the much stronger
and problematic claim that “political virtues are not a diluted version of ethical
ones, but form a distinct category.”7
Despite these limitations, I think that there is much to commend in El Amine’s
timely intervention in the philosophical study on classical Confucianism from
a political perspective, the importance of which has been generally ignored or
misunderstood by her critics in philosophy and sinology. I believe that clar-
ifying our disagreement with due attention to her most important contribu-
tion to the study of Confucian political theory would not only help illuminate
the distinctively political side of Confucian virtue politics that I attribute to
Mencius and, especially, Xunzi, but it could further guide us toward the more
fruitful ways in which other classical Confucians and later (Neo-​)Confucians
can be studied as political thinkers. I believe that this is the best way to con-
clude this book. Now, let us begin with the kernel of El Amine’s new “political”
interpretation of classical Confucian political thought.
As discussed earlier, El Amine’s central claim in her new interpretation
consists of a series of stipulations.
(1) Confucianism is deeply and primarily concerned with political order (zhi)
and “Confucian political philosophy is motivated by the same problem
that Sheldon Wolin identifies as central to Western political philosophy,
the problem of how ‘to render politics compatible with the requirements
of order,’ that is, ‘how to reconcile the conflict created by competition
under conditions of scarcity with the demands of public tranquility.’ ”8

(or “civic virtue”). See ibid., 59n135 and p67n24. In addition to works cited by El Amine,
see the following articles for my additional endeavors to derive Confucian civilities from The
Analects: Sungmoon Kim, “Self-​Transformation and Civil Society: Lockean vs. Confucian,”
Dao 8:4 (2009), pp. 383–​ 401 and “Confucian Citizenship? Against Two Greek Models,”
Journal of Chinese Philosophy 37:3 (2010), pp. 438–​456.
7
El Amine, Classical Confucian Political Thought, p. 59n135.
8
Ibid., p. 10.
210 Conclusion

(2) “[T]‌he success of political rule in Confucianism is judged by its own

standard, distinct from the standards the Confucians use for the
assessment of individual life. The standard in politics is therefore not
virtue (the moral edification of the people), but rather the establishment
and maintenance of political order.”9
(3) “[P]‌olitical order [for the classical Confucians] is not a means to an
end; it is an end in itself.”10
(4) “[T]‌he Confucian standard of order is distinct from the Confucian eth-
ical standard of virtue. To the extent that the political standard is a
normative standard, it is difficult to insist that it has nothing to do with
morality.”11
Let us call this the political paradigm of classical Confucianism. Since the polit-
ical paradigm as stipulated by El Amine is sharply contrasted with the para-
digm of Confucian virtue politics, I will have to reject it in the end. Before
doing so, however, it is important to understand why El Amine begins with this
provocative premise, apart from Wolin’s and other Western political theorists’
influence on her, who struggle to reinstate the sense of reality in political theory
currently dominated by the Kantian-​Rawlisan paradigm.12
In all fairness, I do not think that El Amine is merely or mechanically
imposing the Western methodological insight drawn from the revival of polit-
ical realism on the classical Confucians; after a careful examination of both
the Confucian texts and pre-​Qin Chinese political history, she reconstructs
the “sociological facts” about early Confucianism and investigates how the
classical Confucians responded to “specific political circumstances” arising
from such facts. Unlike other interpreters of Confucianism, including myself,
El Amine is therefore less interested in what the Confucians had to say about
virtue, moral character, or moral edification of the people, however crucial
they may turn out to be for the high-​level social coordination in view of har-
mony; her primary concern is what kinds of political arguments (and tools and
methods) were advanced by the classical Confucians in relation to the socio-
logical facts of the warring states and whether a logical consistency can be
established across them. Her central claim is that at a basic-​level coordination
the most relevant political questions should be how to secure compliance from

9
Ibid., pp. 10–​11.
10
Ibid., p. 14.
11
Ibid., p. 15.
12
For El Amine’s deep methodological debt to Bernard Williams, especially his idea of the “Basic
Legitimation Demand,” see ibid., p. 44. Most tellingly, El Amine states that “[m]‌y interpretation
of early Confucianism meshes with the recent trend in the discipline of political theory cri-
tiquing the post-​Kantian approach to political theorizing that takes ethics as a basis” (p. 194).
It is an interesting and important question how much she is influenced by this “recent trend” in
the discipline of political theory and whether this approach is justified in the classical Confucian
context.
Conclusion 211

ordinary people, how to regulate their socioeconomic transactions effectively,

and, ultimately, how to overcome chaos and bring about political order, and
she is strongly convinced that these are precisely what the classical Confucians
wrestled with.13 As El Amine puts it, in her interpretation, “Confucian political
theory does not follow upon Confucian ethics in the way recent interpreters
propose because it is attuned to the material world in a particular way.”14 Thus
understood, it is imperative to examine how El Amine understands the socio-
logical facts surrounding classical Confucianism. The following is a snapshot
of her core stipulations of the Warring States political circumstances.
(1) In the post-​Zhou context, the world was “populated by many a con-
tender to supreme position of ruler over the expansive territory [and
accordingly] new standards had to be devised to decide who was a
legitimate ruler and who was not.”15
(2) As the Warring States period progressed and the states were competing
for manpower for both military and economic purposes, facilitating
cross-​border mobility of the commoners, the relationship between the
ruler and the common people become “much more direct, and also
reciprocal. The ruler now needed his people [as] they formed the bul-
wark of his army and the producers of his realm.”16
(3) At the core of political legitimacy, therefore, lay the ruler’s ability to
secure and maintain political order, or his ability to create the material
conditions (or “basic structure”) in which common people can have
effective and sustained socioeconomic transactions under proper gov-
ernmental regulations.17
(4) This “bottom-​up” coordination “rests on the development of the ‘civic’
qualities” on the part of the people who are not required or expected to
develop full-​fledged virtues or become sages. “[N]‌or does government
rest on the transformative power of an exemplary ruler [as it] operates
through a set of institutional mechanisms, primarily rituals.”18
(5) “[T]‌he qualities acquired by the common people through ritual practice
(for example, self-​restraint) are not necessarily stepping stones toward
virtue, and rituals’ success does not hinge on the continual presence of
virtuous men on top.”19
Insomuch as El Amine’s goal is to disclose a pattern “underlying Confucian
political thought that differs from the conclusions drawn by the ethics-​first

13
Ibid., pp. 13–​14.
14
Ibid., p. 13 (emphasis added).
15
Ibid., p. 26.
16
Ibid., p. 25.
17
Ibid., p. 73.
18
Ibid., pp. 82–​83.
19
Ibid., p. 95n53.
212 Conclusion

approach,”20 I must admit that it is a cogent interpretation, very consistent

with her sociological/​material premise, though I think her claim that classical
Confucianism ascribes no normative significance to the common people is
exaggerated.21 I even find it deeply regrettable that many of her critics have
largely dismissed what implications this “pattern” may have for classical
Confucian political theory, especially in Xunzi’s political thought. For instance,
in Chapter 2 of her book, El Amine brilliantly shows how Xunzi reconceives
“social divisions” as a method of socioeconomic coordination of the people
stuck in perpetual conflict in the state of nature, desiring the same but scarce
material goods. In this regard, El Amine’s discussion on social divisions both
as a method of coordination and as a vehicle to political order and productive
economy is important and deserves much more attention among Confucian
political theorists and political theorists in general, because it provides an
important insight into an alternative mode of social regulation (hierarchical
regulation) to those that have been experimented in contemporary politics
including free market (no or minimal regulation), the communist state (total
regulation), or democratic governance (equal self-​regulation).
The trouble arises when El Amine makes the further claim that this basic,
bottom-​up level of coordination, aimed at securing political order, was an end
in itself for the classical Confucians. This move renders the “perfectionist”
dimension of classical Confucianism superfluous, something that is not nec-
essary, only desirable. Though El Amine discusses extensively “harmonious
society” and “virtuous leadership” in Chapter 3 of her book, one should
wonder why these topics should enjoy such special treatment in her other-
wise political interpretation, according to which virtue (i.e., moral virtue) is
given no salient political place, except for its supererogatory and instrumental
contribution to “a more durable political order.”22 If it is true that virtuous
leadership is a merely desirable element of Confucian politics on prudential
grounds, however, El Amine is hard-​pressed to explain the normative distinc-
tion held by the classical Confucians between badao and the Kingly Way and
their unequivocal preference to the latter over the former. In fact, not only are
all four stipulations of El Amine’s political paradigm sufficiently met by the
politics of badao, but furthermore, badao is consistent with the “pattern” that
she has reconstructed as the essence of the Confucian conception of the polit-
ical with a view to the sociological facts about classical Confucianism.

20
Ibid., p. 10.
21
See ibid., pp. 43–​51.
22
Ibid., p. 140 (emphasis added). Here is El Amine’s full statement: “Yet no one deny that the
Confucians also express a preference, even longing, for a sage ruler like Yao and Shun. I have
attempted in this section to show why this longing is not incompatible with my insistence on
the centrality of order in their political vision: while political order is an end in itself, and not a
means toward virtue, a more durable order, as described in the previous chapter, is more likely
to obtain with the rule of virtuous men.”
Conclusion 213

Despite my strong disagreement with El Amine’s interpretation of Mencius

with regard to badao (as she fails to note the colossal difference between his
implicit acknowledgment of the practical utility of badao and his explicit
normative criticism of it as borderline tyranny), I do agree with her that
Xunzi reinterpreted badao as “provid[ing] the conditions necessary for the
emergence of a society in which morality flourishes.”23 However, it is one
thing that Xunzi reinterprets badao as an acceptable mode of statecraft
from the Confucian moral standpoint (hence, not only from the viewpoint
of political reality) and it is another to present badao as representing the
model of Confucian statecraft based on its perfect suitability for the socio-
logical facts reconstructed by a modern interpreter, as is clearly evidenced in
El Amine’s concluding assertion that “[w]‌elfare, peace, and order are goods
in themselves and need not be justified through the fulfillment of ‘ethical’
standards.”24 Yet, quite ironically, El Amine admits that for Xunzi badao
lies in the space between “ethical politics” and “crass politics,” making one
wonder what has happened to Xunzi’s extensive discussion and extolment
of “ethical politics” where “morality flourishes.”25 This ambiguity regarding
the moral place of badao in classical Confucian political theory ultimately
forces El Amine to make an argument that is directly contrary to Xunzi’s
own judgment on badao: while Xunzi makes a clear distinction between the
Kingly Way and badao by attributing ren and yi only to the former, El Amine
makes the following circular and self-​referenced claim without any compel-
ling textual evidence.
Thus, to the extent that hegemons do promote political order (rather than because we
expect the Confucians to favor moral government as such), one would expect them
to partake of benevolent government. Based on the view I will offer in Chapter 4 on
the relationship between ren and ren government (renzheng 仁政), however, I contend
that hegemonic government, insofar as it promotes order, partakes of ren government,
without hegemons necessarily partaking of ren.26

In my view, the fundamental problem with El Amine’s new political interpreta-

tion of classical Confucian political thought lies in the lack of intelligibility of

23
Ibid., p. 58.
24
Ibid., p. 59.
25
Ibid.
26
Ibid., p. 60. In Chapter 4 of her book, El Amine argues that “[w]‌hile on the personal level it is
not defined in relationship to the idea of giving to others, ren government is defined precisely
as one that provides for the people in the way described in Chapter 2. Indeed, Mencius himself
says that one could have a ren heart but still fail in benefiting the people, suggesting that what
is ren about ren government is not so much that the ruler has a ren heart but he provides for
the people” (ibid., pp. 136–​137). I think that El Amine’s conclusion is overdrawn. As El Amine
rightly notes, none of the classical Confucians under investigation argue that a ren heart natu-
rally and sufficiently gives rise to a ren government. All they support is the belief that ren is (and
should be) a motivational engine for government in order for it to be good and Mencius in par-
ticular is convinced that ren can and should be extended to public governance (Mencius 1A7).
214 Conclusion

the Confucian political theory she is reconstructing as reliably “Confucian” as

the tradition understands the term rujia 儒家, which we translate in English as
Confucianism.27 If the Confucian conception of the political is fully and per-
fectly identified in terms of political order, how can classical Confucianism as
a political theory be meaningfully distinguished from Legalism, which clearly
declares that political order is an end in itself? How can we make sense of
Han Fei’s vehement critique of Confucianism (and Mohism) for its valorization
of virtuous rulership as well as the classical Confucians’ criticism of amoral
champions of political order?28 El Amine seems to be aware of this difficulty
when she says,
Crucially, these are all policies that rely on the regulation of institutions (the taxa-
tion system, the appointment system, tariffs, punishments, etc.), not on the exercise of
virtue by the ruler per se. In other words, this aspect of Confucian political thought
is largely independent of the Confucian concern with virtue and self-​cultivation, and
might indeed make Confucianism appear as much more similar to the hard-​headed
political realism of Legalism than is usually thought.29

But what new insight do we gain by making Confucianism “appear as much

more similar to” Legalism? If, as Harris shows, Legalism (at least the version
Han Fei presents) has its own normative standard that is internal to its pro-
found concern with political order, security, and stability,30 which is precisely
how El Amine understands the gist of politics and Confucian politics in par-
ticular with reference to Bernard Williams and other Western political realists,
does the distinctiveness of classical Confucian political theory lie merely in the
way in which specific arguments for political order are aligned and different
regulative tools are employed? Moreover, this massive blurring between
Confucianism and (principled) Legalism makes it extremely difficult to dif-
ferentiate classical Confucian political theory from the so-​called “Legalistic

27
In my recent book in which I have constructed a normative Confucian democratic theory
called “public reason Confucianism,” I claim that for any contemporary Confucian political
theory to enjoy its credential as a Confucian political theory, it should meet at a minimum
what I called the intelligibility condition, according to which otherwise discrete values form a
cultural or philosophical connection among themselves so that each value becomes an insep-
arable part of a constellation of internally entwined values that is intelligibly Confucian as
a whole. I believe that the requirement is also true of any attempt to reconstruct Confucian
political theory including classical Confucian political theory. See Sungmoon Kim, Public
Reason Confucianism: Democratic Perfectionism and Constitutionalism in East Asia
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), p. 15.
28
See Sungmoon Kim, “Virtue Politics and Political Leadership: A Confucian Rejoinder to
Han Feizi,” Asian Philosophy 22:2 (2012), pp. 177–​197; Eirik L. Harris, “Constraining the
Ruler: On Escaping Han Fei’s Criticism of Confucian Virtue Politics,” Asian Philosophy 23:1
(2013), pp. 43–​61.
29
El Amine, Classical Confucian Political Thought, pp. 80–​81.
30
Eirik L. Harris, “Han Fei on the Problem of Morality,” in Dao Companion to the Philosophy
of Han Fei, ed. Paul R. Goldin (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013), pp. 107–​131. Also see Chapter 5 of
this book (n41).
Conclusion 215

Confucianism,” a politicized Confucianism, as Tu Wei-​ming calls it,31 which

emerged during the Han dynasty with a strong emphasis on the “three bonds”
(sanjiang 三綱), at the core of which is the rigid hierarchical relationships
between ruler and ruled, father and son, and husband and wife, over the “five
cardinal human relationships” (wulun) established by Mencius and endorsed
by Xunzi. Admittedly, the central purpose of Legalistic Confucianism was to
pacify the newly formed empire reunified under the Han rulership and the
Legalistic transformation of classical Confucianism was precisely to achieve
the supreme goal of political order, ending a centuries-​long political turmoil in
the Middle Kingdom.32
El Amine claims that her methodology is inspired by an “external or sociolog-
ical standpoint.”33 Her external approach, however, risks rendering the distinctive
character of classical Confucianism less intelligible as a Confucian political theory
than the rival internal approaches do, all of which begin with some version of
what I called the virtue proposition. For an external approach is likely to down-
play what holds together a certain philosophical tradition as one dynamic yet
coherent tradition, distinct from other philosophical traditions, by focusing on
what most, if not all, pre-​Qin (and imperial) traditions of Chinese political realism
are commonly concerned with in the face of the “sociological facts” of the time –​
political order and absolute monarchism, among others.34 Similarly, an external
approach is likely to relegate the variety of political theories into one generic mode
of political theory, disentangled from all moral or ethical theories, on the ground
that when a political theory is entwined with certain moral and philosophical
doctrines, thereby forming a “comprehensive doctrine,” the political is sidelined
by other “non-​political” concerns such as salvation, revelation, faith, virtue, ratio-
nality, and so on. Yet, is it not the case that our interest in classical Confucian
political theory is motivated by our desire to investigate the way in which it is
constructed as a comprehensive philosophical doctrine? Is it not the version of
Confucianism as a specific advocacy of the Way as an alternative to other Chinese
(and Western) philosophical doctrines that is interesting and inspiring to us? Is it
not the Confucian conception of the political, not the concept of the political as
such, that may provide us with a new insight into politics and public life?

31
Tu Wei-​ming, “Probing the ‘Three Bonds’ and ‘Five Relationships’ in Confucian Humanism,”
in Confucianism and the Family, eds. Walter H. Slote and George A. DeVos (Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press, 1998), pp. 121–​136.
32
On the formation and development of Legalistic Confucianism, see Chaibong Hahm and
Wooyeal Paik, “Legalistic Confucianism and Economic Development in East Asia,” Journal of
East Asian Studies 3:3 (2003), pp. 461–​491.
33
El Amine, Classical Confucian Political Thought, p. 35.
34
Some historians such as Yuri Pines, therefore, refuse to gloss the warring states thinkers into
traditional categories based on scholarly lineages (jia 家) and instead approach them as inde-
pendent “Chinese” thinkers grappling with the political challenges of the time, unencumbered
by their scholarly traditions. See his Envisioning Eternal Empire: Chinese Political Thought of
the Warring States Era (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press, 2009).
216 Conclusion

In this regard, it is important to pay attention to a classical Confucian’s own

view as to why other rival schools of thought, their advocacy of the Way not-
withstanding, are far from grasping the true Way:
Mozi was fixated on the useful and did not understand the value of good form. Song
Xing was fixated on having few desires and did not understand the value of achieving
their objects. Shen Dao was fixated on laws and did not understand the value of having
worthy people. Shen Buhai was fixated on power and did not understand the value of
having wise people. Huizi was fixated on wording and did not understand the value of
what is substantial. Zhuangzi was fixated on the Heavenly and did not understand the
value of human.
Thus, if one speaks of it in terms of usefulness, then the Way will consist completely
in seeking what is profitable. If one speaks of it in terms of desires, then the Way will
consist completely in learning to be satisfied. If one speaks of it in terms of laws, then
the Way will consist completely in making arrangements. If one speaks of it in terms
of power, then the Way will consist completely in finding what is expedient. If one
speaks of it in terms of working, then the Way will consist completely in discoursing
on matters. If one speaks of it in terms of the Heavenly, then the Way will consist
completely in following along with things. These various approaches are all merely
one corner of the Way. As for the Way itself, its substance is constant, yet it covers all
changes. No one corner is sufficient to exhibit it fully.35

Here Xunzi has yet to see the rise of Han Fei as another prominent thinker,
advocating the Way of political order. But it is not difficult to imagine that
Xunzi would have leveled the same criticism at his own student by saying that
he only understands one corner of the Way, however important it may be, and
neither its whole nor its good form (wen 文). To be sure, El Amine’s interpreta-
tion is focused on classical Confucian political theory, not the Confucian Way.
However, as Harris rightly notes in his commentary on El Amine’s book, “In
order to make progress, we need to understand the relationship between virtue
and political order [among other things] and how each of these relates to the
broader idea of the Way.”36 In other words, it is only by taking the Confucian
Way seriously or only by approaching (classical) Confucianism as a coherent
comprehensive philosophical doctrine that we can have a more holistic and
convincing understanding of Confucian political theory.
It is open for debate whether this book has succeeded in presenting such
a holistic and convincing picture of the classical Confucian political theory
advanced by Mencius and Xunzi. But when I was reconstructing Mencius’s
and Xunzi’s political theories of Confucian virtue politics, I tried hard to show
how each thinker struggled to strike a balance, albeit with different emphasis
by each, between virtue and political order, between virtue and ritual, between
morality and interest, between moral virtue and civic virtue, between virtue

35
Xunzi 21.4.
36
Eirik L. Harris, “Relating the Political to the Ethical: Thoughts on Early Confucian Political
Theory,” Dao 18:2 (2019), pp. 277–​283.
Conclusion 217

monism and value pluralism, and between negative Confucianism and positive
Confucianism. I see this book as mediating between the traditional “ethics-​
first” approach and El Amine’s new political approach and hope that it can
help motivate political theorists to develop a more active interest in Confucian
political theory, classical or otherwise.
Bibliography

Ackerly, Brooke A. 2005. “Is Liberalism the Only Way toward Democracy? Confucianism
and Democracy.” Political Theory 33: 547–​576.
Alford, C. Fred. 1992. The Psychoanalysis of Greek Tragedy. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Allan, Sarah. 2015. Buried Ideas: Legends of Abdication and Ideal Government in Early
Chinese Bamboo-​Slip Manuscripts. Albany, NY: State University of New York
Press.
Ames, Roger T. 2011. Confucian Role Ethics: A Vocabulary. Honolulu, HI: University
of Hawaii Press.
Ames, Roger T. and Rosemont, Henry, Jr. (Trans.). 1998. The Analects of Confucius: A
Philosophical Translation. New York: Ballantine Books.
Angle, Stephen C. 2002. Human Rights and Chinese Thought: A Cross-​Cultural Inquiry.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2012. Contemporary Confucian Political Philosophy: Toward Progressive Confucianism.
Cambridge: Polity.
Angle, Stephen C. and Tiwald, Justin. 2017. Neo-​Confucianism: A Philosophical
Introduction. Cambridge: Polity.
Ansell-​Pearson, Keith. 1994. An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Actor. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Aristotle. 1995. Politics, translated by Ernest Barker. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Back, Youngsun. 2016. “Confucian Heaven (天 Tian): Moral Economy and
Contingency.” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 8(1): 51–​77.
Bai, Tongdong. 2009. Jiubang xinming: Gujinzhongxicankaoxiade gudianrujia­
zhengzhizhexue 旧邦新命: 古今中西参照下的古典儒家政治哲学 [A New Mission
of an Old State: The Contemporary and Comparative Relevance of Classical
Confucian Political Philosophy]. Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe.
Balazs, Etienne. 1964. Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy, translated by H. M.
Wright and edited by Arthur F. Wright. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Barber, Benjamin R. 1992. An Aristocracy of Everyone: The Politics of Education and
the Future of America. New York: Oxford University Press.

219
220 Bibliography

Beitz, Charles. 1979. Political Theory and International Relations. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press.
Bell, Daniel A. 2006. Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian
Context. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
2006. “Just War and Confucianism: Implications for the Contemporary World.”
In Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 23–​51.
2008. China’s New Confucianism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Bell, Daniel A. and Li, Chenyang (Eds.). 2013. The East Asian Challenge for
Democracy: Political Meritocracy in Comparative Perspective. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Bloom, Irene (Trans.). 2009. Mencius. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bol, Peter K. 1992. This Culture of Ours: Intellectual Transitions in T’ang and Sung
China. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Boyd, Richard. 2004. Uncivil Society: The Perils of Pluralism and the Making of Modern
Liberalism. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Brooks, E. Bruce and Brooks, A. Taeko. 1998. The Original Analects: Sayings of
Confucius and His Successors. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bui, Ngoc Son. 2016. Confucian Constitutionalism in East Asia. New York: Routledge.
Chan, Adrian. 1996. “Confucianism and Development in East Asia.” Journal of
Contemporary China 26(1): 28–​45.
Chan, Joseph. 2008. “Is There a Confucian Perspective on Social Justice?” In Western
Political Thought in Dialogue with Asia, edited by Takashi Shogimen and Cary J.
Nederman. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 261–​277.
2014. Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Chan, Joseph, Shin, Doh Chull, and Williams, Melissa S. (Eds.) 2016. East Asian
Perspectives on Political Legitimacy: Bridging the Empirical-​Normative Divide.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Chan, Sin Yee. 2006. “The Confucian Notion of Jing 敬 (Respect).” Philosophy East
and West 56(2): 229–​252.
Chan, Wing-​tsit. 1955. “The Evolution of the Confucian Concept Jen.” Philosophy East
and West 4(4): 295–​319.
Chang, Hyŏn-​kŭn. 2015. Sunja: Yeŭiro sesangŭl parojamnŭnda 순자: 예의로 세상을 바
로잡는다 [Xunzi: To Correct the World by Ritual and Yi]. Seoul: Hangilsa.
Chang, Hyŏn-​kŭn. 2017. “Tongyang-​esŏŭi min, chŏngch’i kaenyŏm-​ŭi hyŏngsŏng mit
pyŏnch’ŏn 동양에서 민, 정치 개념의 형성 및 변천 [The Formation and Evolution
of the Concepts of the People and Politics in East Asia].” In Minbon-​kwa minjuŭi
kaenyŏmjŏk t’ongsŏp [The Conceptual Consilience between Minbon and Minju
민본과 민주의 개념적 통섭], edited by Chŏng-​kŭn Sin. Seoul: Sungkyunkwan
University Press, 25–​58.
Chang, Kwang-​chih. 1980. Shang Civilization. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Ching, Julia. 1974. “The Goose Lake Monastery Debate (1175).” Journal of Chinese
Philosophy 1(2): 161–​178.
1997. Mysticism and Kingship in China: The Heart of Chinese Wisdom. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
2004. “Confucianism and Weapons of Mass Destruction.” In Ethics and Weapons of
Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives, edited by Sohail H. Hashmi
and Steven P. Lee. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 246–​269.
Bibliography 221

Chong, Kim-​chong. 2007. Early Confucian Ethics. Chicago, IL: Open Court.
Chung, Chai-​ sik. 1985. “Chŏng Tojŏn: ‘Architect’ of Yi Dynasty Government and
Ideology.” In The Rise of Neo-​Confucianism in Korea, edited by Wm. Theodore
de Bary and JaHyun K. Haboush. New York: Columbia University Press, 59–​88.
Cline, Erin M. 2013. Confucius, Rawls, and the Sense of Justice. New York: Fordham
University Press.
Creel, Herrlee G. 1949. Confucius and the Chinese Way. New York: Harper and Row.
1953. Chinese Thought from Confucius to Mao Tse-​tung. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
1974. Shen Pu-​Hai, A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century b.c..
Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
Cua, Antonio S. 2005. Human Nature, Ritual, and History: Studies in Xunzi and
Chinese Philosophy. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press.
Dagger, Richard. 1997. Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Dallmayr, Fred R. 2004. “Confucianism and the Public Sphere: Five Relationships Plus
One?” In The Politics of Affective Relations: East Asia and Beyond, edited by
Chaihark Hahm and Daniel A. Bell. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 41–​59.
Dardess, John W. 1983. Confucianism and Autocracy: Professional Elites in the
Founding of the Ming Dynasty. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
2002. Blood and History: The Donglin Faction and Its Repression 1620–​1627.
Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
De Bary, Wm. Theodore. 1983. The Liberal Tradition in China. New York: Columbia
University Press.
1991. The Trouble with Confucianism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
1993. “Introduction.” In Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince –​Huang Tsung-​
Hsi’s Ming-​i tai-​fang lu. New York: Columbia University Press, 1–​85.
1995. “The ‘Constitutional Tradition’ in China.” Journal of Chinese Law 9: 7–​34.
1998. “Introduction.” In Confucianism and Human Rights, edited by Wm. Theodore
de Bary and Tu Wei-​ming. New York: Columbia University Press, 1–​26.
Eisenstadt, S. N. 1985. “This Worldly Transcendentalism and the Structuring of the
World: Weber’s ‘Religion of China’ and the Format of Chinese History and
Civilization.” Journal of Developing Societies 1: 168–​186.
El Amine, Loubna. 2015. Classical Confucian Political Thought: A New Interpretation.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Elstein, David, 2011. “Han Feizi’s Thought and Republicanism.” Dao 10(2): 167–​185.
Eno, Robert. 1990. The Confucian Creation of Heaven: Philosophy and the Defense of
Ritual Mastery. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Faulkner, Robert. 2007. The Case for Greatness: Honorable Ambition and Its Critics.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Favazza, Armando R. 1996. Bodies under Siege: Self-​Mutilation and Body Modification
in Culture and Psychiatry. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Fingarette, Herbert. 1972. Confucius: The Secular as Sacred. New York: Harper.
Fleming, James E. and McClain, Linda C. 2013. Ordered Liberty: Rights, Responsibilities,
and Virtues. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Franco, Paul. 2014. “Tocqueville and Nietzsche on the Problem of Human Greatness in
Democracy.” Review of Politics 76(3): 439–​467.
Fraser, Chris. 2016. The Philosophy of the Mozi: The First Consequentialists. New York:
Columbia University Press.
222 Bibliography

Frazer, Michael L. 2006. “The Compassion of Zarathustra: Nietzsche on Sympathy and

Strength.” Review of Politics 68(1): 49–​78.
Freud, Sigmund. 1950. Totem and Taboo, translated by James Strachey. New York: Norton.
1960. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, translated by James Strachey.
New York: Bantam Books.
1961. Civilization and Its Discontents, translated by James Strachey. New York:
Norton.
2000. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, translated by James Strachey.
New York: Basic Books.
Fu, Zhengyuan. 1996. China’s Legalists: The Earliest Totalitarians and Their Art of
Ruling. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
Fung, Yiu-​Ming. 2012. “Two Senses of “Wei 僞”: A New Interpretation of Xunzi’s
Theory of Human Nature.” Dao 11(2): 187–​200.
Galston, William A. 2007. “Pluralism and Civic Virtue.” Social Theory and Practice
33(4): 625–​635.
2010. “Realism in Political Theory.” European Journal of Political Theory 9(4):
385–​411.
Geaney, Jane M. 2004. “Guarding Moral Boundaries: Shame in Early Confucianism.”
Philosophy East and West 54(2): 113–​142.
Geuss, Raymond. 2008. Philosophy and Real Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Gilpin, Robert. 1987. The Political Economy of International Relations. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Ginsburg, Tom, 2002. “Confucian Constitutionalism? The Emergence of Constitutional
Review in Korea and Taiwan.” Law and Social Inquiry 27(4): 263–​299.
Ginsburg, Tom. 2012. “Constitutionalism: East Asian Antecedents.” Chicago-​Kent Law
Review 88: 11–​33.
Glanville, Luke. 2010. “Retaining the Mandate of Heaven: Sovereign Accountability in
Ancient China.” Millennium 39: 323–​343.
Glenn, Paul F. 2001. “Nietzsche’s Napoleon: The Higher Man as Political Actor.”
Review of Politics 63(1): 129–​158.
Goldin, Paul R. 2011. Confucianism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
(Ed.). 2013. Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei. Dordrecht: Springer.
Hahm, Chaibong and Paik, Wooyeal. 2003. “Legalistic Confucianism and Economic
Development in East Asia.” Journal of East Asian Studies 3(3): 461–​491.
Hahm, Chaihark. 2003. “Law, Culture, and the Politics of Confucianism,” Columbia
Journal of Asian Law 16: 253–​301.
2003. “Constitutionalism, Confucian Civic Virtue, and Ritual Propriety.” In
Confucianism for the Modern World, edited by Daniel A. Bell and Chaibong
Hahm. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 31–​53.
2009. “Ritual and Constitutionalism: Disputing the Ruler’s Legitimacy in a Confucian
Polity.” American Journal of Comparative Law 57: 135–​203.
Hagen, Kurtis. 2007. The Philosophy of Xunzi: A Reconstruction. Chicago,
IL: Open Court.
2011. “Xunzi and the Prudence of Dao: Desire as the Motive to Become Good.” Dao
10(1): 53–​70.
Hansen, Chad. 1992. A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical
Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bibliography 223

Harris, Eirik L. 2013. “Constraining the Ruler: On Escaping Han Fei’s Criticism of
Confucian Virtue Politics.” Asian Philosophy 23(1): 43–​61.
2013. “The Role of Virtue in Xunzi’s 荀子 Political Philosophy.” Dao 12(1): 93–​110.
2013. “Han Fei on the Problem of Morality.” In Dao Companion to the Philosophy
of Han Fei, edited by Paul R. Goldin. Dordrecht: Springer, 107–​131.
2015. “Aspects of Shen Dao’s Political Philosophy.” History of Philosophy Quarterly
32(3): 217–​234.
2016. “Xunzi’s Political Philosophy.” In Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi,
edited by Eric L. Hutton. Dordrecht: Springer, 95–​138.
2019. “Relating the Political to the Ethical: Thoughts on Early Confucian Political
Theory.” Dao 18(2): 277–​283.
Henderson, John B. 1991. Scripture, Canon, and Commentary: A Comparison of
Confucian and Western Exegesis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hihara, Toshikuni. 1986. Kandai shisō no kenkyū 漢代思想の硏究 [A Study on the
Thoughts of the Han Dynasty]. Tokyo: Kenbunshuppan.
Hohfeld, Wesley N. [1919]2016. Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial
Reasoning, edited by Walter W. Cook. London: Routledge.
Holmes, Stephen. 1995. Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Hon, Tze-​Ki. 1999. “Military Governance versus Civil Governance: A Comparison
of the Old History and the New History of the Five Dynasties.” In Imagining
Boundaries: Changing Confucian Doctrines, Texts, and Hermeneutics, edited by
Kai-​wing Chow, On-​cho Ng, and John B. Henderson. Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press, 85–​105.
Horkheimer, Max and Adorno, Theodore. 2002. Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans-
lated by Gunzelin S. Noerr and Edmund Jephcott. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Hsiao, Kung-​ chun. 1979. A History of Chinese Political Thought, Vol. 1: From
the Beginnings to the Sixth Century a.d., translated by F. W. Mote. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Hsu, Cho-​yun. 1999. “The Spring and Autumn Period.” In The Cambridge History of
Ancient China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 b.c., edited by Michael
Loewe and Edward L. Shaughnessy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
545–​586.
Hui, Jixing. 1996. Xunziyu zhongguowenhua 荀子與中國文化 [Xunzi and Chinese
Culture]. Guiyang: Guizhou renmin chubanshe.
Hui, Victoria Tin-​bor. 2005. War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early
Modern Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hutton, Eric L. 2000. “Does Xunzi Have a Consistent Theory of Human Nature?” In
Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi, edited by T. C. Kline III and Philip
J. Ivanhoe. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 220–​236.
2002. “Moral Reasoning in Aristotle and Xunzi.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy
29(3): 355–​384.
2002. “Moral Connoisseurship in Mengzi.” In Essays on the Moral Philosophy of
Mengzi, edited by Xiusheng Liu and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett,
163–​186.
2006. “Character, Situationism, and Early Confucian Thought.” Philosophical Studies
127(1): 37–​58.
224 Bibliography

2008. “Un-​Democratic Values in Plato and Xunzi.” In Polishing the Chinese Mirror,
edited by Marthe Chandler and Ronnie Littlejohn. New York: Global Scholars
Publications, 313–​330.
2008. “Han Feizi’s Criticism of Confucianism and its Implications for Virtue Ethics.”
Journal of Moral Philosophy 5(3): 423–​453.
2016. “Ethics in the Xunzi.” In Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi, edited
by Eric L. Hutton. Dordrecht: Springer, 67–​93.
2016. “Xunzi on Moral Psychology.” In Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi,
edited by Eric L. Hutton. Dordrecht: Springer, 201–​227.
Hutton, Eric L. (Trans.). 2014. Xunzi: The Complete Text. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Hutton, Eric L. (Ed.). 2016. Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi. Dordrecht:
Springer.
Ing, Michael D. K. 2012. The Dysfunction of Ritual in Early Confucianism. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Ivanhoe, Philip J. 1991. “Character Consequentialism: An Early Confucian
Contribution to Contemporary Ethical Theory.” Journal of Religious Ethics
19(1): 55–​70.
2000. Confucian Moral Self Cultivation. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
2002. Ethics in the Confucian Tradition. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
2002. “Confucian Self Cultivation and Mengzi’s Notion of Extension.” In Essays on
the Moral Philosophy of Mengzi, edited by Xiusheng Liu and Philip J. Ivanhoe.
Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 221–​241.
2004. “ ‘Heaven’s Mandate’ and the Concept of War in Early Confucianism.” In
Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: Religious and Secular Perspectives,
edited by Sohail H. Hashmi and Steven P. Lee. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 270–​276.
2011. “Hanfeizi and Moral Self-​ Cultivation.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy
38(1): 31–​45.
2014. “A Happy Symmetry: Xunzi’s Ecological Ethic.” In Ritual and Religion in the
Xunzi, edited by T. C. Kline III and Justin Tiwald. Albany, NY: State University of
New York, 43–​60.
2017. Oneness: East Asian Conceptions of Virtue, Happiness, and How We Are All
Connected. New York: Oxford University Press.
Forthcoming. “Morality as an Artifact: The Nature of Moral Norms in Xunzi’s
Philosophy.” In Oxford Handbook of Chinese Philosophy, edited by Justin Tiwald.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Jaspers, Karl. 1953. The Origin and Goal of History. London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.
Jung, Hwa Yol. 2015. “On Confucian Constitutionalism in Korea: A Metacommentary.”
In Confucianism, Law, and Democracy in Contemporary Korea, edited by
Sungmoon Kim. London: Rowman and Littlefield International, 191–​207.
Jung, Jaesang. 2016. “Xunzi and Pre-​Modern Korean Thinkers.” In Dao Companion to
the Philosophy of Xunzi, edited by Eric L. Hutton. Dordrecht: Springer, 503–​534.
Kalton, Michael C. (Trans.). 1988. To Become a Sage. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Keohane, Robert O. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World
Political Economy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Bibliography 225

Kim, Hak-​chu (Trans.). 2001. Sunja 순자 [Xunzi]. Seoul: Yŭlyumunhwasa.

Kim, Hyŏng-​hyo. 1990. Mengjawa Sunjaŭi ch’ŏraksasang 맹자와 순자의 철학사상
[The Philosophy of Mencius and Xunzi]. Seoul: Samjiwŏn.
Kim, Kyung-​Dong. 1997. “Confucianism, Economic Growth and Democracy.” Asian
Perspective 21(2): 77–​97.
Kim, Sangjun. 2011 Maenja-​ŭi ttam sŏngwang-​ŭi p’i: Chungch’ŭnggŭndae-​wa tongasia
yugyomunmyŏng 맹자의 땀 성왕의 피: 중층근대와 동아시아 유교문명 [Sweat of
Mencius, Blood of the Sacred Kings: Confucian Civilization and Universal Human
Values]. Seoul: Akanet.
Kim, Sungmoon. 2009. “Self-​Transformation and Civil Society: Lockean vs. Confucian.”
Dao 8(4): 383–​401.
2010. “Confucian Citizenship? Against Two Greek Models.” Journal of Chinese
Philosophy 37(3): 438–​456.
2010. “Mencius on International Relations and the Morality of War: From the
Perspective of Confucian Moralpolitik.” History of Political Thought 31(1):
33–​56.
2010. “The Secret of Confucian Wuwei Statecraft: Mencius’s Political Theory of
Responsibility.” Asian Philosophy 20(1): 27–​42.
2011. “From Desire to Civility: Is Xunzi a Hobbesian.” Dao 10(3): 291–​309.
2012. “Virtue Politics and Political Leadership: A Confucian Rejoinder to Han Feizi.”
Asian Philosophy 22(2): 177–​197.
2014. Confucian Democracy in East Asia: Theory and Practice. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
2015. “Confucianism, Moral Equality, and Human Rights: A Mencian Perspective.”
American Journal of Economics and Sociology 74(1): 149–​185.
2016. “Achieving the Way: Confucian Virtue Politics and the Problem of Dirty
Hands.” Philosophy East and West 66(1): 152–​176.
2016. Public Reason Confucianism: Democratic Perfectionism and Constitutionalism
in East Asia. New York: Cambridge University Press.
2017. “Confucian Humanitarian Intervention? Toward Democratic Theory.” Review
of Politics 79(2): 187–​213.
2018. “Contingency and Responsibility in Confucian Political Theory,” Philosophy
and Social Criticism 44(6): 615–​636.
2018. Democracy after Virtue: Toward Pragmatic Confucian Democracy. New York:
Oxford University Press.
2019. “The Political Economy of Confucian Harmony,” American Journal of
Economics and Sociology 78(2): 493–​521.
Kline III, T. C. 2000. “Moral Agency and Motivation in the Xunzi.” In Virtue, Nature,
and Moral Agency in the Xunzi, edited by T. C. Kline III and Philip J. Ivanhoe.
Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 155–​175.
Kline III, T. C. and Ivanhoe, Philip J. (Eds.). 2000. Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in
the Xunzi. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Kline III, T. C. and Tiwald, Justin (Eds.). 2014. Ritual and Religion in the Xunzi. Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press.
Knoblock, John (Trans.). 1980, 1990, 1994. Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the
Complete Works, 3 vols. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Krause, Sharon R. 2002. Liberalism with Honor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
226 Bibliography

Lai, Karyn. 2006. “Li in the Analects: Training in Moral Competence and the Question
of Flexibility.” Philosophy East and West 56(1): 69–​83.
Lau, D. C. (Trans.) 1970. Mencius. New York: Penguin.
(Trans.). 1979. The Analects. New York: Penguin.
Lee, Janghee. 2004. Xunzi and Early Chinese Nationalism. Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press.
Lee, Seung-​Hwan. 1998. “Chujawa chinnyangŭi wangp’aenonjaeng” 주자와 진량의 왕
패논쟁 [The Wang-​Ba Debate between Zhu Xi and Chen Liang], in Yugasasangŭi
sahoech’ŏrakchŏk chaejomyŏng 유가사상의 사회철학적 재조명 [A Social
Philosophical Reexamination of Confucian Thought]. Seoul: Korea University
Press, 286–​321.
2004. Yugyo tamnoŭi chihyŏnghak 유교담론의 지형학 [A Typology of the Confucian
Discourse]. Seoul: Purŭnsup.
Legge, James (Trans.). 1970. The Chinese Classic, vol. 2. Hong Kong: Hong Kong
University Press.
(Trans.). 1971. Shu Ching: Book of History, edited by Clae Waltham. Chicago,
IL: Henry Regnery Company.
Levenson, Joseph R. 1968. Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: A Trilogy. Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press.
Levenson, Joseph R. and Schurmann, Franz (Eds.). 1971. China: An Interpretive History
from the Beginnings to the Fall of Han. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Lewis, Mark E. 1990. Sanctioned Violence in Early China. Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press.
1999. “Warring States Political History.” In The Cambridge History of Ancient
China: From the Origins of Civilization to 221 b.c., edited by Michael Loewe and
Edward L. Shaughnessy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 587–​650.
2006. “The Just War in Early China.” In The Ethics of War in Asian Civilizations: A
Comparative Perspective, edited by Torkel Brekke. New York: Routledge, 185–​200.
Li, Chenyang. 2007. “Li as Cultural Grammar: On the Relation between Li and Ren in
Confucius’ Analects.” Philosophy East and West 57(3): 311–​329.
2011. “Xunzi on the Origin of Goodness: A New Interpretation.” Journal of Chinese
Philosophy 38(1): 46–​63.
Li, Feng. 2013. Early China: A Social and Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Liu, James T. C. 1959. Reform in Sung China: Wang An-​shih (1021–​1086) and His New
Policies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Liu, Qingping. 2003. “Family versus Sociality and Individuality: On Confucianism as
‘Consanguinitism’.” Philosophy East and West 53(2): 234–​250.
2004. “Is Menicus’s Doctrine of ‘Extending Affection’ Tenable?” Asian Philosophy
14(1): 79–​90.
2006. “On Confucius’ Principle of Consanguineous Affection: A Reading of the
Dialogue about the Three-​ Year Mourning in the Lunyu.” Asian Philosophy
16(3): 173–​188.
Liu, Xiusheng and Ivanhoe, Philip J. (Eds.). 2002. Essays on the Moral Philosophy of
Mengzi. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Loy, Hui-​chieh. 2016. “Xunzi Contra Mozi.” In Dao Companion to the Philosophy of
Xunzi, edited by Eric L. Hutton. Dordrecht: Springer, 353–​575.
Bibliography 227

Macedo, Stephen. 1990. Liberal Virtues: Citizenship, Virtue, and Community in Liberal
Constitutionalism. Oxford: Clarendon.
Machiavelli, Niccolo. 1998. The Prince, translated by Harvey C. Mansfield. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Machle, Edward. 1993. Nature and Heaven in the Xunzi: A Study of the Tian Lu.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Maruyama, Masao. 1974. Studies in the Intellectual History of Tokugawa Japan, trans-
lated by Mikiso Hane. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
McIntosh, Donald. 1970. “Weber and Freud: On the Nature and Sources of Authority.”
American Sociological Review 35(5): 901–​911.
Miller, David. 1995. On Nationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Morohashi, Tetsuji. 1968. Dai kan-​wa jiten 大漢和辭典 [The Great Chinese-​Japanese
Dictionary], vol. 9. Tokyo: Taishukan shoten.
Munro, Donald J. 1996. “A Villain in the Xunzi.” In Chinese Language, Thought, and
Culture: Nivison and His Critics, edited by Philip J. Ivanhoe. Chicago, IL: Open
Court, 193–​201.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1956. The Birth of Tragedy in The Birth of Tragedy and The
Genealogy of Morals, translated by Francis Golffing. New York: Anchor Books.
1956. The Genealogy of Morals, translated by Francis Golffing. New York:
Anchor Books.
1968. The Will to Power, translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books.
1968. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in The Portable Nietzsche, edited and translated by
Walter Kaufmann. New York: Penguin Books.
1989. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, translated by
Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books.
Nivison, David S. 1996. “Motivation and Moral Action in Mencius.” In The Ways
of Confucianism: Investigations in Chinese Philosophy, edited by Bryan W. Van
Norden. Chicago, IL: Open Court.
Nuyen, A. T. 2009. “Moral Obligation and Moral Motivation in Confucian Role-​Based
Ethics.” Dao 8(1): 1–​11.
Nylan, Michael. 2001. “Boundaries of the Body and Body Politic in Early Confucian
Thought.” In Boundaries and Justice: Diverse Ethical Perspectives, edited by
David Miller and Sohail H. Hashmi. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
112–​135.
Omatowski, Gregory K. 1996. “Confucian Ethics and Economic Development: A Study
of Adaptation of Confucian Values to Modern Japanese Economic Ideology and
Institutions.” Journal of Socio-​Economics 25(5): 571–​590.
Park, Chong-​Min and Shin, Doh Chull. 2006. “Do Asian Values Deter Popular Support
for Democracy in South Korea?” Asian Survey 46: 341–​361.
Philip, Mark. 2010. “What Is To Be Done? Political Theory and Political Realism.”
European Journal of Political Theory 9(4): 466–​484.
Pines, Yuri. 2002. “Changing Views of Tianxia in Pre-​Imperial Discourse.” Oriens
Extremus 43: 101–​116.
2005. “Disputers of Abdication: Zhanguo Egalitarianism and the Sovereign’s Power.”
T’oung Pao 91(4): 268–​271.
2009. Envisioning Eternal Empire: Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States
Era. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
228 Bibliography

Pocock, J. G. A. 1971. “Ritual, Language, Power: An Essay on the Apparent Political

Meaning of Ancient Chinese Philosophy.” In Politics, Language and Time: Essays
on Political Thought and History. New York: Atheneum.
Puett, Michael J. 2002. To Become a God: Cosmological Sacrifice, and Self-​Divinization
in Early China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard
University Press.
Rawls, John. 1999. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Roetz, Heiner. 1993. Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age. Albany, NY: State University
of New York Press.
Rosemont, Henry, Jr. 1991. “Rights-​Bearing Individuals and Role-​Bearing Persons.” In
Rules, Rituals, and Responsibility, edited by Mary I. Bockover. Chicago, IL: Open
Court, pp. 77–​101.
2000. “State and Society in the Xunzi: A Philosophical Commentary.” In Virtue,
Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi, edited by T. C. Kline III and Philip J.
Ivanhoe. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1–​38.
Rosen, Sydney. 1976. “In Search of the Historical Kuan Chung.” Journal of Asian
Studies 35(3): 431–​440.
Rousseau, Jean-​ Jacques. 2000. The Social Contract. In The Social Contract and
The First and Second Discourses, edited by Susan Dunn. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Rubin, Vitaly A. 1979. Individual and State in Ancient China: Essays on Four Chinese
Philosophers. New York: Columbia University Press.
Sato, Masayuki. 2003. The Confucian Quest for Order: The Origin and Formation of
the Political Thought of Xun Zi. Leiden: Brill.
Schaberg, David. 2010. “The Zhouli as Constitutional Text.” In Statecraft and Classical
Learning: The Rituals of Zhou in East Asian History, edited by Benjamin A. Elman
and Martin Kern. Leiden: Brill, 33–​63.
Schneider, Henrique. 2011. “Legalism: Chinese-​Style Constitutionalism?” Journal of
Chinese Philosophy 38(1): 46–​63.
Schofer, Jonathan W. 2000. “Virtues in Xunzi’s Thought.” In Virtue, Nature, and Moral
Agency in the Xunzi, edited by T. C. Kline III and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett, 69–​88.
Schwartz, Benjamin I. 1968. “The Chinese Perception of World Order, Past and Present.”
In The Chinese World Order: Traditional Chinas Foreign Relations, edited by
John K. Fairbank. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 278–​279.
1985. The World of Thought in Ancient China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
1996. “The Age of Transcendence.” In China and Other Matters. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 65–​68.
Selgman, Adam B. 1997. “Public and Private in Political Thought: Rousseau, Smith,
and Some Contemporaries.” In The Problem of Trust. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 103–​123.
Shin, Doh Chull. 2012. Confucianism and Democratization in East Asia. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Shun, Kwong-​loi. 1993. “Jen and Li in the Analects.” Philosophy East and West 43(3):
457–​479.
1997. Mencius and Early Chinese Thought. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Sim, May. 2007. Remastering Morals with Aristotle and Confucius. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Bibliography 229

Skinner, Quentin. 1998. Liberty before Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.
Slingerland, Edward. 2003. Effortless Action: Wu-​Wei as Conceptual Metaphor and
Spiritual Ideal in Early China. New York: Oxford University Press.
2011. “The Situationist Critique and Early Confucian Virtue Ethics.” Ethics 121(2):
390–​419.
Slingerland, Edward (Trans.). 2003. Confucius: Analects with Selections from
Traditional Commentaries. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Solomon, Robert C. 1995. A Passion for Justice: Emotions and the Origins of the Social
Contract. London: Rowman and Littlefield.
Song, Jaeyoon. 2009. “The Zhou Li and Constitutionalism: A Southern Song Political
Theory.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 36(3): 423–​438.
Stalnaker, Aaron. 2016. “Xunzi on Self-​ Cultivation.” In Dao Companion to the
Philosophy of Xunzi, edited by Eric L. Hutton. Dordrecht: Springer, 35–​65.
Sung, Winnie. 2012. “Ritual in the Xunzi: A Change of the Heart/​ Mind.” Sophia
51(2): 211–​226.
Tan, Sor-​ hoon. 2003. Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction. Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press.
2004. “From Cannibalism to Empowerment: An Analects-​Inspired Attempt to
Balance Community and Liberty.” Philosophy East and West 54(1): 52–​70.
2014. “The Concept of Yi (义) in the Mencius and Problems of Distributive Justice.”
Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93(3): 489–​505.
Tang, Siufu. 2016. “Xing and Xunzi’s Understanding of Our Nature.” In Dao
Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi, edited by Eric L. Hutton. Dordrecht:
Springer, 165–​200.
Tillman, Hoyt C. 1981. “The Development of Tension between Virtue and Achievement
in Early Confucianism: Attitudes toward Kuan Chung and Hegemon (pa) as
Conceptual Symbols.” Philosophy East and West 31(1): 17–​28.
1982. Utilitarian Confucianism: Ch’en Liang’s Challenge to Chu Hsi. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University’s Council on East Asian Studies.
Tiwald, Justin. 2008. “A Right of Rebellion in the Mengzi?” Dao 7(3): 269–​282.
Tu, Wei-​ming. 1979. Humanity and Self-​Cultivation: Essays in Confucian Thought.
Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press.
1979. “Li as Process of Humanization.” In Humanity and Self-​Cultivation. Berkeley,
CA: Asian Humanities Press, 17–​34.
1993. Way, Learning, and Politics: Essays in Confucian Intellectual. Albany, NY: State
University of New York Press.
1998. “Probing the ‘Three Bonds’ and ‘Five Relationships’ in Confucian Humanism.”
In Confucianism and the Family, edited by Walter H. Slote and George A. DeVos.
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 121–​136.
Tully, James (Ed.). 1988. Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.
Twiss, Sumner B. and Chan, Jonathan. 2012. “The Classical Confucian Position on the
Legitimate Use of Military Force.” Journal of Religious Ethics 40(3): 447–​472.
2012. “Classical Confucianism, Punitive Expeditions, and Humanitarian Intervention.”
Journal of Military Ethics 11(2): 81–​96.
Van Norden, Bryan W. 2000. “Mengzi and Xunzi: Two Views of Human Agency.” In
Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi, edited by T. C. Kline III and Philip
J. Ivanhoe. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 103–​134.
230 Bibliography

2007. Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Confucian Philosophy. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Van Norden, Bryan W. 2017. Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto.
New York: Columbia University Press.
Van Norden, Bryan W. (Trans.). 2008. Mengzi: With Selections from Traditional
Commentaries. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Viroli, Maurizio. 2002. Republicanism. New York: Hill and Wang.
Wagner, Edward W. 1974. The Literati Purges: Political Conflict in Early Yi Korea.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Waley, Arthur. 1939. Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China. London: George Allen
and Unwin.
Waley, Arthur (Trans.). 1989. The Analects of Confucius. New York: Vintage.
Walker, Graham. 1997. “The Idea of Nonliberal Constitutionalism.” In Nomos XXXIX:
Ethnicity and Group Rights, edited by Ian Shapiro and Will Kymlicka. New York:
New York University Press.
Walzer, Michael. 1967. “On the Role of Symbolism in Political Thought.” Political
Science Quarterly 82(2): 191–​204.
1977. Just and Unjust Wars. New York: Basic Books.
Watson, Burton (Trans.). 1964. Han Fei Tzu: Basic Writings. New York: Columbia
University Press.
Weber, Max. 1951. The Religion of China: Confucianism and Taoism, translated by
Hans H. Gerth. New York: The Free Press.
1958. “Politics as Vocation.” In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, edited and
translated by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University
Press, 77–​128.
1968. On Charisma and Institution Building, edited by S. N. Eisenstadt. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
1978. Economy and Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Wei, Zhentong. 1992. Xunziyu gudaizhexue 荀子與古代哲學 [Xunzi and Ancient
Philosophy]. Taibei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan.
Weithman, Paul. 2004. “Political Republicanism and Perfectionist Republicanism.”
Review of Politics 66(2): 285–​312.
Williams, Bernard. 2005. In the Beginning Was the Deed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Wong, David B. 2000. “Xunzi on Moral Motivation.” In Virtue, Nature, and Moral
Agency in the Xunzi, edited by T. C. Kline III and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Indianapolis,
IL: Hackett, 135–​154.
2002. “Reasons and Analogical Reasoning in Mengzi.” In Essays on the Moral
Philosophy of Mengzi, edited by Xiusheng Liu and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Indianapolis,
IL: Hackett, 187–​220.
2016. “Xunzi’s Metaethics.” In Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi, edited
by Eric L. Hutton. Dordrecht: Springer, 139–​164.
Wood, Alan T. 1995. Limits to Autocracy: From Song Neo-​Confucianism to a Doctrine
of Political Rights. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.
Yi, Ch’un-​sik. 2002. Ch’unch’uchŏn’guksidae-​ŭi pŏpch’isasang-​kwa se · sul 춘추전국시
대 정치사상과 세 · 술 [A Study on Legalism of the Chunqiu and Zhanguo Periods].
Seoul: Akanet.
Bibliography 231

Yi, Wun-​ku (Trans.). 2006. Sunja 순자 [Xunzi], vol. 1. Seoul: Han’gilsa.

Young, Iris M. 2000. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Yu, Jiyuan. 2007. The Ethics of Confucius and Aristotle: Mirrors of Virtue.
New York: Routledge.
Zhao, Ji-​bin. 1959. Lunyu xintan 論語新探 [A New Interpretation of the Analects].
Beijing: Renmin chubanshe.
Index

abdication doctrine, 63, 64–​65, 68–​69, 70–​71, Mencius, 98–​99, 100, 101, 105
78, 137–​138 Xunzi, 22, 103, 104, 106–​107, 112, 209
Mencius, 38, 62, 63, 65–​66, 67, 68–​69, civil order, 21, 22, 49
70–​71, 75, 77, 85, 137 civil polity, 13, 17, 28, 36
Xunzi, 38, 62, 63, 75–​76, 78, 82, 84 civility, 49, 52, 110, 113
Ames, Roger T., 5n10 Xunzi, 101, 106–​111, 112, 113
Angle, Stephen, 27n4, 79n62 classical Confucianism, 3–​5, 10n26, 19, 24,
Aristotle, 16 28, 111, 122, 122n13, 179, 180, 187,
208, 213–​214, 215–​217
badao (the Way of the hegemon), 13, 19, 22, civic virtue, 18
147–​150, 156, 160, 168–​169, 207 moral virtue, 18
Mencius, 22–​23, 32, 37, 38, 118, 147, 151, punitive expedition, 23–​24
152, 154–​156, 169, 174 Cline, Erin, 41, 43n68
Xunzi, 19, 23, 38, 118, 147, 149–​150, 156, Confucian constitutionalism, 11, 13, 17–​18,
157–​158, 161, 163–​166, 168, 169–​171, 21–​22, 62, 145–​146, 206
172, 173, 176, 177, 207, 213 Mencius, 13, 21
Bai, Tongdong, 13n33 Xunzi, 13, 21, 145, 146
Basic Legitimation Demand, 9 Confucian political theory, 1–​4, 20, 121–​122,
Bell, Daniel A., 10n26, 34n23, 185n23 204–​205
benevolent government (renzheng), 28, 30 Confucian state, 6, 15
Mencius, 28, 30, 33–​34, 38, 45, 53, 158 Confucian virtue ethics, see virtue ethics
Xunzi, 38, 50 Confucian virtue politics, see virtue
Bloom, Irene, 34n24, 134 politics
Bui, Ngoc Son, 17n42 Confucianism, 1–​3, 12, 14, 19, 27, 57, 59–​61,
145, 176
Chan, Jonathan, 158n33 Confucius, 4, 7–​8, 9–​10, 11–​12, 31n12, 34,
Chan, Joseph, 2n4, 169n69 61, 94n16, 107n47, 109n56, 132n64,
Chang, Hyŏn-​kŭn, 67n25 181, 191
Chen Xiao, 190–​191 badao, 173, 174–​175
Cheng-​Zhu Neo-​Confucians, 27, 27n4, 28, good government, 6, 8, 10
55n108, 57, 148 Guan Zhong, 173–​174, 175, 181
Chinese Empire, 59–​60 Huan (Duke of Qi), 173
Ching, Julia, 73n46, 121, 138 tempered virtue monism, 175–​176
civic virtue, 18, 19, 91–​92, 207–​208, 209 virtuous ruler, 12, 191

233
234 Index

Confucius (cont.) Xunzi, 11, 22, 38–​41, 45, 75, 79–​80, 92–​93,
Wen (Duke of Jin), 173 94, 101–​102, 103, 112
Yuansi, 113 Hutton, Eric L., 38n43, 43–​44, 45, 56, 81n68,
consanguinitism, 77 90, 159, 161n43
constitutionalism, 15–​18
cruelty, 32, 33, 133–​134 interest, 14, 21
interstate governance, 12–​13, 23–​24, 172–​173,
de Bary, Wm. Theodore, 62–​63, 64, 119–​121, 180, 189–​190, 201–​202
138, 142, 145 Mencius, 23–​24, 183–​184, 185–​187, 193–​194,
Decree of Heaven, 7 196–​198
Xunzi, 23–​24, 187, 193–​194, 198
El Amine, Loubna, 3, 9n22, 24, 65n23, 98n30, Ivanhoe, Philip J., 51n96
153n20, 163, 208–​215, 216, 217
Eno, Robert, 69n33 Jie, 86, 88, 131, 167–​168
extension, Mencius theory of, 35, 36
Kim, Sangjun, 95n21
feudal lords, 67, 68, 71 Kingly Way (wangdao), 11, 22, 23, 30, 54,
Fingarette, Herbert, 61n8 150–​151, 160, 164–​165, 173, 176,
Freud, Sigmund, 125–​126 207–​208
kingship, 137
Galston, William A., 91 Mencius, 65, 69, 117, 122, 128–​130, 137,
Ginsburg, Tom, 121n9 141–​142, 146
Glanville, Luke, 191n40, 196n52 universal, 12, 23, 171–​172, 173, 180, 192
Gongsun Chou, 140, 152–​153 Xunzi, 78, 79, 80–​81, 83, 84, 85, 117,
good government, 6, 8, 34 166–​167
Confucius, 6, 8, 10 Knoblock, John, 38n43, 159n35,
good treatment argument, 44, 45 160n40, 161n43
Guan Zhong, 152–​153, 159, 160, 173–​174,
175, 181 Lau, D. C., 32, 36n31, 104, 133
laypeople, 67, 68, 71, 74
Hagen, Kurtis, 48n83, 81n67 Legalism, 59, 60, 60n1, 160n38, 161n41, 162,
Hahm, Chaihark, 16, 28n5, 60 163, 165, 214–​215
Han Fei, 60n1, 83, 83n72, 99, 128, 161n41, Legalistic Confucianism, 60, 128n48, 214–​215
165, 166n60, 201n64, 202n65, 214 li (ritual/​ritual propriety), 7, 8–​9, 18, 60–​61,
Harris, Eirik L., 172n77 89–​91, 92
Heaven-​appointed officers, 23, 71–​72, 73, Mencius, 18, 22, 90, 97–​98
192, 193, 197 Xunzi, 18, 22, 90, 102–​103
Mencius, 71–​72, 73, 74–​75, 78, 86 Li, Chenyang, 54n106
hegemons, 151, 170 Liu, Qingping, 77, 94n15
Mencius, 23, 72–​73, 155, 183
Xunzi, 23, 175, 183 Machle, Edward, 47n81, 179n3
hereditary transmission, 62–​63, 70, 73, 74 Mandate of Heaven, 8, 24, 65–​66, 69, 70–​71,
Hobbes, Thomas, 29n6, 45, 94, 98, 123, 183 131, 142, 180, 194–​195, 204
Holmes, Stephen, 29n6 material interest, 27–​28, 34, 36
Hu Hong, 79n62 material well-​being, 6, 10, 34, 36–​37
Huan (Duke of Qi), 72n44, 157–​160, 161–​162, Mencian Confucianism, 27–​28, 120
169, 171, 173, 181 Mencius, 3–​5, 9, 11, 12, 14, 19, 57, 170,
Hui (King of Liang), 27, 33, 74n51, 171, 181–​182
187–​188, 189, 199–​200 abdication doctrine, 38, 62, 63, 65–​66, 67,
human nature, 3, 4, 5, 11, 94–​97 68–​69, 70–​71, 75, 77, 85, 137
Mencius, 11, 22, 38, 39–​40, 43, 73, 93–​94, badao, 22–​23, 32, 37, 38, 118, 147, 151,
95, 96, 99, 101, 103, 112 152, 154–​156, 169, 174
Index 235

benevolent government, 28, 30, 33–​34, 38, virtuous ruler, 24, 158, 180, 205
45, 53, 158 Wan Zhang, 64–​65, 66, 67, 69–​70
civic virtue, 98–​99, 100, 101, 105 Wen (Duke of Teng), 184–​185
Confucian constitutionalism, 13, 21 Wu (sage-​king), 138, 139, 189, 194
feudal lords, 67, 68 Xuan (King of Qi), 35–​36, 67–​68, 129,
Gongsun Chou, 140, 152–​153 130–​131, 135–​136, 153–​154, 200,
Heaven-​appointed officers, 71–​72, 73, 203–​204
74–​75, 78, 86 Yi Yin, 72, 76–​77, 142–​143
hegemons, 23, 72–​73, 155, 183 Yi Zhi, 93–​94, 97
Hui (King of Liang), 27, 33, 171, 187–​188, Mohists, 36, 55, 94n15
189, 199–​200 moral education, 6, 9–​10
human nature, 11, 22, 38, 39–​40, 43, 73, moral self-​cultivation, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 105,
93–​94, 95, 96, 99, 101, 103, 112 120, 122, 142, 162, 165, 171
interstate governance, 23–​24, 183–​184, moral state, 19, 165–​166
185–​187, 193–​194, 196–​198 moral virtue, 18, 54, 91–​92, 178–​179,
kingship, 31n13, 65, 69, 117, 122, 128–​130, 207–​208, 209
137, 141–​142, 146 Mencius, 22, 98–​99, 101, 103, 105–​106,
laypeople, 67, 68 113, 158, 178
li, 18, 22, 90, 97–​98 Xunzi, 104, 106–​110, 178, 209
material interest, 29–​30, 31–​34 morality, 21, 27, 28, 31–​32, 34, 36, 41–​42, 54
material well-​being, 36–​37 motivation, 21
moral virtue, 22, 98–​99, 101, 103, 105–​106, Mozi, 56n116
113, 158, 178
morality, 41, 46, 96–​97 Napoleon, 126
negative Confucianism, 15, 22, 23, 29, 30, negative Confucianism, 14–​15, 16, 22, 29, 53,
37, 40, 53, 74, 117–​119, 122, 145–​146, 59, 150, 207
158, 176 Neo-​Confucianism, 27n4, 28, 29, 57
normative political dualism, 19, 22–​23, 156 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 119, 123–​125, 126, 127,
political theory, 13, 14, 20, 46, 63–​64, 88, 113, 132–​133, 145
143–​144, 182–​183, 199, 204–​205, 206 normative political dualism, 19, 133–​134,
political thought, 14, 28–​29, 99–​101 156, 166
positive Confucianism, 21, 37, 46, Nylan, Michael, 84–​85
53–​54, 57, 59
public interest, 35–​36, 57–​58 Philip, Mark, 163n50
punitive expedition, 24, 67, 87, 138, 180, Pines, Yuri, 70n36, 83n71, 129n51, 215n34
189–​190, 192, 193–​194, 195–​197, political compliance, 43–​44, 45
203–​204 political liberty, 118–​120, 121–​122, 144,
realpolitik, 128, 141, 188–​189 145, 146
ritual institutions, 22, 40, 94, 97, 100, 102 political power, 12–​13, 14, 17, 59
sage-​kings, 31n13, 63, 73, 74, 78–​79, 83–​ political responsibility, 199–​201
84, 99, 100–​101, 104–​105, 140–​141 political theory, 2, 13–​14
sage-​ministers, 73, 74, 77, 78 Mencius, 13, 14, 20, 46, 63–​64, 88, 113,
self-​transformation, 52, 102, 132–​133 143–​144, 182–​183, 199, 204–​205, 206
strong virtue monism, 15, 19, 22, 178 Xunzi, 13, 14, 20, 45–​48, 63–​64, 81–​82, 85,
Tang (sage-​king), 67, 192, 194 88, 92–​93, 114, 199, 204–​205, 206
tyrannicide, 86, 87 political thought, 2, 13
tyranny, 23, 32, 129–​130, 133, 136–​137, Mencius, 14, 28–​29, 99–​101
153–​154, 156 Xunzi, 14, 28–​29
virtue constitutionalism, 18, 21, 100 political virtue, 19, 161–​163
virtue ethics, 5, 19, 22, 111–​112 positive Confucianism, 14–​15, 16, 21, 29, 59,
virtue politics, 12–​13, 15, 19, 20–​21, 37, 150, 176, 207
62, 180 public interest, 14, 17, 21, 35–​36
236 Index

public order, 21 tempered virtue monism, 19, 175–​176

punitive expedition, 13, 24, 192–​195, Confucius, 175–​176
202–​204, 205 Xunzi, 19, 175–​177, 178
Mencius, 24, 67, 87, 138, 189–​190, 192, Tillman, Hoyt C., 174n86
194, 195–​197, 203–​204 Tiwald, Justin, 71, 72n43, 79n62
Xunzi, 24, 180, 190, 193–​194, 195, Tu Wei-​ming, 60n2, 145, 215
202–​203 Twiss, Sumner B., 158n33
tyrannicide, 71, 86–​88
Rawls, John, 165n57 Mencius, 86, 87
realpolitik, 12, 21, 62, 118, 119, 122, 127, Xunzi, 86–​88
128, 144–​145, 161 tyranny, 128
ren (benevolence/​human-​heartedness), 7, 8, 51 Mencius, 23, 32, 129–​130, 133, 136–​137,
rightful regicide, 71, see also tyrannicide 153–​154, 156
ritual constitutionalism, 17–​18, 206 Xunzi, 23
Xunzi, 18, 21–​22
ritual institutions, 17, 97, 105 universal kingship, 12, 23, 171–​172, 173, 180, 192
Mencius, 22, 40, 94, 97, 100, 102
Xunzi, 12, 21, 22, 40, 48, 50–​51, 56–​57, 81, Van Norden, Bryan, 37n35, 48n83, 109n58
102, 106, 111, 113 virtue constitutionalism, 17–​18, 206
ritual order, 18 Mencius, 18, 21, 100
Xunzi, 49–​51, 53, 55, 56–​57, 58, 101–​102 virtue ethics, 5, 11, 19–​20, 22, 89, 90n3
ritual politics, 61–​62 Mencius, 5, 19, 22, 111–​112
Rosemont, Henry, 5n10 Xunzi, 5, 22, 111–​112
Rousseau, Jean-​Jacques, 95n20 virtue monism, 91, 113
virtue politics, 5–​9, 10–​11, 12–​13, 16–​17, 19,
sage-​kings, 14, 30, 31, 39, 40, 41, 43–​44, 45, 20–​22, 61, 62, 178–​179, 207–​208
62–​63, 73, 74, 77, 122n12, 137, 146 Mencius, 12–​13, 15, 19, 20–​21, 37, 62, 180
Mencius, 53n105, 63, 73, 74, 78–​79, 83–​84, Xunzi, 12–​13, 15, 19, 20–​21, 62, 180
99, 100–​101, 104–​105, 140–​141 virtuous ruler, 179
Tang, 67, 71, 76–​77, 139–​140 Confucius, 12, 191
Wen, 140 Mencius, 24, 158, 180, 205
Wu, 138, 139, 189, 194 Xunzi, 24, 85, 180, 191, 199, 205
Xunzi, 63, 79, 80
sage-​ministers, 73, 74 Waley, Arthur, 178n1, 196n52
Mencius, 73, 74, 77, 78 Walker, Craham, 17n43
sages, 5, 7, 10, 42, 141–​142, 144 Walzer, Michael, 127n42
Schaberg, David, 16 Wan Zhang, 64–​65, 66, 67, 69–​70
Schofer, Jonathan W., 103n38 Warring States period (475–221 bce), 9, 12,
Schwartz, Benjamin I., 2n2, 39n50, 14, 29, 33, 128, 179–​180
46n78, 157n28 Weithman, Paul, 91
self-​mutilation, 127–​128 Wen (Duke of Jin), 173
self-​transformation Wen (Duke of Teng), 184–​185
Mencius, 52, 102, 132–​133 Wen (sage-​king), 140, 201n63
Xunzi, 51–​53, 102 Western political theory, 3, 20, 91, 163, 183
Slingerland, Edward, 173n80, 174n84 Williams, Bernard, 9, 214
socioeconomic conditions, 6, 10 Wong, David, 48n83, 52n101
Song Keng, 30–​31 Wu (sage-​king), 138, 139, 189, 194
Song, Jaeyoon, 28n5 wuwei statecraft, 31n13, 46n79, 53n103
strong virtue monism, 19
Mencius, 15, 19, 22, 178
Xuan (King of Qi), 171, 200, 203–​204
Tan, Sor-​hoon, 89, 90, 91, 207 Mencius, 35–​36, 67–​68, 129, 130–​131,
Tang (sage-​king), 67, 71, 76–​77, 139–​140 135–​136, 153–​154
Index 237

Xunzi, 3–​5, 9, 11, 12, 14, 19, 37–​38, 57, moral virtue, 104, 106–​110, 178, 209
181–​182 morality, 38, 41, 42–​43, 47–​48
abdication doctrine, 38, 62, 63, 75–​76, political theory, 13, 14, 20, 45–​48,
78, 82, 84 63–​64, 81–​82, 85, 88, 92–​93, 114, 199,
badao, 19, 23, 38, 118, 147, 149–​150, 156, 204–​205, 206
157–​158, 161, 163–​166, 168, 169–​171, political thought, 14, 28–​29
172, 173, 176, 177, 207, 213 positive Confucianism, 15, 57, 59, 177
benevolent government, 38, 50 punitive expedition, 24, 180, 190, 193–​194,
Chen Xiao, 190–​191 195, 202–​203
civic virtue, 22, 103, 104, 106–​107, ritual constitutionalism, 18, 21–​22
112, 209 ritual institutions, 12, 21, 22, 40, 48, 50–​51,
civil order, 21 56–​57, 81, 102, 106, 111, 113
civility, 101, 106–​111, 112, 113 ritual order, 49–​51, 53, 55, 56–​57, 58,
Confucian constitutionalism, 13, 21, 101–​102
145, 146 sage-​kings, 63, 79, 80
Confucian ethics, 19 self-​transformation, 51–​53, 102
hegemons, 23, 175, 183 tempered virtue monism, 19, 175–​177, 178
hereditary transmission, 63 tyrannicide, 86–​88
Huan (Duke of Qi), 157–​160 tyranny, 23
human nature, 11, 22, 38–​41, 45, 75, 79–​80, virtue ethics, 5, 22, 111–​112
92–​93, 94, 101–​102, 103, 112 virtue politics, 12–​13, 15, 19, 20–​21, 62, 180
interest, 48, 56 virtuous ruler, 24, 85, 180, 191, 199, 205
interstate governance, 23–​24, 187, Xunzi problem, 41–​43
193–​194, 198
Kingly Way, 167, 169 Yi Yin, 72, 76–​77, 142–​143
kingship, 78, 79, 80–​81, 83, 84, 85, 117, Yi Zhi, 93–​94, 97
166–​167 Yuansi, 113
li, 18, 22, 90, 102–​103
material interest, 29–​30, 38, 40–​41, 54–​57 Zhòu, 11–​12, 86, 88, 131–​132, 167–​168
moral interest, 49 Zhu Xi, 130, 131, 154n25