Semester 1:

PHIL2470 Moral Psychology in the Chinese Tradition

PHIL2443 Xunzi

Semester 2:

PHIL1034 Ethics and Politics, East and West

This paper originated as a talk given at a research workshop entitled "Death: Philosophy, Therapy, Medicine on April 23, 2010. The workshop was sponsored by the "Philosophy, Therapy, and Medicine" research cluster of HKU's Centre for the Humanities and Medicine.  The workshop was organized by my colleague Barbara Dalle Pezze.

An abstract follows.

Xunzi versus Zhuangzi:
Two Approaches to Death in Classical Chinese Thought

Chris Fraser
University of Hong Kong

The contrasting approaches to death and bereavement in classical Confucianism and Daoism epitomize the different orientations of the two ethical traditions. Confucianism, here represented by Xunzi, interprets and manages death and bereavement through distinctive cultural practices, specifically rituals and associated norms of propriety, which are intended to bring order, harmony, and beauty to human events and conduct. Daoism, here represented by the Zhuangzi, contextualizes and copes with death and loss through understanding of and identification with natural processes. Both approaches address death and bereavement through a systematic, naturalistic philosophy of life that makes no appeal to a conception of divinity or a personal afterlife. For Xunzi, the heart of this system is ritual propriety, through which all human affairs, including inevitable, natural events such as death, must be mediated. For the Zhuangzi, by contrast, rigid, ritualized cultural forms are an obstacle to efficient coping with the flux of natural processes such as death. Rather than constructing a sphere of “the human” as distinct from “the natural,” the Zhuangzi urges us to situate the human within nature in a way that removes the opposition between the two. This essay contrasts and critiques the two approaches, contending that although Xunzi’s theory of ritual presents a plausible account of the relation between humanity, culture, and nature, it fails to address death appropriately as an inexorable natural event. By contrast, the Zhuangzi offers an attractive way of relating human life and death to nature and thus perhaps of achieving solace concerning death. The essay suggests, however, that the Zhuangist stance rests ultimately on the appeal of a certain ethical or aesthetic attitude, rather than an objectively compelling argument. Ultimately, both approaches may rest as much on contrasting ethical and aesthetic sensibilities as on rational argumentation.

My talk will be on the plausibility of naturalistic approaches to ethics in the Chinese tradition and where they lead us in terms of a contemporary ethical standpoint. I argue that some version of Chinese naturalism may be defensible, but that the ethical position that emerges from critical reflection on Chinese naturalism doesn't look at all like conventional duty ethics (whether consequentialist or deontological) and sets aside core moral notions such as duty and obligation. Although the resulting view has eudaimonistic components, I don't think it can be appropriately classified as a form of virtue ethics, either.

A provisional abstract of the paper follows.

Chinese Naturalism and the Limits of Ethics

Chris Fraser
University of Hong Kong

Early Chinese ethics is distinctive in its focus on the concept of dao (way, path, course), a normative or action-guiding notion that is explicitly naturalistic, being grounded in natural structures, patterns, and processes. Ethical theorizing centered on dao might point the way toward a defensible, non-reductive ethical naturalism. I will argue that the dialectic of early Chinese thought from Mozi through Xunzi to Zhuangzi partly fulfills this promise, by showing how natural features can provide agents with action guidance. At the same time, however, I contend that plausible versions of early Chinese naturalism do not generate the distinctive normative force—objective, universally binding obligation—often identified as specifically moral. Instead, they yield only evaluations of conduct as more or less fitting and blur the boundaries between morality, prudence, aesthetics, and etiquette. I will suggest that these results are virtues, not defects, however, as they reflect the genuine limits of ethical norms and ethical theory.

Mohism and Early Chinese Metaphysics

Chris Fraser
University of Hong Kong

The paper will explore the understanding of reality that emerges from Mohist doctrines concerning Tian 天 (Heaven), ghosts and spirits, the san fa 三法 (three models), and ming 命 (fate), touching on metaphysical, metaethical, and epistemological issues. Reality for the Mohists is reliably knowable through sense perception, inference, and historical precedent. It follows fixed, recognizable patterns. Agents are able to autonomously affect the course of events—and thus have a form of free will—and to identify and act on objective ethical norms. Ethical norms are a human-independent feature of reality, and indeed reality itself operates according to the same ethical norms that apply to human activity. The Mohist dao thus purports to be the dao of reality itself, grounded in supposedly reliable knowledge of the world. The paper will discuss the philosophical significance of these metaphysical views, the problems they raise, and how they set the agenda for much pre-Qin philosophical discourse, especially the Xunzi and the Zhuangzi. The paper will also inquire whether the later Mohist “Dialectics” abandons the strongly realist stance of earlier Mohist thought.
 

Distinctions, Judgment, and Reasoning
in Classical Chinese Thought

Chris Fraser, University of Hong Kong

Abstract

The paper proposes an account of the classical Chinese view of reasoning and argumentation that grounds it in a semantic theory and epistemology centered around drawing distinctions. Pre-Qín thinkers have a model of reasoning based on a cluster of concepts that includes names (míng 名), similarity (ruò 若 and tóng 同), kinds (lèi 類), models (fǎ 法), and distinction drawing (biàn 辯). Judgment is understood as the attitude of predicating a term of something, or, equivalently, that of distinguishing whether or not something is the kind of thing denoted by that term. Reasoning and argumentation are not explained by appeal to the model of a syllogism or a premises-conclusion argument. Instead, reasoning is the process of considering how some acts of term predication, or distinction drawing, normatively commit one to making further, analogous predications or drawing further, analogous distinctions. Inference is typically understood as the act of predicating a term of something as a consequence of having distinguished that thing as similar to a model for the kind of thing denoted by that term. Inference is thus in effect an act or sequence of acts of pattern recognition. The paper concludes by summarizing the consequences of the proposed account of early Chinese semantic and logical theories for the interpretation of other aspects of pre-Qin thought.

Keywords: Chinese logic, language and logic in ancient China, ancient Chinese logical theory

More on early Chinese logic

For related posts and pages on this site, see the following.

• Language and Logic in the Xunzi (forthcoming in the Dao Companion to Xunzi, Eric Hutton, ed.).

• Truth in Mohist Dialectics. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 39.3 (2012): 351–368.

• Distinctions, Judgment, and Reasoning in Classical Chinese Thought. History and Philosophy of Logic 34.1 (2013), 1–24.

• Language and Ontology in Early Chinese Thought. Philosophy East & West 57.4 (2007): 420–56.

• More Mohist Marginalia: A Reply to Makeham on Later Mohist Canon and Explanation B 67. Journal of Chinese Philosophy and Culture 2 (2007): 227–59.

• The School of Names, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (October 2005).

• Mohist Canons, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (revised May 2009).

• Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science After 25 Years. Introduction, reprint edition of A. C. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science (Chinese University Press, 2003).

• Mohism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (revised July 2009).

The paper is based on a talk I gave at “Landscape and Travelling—East and West." Académie du Midi, Alet Les Bain, France, May 28–June 1, 2012. The original abstract for the talk was the following.

This talk will sketch how, for the Zhuangzi, landscape and travel provide central metaphors by which to understand the conditions of human existence, the nature of agency, the source of normative guidance, and even our identity as individuals. The concept of “landscape” is a fitting metaphor for dao 道 (way), the field of structures and influences that provides the setting for agency and exerts normative pressure on agents. “Travel” is a prominent facet of the concept of you 遊 (wandering), for the Zhuangzi the core activity in the ideal exercise of agency and the key to a good human life. The metaphors of landscape and travel help to highlight the conception of self that emerges in the Zhuangzi, namely of an indeterminate, unfixed, and hence not fully knowable nexus of activity that is constituted and sustained through interaction between the agent’s de 德 (virtuosity) and the dao 道 (ways) the agent encounters and performs. This picture of the self and its relation to the world suggests a distinctive and plausible response to Thomas Nagel’s “cosmic question” about the place of human existence in the cosmos. For the Zhuangist, we are in effect “travelers” who constitute and disclose ourselves as what we are through interaction with the “landscape” in which we inevitably find ourselves journeying.

The full text of the author's manuscript can be downloaded here.

Besides a detailed summary of Xunzian views on language and logic, the article tries to situate these views in the broader context of early Chinese thought. As a result, the discussion touches on a wide range of fields, obviously including philosophy of language and philosophy of logic but also philosophy of mind, epistemology, action theory, ethics, and political philosophy. In a way, the article can be read as a concise introduction to early Chinese "analytic" philosophy.

A central theme of the chapter is Xunzi's theory of "rectifying names" or "right names" (zheng ming 正名).

Also included is an extensive treatment of one of the most prominent interpretive controversies concerning Xunzi: whether his stance is that of a "realist," who holds that the dao (way) is predetermined by tian 天 ("heaven") or nature, or a "conventionalist" or "constructionist," who holds that the dao is a product of human conventions, among other factors. I argue for a conventionalist reading, while acknowledging a sense in which Xunzi can also be construed as a kind of weak realist.

To download a full-text preprint of the chapter, click here.

* * *

Comments on Daniel A. Bell’s “Confucianism and Naturalism: A Reconciliation”

Chris Fraser
University of Hong Kong
April 29, 2011

This is an interesting and provocative paper. Daniel defends two main theses:

(1) Confucianism is compatible with at least some forms of nationalism.
(2) Confucian nationalism is desirable, for various reasons.

These are presented as parts of a positive evaluation of a one-party Chinese state committed to Confucianism, rather than Marxism, as its core ideology. Rather than a dictatorship of the proletariat, we would have a dictatorship of the erudite.

My first question about the paper concerns its precise purpose. I’m not sure whether the aim is the ambitious one of justifying a Confucian nationalist state or only the modest one of arguing that were such a state to come into being, it would not be repugnant, or at least it’d be better than the present communist state or a quasi-fascist one. The modest aim is easy to agree with. Confucianism has a lot of good qualities, among them a commitment to rén zhèng 仁政, or benevolent government. The more ambitious aim is less compelling. Despite its good qualities, I doubt Confucianism can be justified as the core ideology of a contemporary state.

I’ll comment on Daniel’s two theses in turn.

The first thesis is that Confucianism is compatible with nationalism, in the sense of endorsing a unified state with territorial boundaries and some degree of special commitment to the people who live in it. A Confucian nationalism would be committed to the existence of a nation-state that embodies Confucian values.

An important observation is that the form of nationalism implicated here is relatively weak—considerably weaker than some positions that get labeled “nationalism.” As Daniel explains, the nationalism at issue does not tie the nation to a distinctive ethnic, religious, or cultural identity (beyond that of Confucianism itself). For example, it does not claim that the nation’s interests trump all others, that the nation’s claim to its members’ allegiance trumps all other claims on them, that the members should be devoted to the interests of the nation as an entity distinct from its members, or that one should advance the nation’s interests at the cost of outsiders’ interests. Confucianism is probably not compatible with these other, more aggressive forms of nationalism.

Why is there any question as to whether Confucianism can be reconciled with the weaker nationalism Daniel identifies? The reason, he points out, is that within Confucian ethics there are several competing emphases. One emphasis is our role in and special treatment of our family or clan. This agent-relative dimension of Confucianism might seem to preclude a commitment to the interests of the broader community constituted by the nation-state. Another, contrasting emphasis is a commitment to the welfare of everyone—tiān xià 天下, or “all-under-heaven.” This agent-neutral, universalistic dimension of Confucianism might seem to preclude a special commitment to the interests of the narrower community of the nation-state.

I think one can only agree with Daniel’s view that there is no fundamental or wholesale incompatibility between Confucianism and weak nationalism. Of course, in special circumstances, piecemeal conflicts may arise between the various emphases in Confucian ethics, as in the well-known Analects passage about the son covering up for the father or the Mencius passage about Shun helping his father flee the reach of the law. A characteristic feature of Confucian ethics, on some interpretations at least, is that in the case of such conflicts, the interests of more immediate relations take priority over those of more distant ones, including the larger community. However, in a thoroughly Confucian society, such conflicts would be the exception, not the rule. So they don’t constitute a fundamental incompatibility between Confucianism and nationalism. It seems to me that Daniel makes the right points in this part of the paper, namely that a commitment to family versus nation is not an either/or choice in Confucian ethics, and that a commitment to peaceful, orderly relations with “all under heaven” is not incompatible with a special commitment to the welfare of one’s own nation.

My main constructive criticism is that these points could be framed more directly. One of Daniel’s premises, and one source for the prima facie tension he identifies between Confucianism and nationalism, is that, as he puts it, Confucianism “defends the value of partiality.” He contrasts this stance with that of Mòzǐ, who supposedly advocated loving “my father’s neighbor as I love my own father.” Let me suggest a different way of framing things, as I don’t think these are adequate descriptions of either Confucianism or Mohism. Mohist impartiality amounts to an abstract, general concern for everyone’s interests, such that we treat others in ways that are appropriate and mutually beneficial given our respective social roles and relations. The idea is that a form of impartial ethical consideration justifies differential attitudes and treatment toward kin, political superiors, other members of the same community or state, and other states and their members. For instance, we are to be filial, or xiào 孝, to kin; loyal, or zhōng 忠, to political superiors; and cooperative and charitable toward fellow community members. As to outsiders, most of the time we merely need to refrain from harming them. Despite other important differences, Mohist and Confucian ethics share a basic structure in which norms of conduct are tied to a paradigmatic set of social roles and relations, most prominently ruler/subject and father/son. Both schools hold that the impartially justified dào is for us to balance several parallel sets of norms governing our conduct toward kin, our sovereign, and “all under heaven.” If we see Confucian ethics as having this kind of role-relational structure, in which we are subject to multiple norms simultaneously, according to the different roles and relations in which we stand, then I don’t think there is even a prima facie conflict between Confucianism and nationalism. Our relation to our sovereign, nation, or community is one of multiple special relations in which we stand, which like the others subjects us to certain norms of conduct.

Section 2 presents three lines of argument for the desirability of Confucian nationalism. I don’t think non-Confucians will find any of them convincing.

The first line of argument is that Confucian nationalism would not be as awful as some other, odious forms of nationalism, such as ethnic or racialist nationalism or what Daniel calls “Legalist” nationalism. (A better label for the latter would be “jingoism” or “bellicose nationalism.” It lacks the core features of Chinese Legalism, such as an emphasis on acting in conformity with explicit standards, enforced by rewards and punishments.) The problem with this argument is that the absence of certain reasons to reject Confucian nationalism doesn’t provide positive reasons to accept it.

The second line of argument is that Confucianism and liberalism have some similar implications, and so a Confucian nation-state would resemble the “open society” that liberals advocate. There are two problems here. The first is that this claim cannot justify Confucian nationalism. To justify a Confucian state this way, we would need to show that it has better implications than viable alternatives, such as liberalism. (We’d also need an account of why these implications are relevant to justifying a political system.) Since this second line of argument takes liberalism as a benchmark, it implicitly acknowledges that Confucian nationalism can’t be better justified than liberalism.

A further problem is that a Confucian nationalist state probably would not have the liberal-like implications Daniel suggests. Obviously, much hangs here on just how we characterize Confucianism. In the paper, Daniel offers only a very thin characterization: Confucianism prizes social life in the physical world (rather than the afterlife or a spiritual realm), concerns how we relate to other people, and holds that the norms for how we treat others are more or less demanding in proportion to their relation to us. I think that to entitle ourselves to the label “Confucian,” we’ve got to provide a considerably richer characterization than this.

Whatever Confucianism is, I suggest that it must be firmly rooted in the classical texts associated with the Rú 儒 tradition. Those texts have a distinctive, perfectionist social and political philosophy. They advocate authoritarian rule by a hierarchy of a self-described moral and cultural elite—the “gentlemen” (jūnzǐ 君子), whom they distinguish from “the people” (mín 民). They downplay rule of law in favor of rule by moral charisma and through moral education aimed at developing personal and social virtues. This education is grounded in a canonical syllabus comprising ritual, history, poetry, music, dance, and perhaps shooting and riding.

This is an authoritarian, hierarchical system committed to promoting a comprehensive conception of the good. By design, such a system will have implications that diverge radically from those of a liberal state. The education system will be different. The mechanisms for policy-making will be different. The role of the people will be different. Consider political speech. It’s true, as Daniel says, that Confucianism calls for officials in certain positions to remonstrate with superiors to prevent policy mistakes. But this is not Millian free speech. The speech in question is highly circumscribed. Only those in certain official posts are expected to speak, and only in certain circumstances. Their speech is not directed to the public, but to their superiors in the hierarchy. The common people are not entitled to speak at all. Their role is more like that of a thermometer, giving general positive or negative indications of how well the elite are running things. And Daniel overlooks the most prominent Confucian doctrine concerning language: the rectification of names (zhèng míng 正名), which calls for government control of the use of words.

The third argument is that Confucianism diverges from liberalism in desirable ways. Daniel’s key examples are that, because a Confucian nationalist state values the welfare of “all under heaven,” its government would more effectively consider the interests of those outside the political community and of future generations. But I don’t see why a Confucian state, with a meritocratic legislature and unequal citizenship, should be expected to be more effective in this regard, nor why a liberal democratic state can’t be expected to consider outsiders’ interests. After all, there are numerous historical examples of liberal democratic states doing just this, the finest being perhaps the Marshall Plan after World War II. Daniel’s argument against a democratic state here is that its leaders are elected to serve the interests of the nation’s current citizens. But this isn’t quite true. The leaders are not elected purely to serve citizens’ interests. They are elected to lead, in whatever way seems appropriate and consistent with liberal democratic values and citizens’ aspirations. And often the interests and aspirations of the nation’s citizens extend to the welfare of outsiders and future generations. For example, many citizens of the United States care deeply about outsiders, even if this care often leads to misguided policies.

The discussion in this part of the paper might rest partly on a category mistake about the grounds for liberal democracy and consequently a false analogy between liberal democracy and Confucian nationalism. The argument is that Confucianism promotes certain values better than liberal democracy does, and therefore a Confucian nation-state would be desirable. The underlying analogy is that, just as the raison d’être of Confucian nationalism is to establish a nation that promotes Confucian values, that of a liberal-democratic nationalism is to promote…something, be it citizens’ interests, liberal values, or the welfare of “all under heaven.” But liberal democracy doesn’t exist to promote anything. Its purpose is to embody—admittedly, not perfectly—certain normative doctrines about the justification of political authority, about who should wield power in political society, and about the extent of that power.

What corresponding doctrines could justify the political authority of a Confucian nation-state? This is a crucial question that the paper leaves largely unaddressed. The Introduction implies that Chinese civil society today faces a crisis of values, which supporters of Confucianism propose to solve by instituting Confucian nationalism as a state ideology. But to justify Confucian nationalism, we would need convincing arguments to show that such a problem indeed exists and is so serious that solving it warrants sweeping constitutional changes; that Confucianism provides the most effective way to solve it; and that the most effective way to implement a Confucian solution is not simply by having Confucians contribute to civic discourse, offering their teachings for others to consider, nor by adopting particular policies to resolve specific problems, perhaps by promulgating shared values, but by institutionalizing Confucianism as the foundation of the nation-state. This is an extremely heavy argumentative burden, one that I doubt advocates of Confucian nationalism can sustain.

Another approach to justifying Confucian nationalism hinted at in Daniel’s paper might be to argue that the Chinese populace is committed to certain traditional values—such as xiào 孝 (filiality) or zhì 治 (social order)—and thus they would support a Confucian state. But this argument is fallacious. Affirming some of the same values that Confucianism affirms is not the same thing as endorsing Confucianism as an ethical and political system. In Chinese culture, such values are shared by many people who identify with different schools of thought, such as Mohism or Daoism, or with no specific school at all. They may provide some of the shared premises for policy deliberation in Chinese politics. But they are not grounds for building Confucianism into the constitutional structure of the state.

Confucianism is an ancient system of thought that developed in social, political, economic, and cultural conditions very different from today’s. The political experiences, expectations, and aspirations of people in China today have been shaped by many factors unique in the country’s history, including the failed experiment with communism; decades of bullying by the Communist Party, with its heavy-handed rhetoric and intrusive control of peoples’ lives; resentment of elite privilege and corruption; awareness and appreciation of other states’ political systems and their citizens’ expectations, including successful states with a similar cultural heritage, such as Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan; technologies of mass communication, including Internet news sites, blogs, Weibo, email, and phone texting; and the increasingly cosmopolitan, self-assertive, and critical attitudes of educated young people. For many people today whose political instincts have been molded by such factors, an institutionalized Confucian nationalism simply isn’t a live option.

MOHISM AND SELF-INTEREST

Chris Fraser

Abstract

The Mohists are often depicted as regarding human beings as predominantly self-interested, so much so that self-interest amounts to people’s only significant source of motivation. According to David Nivison, for example, the Mohists see human beings as self-interested, amoral “rational calculators,” who have no motivation other than “the desire to optimize material satisfaction.” Benjamin Schwartz claims that, for the Mohists, “all men and women, whether they be fathers, mothers, teachers, or rulers, tend to be nonloving and self-interested.” Other writers maintain that the Mohists think people can be motivated to practice their moral code only, or mainly, by seeing that doing so converges with self-interest. Kwong-loi Shun, for instance, suggests that the Mohists assume self-interest will be people’s main motivation for practicing inclusive care, their signature moral doctrine. In his view, Mòzǐ thought that “once one properly sees its link to one’s own interest, one is moved to practice it.” According to P. J. Ivanhoe, Mòzǐ believed people could be motivated to care about others only by seeing that doing so was part of a system for “the equitable distribution of material goods which guaranteed them treatment in kind.” All of these writers agree, then, that for the Mohists, self-interest is people’s principal source of motivation. I call this interpretive hypothesis the Self-Interest Thesis.

This article clarifies the role of self-interest in Mohist thought, along the way marshaling grounds to refute the Self-Interest Thesis. I examine passages from the Mòzǐ bearing on the role of self-interest in Mohist ethics and psychology and show that, in each case, an alternative interpretation explains them more adequately than the Self-Interest Thesis does. I argue that the Mohists recognize the obvious truth that self-interest figures among people’s basic motives, but they think people also have other important sources of motivation. Self-interest probably plays four main roles in Mohist thought, two normative and two psychological. Normatively, it counts among the goods that are criteria of what is morally right and among the objects of concern for a person who practices inclusive care. Psychologically, I think the Mohists must allow that nonmoral self-interest might be among some people’s motives for conforming to Mohist ethical norms. But they probably think that for most people it will be at most only an auxiliary motivation, since they assume people will generally be motivated on moral grounds. As I explain, the major role of self-interest in Mohist moral psychology is as a kind of constraint on a practicable moral code.

The article first briefly illustrates the Mohists’ assumption that self-interest counts among people’s basic motives and sketches its role in their normative ethics. Next it reviews potential grounds for the Self-Interest Thesis. Three sets of passages in the Mòzǐ are particularly relevant to the role of self-interest in Mohist thought: the “Identifying Upward” essays, the response to the objection that inclusive care is too difficult, and the response to the objection that inclusive care cannot be “applied.” The article discusses these passages in detail, showing that none of them supports the Self-Interest Thesis and that they jointly recognize several sources of motivation other than self-interest.

 To download the manuscript of the paper, click here.