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But the age of the sage kings was long gone. By Confucius’s time people were in difficulties and the authorities were under crushing pressure to address many problems. When one was brought to them in the form of a lawsuit, a trial had to be conducted. Confucius said he was no better than others to carry it out. But, if he could have his way, he would oblige people not to litigate. Was he serious? Civil disputes are inevitable in any society. How could he force people not to litigate? Ideally, he could create a situation in which people were all so enlightened, compassionate, rational, sympathetic and tolerant that they had no frictions and no disputes. But he never claimed such ability. What he possibly could claim was that he could make litigation unnecessary. To understand this claim we have to realise that there are other ways in which disputes can be solved, such as conciliatory deals, mediation and arbitration. We should also know that, in closely knit communities like those of ancient China, there were persons other than judicial officials in whom people could trust as intermediaries in solving disputes. Compared with such measures, litigation could seem quite unattractive because it was not only more costly but also less likely to produce satisfactory results owing to the fact that a judge, being an outsider, could not be familiar with all factors relevant to the dispute. Even in a case where the immediate problem was clear, the judge could find it difficult to sort out its deep and widely tangled roots that had grown through many years, even generations back in time, involving numerous persons of many complicated connections and interactions. A judgment might produce a seemingly clear-cut solution but it could quite possibly be unacceptable to one or even both parties. In such a case, not only the problem remained, but the judicial process might leave a new wound in the relationship between the parties. In addition, there was another reason why a judgment could be difficult and unsatisfactory – there was insufficient law governing civil matters in ancient China. A judge had to apply local custom which was perhaps unknown to him, or appeal to his own perceptions and ideas which might seem prejudiced and alien to the parties involved. For all these reasons, it would be wise and practical for the government to encourage people to settle their disputes out of court. Having these points in mind, we can reasonably assume that Confucius did not mean he could completely eliminate disputes but he could make it unnecessary for people to resort to litigation as a particular method to solve them – he could advise the parties to be conciliatory, to use mediation or arbitration and, of course he would educate the people firstand set himself up as a model of correct behaviour. It was possible that he could succeed in realising his wish.

As mentioned in the Preface, humans created norms, institutions and practices to help realise some social objectives. What objectives did Confucius think society should seek? What kind of society did he wish people to have? The Analects does not give us a clear picture of his ideal state although we can gather from the scattered passages that he had one in mind. There is, however, a paragraph in Li-ji that described a utopia and its decline.11 It was written by his disciples but attributed to him and probably reflected some of his ideas. It is therefore added here in my translation: When the Great Way prevails, the world is for the public; the virtuous are elected and the talented given government responsibilities; sincerity is valued and harmony cultivated. People do not love only their own seniors and care for their own young; they make sure that the old have provision for their declining years, those in their prime have employment, the youth have means to grow up with, and the unfortunate – the widower, the widow, the orphan, the childless, the disabled and the sick – have maintenance. Men will have their work, women their homes. One hates to see goods being discarded but does not necessarily want to keep them for one’s own possession; one hates to see one’s strength not being put to good use but does not necessarily want it to be used for one’s own benefit. That is why plots against others do not arise; robbery and theft, violence and mayhem do not occur; and outer doors of buildings are left unclosed. This is called da-tong (大同 the Great Harmony, Grand Union). What a beautiful state! In it every person is apparently equal, entitled to have a share of the resources and a responsibility to use his ability in helping others. It is altruistic, compassionate, peaceful and harmonious. It is not made clear when this state existed but, anyway, at some later time it vanished. The paragraph continues: Now the Great Way is in hiding. Everyone in the world is for his family – loving only one’s own relatives, caring only for one’s own children and gathering goods and using strength only for one’s own benefit. Great lords turn it into a practice to transmit their posts to their descendants. People build walls and moats to secure cities and towns; adopt rites and laws to regulate relationships between ruler and subjects, father and son, elder and younger brothers, husband and wife; establish institutions and create landownership; value the clever and the brave; and make efforts only for their own advancements. Thus, plots and schemes take place and armed conflicts arise. Yu, Tang, Wen, Wu, King Cheng and Duke Zhou were the best from this situation. These six noble men were careful about the rites. They demonstrated their own righteousness, proved their own sincerity, exposed their own mistakes, used the benevolent as their models, and stressed their modesty and humility, all to show the people the constant, correct course. They dispatched anyone who deviated from it, even one in a position of power, and the masses would regard him as an evil. This situation is called xiao-kang (小康, small welfare, moderate prosperity) When did the Way go into hiding? A hint is in the sentence “Great lords turn it into a practice to transmit their posts to their descendants.” In Chinese history the first hereditary political dynasty was established by Yu. So perhaps the writer of this paragraph thought the Way disappeared after Yu? After that, the ideal state was lost. In its place came a world of self-centred souls. Among them, six rulers, including Yu, were the best. They tried hard to make themselves worthy models for the people and to keep the state in order. They did not quite succeed, so they made rules and punished those who deviated. As long as there were these good rulers, the situation was relatively tolerable but, of course, the other rulers were far less qualified and hence the miserable situation since Confucius’s time. The crucial difference between the two states are wei-gong (為公 for the public) or wei-jia (為家 for the family). But is the kind of altruism described here possible? The Ruists would argue that, because human nature is malleable, by proper education people can be made less solipsistic and the world more tolerable. It will be especially effective if those in power could be less greedy and more willing to share with the people what they have. As Confucius said, it is not scarcity but inequitable distribution that one should worry about and, if what the people need is adequately met, how can those in the government feel inadequate? To sum up, Confucius lived in a difficult time, faced a troublesome situation and took upon himself a Herculean task to try to change it. We have only scant record of his actual work and practical suggestions. The Analects shows mainly that he constructed a theory which could justify civilisation and, indeed, life itself. He was to find a new basis for social authority and norms. He shifted people’s focus of attention from Heaven to the real world, from gods and spirits to humanity, from the unknowable to the more comprehensible. He insisted that humans were, to certain extent, capable of influencing the outcome of the events in which they were involved and should try to do so. He was aware that the outcome was often unpredictable and he had to tell people how to understand and endure the failure of their efforts. His position was quite scientific but, for that very reason, not easy for people intuitively to grasp. His greatest contribution to jurisprudence was to make common human nature, experience and aspirations, instead of the will of a superbeing, the bases of social norms. He thus held ren – the right way for a human being to treat another human being – as the primary social norm. To make ren less general and abstract, he listed a set of more specific and concrete norms that were to implement this primary norm. According to their effectiveness for this purpose, these secondary norms formed a hierarchy with moral precepts at the top, followed by the rites and the law. He placed particular emphasis on the rites as rules of propriety because they were more concrete than morality and less rigid than law. More importantly, they could make people unconsciously form certain behaviour patterns that were in conformity with ren.

Rituals, or more precisely, ritualized activities and associated duties, stand at the heart of Xúnzǐ’s ethical and political vision, as for him they are the key to bringing order, harmony, and beauty to human events and conduct. In Xúnzǐ’s view, people and society must inevitably follow some dào—some way, norm, or pattern—in their activity. Natural conditions alone—whether Heaven or nature in the abstract (tiān 天), the non-human natural world (tiān dì 天地), or people’s spontaneous, untutored nature (xìng 性)—do not directly provide us with a dào. 10 As Xúnzǐ says, “Dào is not the dào of Heaven, nor is it the dào of the earth; it is that by which humans dào [guide action].” 11 People must create a human dào, which we follow not as a matter of the spontaneous functioning of our nature (xìng), but through “work” (shì 事) and “artifice” (wèi 偽), 12 or action that goes beyond our innate, untutored dispositions. Although the dào is not given by nature, however, it is not independent of nature, either. We fare better or worse depending on how well our dào “aligns” (cān 參) with natural conditions. Humans can achieve an orderly, flourishing society only if our dào aligns with nature, and the sage-kings or sovereigns—the cultural heroes—who introduced such a dào are themselves regarded as standing in alignment with heaven and earth.13 Xúnzǐ holds that of the various dào we might follow, the course of history has established one particular path as the highest standard of rén 仁, or ethical goodness. 14 This is the dào of the “former kings” (8/28/153)—the ancient sage-kings, specifically the founders of the Zhōu 周 dynasty. The core of this dào is an elaborate code of “rituals and duties” (lǐ yì 禮義) governing nearly all aspects of personal and political life. Xúnzǐ calls this code “the ultimate human dào” (19/92/15–16). These traditional rituals and duties are comprehensive in scope. They encompass formal ceremonies marking major life events, political occasions, and sacred affairs—examples include weddings and funerals, a ruler’s ascension to the throne, and ancestral sacrifices or sacrifices to spirits. But they also include routine, everyday norms of etiquette or propriety governing personal comportment and interactions with others, and they stipulate a network of social roles and associated duties and privileges. I will use “ritual propriety” as an umbrella term to refer to this overall complex of traditional ceremonies, protocol, etiquette, social roles, and ethical norms. To understand Xúnzǐ’s ethical and political thought, we should bear in mind that his conception of ritual propriety fuses what in principle we might distinguish as several distinct categories of norm-governed activity: state ceremonies, sacred or religious rituals, rites of passage, and everyday norms of etiquette and personal comportment. Moreover, in early Chinese thought, yì 義, the word I have been interpreting as referring to the duties associated with norms of ritual propriety, also has the connotation of “right” or “moral.” Xúnzǐ sometimes refers to yì independently of ritual propriety (lǐ) and sometimes pairs it with rén (moral goodness) instead of ritual propriety. But passages that expound his ethical theory typically integrate yì with lǐ and refer to the pair as a compound, lǐ-yì, or “rituals-and-duties.” The implication is that for Xúnzǐ the normative sphere corresponding loosely to what we would call morality merges with those of personal excellence, etiquette, sacred rites, social protocol, and civic ceremony, all falling under a broad conception of norm-governed, formally regulated performances that together constitute the ideal human dào. For Xúnzǐ, human dào just is, in effect, a system of ritual propriety. Xúnzǐ identifies several purposes this system fulfills, all of which extend from the central end of achieving good order in human conduct and affairs. For Xúnzǐ, “ritual propriety and duties are the origin of order” (9/39/2). “Order”—zhì 治, a word that also connotes control, management, and governance—is the paramount value in his ethics and politics. Aside from obvious elements such as the absence of disturbance or violence, his conception of order comprises ethical, aesthetic, and political components. Order requires that individuals cultivate and conduct themselves according to ethical and civil norms, which Xúnzǐ sometimes characterizes as “beautiful” (měi 美),15 and that society maintain a smoothly functioning hierarchical political structure, led by a hereditary sovereign and administered by appointed officials. Order contrasts with chaos or disorder (luàn 亂), which Xúnzǐ associates with conduct arising directly from people’s innate, untutored nature. Nature in itself has no inherent tendency toward order, while uncultivated human nature tends toward disorder. So to achieve order, a scheme of ethical-cultural patterns must be imposed onto natural conditions. Ritual propriety is just such a system; it provides a coherent, comprehensive network of roles and norms that, if generally followed throughout a community, purportedly bring about personal and social order.16 By instituting good order, ritual propriety simultaneously fulfills a second fundamental purpose: providing for people’s desires and needs. “Provision” is a key consequence in Xúnzǐ’s account of the origins of ritual propriety. From what did ritual propriety arise? I say: People are born with desires. Desiring something but not obtaining it, they cannot fail to seek it. Seeking things without measures or limits, they cannot fail to come into conflict. Conflict leads to disorder and disorder to poverty. The former kings hated such disorder, so they instituted ritual propriety and duties to divide them, so as to provide for people’s desires and give them what they seek. They ensured that desires would not exhaust goods and goods would not be inadequate for desires. The two support each other and develop together. This is how ritual propriety arose. So ritual propriety is a means of provision.17 (19/90/3–5) By distinguishing various hierarchical social roles, corresponding responsibilities, and associated rewards and privileges, the system of ritual propriety and duties imposes “measures and limits” on people’s attempts to satisfy their desires and distributes goods in a coherent, organized way. Those of high rank receive more and finer goods, those of low rank less and coarser, but all receive enough to survive without conflict. Hence if members of a society generally observe the norms of ritual propriety, everyone’s needs will be provided for to a greater extent than otherwise. Moreover, because it provides a coherent system of roles to perform and norms to follow, ritual propriety is a means of achieving social coordination, cooperation, and unity. It establishes “the ranks of noble or common, the grades of elder and youth,” and “the divisions between wise and ignorant, competent and incompetent.” This hierarchical system ensures that people are proficient in their tasks and each obtain appropriate rewards, since the different ranks and responsibilities are the basis for differences in emolument (4/17/1–2). Establishing such a hierarchy of roles, tasks, and remuneration, Xúnzǐ declares, is “the dào of dwelling in a community and harmonizing as one” (ibid.).18 Several passages in Xúnzǐ tie ritual propriety to the aim of rectifying things or setting them right (zhèng 正). Politically, ritual propriety provides clear, reliable standards for “rectifying the state” (zhèng guó 正國), analogous to how the scale, line, compass, and setsquare provide clear, reliable standards for evaluating whether things are heavy, straight, round, or square.19 If it is promulgated effectively, no one can mislead others as to what is right (zhèng).20 It provides “a dào for the practice of power”; kings and dukes who follow it can win the empire, while those who fail to follow it will see their city altars fall (15/72/9–10). Personally, ritual propriety is the means for “rectifying oneself” (zhèng shēn 正身) (2/8/1) and thus the major focus of learning for the gentleman (1/3/10).21 Indeed, ritual propriety provides norms by which to guide all thought and action: one passage mentions guiding oneself by ritual propriety in “all employment of the blood and breath, intention, and thought,” “diet, clothing, dwelling, and activity,” and “countenance, bearing, movements, and stride” (2/5/12–14). As part of its role in managing our disorderly nature, ritual propriety also provides orderly, elegant cultural forms (wén 文) by which emotions such as love and respect can be expressed. Emotions and other attitudes provide the substance of ritual propriety; beautiful ritual forms are their outward manifestation.22 Ritual propriety regulates how happiness or sorrow are expressed in one’s countenance, voice, diet, dress, and dwelling (19/94/14–19). Without sacrificial rituals for the deceased, survivors would be frustrated by their inability to express their loss (19/97/21–22). Without proper ritual music to express their joy, people would inevitably fall into disorder (20/98/14–19). Summing up the roles of ritual propriety, Xúnzǐ says, “Without ritual propriety people cannot live, without ritual propriety tasks cannot be completed, without ritual propriety the state is not at peace” (2/15/5). Ritual propriety fulfills these purposes, according to Xúnzǐ, by establishing a system of what he calls “distinctions” (辨 biàn) or “divisions” (fēn 分). He holds that the characteristic feature of human life, which sets us apart from non-human animals, is not cognition, which we share with animals, but our capacity for social organization based on what he calls a “morality of divisions” (fēn yì 分義) (9/39/9–13).

By this, however, Xunzi does not mean that humans have innate desire to actively harm others or engage in malicious behavior, but only that they are not born with natural moral sentiments that predispose them toward goodness. According to Xunzi (4.9): 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; it is not something one awaits to become so. That is, humans are born with natural desires and there is radical equality among them in possessing the same desires that are virtually limitless. Xunzi (19.1a) describes how people’s pursuit of satisfying their desires leads them to a mutual struggle and state of poverty: 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 satisfaction. 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 satisfy their seeking. They caused desires never to exhaust material goods, and material goods never to be depleted by desires, so that the two support each other and prosper. This is how ritual arose. From this statement, we can derive four important points. First, Xunzi builds his political theory of civil government on the idea of the state of nature, which has spawned many studies comparing him with Thomas Hobbes (Tan 2017; Kim 2011). Second, unlike Hobbes, however, Xunzi describes the state of nature not only as a state of political disorder, but, more saliently, as a state of poverty. The Hobbesian state of nature is created by men’s irrationality, their boisterous passion for recognition and supremacy in a world of religious and moral pluralism. As pointed out by many commentators, in Hobbes’s account of the state of nature, economic struggle is hardly the driving force of a life-and-death struggle (Strauss 1952; Boyd 2001). In contrast, the Xunzian state of nature is basically an economic arena where people are perpetually mired in the social conflict caused by their uncoordinated pursuit to satisfy their limitless desire for material goods. As humans are born with a fondness for profit and the fondness for profit or self-interest causes people’s interests to be mutually incompatible and exclusive, argues Xunzi (23.1a), following self-interest inevitably gives rise to social contention and chaos. Thus Xunzi (10.1) says: Various grades of people live together. They share the same pursuits but have different ways. They share the same desires but have different understandings. This is simply the way they are born. … People all desire the same things and all hate the same things. But while their desires are many, the things to satisfy them are few, and since they are few, people are sure to struggle over them. This leads to the third point. As Xunzi sees it, the central task for the ancient sage-kings who allegedly created civil government was to attain a balance between human desires and material goods, not by restraining the former to match the scarcity of the latter but by “nurturing desires” so that sufficient material goods can be created to continually and without exhaustion satisfy the people’s desire. Xunzi (22.5a) vehemently criticizes those who see no constructive social and economic value of desire and regard it as the single greatest cause of disorder: 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. Having desires and lacking desires fall under two different kinds, namely being alive and being dead, not order and disorder. Having many desires and having few desires also fall under different kinds, namely the numbers of people’s dispositions, not order and disorder. Apparently, Xunzi has Mencius (7B35) in mind, who stresses the importance of lessening desires in the course of moral self-cultivation. In Xunzi’s view, having (many) desires in itself does not cause disorder; instead, what causes disorder is people’s failure to fulfill them in accordance with the heart’s (xin 心) moral approval. Put differently, desires, which all humans have, are malleable and thus subject to moral purposes and when properly “nurtured” in light of moral purposes, they can undergird political order and social harmony.10 By “nurturing desires (yang yu 養欲),” however, Xunzi seems to have more in mind than development of moral agency, the ability to use one’s heart to harness desires in the service of material productivity and the public good (Yi and Kwŏn 2011). In a more profound sense, it should translate into a public policy that can bring about a productive economy that benefits all. Precisely from this standpoint, Xunzi (10.8) criticizes Mozi, who espouses frugality and moderate expenditure. In his teachings, Mozi worries very conspicuously about insufficiency for the whole world. However, insufficiency is not the common disaster facing the world. That is only Mozi’s individual worry and erroneous reckoning. … Now the way this soil gives birth to the five grains is such that if people tend it well, a single mu of land will yield several bushels, and within a single year one can have two harvests. … If at his greatest Mozi had possession of the whole world, or if at the least he had possession of a single state, he would have people uncomfortably wearing coarse clothes and eating bad food, and though they might be sad, he would deny them music. If it were like this, then the state would be starved. If the state were starved, then it could not provide satisfaction for people’s desires, and if it could not provide satisfaction for people’s desires, then rewards could not work. … Then, even if Mozi were to try to do something about it by wearing crude garments, using a rope for a belt, eating only bean soup, and drinking only water, how could he make things sufficient? He would have already hacked away at the root of things and dried up their source, so that the whole world was scorched. Xunzi’s argument takes the following steps. First, material insufficiency is a man-made disaster, not a natural condition. Second, material sufficiency can be achieved if humans “tend well” to nature. Third, Mozi’s method of frugality, when implemented as a governmental policy, would lead to an unproductive economy, which would create and perpetuate a condition of material insufficiency. Fourth, material insufficiency inevitably causes poverty and starvation, and, under the condition of deprivation, people’s desire for material goods cannot be satisfied. Lastly, when people’s desire for material goods is unsatisfied, social disorder arises. In Xunzi’s view, therefore, the problem with Mozi’s claim lies in forcing human desire to adapt to material insufficiency, which Mozi mistakenly considered to be a natural condition. In reality, material insufficiency is the outcome of bad public policy: the human failure to tend well to nature, so to speak.

Wang’s second argument for the unity of knowing and acting is that merely verbal assent is insufficient to demonstrate knowledge: “One cannot say that he knows filial piety or brotherly respect simply because he knows how to say something filial or brotherly. Knowing pain offers another good example. One must have experienced pain oneself in order to know pain. Similarly, one must have experienced cold oneself in order to know cold, and one must have experienced hunger oneself in order to know hunger.”108 To understand the important epistemological and linguistic point Wang is making here, consider a variation on a classic example from Western philosophy. Imagine a hypothetical individual, “Mary,” who is forced to perceive the world through a black and white television monitor. She becomes a brilliant neuroscientist specializing in vision, and eventually knows everything there is to know about the physics and neurology of color experiences. However, suppose she is finally released from her bondage to the black and white television monitor and can go and see the world as it is. Now she will learn something new. She will finally know what phenomenal colors are like. Previously, Mary knew more about color experiences than anyone else, but she did not know what phenomenal colors are.109 Similarly, Wang says, you might know a lot about pain, hunger, feeling cold, and goodness, but you do not know pain, hunger, feeling cold, or goodness itself unless you have the right experience. One significant difference between Wang’s example and that of Mary is that color experiences are not intrinsically motivating. It does seem plausible, though, that some experiences (among them pain) are intrinsically motivating. Wang’s disciple objects that we talk about knowing and acting separately, and that this verbal distinction is valuable because it reflects the fact that there are two distinct aspects to moral cultivation. Wang acknowledges that it can be useful for practical purposes to verbally distinguish between knowing and acting: there is a type of person in the world who foolishly acts upon impulse without engaging in the slightest thought or reflection. Because they always act blindly and recklessly, it is necessary to talk to them about knowing. There is also a type of person who is vague and irresolute; they engage in speculation while suspended in a vacuum and are unwilling to apply themselves to any concrete actions. Because they only grope at shadows and grab at echoes, it is necessary to talk to them about acting.110 However, Wang argues that verbally distinguishing “knowing” and “acting” is consistent with recognizing that they are two aspects of one unified activity: “I have said that knowing is the intent of acting and that acting is the work of knowing and that knowing is the beginning of acting and acting is the completion of knowing. Once one understands this, then if one talks about knowing [the idea of] acting is already present, or if one talks about acting, [the idea] of knowing is already present.”111 We might say that knowing and acting are like the concave and the convex sides of a curved line: conceptually but not metaphysically distinguishable. Reviewing Wang’s arguments, we can see why David S. Nivison remarked, “There are pages in Wang, sometimes, that could almost make acceptable brief notes in contemporary philosophy journals like Analysis.”112 However, it is important to recognize that Wang’s point is not purely theoretical. What he is concerned about is the phenomenon of people who separate knowing and acting into two distinct tasks to perform and think that one must first know and only then can one act. They say, “Now, I will perform the task of knowing, by studying and learning. Once I have attained real knowledge, I then will pursue the task of acting.” And so, till the end of their days, they never act, and till the end of their days, they never know. This is not a minor malady, nor did it arrive just yesterday. My current teaching regarding the unity of knowing and acting is a medicine directed precisely at this disease.113 Wang has in mind the followers of Zhu Xi, but his point has contemporary relevance. Eric Schwitzgebel has done empirical research on the relationship between studying or teaching ethics and actual ethical behavior. He acknowledges that the data is limited, but so far he has been unable to find any positive correlation between the theoretical study of ethics and being ethical.114 Wang would argue that this proves his point: the abstract and theoretical study of ethics will not make you a better person. However, Wang would insist that what is wrong with Western ethics is not that it tries to make humans better people, but that it does not try in the right ways. If we have any interest in our courses in ethics and political philosophy making a difference, it is worth looking at what else thinkers like Mengzi, the Buddhists, Zhu Xi, and Wang Yangming have to say on this topic. Just to give a teaser: Confucians stress that, to provide a foundation for ethical development, it is the responsibility of government to make sure that the people’s basic physical needs are met (for food, for freedom from fear, and for the possibility for communal life), that everyone gets an education that both teaches them basic skills and socializes them to be benevolent and have integrity, and that everyone who can benefit from advanced education has the opportunity to receive it (regardless of social class). Regarding the structure of ethical education, Confucius himself says, “If you learn without thinking about what you have learned, you will be lost. If you think without learning, however, you will fall into danger.”115 As Philip J. Ivanhoe notes, later Confucians agree with this saying, but argue vociferously about the relative emphasis to give to learning from classic texts and teachers as opposed to thinking independently. 116 As you might guess, philosophers with a discovery model of cultivation like Wang Yangming tend to emphasize thinking, while those with a reformation model like Xunzi put more emphasis on learning. Contemporary US philosophers will probably have the most difficulty in accepting two additional aspects of Chinese ethical education. (But perhaps these are the sine qua non for genuine ethical transformation?) First, Chinese philosophers think that practical activities—including meditation, communal ritual activities, and even what we might describe today as “work-study”—have as much of a role to play as intellectual ones in learning ethics. In addition, it is considered crucial to keep in mind that the ultimate point of studying ethics is to be a better person and transform society, not just to theorize.

The impact of national/societal culture on perceptions of selection fairness has been studied in relation to, for example, European and North American value systems (e.g. Nikolaou and Judge, 2007). Our sample was obtained in Mainland China where Confucianism is a kernel of traditional culture that has a profound impact on daily life (Hwang, 2001). As a philosophy of humanity, it encompasses nine moral values, two of which, benevolence (ren) and righteousness (yi), overarch the others (Confucius, 2006). Confucian benevolence is rooted in familism (Yang, 1993) which then generalizes to others beyond the family. Importantly, Confucian benevolence is not amoral and unlimited, but righteous and tempered. When people exemplify righteous benevolence they reach an ideal, morally balanced state referred to in Confucianism as “the golden mean” (Zhu, 1987). As we now detail, in line with applicant attribution-reaction theory (AART) (Ployhart and Harold, 2004), these beliefs influence applicants’ evaluative perceptions of procedural justice via the attributions and expectations they make concerning the way they are treated. The moral principles of Confucianism are mainly embodied by proper conduct norms (“li”). If “righteous ren” is the internal spirit of all virtues, propriety “li,” can be considered as its external manifestation (Confucius, 2006). The major component of “li” is a system of ethical relationships and social behavioral norms – “wulun” – which focus on harmony and benevolence in which the ideal self should be relational; moreover, individual needs and expectations are secondary (Hwang, 2000). Further, for each dyadic relationship, including sovereign and subordinate, father and son, husband and wife, elder brother and younger, friend and friend, there are detailed social roles and prescribed responsibilities for each party (Yang, 1993) intended to encourage and maintain harmonious Guanxi, which refers to “a mixture of family and non-family, personal and impersonal, expressive and instrumental characteristics” (Chen et al., 2013, p. 171). Specifically, Chinese people, first, tend to respect, obey and show loyalty to authorities, while retaining their own authority status within various social relationships. The first four of the five dyadic ethical relationships referred to above are hierarchical (Mencius, 2006) and typically entail an authority structure that governs most social interactions such that individuals should respect and obey authorities; meanwhile, authorities should care for, guide and support them. Second, benevolence in Confucianism guides individuals to generalize their love beyond their families, advocating loyalty (zhong) and forgiveness (shu). One should be severe with oneself but be lenient and try to help others, take others in good faith, avoid conflict, be considerate and cooperative and requite evil with good (Confucius, 2006; Zhu, 1987). Moreover, traditional Chinese tend to follow the face principle. As an aspect of social reputation (Hwang, 1987), face is closely related to individuals’ familial or social status, knowledge, moral character and social connections. Face can be saved over time. If one party gives enough face to another party, the receiver will accept face gladly, and become less “transactional” in their relationship with respect to calculating gains and losses in social or economic exchanges. In sum, in the Confucian value system, authority orientation, tolerance, altruism and the face principle characterize interpersonal relationships. These in turn result in workplace interactions in which employees endeavor to establish harmonious Guanxi with supervisors, colleagues, customers and potential employers. Guanxi networks dominate the work lives of employees, contributing to feelings of safety, but at the price of hierarchical inequality, which they have learned to accept as a normal part of their lives. Importantly for our purposes, compared to applicants in less traditional cultures, Chinese persons are likely to care more about the level of harmonious Guanxi with potential employers and be less sensitive to unfair treatment. First, traditional Chinese applicants view recruiting organizations and their representatives as authorities who are higher in social standing than themselves. As such, they tend to believe that the decisions and requirements of potential employers should be respected and obeyed even if they are irrational. Moreover, China-based applicants tend to view recruiting organizations and their representatives as those with whom they should be tolerant and cooperative, making it more likely that they will be accepting of poor behavior and questionable employer requirements. At the same time, applicants who care more about “face” tend to be especially sensitive to the degree to which they are treated warmly, relative to the specifics of the selection procedure itself. Thus, in making attributions concerning a given level of treatment during the selection process (AART; Ployhart and Harold, 2004), we expect traditional Chinese applicants to be less sensitive to unfairness and to therefore assign higher fairness evaluations to the selection procedure, relative to less traditional candidates. Our view is supported by Wang et al. (2012) who found aspects of Confucianism associated positively with retrospectively collected perceptions of procedural fairness in relation to the unstructured interviews that had been used for selection purposes. Accordingly: H1. Applicants’ Confucian values, and its three dimensions of (a) authority orientation; (b) tolerance and altruism; and (c) “saving face” will associate positively with their perceived procedural fairness of the selection procedure.

In Xunzi’s search of the Dao, as T.C. Kline III has indicated, the ritual provides a shelter under a sacred canopy of social order from the encroaching fear and chaos of the situation: “(1) The ritual reconstitutes and maintains the social order because of its religiously significant ability to provide shelter from the anomic events of life that threaten to disrupt the social order; (2) The Confucian sages created the ritual, the Dao, for the purpose of providing this shelter and bringing human culture into existence; (3) The sage, in turn, exemplifies the person who embodies the Dao, who lives life completely under the shelter of the sacred canopy” (Kline 2014, pp. 173–74). In the social respect, an implicit objective of Xunzi’s quest for the Dao is inherently meant to defend the Confucian Way against heterogeneous thought, considering the intellectual milieu of the Warring States era mentioned in the foregoing discussion, wherein diversified schools of thought competed against and even attacked each other. According to Mark Berkson, Xunzi’s new Confucian interpretation was intended to defend the Confucian tradition from various intellectual challenges: “(1) Xunzi took up the task of defending Confucian ritual from philosophical attacks by the Mohists and the Daoists who tried to undermine the bases of participation in Confucian ritual; (2) Xunzi was disturbed by the beliefs in ghosts and spirits that motivated many individuals’ participation in ritual with a supernaturalist understanding; (3) Xunzi rejects Mencius who argued that the Con- fucian Way is grounded in human nature with its ultimate source in Heaven” (Berkson 2016, pp. 230–31; cf. Berkson 2014, pp. 107–8). For instance, “The work of Confucius was opposed by Mozi (墨翟 ca. 450–390 B.C.E.?). Mozi rejected the primacy of the family, and the spontaneous but biased affections that come with it, as a model for social organization … Rituals such as lavish funeral services and musical ceremonies, which Confucians saw as important expressions of family sentiment and methods for harmonious social consolidation, were seen by Mozi as a useless waste of resources” (Ziporyn 2020, p. xxiii). Similarly, Lee H. Yearly has extended the intellectual challenges of up to six different positions that Xunzi deemed as flawed: “three attacks on ritual and three defenses of it” (Yearly 2014, p. 91). In view of these challenges, as Mark Berkson remarks, Xunzi’s reinterpretation of ritual is a hermeneutic defense of the Confucian Way (Berkson 2014, pp. 107–32). The defense of the Confucian Way is mainly reflected in the “Against the Twelve Masters” (‘Feishierzi’; Hutton 2014, pp. 40–46) where Xunzi castigates six philosophical positions and twelve representative figures including Mencius, because “they confuse the world with false notions of right and wrong and of what produces order and what anarchy” (Knoblock 1988, p. 212). In contrast, Xunzi lauds Confucius and Zigong (子弓) because “Xunzi thought Zigong transmitted the true doctrines of the master” (Knoblock 1988, p. 220). Notably, Xunzi draws clear lines of demarcation between the Confucian Way and heterodoxy by claiming that “Now what does the person of ren strive for? At his greatest, he models himself on the controlling order of Shun and Yu, and at the least, he models himself on the yi of Confucius and Zigong, and he thereby strives to extinguish the teachings of the twelve masters. If one manages to do this, then the harm to the world will be eliminated, the work of the person of ren will be completed, and the accomplishments of the sage king will be made manifest [今夫仁人也，將何務哉？上則法舜禹之制，下則法仲尼、子弓之義，以務息十二子之說。如 是則天下之害除，仁仁之事畢，聖王之跡著矣]” (Hutton 2014, p. 42). In light of the above analysis, a conclusion can be properly drawn that Xunzi’s quest for the Dao carries an implicit goal: to defend the Confucian Way against heterogeneous thought.

The belief into the priority of moral knowledge found substantial consensus among many of the 2nd generation Confucians. However, Fang Dongmei and Xu Fuguan devoted much less attention to elaborating and modernizing traditional concepts of rationality and intuition, as their primary interest was on other aspects of philosophy and intellectual history. We will thus focus here upon introductions of Tang Junyi’s and Mou Zongsan’s epistemologies. In general, the link between reason and intuition was the element that the thinkers of the second generation of Modern Confucianism, based on very similar hypotheses already elaborated by the frst generation, used as a key criterion for defning differences between philosophy and science, and between Western and Chinese philosophy. This approach gradually became an indispensable aspect of their theoretical endeavors, not only in the controversies surrounding science and democracy (see Rošker 2015: ch 5), but also in their epistemological discourses. Like all Modern Confucians, Tang Junyi also proceeded from the notion of immanent transcendence and defned it based on his interpretations of the NeoConfucian school of mind (Xin xue 心學). His epistemology is therefore closely related to his ontology, for he saw the world as a metaphysical reality that is immanent to all that exists in the universe, while also possessing moral qualities (Chan 2002: 306). In this context, the central Confucian virtue of humanity or mutuality (ren 仁) is already part of the cosmic structure, while its recognition, or its simultaneous incorporation and internalization, manifests itself in the moral performance of individuals. The heart-mind (xin 心) as a necessary and constitutional part of the moral self is the key component in the recognition process. This process is constituted through its function of “connective resonance” (gantong 感通), which relies on feelings, reason, and human will.37 The fusion of these three factors is conditioned by “proper perception,” which must proceed in accordance with the all-embracing, rational structural principle (li 理). When recognizing other human beings, this sensual compatibility must also be based on empathy. Tang explores and explains the activity of human spirit and tries to place it in dynamic mutual inter-relation with various realms or spheres (jingjie 境界) of existence (Tang 1977, 1: 393, 2: 256). According to him, these inter-relations represent everything that makes up the object and the contents of human knowledge. He certainly acknowledges that the activities of human spirit are of utmost complexity and extremely multifarious. Nevertheless, he succeeds in categorizing the whole of it within nine spheres (jing 境).38 Hence, recognition on the basis of sensual compatibility is also a precondition for the transition between various spheres (jing 境), or for the development from a lower to a higher sphere. The concept of sphere as such is thus not only ontological and axiological, but also epistemological, for jing is originally a Buddhist concept that denotes an object towards which the mind is directed and implies a unifcation of subjective understanding and the objective situation. According to Chan Sin yee, it can therefore be compared to the Kantian view of perception, by which perception is also a product of the mind’s unifcation of sensory data by means of categories supplied by the mind itself (Chan 2002: 308). Tang Junyi’s treatment of reason is inseparable from the concept of the moral Self, as developed by the School of Mind. I believe reason (lixing) is the innate nature (xing) that can manifest and follow the structural principles (li), and is thus a unity of both. Chinese Confucianism denoted it with the term xingli. It is human essence or substance that causes the emergence of the human moral, spiritual and transcendent Self.39 (Tang 1986: 254) For Tang, reason thus also underpins the moral self, which he denotes as a “transcendent rational self” (chaoyuede lixing ziwo 超越的理性自我, Tang 1986: 254). Tang understands human moral life as something that requires conscious control over oneself and that is common to all human beings. At the level of epistemology, this Mengzian universality of human morality manifests itself not only in the cognitive capacity of reason, but also in the empirical recognition of the world through the senses (Tang 1985: 110). 40 However, it is important to note that Tang is not speaking of inter-subjectivity, i.e. he did not postulate the existence of some common spirit or consciousness in the sense of all people having the same goals or intentions, but instead is positing a transcendent spirit of the individual that unites itself with others through this process of transcendence (Chan 2002: 313). Such transcendence is possible because the human heart-mind forms a unity with the universe. Tang’s epistemology implies both a theory of knowledge and a theory of wisdom. In both cases, reason and intuition are interconnected. Based on this interconnection and infuence amongst the different segments and mechanisms of the heart-mind, and with the application of analytical philosophy, Tang formulated an interesting and innovative hypothesis regarding the creativity of wisdom (zhihui de chuangzaoxing 智慧的創造性). What he calls knowledge (zhishi 知識) includes concepts or ideas, inferences, logical cognitive laws, and empirical intuition. “Wisdom” is instead a “miraculous creativity” (shenmiao de chuangzaoxing 神妙 的創造性), i.e. a kind of intuitive thought that is neither completely empirical nor wholly rational. It is the kind of reasoning that can apply previously acquired knowledge, but only based on a prior independent decision for such an application. Hence, knowledge is both surpassed and integrated. Morality plays a central role in both theories, for it represents the foundation of the self and thus of the heart-mind.

For most contemporary Confucians and traditional Song-Ming Confucians (SongMing Rujia 宋明儒家), Confucianism is more than Confucian studies. They believe that Confucian teaching is a kind of practical wisdom and transcendental truth which cannot be understood by any empirical, logical, or objective method. Here, the term “truth” is not used by contemporary Confucians as a semantic concept with propositional value. Instead, it means the real or noumenal reality in their moral metaphysics. The term “transcendental” is not used by them in the Kantian sense in the first Critique of Kant’s trilogy. For them, “transcendental truth” is the truth of the transcendent entity in terms of its ontological status and of the trans-empirical characteristic in terms of its epistemic status. In addition to treating truth as a metaphysical entity, Mou Zongsan also thinks that, in contrast to the so-called “extensional truth” in Western philosophy and science, the truth in Chinese philosophy is a kind of “intensional truth” as claimed by Bertrand Russell (Mou 1985: 5).3 Based on these two kinds of truth, he stresses that there is a kind of essential difference between Chinese philosophy (including the three teachings: Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism) and Western philosophy in the sense that they are incomparable or incommensurable to each other. He believes that the spiritual essence of Chinese philosophy can only be accessed by a special kind of moral metaphysics which is essentially different from the Western speculative one, and that the wisdom or truth of the spiritual essence can only be obtained or grasped by a special kind of intellectual intuition or transcendental refection as described in their moral metaphysics. (Mou 1983: 31, 336, 347, 356) Most contemporary Confucians think that their ultimate concern or noumenal reality is not an object of empirical investigation or logical analysis. So, it cannot be known by the cognitive mind; it is only obtained or grasped by a transcendental mind (in terms of a kind of non-sensible and non-cognitive experience) which can be described as intellectual intuition (for Mou Zongsan), absolute consciousness (for Tang Junyi) or liangzhi 良知 (the originally endowed knowing/dominating power) (as explained by most contemporary Confucians). Based on this assumption (of course they do not regard this as an assumption or hypothesis), they believe that only through a long effort at cultivation or moral practice can their ultimate concern or noumenal reality, which is both transcendent (not transcendental in the Kantian sense) and immanent, be grasped by us. In terms of its transcendence, it is the Way of Heaven (tiandao 天道) (the natural daoti 道體 as an ontological entity) or the Heavenly Pattern (tianli 天理) (the natural liti 理體 as an ontological entity); in terms of its immanence, it is the transcendental or non-empirical benxin 本心 (original heart-mind) in humans or tianming zhi xing 天命之性 (endowed nature or essence from heaven) of everything in the cosmos. To use Mou’s slogan, it is: “the unity [in terms of token-identity] of the tiandao (the transcendent dao of heaven) and xingming (the moral order or decree in human nature)” (tiandao xingming xiang guantong 天道性命相貫通) or “the penetration of tiandao and xinxing (the original mind as essence) into oneness” (tiandao xinxing tong er wei yi 天道心性通而為一) (Mou 1968: Chapter One “Synthetic Introduction”). In treating tian as tokenidentical with xin, Mou uses the term “ziyi” 自一 (identical) to describe their relation (Mou 1968: 86). I think Mou’s idea is similar to Cheng Hao’s 程顥. To use Cheng’s words, “Only xin is (token-identical with) tian; to exhaust xin is to know xing; and to know xing is to know (the dao of) tian. It cannot be sought outside” (只 心便是天, 盡之便知性, 知性便知天, 更不可外求) (Cheng and Cheng n.d.: 20).4 Since nothing known by the empirical and analytical mind is both transcendent and immanent, this ultimate concern or noumenal reality must be understood as transcending our rational or analytical thinking. So, analytic language is unable to express this reality. Instead, Mou suggests to use a kind of “non-discursive language” or “language without distinctions” (fei fenbie shuo 非分別說) to do the job (Mou 1983: 347, 369). Moreover, Mou thinks when we use language to express the ultimate concern or noumenal reality, all expressions may be helpful to approach it to some extent but never attain it in itself. It is because its truth is ineffable. It goes beyond all languages. Basically, this transcendentalist view is an appeal to the first-person authority in terms of the non-cognitive mind’s private access to noumenal reality or transcendental truth. The so-called “non-sensible or transcendental experience” of juedui zhutixing 絕對主體性 (absolute subjectivity) for Tang or wuxianxin 無限心 (infnite mind) for Mou, which is without the opposition (wudai 無待) of the knower and the known or without the duality of subject and object, is claimed to be a special knowing power which can provide a real justifcation of attaining noumenal reality or transcendental truth. To use Xiong’s words, it is a kind of “tizheng” 體證 (embodied verifcation or justifcation by bodily experience). To use Tu Weiming’s 杜維明 words, it is a kind of “tizhi” 體知 (embodied knowing or knowing by bodily experience). Some contemporary Confucians, such as Tu and his followers, sometimes identify this kind of knowing as knowing how. But, I think, it is not knowing how in the Rylean sense, because knowing how is still empirical and cognitive while this kind of knowing, as described by Mou, is non-empirical and non-cognitive. Most importantly, the appeal to a kind of transcendental experience is not a patent right of contemporary Confucianism; we can fnd a similar appeal in Daoism, Zen Buddhism, Brahmanism, and Western mysticism (even Mou has recognized this kind of knowing as gongfa 共法 (common event/teaching) for Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism). According to Xiong’s new learning of heart-mind, the characteristic of the Confucian teaching or learning is opposite to that of cognitive inquiry in terms of methodology. He asserts that There is a kind of special spirit in Chinese philosophy. It means that the devotion to the learning basically stresses the method of tiren 體認 (embodied recognition). Tiren is [a method] that what is able to know intuitively enters into what is to be known intuitively which are integral and indivisible in one body. The so-called inner and outer, object and subject, sameness and difference, and all kinds of distinguished phenomena and appearances, cannot be obtained. Only because of this, therefore, unlike Western metaphysics, in Chinese philosophy, the reality/substance of the universe is not treated as an external existent object for searching. … After all, [the ultimate] truth is without location, without form. Hence, it cannot be inferred or conjectured by knowledge and cannot be treated as an external existent object. If a philosopher wants to confirm the truth with solidity, the only way is coming back to her own enlightened intuition. (It is also called “zhi” 智.) Only based on the self-understanding and self-acquaintance of this enlightened intuition, an integral and indivisible state without difference between inner and outer, without the divisibility of the knower and the known, can the truth be realized in front of her. Only this can be called “solid confirmation.” As I said before, it means “embodied recognition.” (Xiong 1975: 22) 中國哲學有一種特別精神, 即其為學也, 根本注重體認的方法 體認者, 能覺入所 覺, 渾然一體而不可分, 所謂內外、物我、一異、種種差別相, 都不可得 唯其如此, 故 在中國哲學中, 無有像西洋形而上學, 以宇宙實體當作外界存在的物事, 而推窮之 者… 真理畢竟無方所, 無形體。所以不能用知識去推度, 不能將真理當作外在的物事 看待。哲學家如欲實證真理, 只有返諸自家固有的明覺。(亦名為智。) 即此明覺自 明自了, 渾然內外一如, 而無能所可分時, 方是真理實現在前, 方名實證。前所謂 體認者即是此意. He also claims that Why they [Chinese or Indian philosophers] have justifed understanding (zhenghui證會) or embodied recognition of the real of the noumenal world is that it directly originates from their wise light. In other words, this is a self-evident reason. (This reason is self-evident, so it is called “self-evident reason.”) It is not obtained by sensory experience, nor by inference. Therefore, it transcends knowledge. (Xiong 1975: 24) 他 [中國或印度哲學家] 所以證會或體認到本體世界底真實, 是直接本諸他底明智 之燈。易言之, 這個是自明理。(這個理是自明的, 故曰自明理。) 不倚感官的經驗而 得, 亦不由推論而得。所以, 是超知識的。 Here, my question is: If this kind of knowing or acquaintance is not obtained from external perceptual experience and also not by rational analysis such as logical inference, is it coming from a kind of aesthetic experience or subjective feeling? According to the view of Xiong and most other contemporary Confucians, tiren, zhenghui or tizheng is not aesthetic or subjective in terms of inner sense, though they agree that it is a kind of inner experience without subject and object or knower and known. According to Mou, this acquaintance is a “non-discursive” (fei fenjiede 非分解的) experience, a “concrete manifestation” (juti chengxian 具體呈現) of the original substance (benti 本體) or the original heart-mind (benxin 本心) itself. Hence, it must be intuitive but not aesthetic. Since this metaphysical benti or benxin is not the object of sensory experience, it must be “non-sensible” or “intellectual.” If my understanding is right, Mou’s idea of nijue tizheng 逆覺體證 (embodied verifcation by reversed or refexive intuition), including chaoyue tizheng 超越體證 (transcendental embodied verifcation) and neizai tizheng 內在體證 (inner embodied verifcation), is not a kind of sensible intuition, but an intellectual intuition similar to the Kantian one.5 Xiong believes that this tiren is “what is capable to intuit/ know enters into what is intuited/known” in which inner and outer are integral without separation. The so-called “nei-wai” 內外 (inner-outer), “wu-wo” 物我 (objectself), “yi-yi” 一異 (sameness-difference), and various phenomena of distinction, cannot be obtained. In sum, it seems to be a kind of mystic experience though it might be grasped by people through a long effort at cultivation or moral practice. In regard to the meaning of “no objectifcation” (wu duixianghua 無對象化) in zizhi zizheng自知自證 (self-knowing and self-justifcation), Mou has given a detailed explanation as follows: This kind of refexive tizheng (guan 觀or zhi 知) is at the virtual level. It can melt into this original mind (benxin 本心) at the very moment and acts as the manifestation of the mind in which there is no real meaning of [opposition of] knower and known (the meaning of [opposition of] subject and object). If simply speaking, this is only the self-knowing of the mind, one cannot fnd any reason to argue against this. For example, in regard to my mind observing mistakes in behavior, I am also able to refexively know it itself as the mind of observation. When it observes, this is the mind’s act of real manifesting (full knowing). [So] I am also able to refexively and directly know that this is the act of observation and full knowing. This refexive knowing is merely the self-function of the mind itself which has the activity of full knowing. [So] eventually, that is still the mind itself which has the activity of; this is not another mind that knows that. It has the light [ming1 明, knowing power] to light [ming2 明, know] things. How can it not know itself being knowing? This is why it knows itself knowing, it is really still itself, still the mind itself which has the activity of full knowing. It does not divide into two minds. Here, there is no real meaning for the distinction between the [knowing] subject and the [known] object. This only has nominal meaning; it is only a gesture. 此種反身的體證 (觀或知) 實是虛層, 當下即可融於此本心而只是此本心之呈現, 並無真實的能所義 (主客體義)。此若簡單地說, 此只是心之自知而已, 並無何可反對 處。此如觀察過失之心, 吾亦可反身知道它是觀察之心。它觀, 這是心實際在呈現 ( 明了) 之活動, 吾亦可反身直接知道這是觀察明了的活動。這個反身的知只是這明了 活動的心之自用於其自己, 結果還是那明了活動的心之自己, 並不是另有一個心來知 它。它有其明能明物, 豈不能明其自己為明耶?是以它明其自己為明, 實仍是它自己, 仍只是這一明了活動之心之自己, 並未歧為二心。此時之能所並無實義, 只有名言上 之意義, 只是一個姿態。 Mou calls this well-rounded idea by the name “refexive soft circle” (fenshen de ruanyuan 反身的軟圓) (Mou 1969: 334). Here, I think Mou’s idea is that: based on “what is to know the other can also know itself,” he believes that he can clearly explain “self-knowing is without the opposition between the knower and the known.” If there is really no opposition, he may think, the ontological process of this kind of nijue 逆覺 (reversed or refexive intuition) cannot be confused with the genetic process of ordinary inner experience or self-consciousness. It is because the former is without temporal priority while the latter is not. Mou agrees that, only relying on tiren or tizheng, it is possible that what has been grasped is an illusion, i.e., a case of playing with light and shadow (wannong guangying 玩弄光景). It is because the tiren of self is only in the abstract state. It only reflects what is called by Hegel as “being’s pure universality itself” (ti zhi chunpubianxing ziji 體之純普遍性自己). In contrast with “being in itself,” it is “being for itself.” Nevertheless, according to Mou, only having the tiren of self which is only in the abstract state, the real being or noumenal reality cannot be ascertained in any concrete case (Mou 1969: 339). So, he thinks that tiren (體認 embodied recognition) by virtue of nijue tizheng (逆覺體證 embodied verification by reversed or reflexive intuition) is not sufficient to access benti (本體 original substance) or benxin (本心 the original heart-mind). This is only the first state obtained in the process of cultivation or moral practice. In order to achieve benti or benxin, he says, one has to enter into the realm of “tiyong xiangji” 體用相即 (the unity of benti or benxin and its function), i.e., the benti or benxin manifested or presented (tixian 體 現) in the concrete action by its function without staying in the abstract state (Mou 1969: 340).6 To reach the fnal state of obtaining dao, benti or truth, Mou puts emphasis on the idea of “tixian,” in addition to tiren. In this regard, Mou quotes some Confucian ideas, such as “jianxing” 踐形 (practice by body), “zuimian angbei” 晬面盎背 (mild of face and honest of back), “yi dao xun shen” 以道徇身 (to comply with dao in body), and “xinuaile fa er zhongjie zhi he” 喜怒哀樂發而中節之和 (the harmony in the expression of delighted, angry, sad, and happy emotions), as the evidence of tixian (Mou 1969: 103). He believes that these are the concrete exhibition or presentation of benti or benxin. For example, he thinks, the cases that “there is an intimate relation [of love] between father and son” (fuzi you qin 父子有親) and “there is an obligation between the monarch and his subjects” (junchen you yi 君臣 有義) are the here and now manifestation or presentation (dangxia chengxian 當下 呈現) of benti or tianli 天理 in various actions taken by people who play different roles in their actions (Mou 1969: 6–7). The idea of “tiyong xiangji” is about the unity of benti or benxin and its function. According to Mou, the former is infnite mind or liangzhi (the original knowing/ dominating mental power) which is a kind of intellectual intuition, whereas the latter is the thing-in-itself which is a function of the intellectual intuition both of which are brightly presented in unity (yiti langxian 一體朗現). In other words, for Mou, yong 用is not qiyong 器用 (instrumental function) or xianxiang 現象 (phenomenon) as described by his teacher Xiong and previous Confucians (Mou 1975: 128, 445). It is the thing-in-itself which is realized in the phenomenon by the exhibition of benti or benxin. I think there is a mutual dependence between ti and yong: on the one hand, the realization of yong (thing-in-itself) in the phenomenon depends on the existence of ti (intellectual intuition); on the other hand, the exhibition of ti depends on the realization of yong in phenomenon. It seems that, metaphorically speaking, without the sun, there is no sunshine on the object; without sunshine on the object, there is no the sun. So, there is a circle in tixian. One may ask a question to Mou; that is: if, in the frst state of gongfu, it is possible that what is tiren is an illusion, how can we make sure that what is tixian in the final state of gongfu is not illusive? Just like the case that: if we go in a wrong way in the frst step of the two, how can we make sure that the second step is guaranteed to be a right way to the destination? I think Mou and his followers should answer this question about his practical methodology if this question cannot be explained away. In addition to the practical methodology of tiren and tixian stressed by contemporary Confucians, sometimes they also mention a kind of theoretical method for obtaining dao. To use Tang’s own words, it is the method of “transcendental refection” (chaoyue fanxing fa 超越反省法) (Tang 1961: 191). For example, Xiong says To become a thing, everything is endowed with yiyuan 一元 [oneness]. … Without [yi- ]yuan, things would be what is said in Buddhism as something like illusion. … Now we see that all real things are developed [and thus not illusory]. Based on this, we justify the recognition that all things are produced with the endowment of yiyuan. (Xiong 1993: 91) 凡物, 皆稟受一元, 以成為物。… 物若無元, 便是佛氏所說為如幻的物。…今見一 切實物, 皆是發展的。以此證知, 萬物皆稟受一元而生起。 According to Xiong, simply speaking, “separated from qiankun 乾坤 [dao or the two producing powers of dao], there is nothing” (離乾坤無萬物) (Xiong 1993: 92). It is because “phenomena cannot be established and sciences also cannot be established if benti is insensate and without yong” (如本體是頑空的而沒有用, 即現象 界不能成立, 科學亦不可能) (Xiong 1975: 13). It means that the possibility of phenomena presupposes the existence of yiyuan 一元 (the primordial oneness), dao, or benti. Basically, I think, it is a transcendental argument or transcendental deduction with a premise which presupposes a transcendent entity. Although Mou believes that liangzhi, benxin renti 本心仁體 (the original mind as the substance of benevolence) or zhi de zhijue 智的直覺 (intellectual intuition) is a manifestation or presentation in practice, not a hypothesis in theory, it is confirmed or affirmed by a first-person non-sensible experience, not justified on a rational ground. Here, what is (transcendentally) experienced is a kind of content in this experiencing mind, but it still has not yet been ascertained as something existent before having the experience. In other words, whether it is mind-dependent or mind independent is still a question. Like Song-Ming Confucians, Mou believes that ceyin zhi xin 惻隱之心 (the mind of compassion) is the presentation of a feeling of discomfort (bu’an 不安), but, unlike other Confucians, he thinks that this moral consciousness cannot be “seen as below form (xingerxia 形而下), aesthetic and purely subjective” (看成是形而下的, 感性的, 純主觀的) (Mou 1971: 194). In this regard, to explain the objectivity of benti, Mou also uses a transcendental argument for justifcation. So, he says, “Xing 性 [spiritual essence/nature] is the transcendental ground of moral action” (性是道德行為底超越根據) (Mou 1971: 190), “Xinxing 心性 [the original mind-essence] is the a priori ground of the possibility of moral action” (道德實踐所以可能之先驗根據) (Mou 1968: 8), and “The decision of ‘the ought-ness of existence’ in moral consciousness is a ‘moral decision’. In regard to making a transcendental analysis for moral decision, it is also simultaneously an analysis of existence. This is to expose a ‘moral substance/reality’ to enable the possibility of the moral decision” (道德意識中「存在的應當」之決定 就是一個「道德的決定」。對於道德的決定作一超越的分解, 同時, 亦即是存 在的分解 就是要顯露一「道德的實體」以使此道德的決定為可能) (Mou 1975: 62–63). In other words, the possibility of moral decision or the decision of ‘the ought-ness of existence” presupposes a moral substance/reality. Without the latter, there would be no guarantee for the former.

This level of detail illustrates the distinctive character of Confucian ethics and the psychological processes by which ritual propriety guides action. Xúnzǐ’s ethics is formulated not through abstract general principles such as “Promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number,” nor general rules such as “Don’t lie” or “Thou shalt not kill,” but through guidelines conceptualized as concrete, repeated procedures of ritual etiquette, such as “Remove your hat and bow deeply before ascending the stairs to the hall.” This relatively concrete orientation reflects a conception of moral agency as lying in a commitment to and competent performance of repeated, skill-like patterns of activity, rather than in more abstract processes of reasoning or feeling. The actions of an ethically ideal agent spring not from a capacity for practical reasoning (as in Kant), nor from sentiment (as in Hume and Mill), but from a complex of concrete, repeated habits and skills, whose execution is managed by the heart (xīn 心).24 Action is conceived of as performance of a dào, akin to performing a symphony, dance, or drama. The elements of this dào are ritualized patterns of activity, intelligently and skillfully performed in response to various particular circumstances. These circumstances are understood to be “constant” (cháng 常, see 17/81/1), in the sense that they typically fall under certain regularly recurring general kinds of situations. Of course, similar circumstances display some variation, and anomalous events happen occasionally. But precisely because they are unlikely to recur, such variations and anomalies do not provide a guide to conduct. The proper dào for Xúnzǐ is one grounded in regularities in natural and social circumstances—hence his insistence that the dào is not subject to change over time, the social divisions it institutes being of “the same pattern as heaven and earth.”25 Accordingly, he conceives of the dào as comprising a system of repeated, ritualized patterns of proper conduct. For the agent committed to Xúnzǐ’s vision of dào, nearly all action will be to some degree ritualized, and moral character development amounts to acquiring virtuosity in performing the ritual dào through study and practice, grounded largely in model emulation, much as one acquires competence in music, dance, or sport. Xúnzǐ has three interrelated justifications for this elaborate system of ritual propriety. His central justification is the consequentialist claim mentioned earlier: the system is supposedly the most effective way of “patterning” or “organizing” (lǐ 理) the natural world—including human beings, in their innate, uncultured state—so as to achieve social order (zhì), and, as a result, provide for people’s material welfare. The system is effective, he claims, because it is uniquely successful in “aligning” (cān 參) with natural conditions (9/39/3, 17/80/2–3). So a second justification he could offer is that the dào of ritual propriety aligns with constant or regular natural patterns better than any alternative dào. A third justification has a teleological flavor. Xúnzǐ claims that the cultural and ethical norms manifested in such a system of ritual propriety are what make us fully human; our capacity to live by such norms is what distinguishes us from lower creatures and enables us to dominate them (9/39/9–16, 5/18/13–17). To live according to ritual propriety is to fulfill our human capacities. These claims are deeply insightful on an abstract level. If we read Xúnzǐ as a theorist of ritual, making general, descriptive claims about the role or functions of ritualized activity in human societies, he is surely correct to claim that humans create their own cultural dào by imposing an organizing pattern onto natural conditions, and that such a dào is feasible only if it meets some minimum standard of alignment with nature. He may also be correct that a system for social coordination and cooperation can be justified only if it helps to secure people’s basic material welfare. This consequentialist criterion need not be a sufficient condition for justifying a social dào, but it is at least plausible to suggest it is a necessary one. Particularly interesting, and again highly credible, is Xúnzǐ’s claim that ritual propriety is distinctive of human life. It does seem that, as Xúnzǐ insists, human societies inevitably establish some scheme of social divisions, along with a code of ritual performances that institute and express them. Weddings, graduations, coronations, and funerals are examples of such performances found across a wide range of cultures. A descriptive construal of several of Xúnzǐ’s other claims about ritual propriety is equally insightful and plausible. Ritual propriety may indeed guide much of our conduct; much of our daily activity probably proceeds according ritualized or ritual-like patterns. Ritual propriety does provide outward form and ornamentation for our attitudes and social statuses and channels the expression of emotion. In some circumstances, at least, it mediates interpersonal relations and facilitates pursuit of tasks. But of course Xúnzǐ is not engaged primarily in descriptive theorizing. He is propounding the normative stance that a certain dào—the tradition of ritual propriety stemming from the Zhōu sage-kings—is justified above all others because it fulfills the various functions of ritual he identifies in an especially effective way. The problem is that even if we affirm the value of these functions, the considerations he offers probably justify no particular code of ritual propriety.26 Even if we allow that his favored code secures order, provides for material welfare, aligns with natural conditions, and enables a distinctively human form of life, numerous alternative systems—most notably, a system with less rigid, complex, and costly ritual practices, or one less authoritarian and hierarchical, more liberal and egalitarian—might do so as well or better. Despite the challenge of contemporaneous philosophical opponents such as the Mohists, Xúnzǐ never addresses this point satisfactorily. Nor, for that matter, do the considerations he advances necessarily justify an especially central or fundamental role for ritual propriety as a means of social organization—particularly a code of ritual propriety as extensive and elaborate as his. Perhaps the functions of ritual he identifies could be fulfilled without actively promulgating or enforcing any specific regimen of ritual propriety, simply by allowing people to find their own ways of interacting with each other Given the absence of a compelling justification for it, why is Xúnzǐ so deeply devoted to the Zhōu tradition of ritual propriety? One factor may be that he personally identifies so profoundly with this cultural tradition that he cannot seriously imagine living by alternative norms. He may also hold the skeptical conservative view that, whatever the merits or demerits of the prevailing social system, we have little reason to believe any alternative system could do better. But a more penetrating explanation may be that Xúnzǐ’s devotion to the Zhōu tradition stems from an even deeper attachment to—verging on an obsession with—his ideal of “order” (zhì). Indeed, he seems almost to equate the two: conduct that diverges from traditional ritual propriety is, for that very reason, disorderly. Social order was a common concern among Warring States thinkers; it ranks among the Mohists’ core values, for instance. But Xúnzǐ’s emphasis on it goes beyond even the Mohists’. For them it is one basic good among several, and its components are simpler—primarily the absence of crime, conflict, and injury, the virtuous performance of core social roles, and the habit of reciprocally benefiting each other. To understand Xúnzǐ’s devotion to his elaborate, ritualized conception of order, I suggest, we must extrapolate beyond the explicit statements in the text. My hypothesis is that for Xúnzǐ the order achieved through ritualization provides a profound sense of confidence, security, and satisfaction—a comforting sense of belonging or being at home in the world—because it embeds natural events and human affairs within a comprehensible, authoritative normative structure—authoritative insofar as he insists its inventors were brilliant cultural heroes who designed it to correlate uniquely well with nature. By virtue of our place in this traditional dào, our lives take on significance, authority, and beauty. The more elaborate and comprehensive the degree of ritualization, the greater is the agent’s sense that even routine daily activities belong to a familiar, coherent, controlled normative order. This metaphorical function of ritual propriety for Xúnzǐ is illustrated by his discussion of the ritual response to death, arguably the most “disorderly” of all natural events. Xúnzǐ devotes much of his lengthy “Discourse on Ritual Propriety” to funeral and mourning rituals, which he says manifest the ethical significance of death and life (19/95/16–17). The key to proper ritual handling of death and mourning, he emphasizes, is to maintain “unity” between the deceased’s life and death, thus bringing the human dào to a fitting completion (19/93/6–7). To achieve this unity, the deceased must be treated with the “ornamentation” or “adornment” appropriate for expressing reverence commensurate with their station in life. Specifically, they must be treated in a way analogous to how we treated them while alive. In funeral rituals, we adorn the dead on the basis of the living. We send them off to their death by symbolizing their life. So we serve the dead as if they were alive, serve the absent as if they were present, and the end and beginning are unified. (19/95/6–7) By insisting on continuity in our treatment of the deceased, Xúnzǐ preserves their status within the ritualized web of human interaction even though their own participation has been irreversibly broken off. He thus reaffirms the continuity of the normative cultural order even in the face of a distressing, disruptive natural event.27 His account of death rituals is paradigmatic of how he sees ritual propriety as “patterning” nature and thus placing even uncanny, uncontrollable natural events within a regimented, stable cultural framework. Rather than acknowledging even in the slightest that death fractures the human cultural order—that the deceased in effect exit that order to be reclaimed by nature—he waxes lyrical about the unity and wholeness achieved through ritual propriety: “We serve the dead as we serve the living, serve the absent as we serve those present, give shape to the formless, and thus complete the proper cultural forms” (19/98/9–10).

Race functions much like the concept of a metaphysical substance. Substance is characterised, among other things, by determinism, hypostatization, and reification. In hypostatization (or reductionism), partly random, large-scale, and irreducibly complex phenomena is explained through the deterministic behaviour of a smaller, constituent part. In reification, an abstract concept is converted into a hard, material, but hidden entity. Instead of complex, observable relationships serving to explain a phenomenon, explanation is attributed to a single material, but hidden source. We can call this, following Alfred North Whitehead, the fallacy of the simple location and the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. (Whitehead, 1925: 48–49, 51) As the philosophers of science John Dupré and Daniel J. Nicolson write in their “Manifesto for a Processual Philosophy of Biology,” under Aristotelian substance ontology, the essence of particular substances, “sets unbreachable limits on the kinds of changes on the kinds of changes that an individual substance can undergo” (Dupré & Nicolson, 2018: 5). The kind of thing that something is, its essence, determines what changes it can undergo while still being what it is. Under a substance view, there is also no direct correspondence between a thing's essence (substance) and appearance or secondary properties. As John McCumber explains in reference to Aristotle's ousia, “ousiodic structure does not exhibit itself directly in our experience. If it did, it would be immediately evident which things are ousiai, and further investigation would be unnecessary” (McCumber, 1999: 46). Race, it will be argued, is the philosophical concept of substance applied to biological reality and theory. By race, I refer to the concept that there are inborn characteristics which defines a person, which cannot be changed through her personal efforts. Race is the substantial essence of a person which cannot be changed. One's race—one's substance— defines one's telos and one's becoming. Like substance, the secondary properties that one displays—one's work/achievements—has a negligible impact on one's essence. Under this logic, a person's essence is assumed to be a priori, and her empirical manifestation, such as cultural competence and moral actions, are subordinated to this essence.2 Instead of complex relationships such as a person's education, upbringing, and historical experiences serving to explain why that person is as they are, explanation is attributed to a single, material, hidden thing; causal efficacy inheres in the thing itself. In Anti-Semite and Jew, Jean-Paul Sartre explains the fundamental nature of antiSemitism in terms of substance ontology: “the principle underlying anti-Semitism is that the concrete possession of a particular object gives as if by magic the meaning of that object” (Sartre, 1995: 16–17). No matter if the Jew manifests all the signs of French civilization, it has no bearing on the essence of the Jew. Sartre makes the same point again when he says that the anti-Semite's sense of superiority over the Jew is not due to anything the anti-Semite himself has achieved, it is his essence, his substance, a “thing” which renders him superior: By treating the Jew as an inferior and pernicious being, I affirm at the same time that I belong to the elite. This elite, in contrast to those of modern times which are based on merit or labour, closely resembles an aristocracy of birth. There is nothing I have to do to merit my superiority, and neither can I lose it. It is given once and for all. It is a thing. (Sartre, 1995: 18) Like Sartre's anti-Semite, Arthur de Gobineau—one of the most representative racial theorists of the European tradition—resorted to the same (racist) logic in explaining how a race such as the Chinese, who, according to his racial logic, are a priori incapable of culture, seemed to exhibit such a rich culture. Given the strength of the a priori principle, Gobineau comes to the conclusion that Chinese culture was not the work of the Chinese people, and that Chinese civilization had, in fact, been created by a group of Aryan conquerors from India (de Gobineau, 1915: 212). Gobineau thinks much the same for the American and African continent, as whenever and wherever we find civilisation, we must be on the lookout for the white man. For this kind of metaphysical determinism, only a particular race of human beings is the cause of culture. Like the idea of substance, the idea of race cannot be refuted through empirical evidence in the way that a scientific theory would be if it encountered enough anomalies. Substance is instead taken a priori and so takes precedence over empirical reality.

In Carceral Humanitarianism (2017), I argue against utilitarian risk-benefit calculations as a principle of ethics. There, I argue that the utilitarian calculus used by both humanitarian aid organizations and so-called humanitarian military operations (with its surgical strikes and statistical modelling) reduces human life to statistical calculations of risk or benefit—and not just risk or benefit in the absolute, but rather risk or benefit as defined by the organization or government doing the calculations. Risks and benefits are always defined with certain goals in mind. They are never without context, and therefore purely “objective” or free from politics or bias. Thus, any utilitarian calculus assumes some good or goal beyond calculation such as pain or pleasure, suffering or quality of life. Even survival—life and death—are valued relative to particular goals that defy the calculations of risk-benefit analysis. In other words, employing risk-benefit and utilitarian calculations, requires making assumptions about end goals and values that defy those very calculations. It is not just that there are always factors beyond our control and variables we do not know, as the deadly coronavirus makes painfully clear, but also that risk-benefit and utilitarian calculations do not operate in a vacuum but necessarily make assumptions about the good.

In the West, risk-benefit analysis or utilitarian calculative reasoning has become the dominant mode of addressing social issues, economic issues, and health issues. For example, Doctors without Borders uses complex risk-benefit computer modeling to set policies about where to send medical aid (Neuman, 2016).Footnote 9 And too many hospitals dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic have had to resort to triage medicine that uses risk-benefit analysis to distribute scarce resources such as ICU beds, oxygen, and ventilators.

As this passage makes clear, actions that are useful and profitable, those that have good consequences, are not necessarily what should be done. They are, Xunzi tells us, a part of the Way, but only one part, and other elements exist. It is only when these elements are put together that actions are correct. 34 Such an understanding is also made eminently clear in a passage from chapter 1, where Xunzi says, [17] The gentleman understands that those things that are not perfect and not pure are not worthy of being praised. Therefore, he recites repeatedly [his learning] in order to thread it together, ponders it in order to comprehend it, takes his person to dwell in it, and gets rid of that which is harmful to it in order to support and nourish it. He causes his eyes to not want to see what is not correct, his mouth to not desire to say what is not correct, and his heart to not want to consider what is not correct. He arrives at the point where he loves it, and then his eyes love it more than the five colors, his ears love it more than the five sounds, his mouth loves it more than the five flavors, and his heart takes it to be more profitable than possessing all under Heaven. Because of this, power and profit cannot sway him, the collected (qun) masses cannot move him, and nothing under Heaven can shift him. He lives by this, and dies by this, and this is called grasping virtue. (HKCS 1/4/16–20; H 8.217–31) The learning that Xunzi refers to in this passage is the teachings of the sages, and in particular the rituals and yi . These values, which seem to have begun as external, instrumental values in the minds of both the sages and the common people, become ends in themselves, values that can be loved to a greater extent than one cares for beautiful sights, sounds, and tastes. Indeed, Xunzi seems to think that just as we can recognize that meat and fine rice have better flavors than vegetables and rice dregs, so too can we recognize that the Way of the former kings, the Way that Xunzi is advocating, which takes the ordering influences of benevolence ( ren ӱ) and yi and the manner in which these allow for community , mutual support, mutual adornment, and mutual security as central, really is better than competing ways of life (HKCS 4/15/17–21; H 28.214–28). Of course, this is not to say that humans will immediately recognize that Xunzi’s Way has such value, any more than someone who has never had the opportunity to eat meat or good rice will realize their value in comparison to vegetables and rice dregs. However, Xunzi believes that in much the same way that one who has the opportunity to taste meat and good rice will come to prefer them to vegetables and rice dregs, so too, if one begins to study Xunzi’s Way, one will find it worthy of further study, and once one commits to its study , one will realize its value to a distinctly human life and come to live one’s life in a virtuous manner (HKCS 4/16/15–16; H 30.284–93).

When people fail to extend the virtuous quality of family relations to social relations outside the family in capitalist societies, the reverse dynamics take over, so that even family relations become infected with the obsession with material gains, as is evident in litigation among family members fighting over inheritances, and other similar cases. Relentless competition is not limited to the accumulation of capital but pervades the whole society—we see this even in competition for grades and limited university spaces in disciplines that are popular usually because they are “marketable.” Instead of personal cultivation, we find education turned into a means of making money. 34 Even the much admired emphasis in East Asian societies on education that is attributed to Confucian influence becomes perverted: parents concerned over their children’s economic future put so much pressure on them to do well in the increasingly competitive economic environment that this undermines the family relationship and fails to cultivate a Confucian ethical character in their children.35 Cultivating virtuous Confucian relationships has never been easy, but there are forces in global capitalism that make it even more difficult, if not impossible. The most important human relationships in traditional societies are face-to-face relationships of embodied interactions, but globalization connects people located in various parts of the world who often never meet in person, and decisions and actions in one part of the world affect many in faraway places. The valued qualities of various human relationships in the Confucian understanding are cultivated through everyday interaction at close quarters through ritual practice; such cultivation is not possible in the type of remote interactions that characterize many relationships in global capitalism. A Confucian sage-king’s virtue can embrace the whole world, at least in theory, but it is rooted in the humaneness (ren 仁) of person-to-person interaction, “establishing others in seeking to establish oneself, promoting others in seeking to promote oneself” (Analects 6.30). And humaneness begins with filial and fraternal responsibility in the family (1.2). It is much more difficult to disregard the effect of one’s actions on those whom one encounters every day than on those who live half the world away; their humanity and the reality of harm to them and their suffering impinges less on one’s consciousness with increased physical distance. Even though new technologies give access to information about what is happening in other parts of the world, not everyone has equal access. For those with access, selectivity is necessary, and too many choose to ignore unpleasant information. Unlike immediate experience, overexposure through the media can also breed indifference to people’s sufferings. Global capitalism allows investors to become wealthy without ever having to give a thought to whether the same economic processes keep millions working for low wages in conditions injurious to their health, destroy local communities by putting people out of work when factories are moved overseas, or contribute to the degradation of the environment. Those at the front lines of exploitative and other unethical practices—factory supervisors, middle management, or sales staff, for example—if they have any doubts about the ethics of the businesses they work for, salve their conscience by pushing the responsibility on to the decision makers higher up the chain. When questioned about their failure to protect their people (whether as workers or consumers) and the environment, governments cite the need to provide a “business friendly” regulatory environment in the competition for transnational capital to promote economic growth. Global capitalism attests to the adage “If one’s aim is wealth, one cannot be humane” (Mencius 3A3). According to the neoliberal ideology, market freedoms are natural and desirable and conducive to economic growth, while government intervention should be limited to maintaining macrostability to facilitate the workings of the free market. Critics such as Polanyi and Gray point out that the free market is in fact an artificial creation of state power and is maintained by a collusion of economic and political interests.36 Neoliberal ideology has been challenged, and many East Asian societies have followed different development paths, with the government often playing a much more interventionist role than prescribed by neoliberals. This has been interpreted as a Confucian legacy since the Confucian idea of a good government is one that takes care of the people’s livelihood, which in today’s world means reducing poverty by increasing GDP through various policies and state actions. The Confucian requirement that governments give priority to the worst off in society may also have resulted in policies that help reduce inequalities and ensure a more egalitarian distribution of economic growth, at least in the initial years of development. However, after a period of falling inequality, East Asian economies also began to display the pattern of increasing inequalities that dominates capitalist economies. Excessive inequalities are socially divisive and destabilizing. The worst excesses of capitalism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were curbed by the state stepping in to regulate the market and redistribute wealth and income, as well as to relieve poverty and promote social welfare through public spending.

The last point we can glean from Xunzi’s (19.1a) statement about desires leading to chaos and thus rituals is that in order to overcome the state of poverty, what is urgently needed is not economic policy per se but the establishment of good government that relies on ritual and yi. (In the writings of Mencius, yi could be translated as “relational appropriateness,” but Xunzi gives it a different meaning.) What ritual and yi refer to in Xunzi’s ethical and political thought has been one of the most debated topics in contemporary Chinese philosophy, and I will return to this question shortly. What is important in the present context is that Xunzi approaches a productive economy and a more systematic satisfaction of desires from a broader perspective of good government. As we have seen, for Xunzi, the state of nature is the state of distributive injustice where people’s competing desires for material goods cannot be evenly (or equitably) satisfied due to a serious coordination problem, resulting in endless struggle and eventually poverty. He describes injustice in the state of nature as more than a mere condition of material poverty. It is also a state of domination and subjugation, the remedy for which must be found in a new form of politics and political economy. 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 catastrophe 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. Work and labor are what people dislike, and merit and profit are what they are fond of. But if there is no division of occupations, then people will face the catastrophe of trying to complete their work by themselves and the calamity of struggling over merit. (Xunzi 10.1) Here we gain new information about the Xunzian state of nature. As Xunzi repeatedly claims, mutual struggle in the state of nature causes impoverishment. Though originating from competing desires for material goods, struggle among the people has a social cause as well, directly relevant to the coordination problem. According to Xunzi, it is the absence of “social divisions (fen 分)” that drives people to struggle because only by means of social divisions are they enabled to helpeach other and live together harmoniously. If there are no social divisions, not only does struggle become permanent but it also gives rise to what can be called the circumstances of injustice where “the strong threaten the weak, the wise terrorize the stupid, the young bully their elders, and the people below disregard their superiors.” Moreover, in the absence of social divisions great inconvenience is born as everyone will be forced to lead an autarkic life, which ineluctably brings the quality of life near or below the threshold of sufficiency. In any event, in the Xunzian state of nature, distributive injustice is entangled with social exploitations and unjust hierarchies. Of all members of society, the old and the weak are most severely affected by the circumstances of injustice both socially and economically. What does Xunzi mean by social divisions, which he presents as the Confucian method to solve the coordination problem? How can social divisions redress the circumstances of injustice where social domination and economic injustice are entangled, and bring about social order and productive economy? In an orderly society, according to Xunzi, everyone is situated above the threshold of sufficiency, social and economic inequalities beyond the threshold are merit-based but not excessive and thus not to the detriment of social harmony, and the well-being of the worst-off is given priority. Let us begin with the following statement, where Xunzi (9.16a) explains the uniqueness of humans in terms of their ability to form a community. Water and fire have qi [vital energy] but are without life. Grasses and trees have life but are without awareness. Birds and beasts have awareness but are without yi. Humans have qi and life and awareness, and moreover they have yi. And so they are the most precious things under Heaven. They are not as strong as oxen or as fast as horses, but oxen and horses are used by them. How is this so? I say it is because humans are able to form communities (jun 群) while the animals cannot. Why are humans able to form communities? I say it is because of social divisions (fen). How can social divisions (fen) be put into practice? I say it is because of yi. And so if they use yi in order to make social divisions, then they will be harmonized. If they are harmonized, then they will be unified. If they are unified, then they will have more force. If they have more force, then they will be strong. If they are strong, then they will be able to overcome the animals. … Thus the reason why humans can order themselves with the four seasons, control the myriad things, and bring benefit to all underHeaven is none other than they are able to get these social divisions (fen) and yi. And so human life cannot be without community. Recall Xunzi’s earlier statement that people should live together and help one another. Now it is clear what he means by it: people are capable of forming “communities” (jun). Xunzi presents this capacity of community-building as the most salient trait that distinguishes humans from other living things. However, the community here cannot refer to just any community. Xunzi (19.9b) seems aware of the fact that some animals are capable of forming a community. When he says that it is only humans that are capable of forming communities, therefore, he must have a special kind of community in mind, one that enables people to live together and help one another.12 More specifically, Xunzi’s community is one that is marked by social divisions. How then do social divisions give communities social and political characteristics that make them distinctively human? According to Xunzi, it is yi that puts social divisions into existence and practice. Notice that Xunzi’s understanding of yi here is somewhat different from our earlier usage as “relational appropriateness” in reference to Mencius. As Hutton (2016: 71) notes, since Xunzi does not believe in yi as a moral virtue innate in human nature, it cannot be a natural moral sentiment of appropriateness or righteousness. Rather, it is close to a “(social) norm” which designates proper roles to community members. Rituals” are the institutional practices that embody yi as social norms. Here arise two important questions. First, who created the structure of social norms and social divisions that allot proper roles to the people? Second, what do social divisions based on yi look like? Xunzi (4.12) points to the former sage-kings as the founders of ritual and yi who established social divisions in order to properly nourish human desires and distribute material goods: To be as noble as the Son of Heaven and to be so rich as to possess the whole world—these are what the natural dispositions of people are all alike in desiring. However, if you followed along with people’s desires, then their power could not be accommodated, and goods could not be made sufficient. Accordingly, for their sake the former kings established ritual and yi in order to divide the people up and cause there to be the rankings of noble and base, the distinction between old and young, andthe divisions between wise and stupid and capable and incapable. All these cause each person to carry out his proper task and each to attain his proper place. After that, they cause the amount and abundance of their salaries to reach the proper balance. This is the way to achieve community life and harmonious unity. So, when a person of ren is in power, the farmers devote all their strength to their fields, the merchants devote all their cleverness to their earnings, and the hundred craftsmen devote all their skillfulness to their products. From the officers and high ministers up to the dukes and marquises, no one fails to devote all his ren, generosity, intelligence, and capabilities to fulfilling his official position. This is called the utmost balance. Finally, we have arrived at the crux of Xunzi’s political economy. Notwithstanding some critical disagreement with Mencius regarding human nature and the method of moral self-cultivation, Xunzi fully agrees with him (and Confucius) that Confucian moral economy is part of good government and thus approaches it from the perspective of social harmony. For Xunzi, a productive and just economy is an integral part of good political order that prioritizes social harmony. Creating a political order ensures social harmony that unites people and enables them to develop more force and become prosperous. Xunzi is convinced that a political order of this effect can be best achieved by social divisions that not only distinguish the noble from the base, the old from the young, and the wise from the stupid, but also distribute specific economic and sociopolitical positions and roles to the people that correspond to their talents and merits. In addressing the coordination problem and creating a moral economy, the ruler (or the state) plays a pivotal role. After all, communities are not formed naturally. Though Xunzi presents the former sage-kings as the founders of ritual and yi, he emphasizes the critical importance of the political leader as the agent who carries out the task of social divisions and coordination. Most tellingly, Xunzi (9.16a) says: The true lord is one who is good at forming community. When the way of forming community is properly practiced, then the myriad things will each obtain what is appropriate for them, the six domestic animals will each obtain their proper growth, and all the various living things will obtain their proper life spans. Here Xunzi does not present Confucian statecraft in terms of “effortless action” (wuwei 無爲) as if the ruler’s excellent moral character will automatically bring about good public results.13 The kernel of Confucian statecraft (and moral economy) lies in “the way of forming community,” which is none other than the method of social divisions. Xunzi (12.6) makes this point clear: What is the Way? I say: It is the way of the true lord. Who is a true lord? I say: It is one who is able to create community. Who is able to create community? I say: It is one who is good at keeping people alive and nurturing them, good at organizing and ordering people, good at elevating and employing people, and good at beautifying and ornamenting people. In short, for Xunzi, the way of a true lord is statecraft based on youwei 有爲 (purposeful action). Xunzi presents social divisions as the method of youwei statecraft by which to build a harmonious political community and address the coordination problem (El Amine 2015: 68–73).

American militarism has gone off the rails—and this middling career officer should have seen it coming. Earlier in this century, the US military not surprisingly focused on counterinsurgency as it faced various indecisive and seemingly unending wars across the Greater Middle East and parts of Africa. Back in 2008, when I was still a captain newly returned from Iraq and studying at Fort Knox, Kentucky, our training scenarios generally focused on urban combat and what were called security-and-stabilization missions. We’d plan to assault some notional city center, destroy the enemy fighters there, and then transition to pacification and “humanitarian” operations. Of course, no one then asked about the dubious efficacy of “regime change” and “nation building,” the two activities in which our country had been so regularly engaged. That would have been frowned upon. Still, however bloody and wasteful those wars were, they now look like relics from a remarkably simpler time. The US Army knew its mission then (even if it couldn’t accomplish it) and could predict what each of us young officers was about to take another crack at: counterinsurgency in Afghanistan and Iraq. Fast forward eight years—during which this author fruitlessly toiled away in Afghanistan and taught at West Point—and the US military ground presence has significantly decreased in the Greater Middle East, even if its wars there remain “infinite.” The United States was still bombing, raiding, and “advising” away in several of those old haunts as I entered the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Nonetheless, when I first became involved in the primary staff officer training course for mid-level careerists there in 2016, it soon became apparent to me that something was indeed changing. Our training scenarios were no longer limited to counterinsurgency operations. Now, we were planning for possible deployments to—and high-intensity conventional warfare in—the Caucasus, the Baltic Sea region, and the South China Sea (think: Russia and China). We were also planning for conflicts against an Iranian-style “rogue” regime (think: well, Iran). The missions became all about projecting US Army divisions into distant regions to fight major wars to “liberate” territories and bolster allies. One thing soon became clear to me in my new digs: Much had changed. The US military had, in fact, gone global in a big way. Frustrated by its inability to close the deal on any of the indecisive counterterror wars of this century, Washington had decided it was time to prepare for “real” war with a host of imagined enemies. This process had, in fact, been developing right under our noses for quite a while. You remember in 2013 when President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began talking about a “pivot” to Asia—an obvious attempt to contain China. Obama also sanctioned Moscow and further militarized Europe in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine and the Crimea. President Trump, whose “instincts,” on the campaign trail, were to pull out of America’s Middle Eastern quagmires, turned out to be ready to escalate tensions with China, Russia, Iran, and even (for a while) North Korea. With Pentagon budgets reaching record levels—some $717 billion for 2019—Washington has stayed the course, while beginning to plan for more expansive future conflicts across the globe. Today, not a single square inch of this ever-warming planet of ours escapes the reach of US militarization. Think of these developments as establishing a potential formula for perpetual conflict that just might lead the United States into a truly cataclysmic war it neither needs nor can meaningfully win.

The American proclivity to war (Afghanistan, Iraq) has destabilizing multiplier effects. First, within the United States; an article about "The Iraqi time bomb" notes: "Mix the open-ended costs of war and reconstruction with huge tax cuts, shrinking tax revenues and a stalled economy, and you get a budget deficit bound to explode" (Madrick, 2003). Second, regional and international effects; the IMF's 2003 Global Financial Stability Report warns that "a prolonged war in Iraq could depress financial markets and put global economic recovery into jeopardy" (quoted in Stewart, 2003).

The hegemon makes sacrifices to preserve the system. Hegemony in the Gramscian sense means, substantively, that potentially all stand to benefit and procedurally that the rules of the game are perceived to be fair. But in the present American dispensation "sacrifice is for suckers" (Borosage, 2003) and this applies also internationally. The pattern that increasingly prevails in the United States is political and electoral opportunism; applied to international affairs this approach flaunts the very rules and institutions that the United States has helped to build over many years. American failure to comply with international law, a zigzagging and instrumental attitude to international institutions such as the United Nations, and withdrawal from or nonparticipation in international treaties and covenants, create the impression of an opportunistic hegemony.

Indeed, the hegemon’s state has no equal, its people cannot be defeated, nor its land taken, in most instances. 59 At least initially, it appears that there is nothing that would necessarily preclude the hegemon from instituting a political structure of the sort that would allow for community (qun). That is, such a ruler could certainly set allotments (fen) , dividing up goods as well as making distinctions in social status. Further, if Xunzi is right about the consequences of such a social structure, then it seems that the people of the hegemon’s state will benefit just as much from it as the people of the true king’s state. However, Xunzi, unlike his predecessor Shang Yang or his later contemporary HAN Fei , was not a state consequentialist. Xunzi, in his political thought, is not concerned solely with the state, but is rather concerned with the whole world, ‘all under Heaven.’ And, he makes it clear that the term ‘all under Heaven’ is not coextensive with the state when he argues, “When the foundation is fixed, then the state will be fixed; when the state is fixed, then all under Heaven will be fixed” (HKCS 11/49/19–20; H 99.29–32). This evidence, then, might lead us to think of Xunzi as being some sort of ‘all under Heaven’ consequentialist in his political thought, as being concerned with benefitting everyone in the world in a consequentialist fashion. 60 This position has been taken by many scholars of Xunzi, though I argue that such a reading cannot be squared with the textual evidence. If it is the case that Xunzi is an ‘all under Heaven’ consequentialist, then we might begin to see why Xunzi would wish to have a true king over a hegemon. After all, in a description of the true king, Xunzi says, [28] His benevolence ( ren ) towers above all under Heaven. His yi towers above all under Heaven, his awe-inspiring authority towers above all under Heaven. Since his benevolence towers above all under Heaven, no one under Heaven does not have affection for him. Since his yi towers above all under Heaven, no one under Heaven does not honor him. Since his awe-inspiring authority towers above all under Heaven, no one under Heaven dares to oppose him. He uses this unopposed awe-inspiring authority to assist him in his way of making the people submit. Therefore, he succeeds without having to fight. He achieves without attacking, and without the work of weapons and armor, all under Heaven submit. This is one who understands the way of a true king. (HKCS 9/37/14–16; H 73.202–12) Insofar as the hegemon cannot do this, we might begin to see why the hegemon is not a sufficient ruler. A hegemon’s rule will benefit his own state, it might be thought, but his effect outside his own state will not be as comprehensive as Xunzi would wish. At best his word is trusted by other states, but this says nothing about whether the hegemon can actually benefit these other states and their people in any meaningful way. While such a take on the insufficiency of the hegemon might initially seem plausible, a glance back at passage [25] shows us that Xunzi takes the punishments , rewards and promises of the hegemon to be believed by all under Heaven. Furthermore, his might is such as to shake all under Heaven, and, more importantly, “ order and control of all under Heaven advances under him.” As noted earlier, though, there is both a strong and a weak reading of this passage. In the weakest sense, all Xunzi is saying is that insofar as the ruler puts his own state in order, there is more order in the world, while on a strong reading he is saying that the hegemon actually creates order not only in his own state but throughout the world. How Xunzi intends this passage to be taken certainly affects whether an ‘all under Heaven’ consequentialist understanding of Xunzi’s philosophy can lead to an important distinction between the hegemon and the true king from a political standpoint. However, for our purposes, it does not really matter how Xunzi should be read on this issue because, while an interpretation of Xunzi as an ‘all under Heaven’ consequentialist may initially be appealing, it unfortunately rests on the idea that Xunzi is a consequentialist of sorts. This would imply that for Xunzi, maximizing general welfare is the only standard of right and wrong. However, as I have argued above, Xunzi does have numerous nonconsequentialist standards for right and wrong. Note passage [8] above where the Way of the lord is to form community not only by raising, nourishing, arranging, and ordering the people, but also by beautifying and ornamenting them. While the former criteria may very well look consequentialist, the latter—the beautifying and ornamenting of the people—seems to be a distinct, nonconsequentialist, concern for Xunzi. Ornamenting the people seems much closer to Xunzi’s ideas of ritual, and to better fall under Xunzi’s notion of good form ( wen ) that we saw in passages [16], [24], and [25]. Passage [16] is especially instructive, for it was here that Xunzi attacks Mozi for being concerned only with consequences rather than also caring about good form ( wen ) , a distinct area of concern unrelated to mere maximizing good consequences overall. Even though Xunzi is not an ‘all under Heaven’ consequentialist, the fact that benefitting all under Heaven is an important aspect of the true king’s work is sufficient to distinguish him from the hegemon in an important way. Certainly, the hegemon may be able to shake all under Heaven and move order forward, but his fundamental goal is not to bring about good consequences for all under Heaven. The true king is devoted to benevolence and this leads to a concern for all people. The hegemon, however, lacks a concern for benevolence and thus a concern for all people. However, this is not the only way in which the true king differs from the hegemon. Xunzi views the true king as having a transformative power on everyone in the world, and it is to this that we turn to next.

Xun Zi also believed that political power is more effective than economic power in the event of diplomatic confrontations. Using wealth to buy other countries’ support, he says, is pointless; the most effective way of strengthening the state is through moral and ethic principles. He says: ‘If I attempt to serve the state by using valuable and precious goods, then these costly objects will be depleted, yet friendly relations will not be secured. If I trust in treaties and solemnly swear to covenants, then although the terms of the agreement are firmly settled, they will be overturned without a single day elapsing. If I cede territory bit by bit, then although the amount to be ceded has been settled, the desire will not be satiated. The more I acquiesce to their demands, the more they will encroach, the inevitable end being that at the depletion of my resources, they will not stop until they have taken the whole country. ... Thus, the intelligent ruler does not proceed along this path. He invariably cultivates ritual principles in order to arrange the court in an orderly fashion, rectifies the laws in order to make the governmental bureau uniformly arranged, and adjusts the operating of the government in order to handle the people uniformly. It is only after this has been done that emergencies and reports are uniformly disposed of by the court, the various tasks and duties uniformly handled by the bureaus, and the multitude of commoners uniformly handled by their subordinates, ...In such a situation, those who are nearby zealously try to become close to the ruler and those who are in distant regions long to reach him. The ruler and his subjects will be of one mind, and the three armies will make a common effort. When his fame and reputation are sufficient to sear and scorch them and his majesty and strength enough to thrash and flog them, he simply folds his hands before his breast in salute and signals with his finger. Then not one of the strong and aggressive states will fail to come in haste to serve him. The situation would be like the case of Wuhuo, the Crow Catcher (a big and powerful fellow), battling the Jiao Pygmies (a small and short guy).’19 Xun Zi’s wisdom is again demonstrated in the cases of Japan in 2005 and China in 1971. Japan, in an attempt to obtain permanent membership in the UN Security Council, invested US $16 billion in developing countries in 2005 as a means of buying their support. It, however, failed.20 The United States in 1971, a time when American foreign aid to the Third World was much higher than that from China, opposed Beijing’s application for UN membership. With the support of African countries, however, Beijing successfully restored its UN membership. These two historical events prove Xun Zi’s theory that political power is more important than economic power in global diplomatic affairs.

With any new technological development, it is easy to wax poetic about the ways it can solve society’s ills—or hit every nail with your new hammer. Such optimism for AI’s potential is admirable, but it tends to ignore biases in AI. These biases range from frustrating, like Snapchat’s AI failing to recognize African American faces, to life endangering. Amazon’s Rekognition AI falsely identified 28 sitting members of Congress as having been previously arrested, with people of color matched at twice the proportional rate of their representation. This threatens to further reinforce biases against people of color, even though AI is thought to be impartial. The Congressional Black Caucus wrote to Jeff Bezos: “It is quite clear that communities of color are more heavily and aggressively policed than white communities.”

The caucus continued: “This status quo results in an oversampling of data which, once used as inputs to an analytical framework leveraging artificial intelligence, could negatively impact outcomes in those oversampled communities”. In using AI we need to recognize that it is not an impartial arbiter of justice, capable of distilling moral truth from data alone. These conceptions of right and wrong come from us and from the data we choose to provide. Without careful input and monitoring, an AI will simply reinforce the societal biases and structures used in its training.