Ritual propriety is fundamentally key to social order, unity, and peace.

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).