Xunzi and the Highways and Byways of Confucianism
The China Forum seminar on Tuesday 5 November 2024 was given by Professor (Professor and Department Chair, Department of Philosophy, ).
Although Xunzi was an important contributor to Chinese thought, he is not as well known in the West as Confucius or Mencius. He was only formally honoured in China from 1084, more than a thousand years after his death in the third century BC, and his honorific tablets were later removed from temples by order of the Ming Emperor in 1530.
Professor Hutton explained that Xunzi’s teachings fit broadly into the mainstream of Confucian thought. However, unlike Mencius, Xunzi did not believe that people are born innately good but, rather, without knowledge of moral norms or any sense that would restrain their behaviour in morally appropriate ways. Human beings can improve themselves by ‘deliberate effort’, which involves an unremitting commitment to reshape oneself by learning, particularly through the study of classical texts but also by mastery of traditions, such as music and ‘ritual’ (‘li’ in Chinese). Xunzi endorsed many of the same values as Confucius, such as a harmonious family life being a good foundation for society, and the need for rulers to be morally cultivated with virtues such as benevolence and wisdom.
Professor Hutton considered the ways in which Xunzi differs from Confucius in his explicit defence of ritual. Xunzi saw ritual as having value in the way it addresses ‘desires and dispositions’ i.e. the emotions inherent in human nature. He believed that ritual has distributive, nurturing and cultivating functions, as well as expressive functions, where it provides a measured outlet for emotions. Ritual can help people to feel and express emotions in a healthy and restrained way, such as those felt when losing a parent. Xunzi believed that ritual was less about what one seeks than about giving things proper form. It is less important whether a rain-sacrifice actually results in rain rather than acting as a setting for expression of emotions, in this case anxiety about the future. Thus the ritual is not in some way ‘magical’ but has various positive psychological effects. Expecting some direct result from it – such as rain – would only result in disappointment and bad decision making.
In contrast to Confucius, Xunzi also taught that it was sometimes morally right to disobey one’s superiors in instances where not to do so would result in greater harm: ‘Follow the Way, not your Lord; follow what is right, not your father.’ This has interesting parallels in contemporary society, such as the US ‘Uniform Code of Military Justice’ which exempts soldiers from obeying illegal orders. Xunzi’s primary quest for the way to nurture and develop a sense of what is morally right in humans is a topic that contemporary psychologists and educators are working to understand better.
Issues raised in the Q&A included the following: (i) given the sharp deterioration in the nature of discourse in the West, are there significant differences between Confucius, Mencius and Xunzi when it comes to containing and controlling the way we engage with people with whom we disagree; (ii) why was it that the period around the third century BC produced so many great Chinese thinkers; (iii) whether Xunzi was right to assume people are not ‘born good’; (iv) whether there was any contradiction between Xunzi’s teachings for the individual to disobey his superiors and the desire for social cohesion; (v) whether the clash between Xunzi and Mencius really resulted in the expulsion of his tablets from the temples in 1530, since Buddhism had already been incorporated into Chinese thought by the neo-Confucians in the Song dynasty.
Eric L. Hutton is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Utah. His research specialization is ancient Chinese thought, especially Confucianism. He is the translator of and editor of the , among his many other publications. His research interests extend to contemporary ethical theory and ancient Greek philosophy as well, and he is currently working on comparative projects involving early Confucianism and Plato. He is also co-editor (with Justin Tiwald) for the translation series .
