It has been claimed that Chinese culture is oriented toward morality; that moral culture, in turn, is rooted in human nature; and that human nature is self-justifying (causa sui). This theoretical framework has been taken as the orthodox position in Chinese philosophical thought.1 On the other hand, it has been held also that the theoretical framework of Chinese philosophy is not grounded in human nature, that is, human nature is not causa sui in the ontological sense, but itself originates from God,2 as is the case in Western metaphysics.
In general philosophical systems epistemology is often considered the entrance to wisdom, metaphysics the protoessence of philosophy, and ethics the results of practical thinking or the application of the principles obtained by metaphysical research. Moral education evidently belongs to this practical part of philosophy which, in turn, must have its metaphysical foundation. Is that foundation human nature, God, or something else?
In this paper we would like to seek an answer and will proceed in three main steps to study: the historical development, the essential content and its contemporary implications.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
In the history of Chinese philosophy there were several prominent schools in the pre-Chin Period (6th-3th Centuries B.C.): the Confucian School originating from Confucius (551-479 B.C.) and developed by Mencius (372-289 B.C.) and Hsün-tzu (298-238 B.C.); the Taoist School originating from Lao-tzu (ca. 571-467 B.C.) and developed by Chuang-tzu (369-286 B.C.) and Lieh-tzu (ca. 500 B.C.); the Mohist School originating from Mo-tzu (479-381 B.C.) and the Yin-yang School; the Legalist School originating from Kuan-tzu (?-647 B.C.) and developed by Shen Pu-hai (?-337 B.C.), Shang Yang (?-338 B.C.), Shen-tao (300-230 B.C.) and Han Fei-tzu (280-233 B.C.).
Let us first take an overview of the historical development of these Schools as regards the metaphysical foundation of the theory of moral education.
In China, as in all other ancient cultures, the origin of education was remote and obscure, but philosophy of education seems to have been born along with the philosophical schools. In the pre-historical period of ancient China the practice of education seemed very simple: parents and elders served as the teacher. The content of teaching consisted mainly of skills for satisfying daily needs and means for maintaining proper interpersonal relations.3 Since the beginning of philosophy in the Spring-Autumn period, and its flourishing in the period of Warring-States, Chinese scholars have been aware that mankind is situated between heaven and earth and among fellow human beings. It needs a norm or a directive principle for its own behavior and for the search for the meaning of life. In order to propagate their theories philosophers developed a training method or education whose essential content was the philosophical thought founded in a system to explain the meaning of life.
The pre-Chin Period
Philosophy flourished because of the social and cultural decay in the Spring and Autumn period (722-484 B.C.) and the period of Warring-States (403-221 B.C.). The decline of the Chou Dynasty (1122-256 B.C.) was described by Mencius:
Again the world fell into decay, and principles faded away. Perverse speaking and oppressive deeds waxed rife again. There were instances of ministers who murdered their sovereigns, and of sons who murdered their fathers.4
This meant that the reality no longer corresponded to the name. Thus, Confucius advocated the doctrine of "the rectification of names,"5 which he explained as to "Let the ruler be ruler, the minister minister, the father father, and the son son"6 in order to restore social order. In interpersonal relationship Confucius and his disciples promoted "Jen" (human-heartedness, which consists in loving others)7 as a guiding principle for both personal perfection and social order. The virtue of Jen enables man to become a Chün-tzu (gentleman) in cultivating himself, and to become Shen-jen (sage) in assisting others. Chün-tzu and Shen-jen are perfect men who are united with heaven (union with God). Therefore Chung-Yung (Doctrine of the Mean) said: "Who can give its full development to his nature . . . able to assist the transforming and nourishing powers of Heaven and Earth, he may with Heaven and Earth form a ternion."8
Human nature, according to Confucius, is changeable according to one's surroundings and training. His remark that "by nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart"9 implies the need for education. According to Mencius, however, human nature is good10 in its essence,11 but because of outside influences and contamination the good nature of man must be protected and enlightened through education. Hsün-tzu, who held human nature to be evil,12 in direct opposition to Mencius, advocated equally firmly the need of training with Li (rites) in order for one to become a sage.
The ideal personality to which the Confucian School aspired is therefore a twofold achievement: individual perfection and social order. In this regard Confucius and his followers seemed to have taken an anthropo-centric and humanistic position, considering human nature as the center-point and ultimate philosophical foundation, as many contemporary so-called Neo-confucianists have claimed.13 But if we study the entire Analects with careful metaphysical insight, we can see that human nature evidently is not the ultimate reality or the moral foundation of human action. The ultimate foundation of human nature according to Confucians is Tien-ming (Decrees of Heaven). The Chung-Yung says: "What Heaven has conferred is called the Nature; and accordance with this nature is called the Tao of duty; the regulation of the Tao is called Instruction."14
The metaphysical sense of Tien-ming was used by Mencius no less than seven times, and the term Tien (Heaven) seventy five times. Mencius obviously followed Confucius' view of Tien as the ultimate reality of the universe and especially of man's ultimate concern.
Together with Hsün-tzu, the third generation Confucianist, the Legalists abandoned the metaphysical sense of Tien, and denied the existence of a personal God. As a consequence they lost the supernatural support for moral obligation. From the legalistic point of view there was no conscience to control individual human acts, nor were there moral principles for social order. In order to regulate the society what is needed is law, with its devices of reward and punishment, which the people desire or fear. For the legalists the function of education, which the government provided for the people, was not ethical, but only pragmatic and utilitarian.
Where the Legalists aimed at the "Great State with a large population," the Taoist School took as its political aim "a little state with a small population."15 From Lao-tzu, through Chuang-tzu, to Lieh-tzu the Taoists all desired to maintain the natural life-style without any cultural or artificial intrusion. Instead of engaging in human activities and efforts they spend all their strength on cultivating themselves so as to forget Confucian virtues, and mundane desires, and even to dissolve the connection with the body and its parts, leaving the material form through sitting and forgetting all things.16 The metaphysical foundation of Taoist School consists in Tzu-jen (Spontaneity).17 Negatively, this spontaneous spirit avoids many troubles by refraining from desires; positively, it possesses purity and sincerity of man's innermost mind. In this sense though the Taoists did not teach people how to live in a community with others, they did train each person to lead a preternatural life.
Chin and Han-dynasties
The Confucian and Taoist Schools did not succeed in restoring the declining society in the Spring and Autumn and the Warring-States periods. The aggressive Legalist School was able eventually to put its ideology into practice. Adopting the theory of Li-ssu, a practical legalist, the Chin dynasty reunified the six states and fulfilled the political dream of a "Great state with a large population." But, because of lack of popular support, the Chin dynasty was very short-lived and the Han dynasty took its place. The Confucian School was revived and remained active during the Han dynasty and for a long time thereafter. The Ta-Hsüeh (Great Learning) was a famous book for education during this time. This book states three goals: manifestation of one's illustrious virtue, loving the people, and resting in the highest good. Its method is to begin from self-cultivation as the fundamental standpoint, and proceed to the regulation of the family, the order of the state, and finally the peace of the whole world as the ultimate aim.18
Tung Chung-shu's (179-104 B.C.) proposal to make Confucianism the orthodox doctrine at the expense of other schools of thought was accepted and apparently it became the official theory of education in the Han dynasty. In reality, the Taoist life-style, which stood in direct opposition to the Legalist theory, had attracted many emperors and scholars, such as Emperor Kao-tzu (reg. 206-195 B.C.), Queen Lü (reg. 188-180 B.C.), philosophers Lu-chia (260-170 B.C.), Chia-yi (200-168 B.C.) and the author of the Huai-nan-tzu, Liu An (179-122 B.C.), etc. Wu-ti (reg. 140-87 B.C.) himself accepted the orthodoxy of Confucianism, but in practice often used the Legalist method to promote his political aims. Thus in the Han dynasty there was an amalgamation of all schools, which had flourished in pre-Chin period. We may admit that in the schools in the Han period Confucian Ethics was taught, but in the society the mass learned all the traditional worldviews.
A very important factor in the Han dynasty was that scholars were very much interested in the I-Ching (Book of Change). I-Ching not only emphasizes a cosmological world-orientation, but also endorses the existence of a transcendental Divinity. Such philosophers as Tung Chung-shu, Liu An, Yang Hsiung (53 B.C.-18 A.D.) all have metaphysical as well as mystical views on the unity of the universe. Tien-ming (Decrees of Heaven) was held not only as the directive principle of all rulers, but also as the "arche" of the universe. Despite its elements of divination and superstition the theory of Tien-jen-kan-ying (the mutual interaction between heaven and man) was really a kings-highway through which human beings could reach their supernatural goal. This provided a metaphysical foundation for individual ethics and for social principles.
Sui (589-618 A.D.) and Tang (618-907 A.D.) Dynasties
This was the time, in which the native Chinese wisdom, after study and comparison, finally mixed with the imported buddhistic culture. At this time Chinese culture and religion flourished with the absorption of ideas from alien sources. A great achievement was the elevation of human nature to the level of "Nirvana." Similar to the Taoist School, the Buddhist religion considers the sensible world to be the lower, phenomenal, and unreal existence. The ultimate reality according to Buddhism lies in another world to come. As a part of this cosmological view the theory of human nature is also dualistic: man consists of soul and body. The bodily life is temporal and spatial; the spiritual life is eternal and infinite. The whole point of education in Buddhism was therefore to transcend the sensible and to reach the non-sensible, super-natural world, which meant transcending time, past, present and future. The concept of transmigration of the soul shows that there are rewards for good demeanor and retribution for evil during one's life-time. This was taught to the entire population. Buddhistic theory therefore supported the pre-Chin philosophers' view that "all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything."20
The idea of Samsara and retribution has the result of creating the moral motivation for, and the religious belief in, future life. From the cultural amalgamation of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism a new world view was produced. People learned the religious respect for Heaven from Confucianism, the wisdom of life from Taoism, and the idea of self-cultivation from Buddhism. On this triple foundation the essential characteristics of Chinese philosophy were based and the ternion of the three philosophies became the common core of the Chinese life style.
Sung (960-1127 A.D.) and Ming (1368-1644 A.D.) Dynasties
Scholars of this period stressed the rational approach to the study of the Classics and again advocated Confucian orthodoxy. On the surface they tried to free themselves from bondage to Buddhism, but in their philosophical theories traces of Buddhistic influence remain, especially in the theory of "Mind" and "Nature." Human mind became their main concern and was eventually taken to be the ultimate reality. Thus, the transcendental sense of cosmology disappeared, and in its place an immanent entity deeply rooted in human mind was posited. Whatever the philosophers of the pre-Chin period meant by heaven, the scholars in Sung and Ming dynasties called mind, and whatever the pre-Chin philosophers considered transcendental in this time was called immanent. So a humanism in the strict sense replaced the relative humanism of the pre-Chin Confucianism which, though accepting an anthropocentic theory, did not exclude the possibility of the existence of external world and of the existence of God. The human being was taken to be self-sufficient or causa sui, autonomous not only in the epistemological order but also in the ontological one. One ought to do good not because of the decrees of Heaven, but because of the postulate of one's inner conscience.
One of the greatest philosophical achievements of the Ming scholar, Wang Yang-ming (1472-1528 A.D.), was the creation of Universism, which previously was seldom discussed by Chinese scholars. In his universistic project Wang Yang-ming unconsciously linked the traditional moral "praxis-orientation" with the Buddhistic religious "pistis-orientation" by means of "gnosis." Yang-ming's "preservation of the heavenly Li (principle), and removal of human passions" means the "unification of gnosis and praxis," and the "amalgamation of transcendence and immanence."
The result of the research of Sung and Ming scholars was the deepening of idealism, which belongs rather to Buddhism than to Confucianism.
The Ching Dynasty (1644-1911 A.D.)
When China was ruled by the Manchus, philosophical creativity was rare and the scholars devoted much of their time and effort to covetousness. The formalistic utilitarian educational system corrupted the inner spirit of the ordinary people. During the last part of the dynasty China faced the challenge of Westernisation. The controversies between advocates of total westernisations and of selective adoption indicated that the Chinese tradition of moral education had to find a new way of expression. In 186721 Western educational methods were introduced and the essential content of education gradually changed from traditional to evolutional, and from moral to technical. After Sun Yat-sen's revolution many thinkers tried to combine the moral and the technical, the theoretical and the practical in the schools, but because of the May-Fourth-Movement, which abandoned the Confucian tradition, the educational system moved more and more toward the pragmatic and the technical. Traditional moral education diminished in influence, especially after the 1949 communist revolution.
THE ESSENTIAL CONTENT
Human Nature
From this brief survey of the historical development of traditional Chinese philosophy of education, we find that the metaphysical foundation of educational theory lies in human nature. If human nature is `good' then the training would be mild and the method of leading and persuasion would be practised, so that the good nature is preserved or even further developed, as Mencius and many other Confucians had maintained. If human nature is evil, then the training is rigorous and carried out with punishment, so that the evil nature would be transformed by force, as Hsün-tzu and his Legalist followers hold. If human nature is neutral and changeble, then it needs education to lead nature into becoming good.22 The other point to be discussed is the relation between human nature and human life. A utilitarian thinker would maintain that in order for the life in this world to be meaningful we must live a happy life. An ascetic man, however, would recommend a pious life because of the sorrows and sufferings existing in this sensible world.
The aims of the philosophy of education are: a better life, the elevation of human nature, social order, and fulfillment of one's ultimate concern.23 Every philosophical school tries to promote its theory in order to realize these aims, but each has to provide a philosophical foundation in order for its theory to be effective.
lt is a common practice in philosophy for theories and arguments to be supported by an ultimate reason which in turn reposes on a self-sufficient ultimate substance or causa sui. This ultimate substance bears similarities to the Taoist Tao or the Christian God. In the Chinese tradition, the Pre-Confucian classics and the Confucian literature in the pre-Chin period have viewed Tien (Heaven) as ontologically the ultimate foundation of the universe, and Tien-Ming (decrees of Heaven) as ethically the ultimate substratum of human being. ln Shu-ching (Book of History) Tien was thought to be conscious and personal, righteous in retributing goods and punishing evils. The Neo-Confucians from Sung and Ming Dynasties onward rejected the transcendental and personal God and held human nature to be absolute and eternal. This resulted in the deification of man and the inner moral postulate became the ultimate foundation of all ethical affairs.
The metaphysical foundation of `Chinese traditional education' is then twofold: theo-centric and anthropo-centric.
Theo-centric education flourished in the Pre-Chin period. At that time the people, and especially the ruler, had to learn the "adoration of Tien," in which the religious ceremony of "sacrifice" took place. The sacrifice, however, was carried out on three different levels: the emperor (Tien-tzu, the son of Heaven) offers sacrifices to Heaven, the kings and officials to the gods of mountains and of rivers, and the ordinary men to their ancestors and the gods of the kitchen. Heaven, gods and ancestors are all benefactors of man.24 In the Han dynasty this theo-centric education under political patronage went further in the style of Tung Chung-shu's doctrine of "the interaction between Heaven and man." The belief in Heaven has since become a popular view in Chinese folk religion, especially in religious Taoism after Han. For hundreds of years the Chinese people found in this religious sentiment the motive for all moral behavior. This philosophical teaching was passed on from generation to generation in each family.
Anthropocentric theory has two forms. The first neglects the transcendent God and holds human nature to be absolute in both the epistemological and the ontological sense. This type of educational theory maintains the supreme dignity of human beings. Neo-confucians are typical representatives of this theory. The second anthropocentric theory is alert to the changeable nature of man, and thinks that human beings through self-cultivation can be elevated to the status of the divine. Taoists, Buddhists and some Sung and Ming scholars take this position on the morality of individual conduct and interpersonal relation.
Social Nature
Human nature, whether good or evil, possesses all the same characteristics of "Mit-sein" (Being-with), i.e., man is being with other men. This is the category of society and interpersonal relation. Hence morality consists in
Let the ruler be ruler, the minister minister, the father father, and the son son.25
To teach the relations of humanity: how, between father and son, there should be affection; between sovereign and minister, righteousness; between husband and wife, attention to their separate functions; between old and young, a proper order; and between friends, fidelity.26
Affection, righteousness, separate functions, order and fidelity in the relations of humanity, are considered by Mencius to be the differential criteria between man and beast. Confucian education starts with the cultivation of oneself, then the regulation of family, the order of the state and finally peace in the whole world.
Cultivation of oneself is required not only in family and school, but also in the praxis of the individual. "From the son of Heaven down to the mass of the people, all must consider the cultivation of the person the root of everything besides."27
Cultivation of oneself could be realized in a twofold manner: Chün-tzu and Shen-jen. The former refers to personal perfection, and the latter to the order of community. Chün-tzu and Shen-jen compose the concept of Jen (human-heartedness) which stands for the most perfect man. The order of community however begins with family. This is one of the most characteristic features of Chinese moral culture: "Filial piety and fraternal submission! Are they not the root of all benevolent actions?"28 Hence familial education is very effective throughout Chinese cultural history. In Mencius three of the five human relations belong to the category of family: the relations between father and son, husband and wife, and old and young. The familial virtue of affection, separate functions and order serve as the proto-type of the virtues of national society and of the whole world. Interpersonal relations begin with the mutual love of family members, is developed into the fraternal love of fellow-men, and finally into the unlimited love of all mankind.
Through interpersonal love and concern the Confucians believe that the whole world would be united in one. Thus in training as well as in the content of education the emphasis is upon interpersonal benevolence, especially upon the concrete social order in which sovereigns rule the people, not by means of law and punishent, but through their own virtue.
The ideal Confucian society consists in the order based on mutual love between father and son, between husband and wife, between old and young. While the essence of society according to the Confucians consists in familial and fraternal love, the Legalists see it in law and regulation. In the legalist society the ruler does not need moral virtue, but only the power and method to implement the law in order to maintain social order.
In our discussion of the metaphysical foundation of moral education it is
obvious that, for the Confucianists the emphasis is on the familial or fraternal love
rooted either in the decrees of Heaven, or in the good nature of man. For the Legalists,
however, the emphasis is on law and punishment based on the evil nature of man.
The reason why, in the whole history of China, the legalist theory flourished only once--in the Chin dynasty (246-206 B.C.)--whereas Confucianism remained the predominant school for thousands of years, can perhaps be found in the difference between their respective views of the metaphysical foundation of morality. Adopting the Confucianist insight, ordinary Chinese people from generation to generation are inclined to believe in Heaven and in the goodness of human nature.
Heaven
This belief originated first with Confucius, and second in Chinese folk religion. Confucius himself insisted many times in his ordinary teachings that he rejected the preter-natural beings, as the following quotations testify:
The subjects on which the Master did not talk, were extra-ordinary things, feats of strength, disorder, and spiritual beings.29
The Master's personal displays of his principles and ordinary description of them may be heard. His discourses about man's nature, and the Tao of Heaven, cannot be heard.30
These texts have been used frequently by the so-called Neo-Confucianists to support the anthropo-centric, or even the atheistic or anti-theistic worldview.31
In fact, Confucius referred often to these preternatural beings in explaining his religious attitude, when he considered the ultimate limits and innermost concerns. He said:
My praying has been for a long time--when very sick and his disciple Tzu-lu asked leave to pray the spirits of the upper and lower world for him.32
May heaven reject me! May heaven reject me!--after having visited Nan-tzu, the beautiful but not very clever woman and about which Tzu-lu was displeased.33
It is the appointment of Heaven, alas!--when his disciple Po-niu was seriously ill.34
Heaven is destroying me! Heaven is destroying me!-- when his beloved disciple Yen-yüan died.35
He who offends against Heaven has none to whom he can pray.36
He sacrificed to the dead, as if they were present. He sacrificed to the spirits, as if the spirits were present."37
Even Confucius in narrating his own biography used this sentence: "At fifty, I know the decrees of Heaven."38 Many other passages with the same sense show that Confucius was a believer of Heaven, as was written in Shu-ching.
It is not unreasonable to suspect that the anthropocentric humanism of the Sung and Ming dynasties was influenced by Buddhism, and that the same theory in circulation today is affected by the western materialism, atheism or anti-theism.
CONTEMPORARY IMPLICATIONS
Ordinary people in China believe in the existence of God, the retribution in the other world, and life after death. Among scholars and intellectuals, however, perhaps due to a lack of wholesome philosophical investigation or infatuation with the utilitarian life, the anthropo-centric orientation plays an important role. It is time to examine the meaning of life and to seek a sound metaphysical foundation to support one's worldview. Between popular consensus and philosophical sophistication, between our ultimate concern and temporary benefits, we must make a decisive choice and find a strong, effective motive for cultivating ourselves and becoming perfect in order to live an eternally happy life.
The social order seems gradually to have declined because of unlimited development and progress in technology and economy. These obviously are not the ultimate goals of human effort, but only means for human beings to obtain a better life. The beatitude of life should be the aim of all development and progress. How to make our life happier and to keep this happiness forever is the question which must be answered.
The problem of education lies not in comparing and clarifying various opposed theories of training, but in promoting action toward the achievment of the goal of education. Realizing the educational purpose is identical to becoming human, no matter how many different theories there are about moral education, the goal of teaching remains to become human.39
In education the teacher has not only to instruct students about the moral principles of good and evil, but also to show them why human beings have to do good and avoid evil. This is the raison d'etre of the metaphysical foundation of moral education.40 At the same time, in the field of values we must let people test values for themselves and come to their own conclusions.41
The decline of the social order in China is undeniable. Unlike western society, in which institutionalized religion plays a salvific role when morality falls into decay, there would be no salvation for the Chinese social order after its decline should it be guided still by anthropocentric theory. It is extremely urgent, therefore, to reawaken the traditional and genuinely religious sentiments, especially the belief in Heaven, in these tumultuous times.
National Taiwan University
Taipei, ROC
1. It is well known and very widely advertised in Chinese academic circles, that the representatives of the Sin-ya school of Neo-Confucianism such as Tang Chün-yi, Mou Tsung-san, Lau Ssu-kwong, etc., interpret Confucian theory as strict!y anthropocentric.
2. This metaphysical reinterpretation of Confucian philosophy is now being constantly propounded and elaborated by many Catholic scholars in Taiwan, such as Stanislaus Lo-kuang, Albert Chao, John C.H. Wu, etc.
3. Yen Shi-sien, A History of Chinese Educational Thought, (Taipei: Shang-wu, 1981), p. 443.
4. Mencius, Bk III. Pt. II, Ch. IX, 7.
5. Confucian Analects, XIII, 3.
6. Ibid., XII, 11.
7. Ibid., XII, 22.
8. The Doctrine of the Mean, Ch. XX11.
9. Confucian Analects, XV11, 2.
10. Mencius, Bk. III, Pt. I, Ch. 2.
11. Ibid., Bk. VI, Pt. I, Ch. 7.
12. Hsün-tzu, Ch. 23.
13. See 1.
14. The Doctrine of the Mean, Ch. 1,1.
15. Tao-te-ching, Ch. 80.
16. Chuang-tzu, Bk. VI, Ch. 14.
17. Tao-te-ching, Ch. 25.
18. The Great Learning, the text of Confucius.
19. Stanislaus Lo-kuang, A History of Chinese Philosophical Thought: Han dynasties. (Taipei: Hsüeh-shen Book Store, 1978), p. 16.
20. The Great Learning, the text of Confucius.
21. In 1867 Tung-wen-kuan was first established, in which the students learned several foreign languages in order to prepare themselves for translating foreign literature.
22. Cf. Steven M. Cahn, The Philosophical Foundation of Education (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), p. 180.
23. George F. Kneller, The Philosophy of Education (New York: Wiley, 1971), p. 5.
24. Cf. N.Z. Zia, Philosophy of Religion (Tai-chung, Taiwan: Tung-hai University Press, 1980), p. 72 seq.
25. Confucian Analects, XII, 11.
26. Mencius, Bk. III, Pt. I, Oh. IV.
27. The Great Learning, the text of Confucius.
28. Confucian Analects, I, 2.
29. Ibid., VII, 20.
30. Ibid., V, 12.
31. See 1.
32. Confucian Analects, VII, 34.
33. Ibid.,VI, 26.
34. Ibid., VI, 8.
35. Ibid., XI, 8.
36. Ibid., III, 13.
37. Ibid., III, 12.
38. Ibid., II, 4.
39. Cf. John S. Brucacher, Modern Philosophies of Education (New York: Mc Graw-Hill, 1950, p. 1.
40. Cf. John Dewey, Democracy and Education An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education (New York: Columbia Univ. Press 1955), p. 375.
41. Cf. Harry Schofield, The Philosophy of Education (London: Allen & Unwin, 1977), p. 209.