CHAPTER XI
VALUE
RECONSTRUCTION IN CHINESE PHILOSOPHY: THE IMPACT OF EUROPEAN THOUGHT
SHU-HSIEN LIU
China
is one of the world’s oldest civilizations and the Chinese used to be proud of
their achievements. In spite of its dynastic cycles, for more than 2000 years
since the Han dynasty (B.C. 206-220 A.D.). China’s basic value structure
remained unchanged. The importation of Buddhism from India had profound
influences, but never shook the Chinese foundations.
THE CONTEMPORARY
PROBLEMATIC
Since
the nineteenth century traditional values appear to have totally collapsed.
Western science and technology, business enterprises and political systems have
had great impact on China. In effect, China was forced to adopt many Western
values in its effort to modernize herself. The result, however, is hardly
encouraging. Main-land China having turned communist faces a tremendous
credibility gap after the sudden change of course for the Eastern bloc and the
Soviet Union. Taiwan on the contrary, having turned capitalist and en-joyed
phenomenal economical success, seems tortured by self-seeking. Everywhere there
seems to be either a value vacuum or value confusion. Thus, the problem of value
reconstruction has beco-me the most urgent issue for Chinese philosophers today.
It is not a purely theoretical issue, but also a practical, existential issue.
The
mood today is clearly different from that of the May Fourth New Culture Movement
in 1919 when Western science and demo-cracy were held up as the model to follow.
Ironically, part of the reason is due to the self-doubt of the West as the
values of the Enlightenment are being challenged as being exclusively white,
male, and Europe-centered. While the Chinese look for guidance from the West,
the West is turning away from its own tradition: many intellectuals opt for a
radical pluralism which calls for a recognition of other traditions, referring
especially to the minority cultures.
While
in itself the intention is undoubtedly noble, this has not solved our problems,
but added to our worries. The prevalent Euro-pean theories of value appear to
have a strong relativistic flavor which baffles those who for guidance look for
certain universally acceptable value norms.
The
world is fast turning into a global village in which the first, second, and
third worlds are closely related to, and vigorously in-teracted with, one
another. Today centrifugal and centripetal forces work against each other to
form a surrealist picture which it is difficult for anyone to understand. These
conflicts are undoubtedly ex-pres-sions of basic conflicts of values. Can we
simply relish a radical plu-ralism and relativism, and declare "the end of
philosophy"?1 Per-haps "an abdication of philosophy" would be better
description of our situation today. Contemporary Neo-Confucian philosophers have
re-fused to resign themselves to such a fate; hence, their effort to recon-struct
a philosophy of value.
As
has been said earlier, such an undertaking does not find much help from
contemporary European philosophies. For example, some analytic philosophers
defend an emotive theory of value. Granted that there is a distinction between
"Is" and "Ought", to see values as nothing but the
expression of emotive responses is to under-mine the very foundation of a
philosophy of value. It provides no justifi-cation for condemning even what the
Nazis had done except by ap-pealing to the principle that might is right, as it
was by the greater might of the Allies that Hitler was utterly defeated.
Likewise
meta-ethical studies are of no help, as they largely avoid the substantive
issues of value and concentrate upon the nature of ethical language. They seem
unable to provide a good answer for the question: "Why should I be
moral?"
Continental
European philosophies fare little better as they also tend to retreat before a
contemplation of values. In Being and Time, Heidegger provides merely a
phenomenological description of human existence, but such terms as
"authentic" and "inauthentic" should not be understood as
value preferences. Gadamer’s analysis of "pre-judice’ has been accused
of historical relativism. If so it would leave value reflection in some ways in
limbo.
Unfortunately,
lack of reflection on values or a tacit assumption of relativism has serious
consequences. Plato’s attempt to lay a found-ation for values was a failure,
but the challenge he raised to relativism remains valid and should not be
ignored. I do recognize that there are good reasons for contemporary thinkers
not to trust the idea of eternal, universal values, and their rebellion against
authority has had some liberating effects. But the push toward radical pluralism
and relativism, going to the other extreme, ceases to be useful and
constructive. There must be regulative principles which can help us to
distinguish right from wrong, good from bad, and to make rational and
responsible decisions rather than irrational and irresponsible ones.
There
seems to be need to return to Kant, and recent trends show that Western thinkers
are paying more attention to value in-quiries. For example, John Rawls’s theory
of justice has had great im-pact, and Habermas and Apel are trying to bring
about a transfor-mation of philosophy by urging examination in depth of com-muni-cative
reason. Interestingly enough, both trends take Kant as the point for departure.
Perhaps in value philosophy, as well as in epis-temo-logy, we must not bypass
Kant, but go beyond him in order to explore the future for value inquiry.
MOU TSUNG-SAN AND THE
CALL
FOR A MORAL METAPHYSICS
Undoubtedly,
Kant was a European product; his way of thinking was thoroughly Western,
methodical and rigorous in sharp contrast to the Chinese practical and ambiguous
way of thinking. But surprisingly Kant has also exerted profound influence on
contemporary Neo-Con-fucian philosophers. Mou Tsung-san, perhaps the most
original of them today, developed his philosophy by modeling it after, and going
beyond, Kant’s philosophy. This can be seen clearly through the titles of his
books: Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy, Pheno-menon and the
Thing-in-Itself, On Summum Bonum, etc.2
Approach-ing the problem here from the Chinese perspective, I shall introduce
Mou’s thought and then consider the possibility of rapprochement
between contemporary Chinese and Western thought.
A Chinese Moral
Metaphysics of Hsin (Nature)
and Hsing (Mind-Heart): The Unity between
Heaven as Immanent Transcendence and Humanity
as Transcendent Immanence
Mou
thinks that Confucius provided the best expression of mo-rality, but that as he
lacked analytic skills he was not able to spell out that jen (humanity)
as a moral principle is universal and a priori. Among Western thinkers,
Kant was the one who could truly appreciate the meaning of moral consciousness.
His analysis was indispensable for all, but because it took an analytic
approach, it was not able to provide the most profound expression of morality,
as found in Confucius. The problem with Kant lies in his being able to establish
only the so-called "metaphysics of morals." Due to the particular
pietistic form of his Christian background he can entertain only the possibility
of a moral theology, but fails to envisage a "moral metaphysics" as is
fully de-veloped in Sung-Ming’s mainstream Neo-Confucianism.3
Mou
sees Kant’s great contribution as lying in his distinction be-tween moral
autonomy and heteronomy. But as pure reason cannot answer the question of the
origin of free will, he took it only as a p-ostulate. The Chinese, on the other
hand, never made a sharp dis-tinction between pure and practical reason: all
three major Chinese traditions, Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist, assert that
humans have intellectual intuition. Mencius made it clear that moral action
springs spontaneously from the mind-heart which cannot bear to see the suffering
of others; it is not motivated by hypothetical imperatives un-der the iron rule
of causal chains. Mou further developed the view of his teacher, Hsiung Shih-li,
that in truly moral behavior a human being is a free agent who follows laws of
his/her own mind-heart, which are a presence, not just a postulate.
Mou
thinks that the worst misunderstanding of Mencius’ view is to understand his
mind-heart as the empirical mind-heart studied by psychology. In fact it should
be understood as pen-hsin, the original mind-heart endowed from Heaven,
so that it is essential for each hu-man being to develop fully this mind-heart
within his or herself. Thus Mencius said:
He
who exerts his mind to the utmost knows his na-ture. He who knows his nature
knows Heaven. To pre-serve one’s mind and to nourish one’s nature is the way
to serve heaven. Not to allow any double-mind-edness regardless of longevity or
brevity of life, but to cultivate one’s person and wait for destiny (ming,
fate, Heaven’s decree or mandated) to take its own course is the way to
fulfill one’s destiny.4
The
implications of this paragraph are extremely rich. Precisely because it is only
when one has been able fully to develop his/her original mind-heart that one is
able to realize one’s nature, that Men-cius can make the claim that human
nature is good. Otherwise the claim would be groundless, as the empirical
mind-heart is neither good nor evil but capable of both good and evil doing.
Only when the original mind-heart is followed are the moral actions proceeding
from it good without qualifications. The discovery of one’s mind-heart leads
to its origin, one’s pen-hsing or original nature, which is the source
of our moral actions.
In
other words, Mencius never claimed that humans do not do evil things, but only
that when humans do good things as free moral agents the foundation lies in
his/her endowment of pen-hsin and pen-hsing. Mencius sees in this
the essential difference between humans and other animals. Only through vigorous
self-discipline can our origi-nal mind-heart and nature function effectively so
as to lift us above the animal level and enable us to behave properly on the
human level.
As
Mou sees it, Kant’s free will floats in the air because he says nothing about
self-discipline in order to make free the will which is actually at work in our
lives, nor does he have a theory of mind and nature, i.e., a moral metaphysics,
to back up his metaphysics of morals. As Kant’s understanding of the mind does
not extend beyond the empirical mind, and his understanding of nature pertains
to physical nature, his free will lacks solid grounding. Hence, he has to rely
on his faith in a transcendent God--a subject which cannot be handled
satisfactorily by pure reason.
For
the Confucian tradition, however, moral laws are grounded on hsing
(nature), and hsin (mind-heart) is understood as the actua-lizing
principle. Only thus can we give a truly satisfactory answer to the question,
"Why should I be Moral?" In effect the question of hsin and hsing
cannot be avoided, because we would never morally condemn a tiger when it kills
a person, whereas we would condemn evil human actions because human beings are
presumed to be moral agents with free will. We cannot but conclude that it is
something pertaining to our hsin and hsing endowed from Heaven.
Again,
precisely because we have such endowment, we have access to Heaven, the ultimate
source of creativity working in-cessantly in the universe. There is no need for
us to depart from hu-man ways in order to know Heaven. On the contrary, the only
way for us to serve Heaven is to develop to the full our endowment therefrom.
Thus, there is a unity between Heaven as immanent transcendence, and humanity as
transcendent immanence.
Nevertheless,
humans are still finite existents who must accept their ming (fate,
decree or mandate) in this world. Though in some sense still inscrutable, heaven
is not unknowable for humans. As Wang Yang-mind insisted, the liang-chih
(good knowledge) in us is not different from that of Heaven. A moral metaphysics
does not mean imposing the human will on Heaven. On the contrary, the human
being is the only animal that can transcend its own will in order to appreciate
the creativity of Heaven, which far surpasses human creativity and works
incessantly in the universe.
Mou and Kant
From
the above discussion we can see clearly that Mou has attempted to incorporate
some Kantian insights in order to develop a creative interpretation of
traditional Chinese philosophical insights. Some may say that Mou’s paradigm
is in fact quite different from Kant’s. Intellectual intuition for Mou
actually means a personal partici-pation in the Way, which enables humans to be
co-creators with Hea-ven in shaping reality in the making. The meaning of the
term is no longer the same as in Kant’s philosophy, who insisted that only God
can have intellectual intuition while humans have only sensible in-tuition.
There
is no denying that Kant’s thought has a built-in structural instability in the
duality of phenomenon and thing-in-itself. One may maintain the delicate balance
between the phenomenal and metaphy-sical thrusts, or one thrust may be further
developed and emphasized at the expense of the other. Mou’s attempt clearly
favors the metaphy-sical thrust. This development of a moral metaphysics is
against the current tide of contemporary Western philosophy. But his attempt to
reconstruct metaphysics should not be seen as an attempt to revive Platonism in
the twentieth century. Plato’s ideas are eternal and objective, he has to face
tremendous problems in bridging the gap between transcendent ideas, on the one
hand, and concrete things, on the other. In contrast, the Chinese see
transcendence and imma-nence, Heaven and humanity, as a pair of interdependent
concepts.
The
primary concern for Chinese thinkers is not a theoretical philosophy of being,
but a practical philosophy of existence for reali-zing values in this life
through self-discipline. Hence, the Chinese have no use for Plato’s abstract
universals, their way of thinking follows the pattern of li-i-fen-shu:
principle is one while its manifes-tations are many, like the same moon shining
over different streams. The uni-versals are concrete universals compatible with
a highly situational ethics. While li-i takes us back to the metaphysical
origin of values, with creative reinterpretation fen-shu would help us
build a bridge to the modern world.
Mou
believes that we must uphold the so-called tao-tung, i.e., the
philosophical tradition, and commit ourselves ultimately to jen
(humanity) as well as to sheng (creativity), the principle transcending
space and time. In the meantime the actualization of humanity in this world must
take a roundabout way. Hence hsueh-tung, i.e., the tradition of objective
learning including science, and cheng-tung, i.e., the democratic
tradition, must also be established. In other words, tradition must be broadened
so as to include the achievements from the modern West. But there is no reason
why these must be pursued at the expense of tradition.
LI-I-FEN-SHU
AS A COMMON PROJECT
FOR EAST AND WEST: HUMANITY,
CREATIVITY AND PARTICIPATION
In
fact no living tradition has ever remained at a standstill. If it fails to move
along with time and its message fails to receive ever new reinterpretations it
will soon die. Recently, I have attempted to give the Neo-Confucian dictum: li-i-fen-shu
still another interpretation, re-maining true to its spirit while looking for
more suitable expressions for our own times. From this perspective, the
transcendent regulative idea of jen is no different for Confucius,
Mencius, Chu Hsi or us; yet each generation, or better still each individual, is
looking for ever new manifestations of jen. Time and again these will
break the confines of the traditional scope, especially as modern life has
adopted a much quicker tempo than in the past. In fact, there is nothing in the
world which is without potential moral implications. Especially such new
inventions as nuclear bombs, contraceptives, test-tube babies de-mand that we
work out new positions according to the principle of humanity.
The
commitment to li-i does not entail a dogmatism, as some critics argue
that the commitment to Confucian values would pose a limit on the future
development of human civilization. They fail to note that no civilization can
exist without exercising a certain form of res-traint. For instance, an ultimate
commitment to humanity and creativity means that we are not allowed to do things
against humanity and creativity. In fact what injures humanity and creativity
are exactly those factors which if left unrestrained would destroy human
civilization.
Furthermore,
the ultimate commitment to humanity and crea-tivity does not even require us to
agree upon what are to be considered proper manifestations of humanity and
creativity. The only thing we need to agree upon is that all be committed to try
our best to manifest humanity and creativity, to earnestly put our ideas into
action, and to keep open communication between ourselves.
To
push the matter one step further, I do not even see why only the Chinese need to
be urged to make such an ultimate commitment. Something grown out of the Chinese
soil does not need to remain only Chinese. If the principle is truly
transcendent, then it would have to transcend the Chinese culture, so that
Chinese civilization becomes only one possible manifestation of the principle.
Not
only have the Chinese no monopoly of the principle, in fact, mainstream
contemporary Chinese thought has actually disowned its own tradition. The
failure to realize humanity in this world is a failure not only of the Chinese,
but of the world. Today does not differ from ancient time: human beings still
cannot bear to see the suffering of others. What we must commit ourselves to is
to find contemporary ways to reduce this suffering.
But
in fact the difference between various religious traditions does not seem to be
that great. Hans Kung proposed adopting huma-num as a universal criterion
for all traditions. Many contemporary Christian theologians now opt for symbols
of creativity and participa-tion, rather than sticking to the traditional
symbols of creator and domi-nation. They are working hard to find contemporary
manifestations for their ultimate concerns.
Thus,
our commitment to humanity and creativity is not only a commitment to adopt a
rational procedure to solve practical problems, but a commitment to something
substantive which helps us to distin-guish right from wrong, good from bad,
rational and responsible ac-tions from irrational and irresponsible actions. But
because the guidance it provides us is never complete, we cannot tell what
actually is helpful toward the course of humanity and creativity until concrete
situations are carefully and thoroughly examined. Thus we are not allowed to
pass judgments in an a priori fashion. In other words, only our
commitment is a priori, while all our concrete judgments are a
posteriori and must be subject to empirical enquiry without any exception.
In this we propose to overcome the difficulties faced by the so-called Kantian
formalism.
Wang
Yang-ming said:
Liang-chih
[innate knowledge of the good] does not come from hearing and seeing, and yet
all seeing and hearing are functions of liang-chih. Therefore liang-chih
is not impeded by seeing and hearing. Nor is it separated from seeing and
hearing.5
Seeing and hearing
indicate empirical inquiry, including scientific in-vestigations. Though it is
impossible to establish a foundation for morality via empirical scientific
studies, in order to manifest liang-chih or humanity in the world
empirical inquiry is highly relevant, indeed indispensable. As an illustration,
only if we have knowledge of nutrition would we be able to better follow the
guideline of treating our health well. Such knowledge cannot but progress along
with time.
Thus
liang-chih in itself is no different in the past and in the present, but
the functioning of liang-chih is different in different times and spaces.
If
my interpretation of Wang Yang-ming is correct, then what he said amounted to
just another way of spelling out some of the rich implications of li-i-fen-shu.
A reinterpretation of the dictum would in-deed help us find modern expressions
for the Confucian message of humanity and creativity.
CONCLUSION
I
must confess that I am indeed fighting a war on two fronts. In the attempt to
avoid the two extremes of absolutism and relativism, I am willing to take a
critical stance against both traditional and contem-porary philosophies. In
fact, tradition as it was did have a tendency to put too much emphasis on li-i.
It had a tendency to take certain ma-nifestations which were good for only a
limited time and space as something eternal and sacred. When these were made
absolute, they become fossilized shells bearing only the name of humanity,
though in fact often they were against humanity.
This
explains why we have to modernize by putting more em-phasis on fen-shu.
But when this tendency is pushed to the extreme of adopting an untenable radical
pluralism and relativism and shying away from the search for universal moral
principles, a revitalization of the spirit of tradition once again becomes
necessary.
Once
the ultimate commitment to humanity and creativity is established, I see no
insurmountable obstacles to finding a rapproche-ment with contemporary
attempts to reconstruct value inquiries such as those by John Rawls, Habermas
and Apel, etc. Only when the ultimate commitment to humanity and creativity is
combined with a down-to-earth pragmatism will we be able to find a direction for
the future.
The Chinese
University of Hong Kong
NOTES
1.
See Kenneth Baynes, James Bohman, and Thomas Mc-Carthy ed., After Philosophy
(Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1987).
2.
See Mou Tsung-san, Chih te chih-chiao yu chung-kuo che-hsueh
(Intellectual Intuition and Chinese Philosophy) (Taipei: Com-mercial Press,
1971); Hsien-hsiang yu wu-tze-sheng (Phenomenon and the Thing-in-itself;
Taipei: Student Book Co., 1975); Yuan-shan-lun On Summum Bonum
(Taipei: Student Book Co., 1985). I shall not provide extensive footnotes for my
discussion of Mou’s thoughts; for a general introduction of his philosophy,
see Shu-hsien Liu, "Postwar Neo-Confucian Philosophy: Its Development and
Issues" in Charles Wei-hsun Fu and Gerhard E. Spiegler ed., Religious
Issues and Inter-religious Dialogues (New York: Greenwood Press, 1989), pp.
288-293.
3.
Mou Tsung-san was of the opinion that the great Chu Hsi (1130-1200) was
"the side branch [taking] the position of orthodoxy" and did not
belong in the mainstream. For a discussion of the problem see Shu-hsien Liu,
"The Problem of Orthodoxy in Chu Hsi’s Philoso-phy" in Wing-tsit
Chan, ed., Chu Hsi and Neo-Confucianism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1986), pp. 437-460.
4.
Wing-tsit Chan, trans. and comp., A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), p. 78.