1 Introduction

Over the past few decades, there has been an increase in interest in examining and justifying political theories and regimes by reference to their meritocratic elements. Perhaps nowhere has this trend been moving more pervasively and powerfully than among scholars who are examining the ways in which East Asian philosophical traditions can fruitfully be brought into conversation with contemporary political theory. Most prominently, a range of scholars argue for a version of classical Chinese political meritocracy as an alternative to (Western) liberal democracy (Bell, Reference Bell2006, Reference Bell2015; Bell and Li, Reference Bell and Li2013). Such a call, and the assumptions that underpin it, give rise to a range of questions that advocates of contemporary political meritocracy have yet to fully examine.Footnote ¹

Notably, advocates of political meritocracy, particularly those offering prescriptions for contemporary China, often claim to be drawing on a long tradition of political meritocracy that is internal to Chinese culture. Upon closer inspection, however, it becomes clear that the object of interest of these scholars is for the most part a single strand of political meritocracy, that of (some version of) Confucianism. While it is very encouraging to see contemporary scholars acknowledging the value of mining China’s rich philosophical traditions, attempting to learn from them, and examining ways in which they may fruitfully be brought into conversation with and potentially provide answers to contemporary questions in political philosophy, the heavy focus on “Confucian political meritocracy” has restricted what we can learn from a vast, deep, and multivocal intellectual tradition.

There is a range of benefits in exploring the Chinese philosophical tradition for insights that may be of value for contemporary political theory, and we should be open to the idea not only that insights may be gleaned from investigating this tradition, but also that we may find robust theories applicable even in the vastly different world of today. Investigations into traditional Chinese ethical thought over the past several decades have demonstrated the value of understanding such ideas not only for those with interests in the historical development of ethical ideas but also for those engaged in normative theorizing today.Footnote ² The success of such endeavors justifies sustained investigation into traditional Chinese political thought for both historical and normative reasons. However, as is also true when investigating Chinese ethical thought, we can make no a priori determination as to which strand of Chinese political thought has the greatest potential to contribute to contemporary theory or whether any of the myriad strands will bear fruit. It is first necessary to trace the various strands of political thought found within the Chinese tradition and examine the arguments provided for the different positions offered (as well as ascertaining what arguments could be proffered in support of such positions).

Perhaps contemporary scholars drawing on the Chinese political tradition have focused primarily on the Confucian tradition because they are fundamentally interested in the idea of meritocracy and the role that it can and should play in contemporary politics. Since Confucianism, on most readings, advocates meritocracy in the political realm, it is perhaps natural to focus on Confucianism. Such a methodology, however, has several weaknesses. First, Confucianism does not provide the only vision of political meritocracy to be found in the Chinese tradition. Indeed, the vast majority, if not all, of the prominent political thinkers throughout China’s long intellectual history advocated versions of political meritocracy. Thus there is no a priori reason to privilege the Confucian version(s) of political meritocracy over those offered by Mozi, Laozi, Han Fei, or others. Second, insofar as the meritocratic visions of these thinkers differed from that of various Confucian thinkers, arguments against the Confucian position have been proffered, and these can help us understand not only the historical context of Confucian theorizing but also aspects of those theories themselves.

If the ultimate goal is to think about ways in which meritocracy can and should play a role in contemporary governance, and we have reason to think that the Chinese tradition offers arguments and insights into this issue, there are benefits to investigating this tradition more broadly than has been done to date. First, broadening our investigation to other strands of meritocratic thought in early China gives access to insights and arguments that may be more persuasive than those obtained by looking solely at the Confucian position. Second, insofar as these other traditions offer strong challenges to the Confucian version of political meritocracy, we should be concerned about the possible soundness of these criticisms and thus about the potential viability of any Confucian meritocratic theory. Perhaps Confucian meritocracy can overcome these challenges, and be stronger for having done so, but we can determine this only after first understanding competing versions of political meritocracy and the problems that these challengers saw in the Confucian position.Footnote ³

What, though, is meant by “meritocracy” in this case? There are a variety of ways that we can talk of meritocracy, and a variety of ways that we might examine meritocracy in early China. For the purposes of this Element, though, I conceptualize those with political merit as those who have the capacities, talents, and abilities that allow them most effectively to create and sustain social and political order; and I characterize a political meritocracy as a state or institution that aims to ensure that such meritorious individuals are placed in the positions that allow them effectively to bring about this social and political order. We could argue that some, such as Xunzi, might want to draw a connection between merit and desert or some other moral concept and say that those with political merit deserve to have political roles, or that this merit morally legitimizes their positions, rule, benefits, and so on. It is unclear, however, whether any of the other three thinkers investigated would agree.Footnote ⁴ What they do agree on, though, is that social order is a fundamental goal, that in their times governments were not effectively organized to achieve this goal, and that it was possible to identify those talents, capacities, and abilities that would allow one to aid the state in achieving this goal and also to identify which individuals possessed these talents. Whatever other merits these thinkers might envision as arising from identifying politically relevant merits and their possessors, we can see the four texts under investigation as agreeing that, absent the ability to do so, social and political order would remain tenuous at best.

This Element, then, looks at the meritocratic political visions elucidated in four sophisticated and influential philosophical texts from the Warring States era of China (403–221 bce): the Mozi, the Daodejing of Laozi, the Xunzi, and the Han Feizi.Footnote ⁵ These texts are not chosen because they are the only texts from the time period that express meritocratic visions or because they are seen as “representative” of particular schools of thought. Rather, we can draw out of them a conversation about what sorts of merit are politically relevant and why. The goal of this Element is to begin to show the complexity of the intellectual landscape of the time and to lay out the positions expressed in these texts in the most sympathetic manner possible, demonstrating the intellectual acumen evidenced and providing the reader with defensible arguments that will be valuable not only historically but also for those wishing to bring these meritocratic visions into more direct conversation with contemporary concerns.

To this end, this Element consists of four substantive sections, each detailing not only the meritocratic vision found within these texts but also the arguments that are (or could be) proffered in support of each account and against alternate conceptions. Section 2 of this Element examines the role that merit plays in the political philosophy of the Xunzi. We begin with this text not because it is the earliest – the Mozi and (at least parts of) the Laozi predate it. However, within this text we find the most complete articulation of a vision of meritocracy that the other three texts examined spend considerable time arguing against. And, since much of the contemporary discourse on Chinese views of meritocracy also draws primarily on Confucian conceptions of meritocracy similar to Xunzi’s, it may be useful to use this vision as a starting point. Xunzi, who saw himself as developing the philosophical ideas of his predecessor Kongzi (Confucius), believed that it was impossible to discuss political order without first examining moral order as the only solid foundation for political order – the only way that the latter could be ensured was by seating it firmly on a moral foundation. For the Xunzi, politically relevant merit is heavily normative, and those who merit positions of power within the state are those who have cultivated in themselves the virtues that allow them to appropriately identify what actions should be taken and why. This is not to say that task-specific abilities are irrelevant to the business of ruling. However, on the Xunzi’s account, these nonmoral talents and abilities are only of use when they are appropriately directed – and it is only once one has become virtuous that one can determine how appropriately to orient and implement these other skills and talents.

Section 3 of this Element examines the role that meritocracy plays in the political thought presented in the Mozi. In doing so, it focuses primarily on the two triads of chapters entitled “Elevating the Worthy” and “Identifying Upward,” where the Mozi identifies politically relevant merit as consisting of the ability to identify the things that increase the collective well-being of those within a given political entity and effectively implementing policies that will ensure the maximization of these things. Unlike the Xunzi (or, in a certain sense, the Laozi), the Mozi does not see the cultivation of moral goods or virtues as relevant to the task of politics, and thus its political meritocracy sees moral psychology as largely irrelevant. Rather, the merits relevant to governing are those abilities that allow those in offices to control and redirect the various desires of those under their rule, influencing their behavior so that they willingly work to maximize the wealth, order, and population of the state – the three primary foci of the Mohist consequentialist vision.

In Section 4, we turn to the Laozi, which lays out an important critique of the position that Xunzi develops. In particular, the Laozi provides a warning against striving to develop the Confucian virtues, against the distinctions and divisions that this gives rise to, and, most importantly, against the unnatural and inauthentic desires that necessarily arise if we follow the advice of either the Xunzi or the Mozi. While the text itself offers much less in terms of an explicit positive account of politically relevant merit, it is possible to reconstruct and elaborate on the sorts of merits that consistently emerge from the Laozi’s overall position, and this is a central task of this section.

The final account of politically relevant merit examined, in Section 5, is that of the Han Feizi. Drawing on aspects of the Mozi and the Laozi, while simultaneously rejecting vast swaths of both, Han Fei develops a state-consequentialist vision that sees the importation of any sort of morality into the political sphere as potentially disastrous. On his account, not only does a stable political order not rest upon an underlying moral order, but any political order so supported is necessarily unstable and in danger of collapse. Given this, the politically relevant merits to be sought out and developed are simply nonmoral, task-specific talents and abilities. In developing this technocratic vision of political meritocracy, the Han Feizi lays out a series of arguments against not only the virtue-based position of the Xunzi but also the more naturalistic Laozian and Mohist accounts of political merit.

Before I begin, a few points should be clarified. First, while I speak of these four texts as engaging in a conversation, I mean this in an abstract sense. These texts are not directly arguing against one another. Rather, in developing their own positive political visions, they attack a range of alternate views that are in the intellectual milieu of their times, and we see expressions of these alternate views in the other texts under discussion. Thus, even though parts of the Laozi were compiled before the Xunzi, it contains important critiques of the basic political vision that the Xunzi works to develop and defend. Similarly, while Han Fei was a later contemporary of Xunzi, not only do we find within the Han Feizi criticisms of the positions in the Xunzi; we also find within the Xunzi critiques of positions later developed in the Han Feizi.

Second, throughout, I analyze specific texts rather than speaking more broadly of the “schools” of thought to which these texts were later attributed. There are certainly connections and similarities between the Xunzi and earlier (as well as later) texts within the Confucian tradition, but it would be a mistake to assume that the vision of political meritocracy found within the Xunzi is identical to the visions found within the Mengzi (Mencius) or the Analects of Kongzi (Confucius), even though Xunzi self-consciously saw himself as developing the vision of Kongzi (in much the same way as Mengzi did). When we move to the Laozi and the Han Feizi, texts often labeled “Daoist” and “Legalist” respectively, the worry becomes even greater: Neither of these thinkers self-identified as members of the groups to which they were attached centuries after their deaths, a point discussed by numerous scholars (for example, Csikszentmihalyi and Nylan, Reference 62Csikszentmihalyi and Nylan2003; Smith, Reference Smith2003).

Finally, as we work our way through these four texts, it would be a mistake to focus merely on similarities or differences. Rather, as Lee Yearley has noted, it is more profitable to delve deeper, looking for similarities within differences and differences within similarities: It is at this level that the greatest potential for philosophical advancement arises (Yearley, Reference Yearley1990, 195). It is my hope that this Element provides the reader with the tools to continue this search.

2 The Xunzi 荀子

We begin with the text attributed to Xun Kuang 荀況 (c. 312–230 bce), better known by his honorific, Xunzi (literally “Master Xun”). In recent decades, Xunzi’s text has been interpreted by many as articulating a form of virtue ethics (Ivanhoe, Reference Ivanhoe2000; Schofer, Reference Schofer, Kline and Ivanhoe2000; Hutton, Reference 64Hutton, Besser-Jones and Slote2015) and more recently as offering a virtue-based political theory that could be characterized as “virtue politics” (Harris, Reference Harris and Hutton2016b; Kim, Reference Kim2020).Footnote ⁶ Xunzi’s fundamental contention is that the only way to ensure political order, and thus the only way to achieve a stable, secure, and long-lasting political entity that allows those within it to truly flourish, is to develop the political structure from ethical roots. In the political realm, merit is conceived as heavily normative, and success can be guaranteed only if those given positions of power are those who have cultivated in themselves the virtues that allow them to appropriately identify what political actions should be taken and why. Xunzi does not deny the relevance of task-specific abilities and talents to the project of ruling. However, we find within the text an argument that nonmoral talents and abilities are only of use when they are appropriately directed – and it is only when one becomes virtuous that one is able to determine how to orient and implement these other skills and talents appropriately. No matter how varied and comprehensive the abilities and talents of those within the state, the state itself, and thus the communities and individuals within it, can flourish only if the overarching social and political decisions are made by those of fully developed moral merits.

Chapter 12 of the Xunzi begins:

There is much within this passage to unpack that is relevant to our understanding of the Xunzi’s conception of morally relevant merit. On one level, the discussion is over the relative merits of what contemporary political philosophers describe as the “rule of law” versus the “rule by man,” with Xunzi coming down on the side of the latter. It is insufficient, Xunzi argues, simply to set up a system of laws and regulations and unfailingly adhere to them. Political merit does not consist in the ability to follow a set of laws oneself. Nor does it lie in an ability to implement and apply a set of laws to govern those within societies. Nor does it consist solely in developing such a set of laws. Rather, Xunzi’s focus is on the virtuous individual – the “gentleman” (junzi 君子) in Xunzi’s parlance – “as the innovator, interpreter, and executor of the law,” while the “role accorded to the objective laws themselves” is ancillary (Ames, Reference Ames1994, 192).

Xunzi’s claim is not merely that the content of laws and regulations matters. This is something that can be acknowledged by advocates of the rule of law, including one of its earliest champions, Han Fei, as we shall see. Rather, in much the same way that Xunzi’s particularist virtue ethics takes the ethical standards leading to a flourishing life not to be fully codifiable, so too does his political theory argue that the standards for a strong, stable, and flourishing state cannot be fully codified (Hutton, Reference 64Hutton, Besser-Jones and Slote2015; Harris, Reference Harris and Hutton2016b). This implies that the task of governing is not simply one of determining what set of laws or regulations should be employed or figuring out when specific rules have been violated. No matter how comprehensive the laws, judgment is necessary to determine not only how to apply these rules in any scenario but also whether to apply them.

In Western legal literature, a similar point about the insufficiency of rules on their own is captured by H. L. A. Hart’s discussion of the “open texture” of the law (Hart, Reference Hart1994, 130). For a variety of reasons, including the fact that language itself is fundamentally open-textured but also because it is impossible for those developing and instituting laws to have a full grasp of all the various ways that future circumstances could come together, mechanical jurisprudence is simply impossible (as much as thinkers such as Han Fei may wish it to be otherwise). Xunzi would agree with Hart that judgment is ineliminably essential. Further, regarding the need for certainty and predictability and the need for flexibility and adaptability that Hart understands to be in conflict with one another, Xunzi is clearly more concerned with the latter. What is important, Xunzi says, is to understand what underlies the rules and regulations that exist. Governing the state is not like playing a game of chess, in which the task is to work within the rules of the game to win the game. Nor is it like the assembly-line production of an automobile, where success arises simply from following a clearly articulated set of procedures resulting in any number of identical automobiles.

Governing the state is not like playing a game of chess because it is possible to step back from the rules and evaluate them. At an important level, it makes no sense to say that the rules of chess are bad. The game exists only because of the rules – it is these rules that determine what the game of chess is, what constitutes winning, what players are good, and so on. If the rules are changed, it is no longer the same game. However, we can (and should) evaluate the rules of government. In governing, the goal is not simply to apply a set of laws or regulations. Rather, the goal of governing, from Xunzi’s perspective, is to provide a social and political order that best allows for the flourishing of the community as well as the individuals therein. If the rules do not do this, they are bad rules. Thus, in governing, unlike in chess, there is a clear standpoint beyond the game itself for evaluating the rules of the game.

Governing is also unlike the assembly-line production of an automobile insofar as it is not a mechanistic process of putting together particular pieces of material in a predetermined order and fashion. People are different. Circumstances vary. Things do not simply remain the same eternally. And in order to react to these changes, one must understand how such changes and variances affect the efficacy of the rules and regulations that have as their goal the creation and preservation of an ideal society in which human and societal flourishing is possible. Political merit requires this understanding.

It may be useful to think of the rules and regulations that Xunzi advocates as being connected to two more fundamental concepts that are of paramount importance to him – rituals (li 禮) and social norms (yi 義).Footnote ⁹ As Xunzi says in the beginning of Chapter 19,

On Xunzi’s account, rituals and social norms were created by the sage kings of the past based on an understanding of the qualities of Heaven, earth, and human beings. While invented, they are not arbitrary. Rather, given an understanding of the way that the world actually is and the way that human beings actually are, it is possible to develop a set of rituals and social norms that, if followed, typically allow for human and social flourishing. As Xunzi says in Chapter 17,

Xunzi’s analogy of putting up marker flags to indicate where to ford a river is apt. Marker flags are created by human beings; they do not exist in the natural world, and they are developed and placed by human beings who have a goal – to easily cross a river at its shallowest point. They are not, and cannot be, arbitrary. Where to place the indicator flags for the river ford depends both on the goals of those placing the flags and on the actual features of the natural world. If you wish to cross a river, it behooves you to follow the markers placed by those who came before you who figured out the best places to cross. The rituals and social norms advocated by Xunzi were created in much the same way.

Several things emerge from this picture, one of which is particularly relevant. Rituals, much like the markers of the appropriate spot to ford a river, are not set and unvarying. A torrential flood during the rainy season, for example, may well cause significant changes to a riverbed such that the original markers would no longer pick out the best place to ford that river. In much the same way, changes in the natural world (or in human beings) could well lead to it not being appropriate to follow a particular ritual or norm.Footnote ¹⁰

No society can simply implement the rituals and norms of an earlier one to guarantee success, regardless of how gifted those who created them were and how appropriate those rituals and norms were to that age. A social system created by morally cultivated individuals simply cannot be maintained by those who lack the epistemological privilege of the cultivated. This is not merely because those without the sage’s understanding may change or violate the rituals and norms due to a lack of understanding of their value. Rather, without understanding what underlies rituals and norms, we cannot determine when or if rituals and norms no longer achieve their aims and thus we are unable to modify them as appropriate. Any system that relies on rituals and norms in the way that Xunzi believes is necessary must depend on those who understand what underlies these rituals and norms. The system relies upon the merits of those who understand the Way – the naturalistic morality that Xunzi elaborates.Footnote ¹¹

For Xunzi, the Way (dao 道) is a single, unified standard that, if followed, allows for human flourishing. And while he does not lay out clearly how this Way evolved, “he clearly believed that the sages had brought the process to a successful conclusion and that [his] Way provided the unique solution which would be valid for all times” (Ivanhoe, Reference Ivanhoe1991, 318). This idea of a unique solution can be seen in Xunzi’s claim in Chapter 21 that “There are not two Ways for the world, and the sage is not of two minds” (Hutton, Reference Hutton2014, 224).Footnote ¹² This Way for Xunzi, as discussed in Chapter 8, “is not the Way of Heaven nor the Way of Earth. Rather, it is that by which humans make their Way and that which the gentleman takes as his Way” (Hutton, Reference Hutton2014, 55). It is vital that those who work within the state’s administration possess an understanding of this Way, for, as we see in Chapter 12, “If the Way is preserved, then the state will be preserved; if the Way is lost, then the state will be lost” (Hutton, Reference Hutton2014, 123).

This Way is a distinctly human Way, a method for thriving in the world as it is. Grasping this requires an understanding of the broader world and our relationship to it, which includes a more expansive understanding of the broader Way and the values internal to the practice of the Way. It is only from a position of such epistemological privilege that one is able to understand both what should be done in the political realm and why doing so is justifiable (Harris, Reference Harris2017). Based upon his understanding of this Way, Xunzi defends a particular set of rituals and norms that give rise to a heavily normative sense of community with particular allotments and divisions that provide the best chance for humans to survive and thrive in an indifferent world (Harris, Reference Harris and Hutton2016b, 99–112).

What it means to be meritorious is understanding this Way, implementing these rituals and norms, and responding appropriately in the social and political realm in such a fashion that all have the best chance of thriving, and it is this perspective that Xunzi’s morally cultivated gentleman takes as the basis for his actions. Further, possessing this worthiness is possessing something different in kind from the other talents and abilities that one might possess. As Xunzi notes in Chapter 8,

Indeed, Xunzi in Chapter 8 acknowledges that the morally cultivated individual lacks many talents and abilities that are to be found throughout the world: “In evaluating the quality of soil … the gentleman is inferior to the farmer. In distinguishing the valuable from the cheap, the gentleman is inferior to the merchant. In using a compass and square … the gentleman is inferior to the artisan” (Hutton, Reference Hutton2014, 55). However,

On Xunzi’s account, political order arises in large part when those with the relevant merits are assigned to engage in the appropriate tasks within the state bureaucratic system. To achieve this, those tasked with assigning individuals their respective tasks must understand what qualities are necessary for what positions. Furthermore, the most fundamental qualities will be moral traits rather than technical competencies.

In Chapter 12, the Xunzi lays out the qualities that constitute the relevant merit to hold positions within the politico-bureaucratic system. At the lowest levels, officials must be “sincere, honest, restrained, and hardworking, meticulous and parsimonious in calculating, without daring to leave out or lose anything” (Hutton, Reference Hutton2014, 131). To move up the bureaucratic ranks, it is necessary to continue developing relevant merits, becoming someone who is

Then, reaching the highest level of state service and becoming a premier, prime minister, counsellor, or assistant to the ruler requires

There are a range of important points to be drawn from Xunzi’s discussion here. First, as already seen, the focus is on moral qualities such as personal integrity rather than on technical expertise. Second, the merit required to move up the ranks appears to consist, in large part, in ever more thoroughgoing moral self-cultivation and internalization of the values of the Way. And while the focus in these passages is on the political relevance of these moral traits, the advancement through the ranks depicted here mirrors what Xunzi says elsewhere about moral cultivation.

The first step in moral cultivation is to understand exactly what is in one’s long-term interests. If, for example, being cultivated, careful, upright, and correct is what allows one to become an official, then there are self-interested reasons for acting in these ways. However, there is no reason to think that one who acts in this way to attain a position has internalized these traits. Rather, one might simply be Kant’s shopkeeper who acts honestly solely because of the benefits that accrue from so acting, rather than due to an understanding and acceptance of the idea that honesty is the morally right thing to do. In both cases, it may not matter – at the social level at least – why the individual in question is being honest. So long as they are reliably honest, social benefit will accrue.

However, if one acts only in accordance with honesty, contentiousness, and the other moral values Xunzi sees essential in even the lowest of officials, there will always be the worry that one’s more fundamental reasons for action will, at times, lead one away from these values. If one is acting honestly only because of the benefits that accrue by doing so, then if the incentive structure changes, one may no longer have reason to maintain honesty. It is, for example, usually in my interests not to steal candy bars from convenience stores insofar as the negative consequences of getting caught far outweigh the positive consequences of free candy bars. If, however, a citywide blackout knocking out all surveillance cameras coincides with large-scale political protests in another part of town, ensuring that all police are drawn away from my local convenience store, it may well make sense for me to wander over and stock up on free candy bars.

Given Xunzi’s conception of human nature, this is a real worry. If people are fundamentally self-interested, then any time their own interests diverge from the moral values that Xunzi advocates, they will have no reason to follow these moral values. Therefore, as we move up the politico-bureaucratic ladder, we see an increasing emphasis not merely on actions but on motivations. One who is cultivated, upright, and correct, who exalts the proper model and who lacks any internal motivation to be drawn astray, is someone who has internalized the values inherent in Xunzi’s Way. Such a person is no longer acting in such a fashion as to maximize their own preexisting interests. Rather, there is an actual change in individuals’ desires so that they are in harmony with the Way.Footnote ¹³ One of the implications is that those things that are morally meritorious are also those things that are politically meritorious, and thus politically relevant merit has as its foundation morally relevant merit. Achieving the former is simply impossible without the prior or concurrent achievement of the latter.

One might challenge this interpretation of Xunzi’s political theory by appealing to various passages throughout the that speak quite positively about political rulers labelled “hegemons,” who are distinct from morally cultivated “true kings.” Hegemons are described in Chapter 7 as those who

True kings, on the other hand, were those who took education to be fundamental, who were themselves morally cultivated, who pursued good form and patterns, and who made the hearts of the people submit. At the ethical level, the difference between the two is quite apparent. However, it is perhaps less apparent why this difference matters at the political level. Further, Xunzi’s own words give us even greater reason to question whether moral cultivation is necessary, or if a hegemon may be sufficient. In Chapter 11, Xunzi describes hegemons as those who,

If Xunzi’s goal is a well-ordered world, and if he acknowledges that order advances when hegemons are in power, even though they are not morally cultivated, why think that morality is a relevant merit for rulership? The hegemon places his state in a very stable and safe position, chooses successful standards that the people reliably follow, and is trusted both internally and abroad. Furthermore, while Xunzi here claims that the hegemon is not yet fully virtuous and his understanding and application of the appropriate norms is not yet perfected, he elsewhere acknowledges that the hegemon does care about right and wrong, abides by trustworthiness, and does at times place norms before considerations of profit (Hutton, Reference Hutton2014, 103–104).

Xunzi accepts that states could do much worse than have a hegemon at the helm. However, he is not and, given the structure of his moral meritocracy, cannot be satisfied with such a condition. Xunzi is committed to the idea that as politico-bureaucratic responsibilities increase, the importance of moral cultivation also increases. But there is, we may think, no position of greater responsibility than that of ruler. So, if the ruler can successfully rule without having cultivated himself morally, this would call into question the necessity of moral cultivation in the lower levels of the politico-bureaucratic structure. This, in turn, would call into question the very idea that politically relevant merit is inexorably tied to moral merit.

One response would be to argue that the ruler is simply a figurehead, and that so long as decisions are made by a morally cultivated prime minister who has filled the politico-bureaucratic structure with others who have demonstrated that they possess the appropriate politically relevant moral merits, the state can be successfully run. This would not satisfy Xunzi, however, for at least two reasons. First, while some rulers might be content to simply be figureheads and not act in the political realm, this cannot be guaranteed, and there is no structural way to prevent the ruler from overriding the decisions of a virtuous prime minister and acting contrary to the dictates of virtue, ritual, and appropriate norms. Second, it is unclear whether rulers who are not fully virtuous could reliably install virtuous prime ministers even if they so desired. While hegemons sometimes accord with the appropriate norms, and this might, depending on circumstances, lead them to elevate a worthy individual to the position of prime minister, other motivations could always lead the hegemon astray. Perhaps more fundamental, however, is the epistemological question – would rulers who are not fully virtuous themselves be able to accurately ascertain who among the possible ministerial candidates are fully virtuous as opposed to simply pretending to be virtuous in order to get the position?Footnote ¹⁴

Xunzi, then, must be committed to the idea that a morally cultivated “true king” is essential if his vision of morally undergirded political order and flourishing is to be not only created but maintained long-term. And this is for a variety of reasons. First, only the true king is fully virtuous and thus only the true king will take the appropriate rituals and norms as the foundations for his rule. Second, only the true king will have a transformative power on the people, benefiting them not merely by providing them with the necessities of life but also by helping them to themselves transform, developing new sources of value that will allow them to truly flourish within the community. Third, since only the fully virtuous understand what underlies appropriate rituals and norms, and these are the basis for the sorts of divisions and distinctions of any successful social or political community, only the true king will be able to form the sort of community that can truly last and allow humans to flourish.

Finally, Xunzi might well acknowledge that a hegemon could take over the reins from a prior true king and thus inherit a state in which the appropriate laws, rituals, and norms had already been actualized and continue to implement them. However, this is insufficient to ensure a stable, well-ordered, and flourishing state. Even the best-intentioned of hegemons will lack a full understanding of the sources of these components and will thus be unable to adjust them appropriately. Rituals are those things that set out in detail the kind of conduct that normally expresses the sort of character embodying appropriate norms (Harris, Reference Harris and Hutton2016b, 134). If the ruler does not fully comprehend the sources of ritual and norms and thus applies them mechanistically, problems are sure to arise. While Xunzi does not believe that the rituals will themselves change in any fundamental way, this does not preclude the possibility of the laws that arise out of the values espoused in the rituals and norms changing as a result of any of a variety of external changes (in population, environment, etc.). If the ruler lacks a full understanding of the Way that underlies the various components of the political structure that he inherited, he will be unable to effectively adjust them based on circumstances. Furthermore, as he does not understand the fundamentals, he may at times not grasp the importance of particular laws or rituals and may change them to the detriment of the state. Only the fully cultivated individual is capable of knowing when and how to make appropriate judgments.Footnote ¹⁵ As we have already seen Xunzi say,

3 The Mozi 墨子

Mozi (Master Mo) refers both to the person Mo Di 墨翟 (c. fifth century bce) and to the eponymous book likely compiled by his followers. Mo Di was the founder of what came to be known as the Mohists, an actual, organized, utopian social movement, and he was perhaps the first true philosopher of China – the Mohists, “as challengers of traditional values … are the first Chinese thinkers to defend their principles by rational debate” (Graham, Reference Graham1978, 4). The text bearing Mo Di’s name provides a rich trove of discussions not merely on ethics and political thought but also on logic, military theory and practical techniques, and science.Footnote ¹⁶

For our purposes, the essays on “Elevating the Worthy” (Chapters 8–10) and “Identifying Upward” (Chapters 11–13) provide the most through explication of both the role that the Mohists saw for merit in the political realm and the content of this merit. In Chapter 8, the Mozi begins by describing the goals of the rulers of its time and asking why these rulers all fail to achieve what they set for themselves:

Mozi proceeds to articulate the reason: “This is because the kings, dukes, and great officials who rule over their states are unable to honor the worthy and employ the capable in governing. Thus, if a state has numerous worthy and excellent officials, then good order will be secure, while if it has few worthy and excellent officials, then good order will be tenuous” (Johnston, Reference Johnston2010, 55). In the same chapter, Mozi goes on to laud the governments of the sage kings in the Golden Age of the past, telling us,

Note that Mozi does not take himself to be challenging the goals of the rulers of his time. He is not saying that their fundamental concerns should be different. Rather, his point is that the rulers of this time have faulty means–end reasoning. They do not seem to understand that their actions are sabotaging their own self-professed goals.

One of the problems Mozi articulates in “Elevating the Worthy” is that while in smaller affairs, respect for those who possess relevant merits continues, it has been lost when dealing with greater affairs; the text begins to pick apart the general mode of governing of Mozi’s time, often turning to analogies. When it comes time to butcher a sheep or ox, Mozi notes, the king will send for an accomplished butcher. If he has fine cloth that he wishes to make into clothing, the king will send for a skilled tailor. If he has a sick horse, he will send for a proficient veterinarian. And if he has an overly stiff bow, the king will send for a talented craftsman to refurbish it. In none of these cases will the king rely upon kith or kin or appeal to those who are rich, noble, or of fine appearance. Why is this? Because being related to the ruler, having wealth or noble titles, or having a particularly fine visage are irrelevant to the tasks of butchering an ox, sewing fine cloth, curing an infirm horse, or refurbishing a fine bow. However, when it comes to organizing and running the state, the same ruler has no compunction about handing out political and administrative positions to his relatives and friends or to those with money, noble rank, or fine appearances – qualifications irrelevant to the tasks at hand (Johnston, Reference Johnston2010, 69–70, 83; Loy, Reference Loy, Defoort and Standaert2013, 210–211).

Worthiness, on the Mozi’s account, refers to the talents and abilities that make one capable of effectively completing tasks rather than to specific moral qualities as we saw in the Xunzi. Furthermore, as the discussion of butchers, veterinarians, tailors, and craftsmen indicates, there should be no expectation of finding someone who is worthy, full stop, just as we today do not think that there are people who are experts, full stop. Rather, if someone is an expert, then they are an expert at X, Y, and/or Z, not everything. We do not expect a cancer specialist to be an expert archer, diesel mechanic, and kindergarten teacher. After all, even the greatest of Renaissance men, Leonardo da Vinci, failed when he turned his hand to hydraulic engineering and the diversion of the Arno river (Masters, Reference Masters1998, 81–133).

What is necessary in the political realm is to identify those task-specific talents and abilities that make one a meritorious administrator or politician. When searching for meritorious butchers, the success criteria may be clear – they are the ones who can reliably and effectively carve up the carcass of a sheep or ox into usable pieces with little waste.Footnote ¹⁸ At this stage, the Mozi’s discussion seems to resonate with what we have earlier seen in the Xunzi. However, while Xunzi and Mozi may well agree about the merit relevant to the slaughtering of animals, they diverge in their accounts of the merit relevant to political concerns. Just what, then, is the Mohist vision of politically relevant merit?

Finding an answer to this question requires digging into the Mozi’s rhetoric of elevating the worthy to determine what it is that makes one worthy.Footnote ¹⁹ Recall that the triad of chapters on “Elevating the Worthy” began with a discussion of the goals of the kings, dukes, and great officials: to maximize the wealth, order, and population of the state. This is a refrain to which the text returns time and time again as it develops a vision of state consequentialism. In today’s world, and particularly in a China that since the 1970s has implemented a range of policies, some quite draconian, to reduce birth rates, it may seem strange to advocate maximizing population. However, we must understand this within the context of the time in which the Mohists were active. This was the Warring States period, so called because of the near constant warfare, struggle, and strife that depleted population numbers on a regular basis. When coupled with deaths from flooding, famine, and other natural and man-made disasters, all regular occurrences, simply maintaining a sufficiently high population for a state to survive was a real concern.

The Mozi’s advocacy of wealth maximization also has the potential to be misunderstood. The goal is not to maximize the wealth of the ruler or to ensure that everyone has access to the latest labor-saving devices or luxury goods. The Mozi is not an advocate of a capitalist consumerist society where our every materialist desire is satiated. Indeed, similar to what we shall see in the Laozi, the Mohists were explicitly against luxury, focusing instead on ensuring that everyone had those things necessary for life (Johnston, Reference Johnston2010, 199). Again, the Mozi must be read within the context of its times. Maximizing wealth meant reducing the number of people dying from famine, disease, and warfare and ensuring that even the poorest within the state had the necessities of life. Whether the Mozi would continue to advocate wealth maximization in situations where all the basic necessities of life were met for all within the state is a question we could pose to the Mohists – but one which they never directly answer.Footnote ²⁰

Maximizing order is perhaps the easiest goal to understand. The Mozi advocates political order, the achievement of states disturbed neither by war with other states nor by civil war within their own boundaries; states where everyone follows the laws and the people do need not worry that others, be they strangers or neighbors, are thieves or robbers; states where the threat of violence from whatever source is minimized. Again, there is a similarity to Xunzi: Both were interested in political order and saw the ability to establish and maintain such order to be one of the most central merits in the political realm. And this is a similarity that we see echoed again when we turn to Han Fei. However, these thinkers differed substantially on just what merits were necessary to achieve and ensure a strong, stable, and flourishing state.

On the Mohist account, the politically relevant merit evidenced by the worthy are those talents and abilities that allow people within the state to work effectively to maximize the population, wealth, and order of the state. But this still leaves much unclear. It may be instructive to examine what the Mozi sees as the greatest dangers to the state by investigating its conception of the “state of nature.” As the opening passage of the triad of chapters on “Identifying Upward” says:

The first reaction of readers with a background in the history of Western philosophy will likely be to notice the similarities of this description to the vision of the state of nature found in Hobbes’s Leviathan: an unrelenting and unrewarding war of all against all. However, unlike what we see in Hobbes (who is closer to Xunzi and Han Fei on this matter) the conflict found within the state of nature does not arise because we have shared desires leading us to compete and contend over scarce resources. Rather, while the Mozi’s account agrees with Hobbes about the fact of unending conflict, and while it has an equally dark vision of life in such circumstances as “nasty, brutish, and short,” the cause of the conflict is importantly different. As Loy (Reference Loy2005) notes, the Mozi takes people to be led into conflict with one another because they hold conflicting and irreconcilable conceptions of what is right and wrong and take their own views to be regulative for others, not just themselves. Given this, the Mozi takes the fundamental political task to be one of unifying the people around a single understanding of right and wrong – a unified set of norms. These norms are tied to the maximizing of wealth, order, and population – those things that the Mozi takes to maximize the collective well-being of the group. The worthy, then, are those who see this, who work from the perspective of the collective rather than the narrow perspective of their own self-interest. They are, simply, those who work to implement policies that center around the promotion of a unified set of norms for right and wrong that prioritize the collective by working to maximize wealth, order, and population.Footnote ²²

So far, then, we have a picture of Mohist meritocracy that is tied to the promotion of worthy individuals who uphold appropriate norms of right and wrong that are tied to a vision of state consequentialism. However, this still leaves quite a bit open. While most interpreters of the Mozi see a moral vision undergirding its political philosophy (Lowe, Reference Lowe1992; Van Norden, Reference Van Norden2007; Fraser, Reference Fraser2016), such an understanding is consistent with a point that it often obscures. Regardless of whether the ultimate goal of the Mohists has a nature that is religious, moral, or normative in some other (perhaps purely political) sense, worthiness is often best understood as a technical competency rather than a moral ideal. Unlike what we saw in the Xunzi, one who is worthy in the Mozi is not one who has cultivated, developed, or inculcated a set of virtuous dispositions that provide one with an epistemological privilege not readily accessible by others. As a consequence, there is no idea that a process of moral cultivation endows worthy individuals with a set of moral capacities that allow them to fluidly move through the political realm with an understanding of how to respond optimally to political questions and concerns.

The Mohist worthy does understand how to respond optimally, but this understanding is not gained from an epistemological privilege dependent upon moral cultivation. Rather, Mozi’s political epistemology appeals to standards available in principle to all, as we see in Chapter 35:

As Van Norden elucidates (Reference Van Norden2007, 153–161), we can think of these three standards as indicators of truth: 1) precedent refers both to secondhand reports and expert testimony; 2) evidence refers to firsthand observations – evidence gathered by our own senses; while 3) application is a standard that appeals to the good consequences arising from acting in accordance with a particular doctrine. And, as indicators of the truth, these are accessible to us all but also require that we engage our critical capabilities of discrimination, reasoning, and evaluation to make determinations and draw conclusions from these standards.Footnote ²³

What sets worthy individuals apart is the depth of their application of critical reasoning to their understanding of facts about the natural world and human beings. Worthies are not merely those who have a theoretical grasp of these three standards, though this is important. Rather, they are those capable of combining an understanding of these standards with a deep understanding of the relevant aspects of the world around them and turning these into actions directed at the goals of maximizing wealth, order, and population. It is here that we return to our earlier idea of worthiness as a technical competency.

Drawing this distinction between a technical and a moral competency does not mean that the technical competencies that Mozi advocates as being politically relevant are divorced from morality. Insofar as these technical competencies revolve around doing the things that maximize wealth, order, and population in the state, they are connected to his state-consequentialist conception of morality. However, unlike Xunzian virtue politics, beyond identifying the goals to be achieved, morality is not essential to the project of governing. Once the normative political goals of the state have been ascertained, the task becomes one of combining technical competency with critical reasoning skills to most efficiently achieve these goals. One need not ask whether a particular tool or method is immoral. Once the goal is determined, whatever action most efficiently achieves that goal will be the appropriate one.

In the Xunzi, morality can never disappear; it is necessary not only for ascertaining what goals should be achieved but also for determining how to go about achieving these goals (and why). The politically meritorious Xunzian must not only do the right things, they must do them because they understand the underlying structure of the Way and how (and why) doing so in any particular instance is the right thing to do. And finally, their desires must accord with the Way so that they enjoy doing these things more than any other alternative. For the Xunzi, transforming society requires the moral cultivation and transformation of at least some of the populace, and the politically meritorious are those who have so cultivated themselves. There is not even the potential for akrasia among Xunzian sages.

The Mohists, on the other hand, believed that society could be transformed without the inculcation of new sources of value. What was needed was a transformation of actions, not of motives. The Mohist worthy individual “is defined by his behavior and not by any state of illumination or supramundane insight” (Lowe, Reference Lowe1992, 81). And this is not only true in his understanding of worthiness: We see it as well in his understanding of a wide range of other terms relevant to attaining merit including “benevolence” (ren 仁) and social norms (yi). The Mozi is a strong advocate of both benevolence and social norms, just as Xunzi and other Confucians valued these ideals. However, the conceptions of benevolence and righteousness that we see articulated in the Mozi are substantially different from those we see in the Xunzi.

The importance of these concepts is undeniable. As we see in Mozi Chapter 11, in the golden age of the past, “The village head was the most benevolent person in the village … The district head was the most benevolent person in the district … The ruler of the state was the most benevolent person in the state …” (Johnston, Reference Johnston2010, 95). What makes these leaders “benevolent”? It is their ability to unify the norms for right and wrong (yi) of the people under their control – not with whatever norms they themselves happened to hold, but, rather, with the norms advocated by their superior. This goes all the way to the top of the politico-bureaucratic hierarchy to the “Son of Heaven,” the supreme ruler. And this is why the sage kings of the past used such standards of righteousness in determining who would receive their beneficence, as described in Chapter 8:

Such actions on the part of the sage kings of the past led those who were wealthy and eminent, those who were kith and kin, and those who were far removed from the sage kings to alter their actions because they realized that in order to gain the things that they desired, they must follow the norms of righteousness. It was adherence to these norms that gave rise to political order at all levels. As Mozi says in Chapter 11,

This process of unifying norms throughout all levels of the political realm is the linchpin of Mozi’s conception of political order, and it is those who have the capacity to so unify norms who merit roles throughout the politico-bureaucratic hierarchy.Footnote ²⁴ However, the norms that are followed at these various levels are no more arbitrary than Xunzi’s rituals and norms. It is not up to district leaders to select their own norms. Rather, they must ensure that their norms accord with those of the ruler of the state. And the rulers of states cannot simply choose their own norms – theirs must accord with the norms of the Son of Heaven. More importantly, on Mozi’s account, even the Son of Heaven – the ruler of the entire world, whoever holds the highest and broadest political power – cannot simply implement whatever norms he prefers (Brindley, Reference Brindley2007). And this was not what the sage kings of the past did either. They were not the arbitrators of the appropriate norms of right and wrong and could not simply pick the norms they desired and be successful, as we see in Chapter 8: “When the people all identify upward with the Son of Heaven, but do not identify upward with Heaven, then disasters still will not cease. Now it seems that Heaven’s violent winds and excessive rains continually arrive; this is how Heaven punishes the people for not identifying upward with Heaven” (Johnston, Reference Johnston2010, 95–97). Passages of this sort are often read as indicating that the Mohists were deeply theistic (Brindley, Reference Brindley2007; Standaert, Reference Standaert, Defoort and Standaert2013), and they do certainly lend themselves to such an interpretation. However, some have argued that Mozi’s Heaven was not viewed as an anthropomorphic deity but rather as an objective standard by which one could measure the affairs of the world (Wei, Reference Wei1998, 116). Heaven, as well as the ghosts and spirits to whom the Mohists often appealed, were simply components of a broader natural order and as such were predictable, much in the same way that we today see the natural world as being at least theoretically predictable, following the laws of nature, as it were (Harris, Reference Harris2020b).

The norms that Heaven approves of – and thus the norms that everyone, from the Son of Heaven down to the lowest commoner, are to unify around – are those norms that give rise to life, wealth, and good order, the three fundamental values to which Mohist consequentialism is indexed. The worthies are those who act in accordance with the norms of right and wrong laid out by the Son of Heaven and unified throughout the social, political, and bureaucratic hierarchies. Insofar as these norms are indexed to those things that maximize life, wealth, and order, the worthies are those who act to maximize these goals. Political merit consists in the ability to act for the sake of societal benefit (Fraser, Reference Fraser2016, 96–100). The worthies are those who have an intellectual understanding of why they should act in this way; essentially, they are those who have an intellectual understanding of Mohist consequentialism and an ability to apply this understanding to practical tasks. And, since the task of acting for the good of the state (or society, or the world) is too large for any one person, the worthiest of people – the Son of Heaven – develops a bureaucratic system staffed by other worthies, all the way down to the village level.

This comes out perhaps more clearly in Chapter 9:

In the Mohist vision of political meritocracy, those in the various positions throughout the political bureaucracy are committed to doing their part, in whatever position they hold, to work toward the maximization of wealth, order, and population, and who have the task-specific talents to do so. Furthermore, these functionaries, bureaucrats, and politicians need not have a thoroughgoing understanding of all the various implications of Mohist consequentialism. Rather, they need to understand it only insofar as it relates to their specific tasks, and merit consists in their ability to effectively engage in the tasks of their office in such a way as to contribute to the maximization of wealth, order, and population in the fulfillment of their duties.

As such, those with political merit in the Mohist system were more like engineers than scientists (or philosophers). A structural engineer can build a bridge without all the knowledge of a theoretical physicist (and, indeed, will most likely do a much better job than the theoretical physicist!). One simply needs to understand that subset of physics relevant to the task of constructing a bridge that will bear the weight of all who wish to cross without it collapsing. A meritorious structural engineer is one who can build structures such as bridges that accomplish their tasks without failure. In much the same way, a meritorious minister of public works is one who can determine what public works projects will maximally increase wealth, order, and population. This is task-specific knowledge that, while related to a broader understanding of Mohist consequentialism, does not require a comprehensive grasp of it.

However, should one wish to advance up the hierarchy, then increasing degrees of talents and abilities must be displayed. Each position will have its own set of task-specific talents, and so long as they display these talents, even someone from the most remote village in the lowest of social strata can move up and obtain the position and can continue ever upward, so far as their talents and abilities allow.

4 The Daodejing of Laozi 老子 道德經

Unlike Xunzi and Mozi, we have little reason to think that any person named Laozi (The Old Master) existed, or that he had anything to do with the composition of the text attributed to him.Footnote ²⁵ Rather, most scholars agree that the text is a composite one, drawing upon numerous sources and being compiled and developed over many years, reaching its current form some time in the third century bce. However, this need not imply that the text lacks a consistent vision, for editors can draw upon a wide variety of material in order to present a coherent vision (Ivanhoe, Reference Ivanhoe2003, xv).

The Laozi is an often opaque and frequently frustrating text that has been likened to a Rorschach test – what you see in it often tells you more about yourself than it does about the text itself (Van Norden, Reference Van Norden2011, 124). Nonetheless, this section works to draw out of this fascinating text an account of what would constitute politically relevant merit. In doing so, it first articulates a criticism against the sort of striving that undergirds the visions of political meritocracy found not only in the moral visions of the Xunzi and the Mozi but also in the decidedly amoral vision we will see in the Han Feizi, before turning to an analysis of the Laozi’s more positive program. There, we will not see a clearly developed positive account of political meritocracy, for the text does not offer such. However, a close reading allows for the reconstruction and elaboration of the sorts of merits that consistently emerge from the Laozi’s overall position.

At the most fundamental level, the Laozi advocates according with the Way (Dao 道), but this in and of itself conveys very little of substance: If there is anything that classical Chinese philosophers agreed on, it was that we should follow the Way. This surface agreement hides radical disagreement about exactly what the Way is, what adhering to it would require, and how to go about according with it. Two additional terms found within the Laozi may aid in our endeavor to understand how to accord with the Way – ziran (自然) and wuwei (無為). Ziran, often translated as “natural,” or more literally as “self-so” or “so in and of itself,” provides a standard for what states of affairs are appropriate. Wuwei, often translated quite literally as “inaction” or “non-action,” is more clearly understood as “non-purposive action” and provides a standard for how to act. Why this emphasis on naturalness and non-purposive action? And more importantly, why are these normative? On the Laozi’s account, it is only by maintaining our natural place in the broader world that we can ensure that we survive and thrive: as a species, as communities, and as individuals. Unlike the Xunzi, for whom our survival and thriving are seen to rest upon what we create, how we advance and develop while using the natural world as a guideline, the Laozi sees such creation as drawing us away from the sort of life in which we can flourish.

One problem with political visions such as those found in the Mozi and the Xunzi is that in their pursuit of moral values, they paradoxically lead the people away from these very values. As Laozi 38 tells us,

Here, the Laozi appears to tell us that it is only when we lose our connection with the broader Way that we begin to focus on virtue as something to be attained. The term here translated as “virtue,” de (德), is the term often rendered as “potency,” not without reason. At its most fundamental, it refers a power or potency that the possessor of this characteristic has. In texts such as the Xunzi this power is conceived of as a moral power, but in a range of other early Chinese texts this moral aspect is missing and it is perhaps closer in meaning to the Latin virtus. Regardless of whether it is conceived of in moral terms, however, it is seen as having an attractive power. That is, if someone possesses virtue,Footnote ²⁸ it allows them to influence others, to attract them, and to shape them to be more like themselves (Nivison, Reference Nivison and Van Norden1996, 17–43).

On the Laozi’s account, though, recognizing this virtue as something to be attained leads to attempts to identify its components and pursue each in turn. Thus we see the text claiming that a recognition of virtue as a goal leads to a self-conscious pursuit of benevolence, the idea being, if one is benevolent, then one will have advanced in one’s pursuit of virtue. But this leads to the question of how to become benevolent, and when this leads to the concept of righteousness, the pursuit shifts yet again. If only one is righteous, the thinking goes, one will be able to attain benevolence and thus attain virtue. But this leads inexorably away from virtue as sights are turned toward those actions that will lead toward righteousness. How to become righteous? One potential avenue is through the following of (Confucian) rituals. After all, rituals can be codified and thus provide us with clear standards for acting. But this, the Laozi says, leaves us even further from our goal of attaining virtue and according with the Way.

This chapter is clearly an attack on views such as the Xunzi’s, for which the pursuit of virtue by means of developing benevolence, righteousness/social norms (yi), and ritual propriety was paramount (Schwartz, Reference Schwartz, Kohn and LaFargue1998, 202–203). Central to Xunzi’s project was the moral cultivation that arose out of coming to understand just what actions were righteous, were benevolent, and instantiated ritual propriety, and consequently which actions did not. Therefore, Xunzi’s project required making appropriate distinctions and divisions and organizing society based upon these divisions (Harris, Reference Harris and Hutton2016b). The problem with such a pursuit, says the Laozi, is that rather than drawing us closer to the Way and thus the ideal life, it draws us ever further from that path. Self-consciously recognizing or identifying something as virtuous comes about only when we have lost our way and are attempting to find it again. And it is only once we are no longer virtuous that we pursue benevolence – in an attempt to regain virtue so we can get back to the Way. So it continues, with righteousness and rituals gaining our focus as we move further from the Way. The point here is that the entire Xunzian project is wrong-headed: Rather than leading us to a normatively optimal social organization in which individuals can thrive, it moves us in the opposite direction – leading us ever more astray. And, insofar as the Mozi focuses on how (its importantly different conceptions of) benevolence and righteousness undergird its political project, it is equally susceptible to this attack.

What leads the Laozi to develop this concern? What is so bad about the pursuit of virtue? After all, we see in the Xunzi a sophisticated argument for how the pursuit of virtue can create new sources of value that not only make our lives richer and fuller but also allow us to live together in much greater harmony. That text begins from a recognition that the chaos and destruction of the Warring States period needed to be rectified if humans were to have any chance of a stable and ordered society. Because it takes as fundamental the idea that if human beings follow their original nature, pursuing their untutored desires and values, chaos and conflict will inevitably arise, the only way out of this natural downward spiral is moral cultivation and the creation of new sources of value. The Mozi also begins from a recognition of conflict and chaos as inevitable without political action, though on the Mozi’s account, the conflict arises from the fact that, absent outside influence, everyone has their own norms of right and wrong, inexorably driving them into conflict with one another. The only way to rectify this is to unify norms throughout the world.

The Laozi looks at similar chaos and conflict but sees both a different source and a different solution. Rather than identifying the problem as one in which our innate desires and values have led us into conflict, the Laozi sees the problem as one in which we have lost our authentic dispositions and limited our natural desires. We have been socialized and, in the process, have had additional, inauthentic, socially created desires grafted upon us. It is these new, excessive desires that draw us into conflict not only with one another but with the broader world of which we are but a part.

There is another potential answer to the worry of how pursuit of virtue leads us into conflict and chaos rather than safety, security, and order – that found in texts such as the Han Feizi, which advocate forms of political realism. While the views of this text will be more deeply explored in the subsequent section, insofar as the Laozi finds itself in opposition to views of the sort expressed there, a brief preview is in order. The Han Feizi starts from the fundamental question of how to ensure order within the state and finds the answer in the establishment of a clearly promulgated and strictly enforced set of rules, regulations, and laws, binding upon all within the state. Beginning with an understanding of human beings as having a similar set of likes and dislikes that are quite closely tied to their own conceptions of what benefits them, the Han Feizi argues that it can codify those things that lead to order within the state. This, combined with a willingness to engage in whatever actions prove necessary, will maximize the state’s chances of survival. The Han Feizi asserts that it can create order – not by modifying people’s beliefs, not by creating new sources of value, but simply by changing their actions.

Such a vision has the advantage of not attempting to change the way people are. However, the Laozi would argue that such a vision runs into problems because it misidentifies what people really are like and thus its prescription too is bound to fail. By assuming that the dispositions, desires, and appetites of the people as displayed in the societies of its time accurately convey not merely what actually motivates people but what necessarily motivates them, the Han Feizi places its political project on precarious foundations.

On the Laozi’s account, the Xunzi and the Mozi are wrong because what is needed is not a pursuit of new and additional created desires and values, and the Han Feizi is wrong because it misidentifies the desires and values that are fundamental to human beings. The Han Feizi may very well correctly identify those desires predominant in the societies of the time. And the Xunzi and Mozi may very well be correct in their insistence that without change, these desires will lead to conflict and chaos. However, the solution, argues the Laozi, is far different from what is envisioned in any of these texts.

What is necessary is a removal of those foreign desires that have created the chaos within which those of the Laozi’s time (and many – or all – subsequent times) found themselves (Kim, Reference Kim2018, 56–57). This requires stripping away and eliminating those desires that society has created in us and finding that unadulterated inner core of natural, authentic dispositions, the satisfaction of which leads us toward a richer, more fulfilling life. Since the Laozi sees the way in which society creates artificial desires to be intimately connected to the way that it creates artificial divisions and distinctions, it is paramount to eliminate the grip that these divisions and distinctions have upon us.

So far, we have only highlighted what the Laozi sees as the problem, and so we now need to identify its solution. This attempt is fraught with difficulties, not least because the Laozi itself does not provide a clear positive political project. Further, given the Rorschachian nature of the text, those who have looked for political prescriptions have found widely divergent ones. There are those who have argued that the Laozi’s political philosophy is one of anarchism (Ames, Reference Ames1983; Rapp, Reference Rapp2012), those who argue against the anarchist interpretation (Hsiao, Reference Hsiao1979, 298; Feldt, Reference Feldt2010), those who have argued that it should be counted as the world’s first libertarian text (Boaz, Reference Boaz1997), and those who have argued that it provides an ideological justification for the totalitarian state (Paper, Reference Paper, Barnhill and Gottlieb2001, 109). Further, there are those who see it as anti-meritocratic in certain ways (Pines, Reference 66Pines, Bell and Li2013; Fech, Reference Fech2020). Therefore, as I work to draw out of the Laozi a positive account of just what constitutes politically relevant merit, the reader should always ask whether this account is sufficiently grounded in a comprehensive understanding of the text or whether, much like the Rorschach test, it reflects my own biases, concerns, and peculiarities.

The Laozi does seem to share with many other early Chinese texts the assumption that there will be a ruler, that the ideal ruler is a sage, and that ideally there will be sage individuals throughout the politico-bureaucratic structure. However, in much the same way that there was substantial disagreement over many terms including the Way, virtue, benevolence, and righteousness, there was disagreement over what constituted sagacity. If we assume that the Laozi’s sage possesses those merits relevant to the political arena, then investigating the concept of the Laozian sage may move us closer to understanding what would constitute politically relevant merit for the Laozi.

The case for understanding the Laozi as implying a meritocratic vision stems in part from its description of the sage, though, perhaps paradoxically, I begin by quoting the Laozi’s admonition in Chapter 3 not to elevate the “worthy”:

This chapter is important for several reasons. First, it begins with a straightforward attack on at least one practice usually tied to meritocracy: giving honors to those who are deemed worthy. For all their disagreements over what constitutes worthiness, the Mozi and Xunzi both advocate elevating the worthy – indeed, this is one of the principal foundations of each of their meritocratic visions. As such, it might be thought that this rejection on the part of the Laozi is a rejection of political merit tout court. What follows is perhaps equally disturbing – sages are to keep the common people in a state of ignorance. Passages such as this are why Creel says that there is a tendency in the Laozi to treat the Way “as a method of control, of acquiring power” (Reference Creel1970, 5). He points to an important point here, and there have long been those who have pushed the Laozi in this direction – including the author of the earliest extant commentary on the Laozi, which is found in the Han Feizi. Creel errs, however, not by pointing out that following the Laozian Way allows one to acquire power and control but, rather, in thinking that the Laozi advocates using it as a tool for these ends. Instead, power and control are side effects of according with the Way rather than goals to be achieved. This can perhaps be more clearly understood if we realize that both the ethical and the political theories espoused in the Laozi might profitably be thought of as virtue-based theories in much the same way that the Xunzi’s ethical and political theories, for all their differences, are also virtue-based.

Both the Xunzi and the Laozi advocate self-cultivation, and one important component of this cultivation is the acquisition of virtue – which both texts conceive of as a power that allows one to influence those around one and that leads to harmony in the world. But for both thinkers (and for virtue theorists more generally) the aim of the cultivation of virtue is not to gain power or control. Indeed, thinking of the cultivation of virtue as a tool for some other end and pursuing it for that end guarantees that such cultivation will fail. If the only reason I pursue the virtue of honesty is because I wish to be perceived by others as honest and thereby gain the benefits given to those who are honest, I cannot succeed. It is not that a desire to be perceived as honest has no role to play in my motivations. In order to be fully honest, one must act in an honest fashion not as a means to gain some other good but because it expresses an internalized belief that the right thing to do is to act honestly. If I refrain from stealing only because I fear being caught and exposed as a thief, I lack the virtue of honesty, even if I never steal a single item.

However, even though virtue can only be fully cultivated when it is understood as being intrinsically rather than instrumentally valuable, when it is so cultivated it does tend to confer upon the cultivated individual a power that makes them more efficacious, allowing them to be more successful in their interactions with others (and, indeed, with the natural world itself). So Creel is right that the Laozi sees virtue (and the Way) as allowing for political power and gain – but only for those who due to their virtuous nature would not make use of them for their own narrow interests.Footnote ²⁹ The Laozi makes this clear in Chapter 29:

Those who wish to pursue their own narrow desires and goals by making use of what is around them, be it people or the natural world, guarantee the loss of the very things they pursue. Welch describes the Laozi as playing a trick on us – first luring us in with promises of power before making us realize that by accepting its doctrines, “we must reject the very rewards that have attracted us to them” (Welch, Reference Welch1966, 40). As the Laozi says in Chapter 7,

If one attempts to utilize the Laozi’s tools to pursue self-interested ends, success is impossible. So the Laozi has a self-cultivationist vision, but its vision of self-cultivation differs markedly from that found in the Xunzi. What makes Laozian sages sages is their ability to extract from themselves the unnatural desires that have dug their claws deep within most of us in society, returning to the natural human state of limited natural desires wherein we can live in harmony not only with the natural world but with our fellow human beings (Harris, Reference Harris, Li, Kwok and Düring2021).

Such a vision of self-cultivation and advocacy of a return to our natural state is predicated on a vision of human nature that is quite different from what we have seen in the Xunzi and Mozi or what we shall see in the Han Feizi. The Laozi seems to take our original nature to be such that we have very little in the way of desires beyond our physical needs. Indeed, the Laozi would agree both with Rousseau’s picture of humans in the “state of nature” as having no desires beyond their modest needs, lacking curiosity and a desire for further knowledge, wishing only to live and remain idle and with his claim that “Savage man and civilized man differ so much in their inmost heart and inclinations that what constitutes the supreme happiness of the one would reduce the other to despair” (Gourevitch, Reference Gourevitch1997, 186–187).Footnote ³⁰ However, unlike Rousseau, the Laozi’s goal seems quite explicitly to be to return the “civilized” to their original, and natural, state of “savagery,” wherein their hearts and inclinations no longer feel the pull of socially constructed desires, distinctions, or differentiations. To do so, he relies not only upon the sage ruler but also on an actual political bureaucracy staffed by those who serve the ruler by according with the Way. This leaves us with many questions, only a few of which can be taken up here. I focus on answering two questions related to the Laozi and meritocracy. First, given all that has been described, does it really make sense to describe Laozi as having a meritocratic vision? Second, if the Laozi’s political vision can usefully be thought of as a meritocracy, by what means will those with politically relevant merits be placed in the appropriate positions if they are not identified, singled out, and rewarded for their service?

The Laozi sees the conflict and chaos of its times as directly related to the fact that the people, under the spell of socially constructed divisions, distinctions, and desires, continually pursue these to their detriment. Since, once it has begun, the creation of desires seems to be unending, conflict in such situations is inevitable. To get back on track, to return to circumstances where human beings can live in harmony both with their environment and with each other, it is necessary that someone who not only understands the problem but also how to alleviate it be in position to do so. The merit that such an individual displays is not merely an understanding of the broader Way but also an understanding of how human beings fit into this Way. This gives such an individual an understanding of how human beings can be successful, how they can live contented lives free of strife, danger, and conflict. Furthermore, this is not done from a moral perspective. The Laozi is not advocating the “right” way of life or claiming that other ways of life are “bad” while its way is “good.” Rather, in a fashion that bears important similarities to the Han Feizi, the text simply lays out the consequences of following other paths, as well as the results of following its path, inviting the reader to think about which is more attractive. As the Laozi admonishes the ruler in Chapter 19:

The particular ability of sages does not lie merely in their understanding that the elimination of strife, contention, and suffering requires a return to an earlier, less socially complex world in which people act in complete harmony with the Way, where “each person ‘returns to’ and pursues his or her individual task with a natural spontaneity,” allowing “one’s spontaneous, prereflective nature to operate unencumbered and guide one through life” (Ivanhoe, Reference Ivanhoe, Csikszentmihalyi and Ivanhoe1999, 246). This understanding is, of course, important – essential, even. However, equally important is knowledge of how to achieve this goal. It is not something that can be forced upon others successfully.Footnote ³¹ Rather, sages lead by example, and the virtue they embody has an attractive force on others. By abandoning the distinctions created by traditional conceptions of right and wrong that focused on developing benevolence and righteousness as well as by eliminating socially constructed conceptions of value, sages invite those around them to gain awareness of the extent to which inauthentic desires have encroached upon their lives, giving rise to actions and attitudes that do not actually make their lives better.

The model here is more of a therapeutic one than a theoretical one (Ivanhoe, Reference Ivanhoe2003, xxiii). Unlike the Mozi, the Laozi is not attempting to provide logically rigorous arguments to convince the reader to give up on their current desires. This path would be unsuccessful, in no small part because it would introduce even more artificial distinctions and divisions. Further, pace the Mozi, rational argument does not necessarily lead to change. Take for example a battered spouse. It is not unusual for such an individual to make excuses for their partner or even to believe that they deserve the abuse. Laying out to such an individual a rational argument for how no one deserves to be abused by another human being often is of no use and rarely changes the battered spouse’s views, no matter how sound the argument. What may be more effective is a course of psychotherapy. While the goal may be the same – to help the battered spouse leave their partner and make a better life for themselves – the methods are much different. A therapeutic approach attempts to move forward by helping the battered spouse to see their life from a different perspective: to help them gain a fuller awareness of their situation, their own role, and their value. This is accomplished not through argument, but through conversation and questioning, and it proceeds not by forcing them to accept an argument but rather by helping them come to understand and internalize their own worth. It is more an emotional process than it is a rational one and is not instantaneous.Footnote ³² It takes time for this awareness to develop, but it can be helped along. And once the awareness begins to develop, it may allow those things tying the battered spouse to their partner to slowly lose their grip on them.

In a similar fashion, the Laozi and its sage engage in therapy, both by providing an alternate model of a flourishing life – the model embodied by the sage – and by helping people to reflect upon the desires they have and ask whether they are beneficial or whether they are unnatural and harmful additions to their natures. Coming to see them as such will not, of course, lead to immediate change. However, such awareness will help to loosen the grip of these desires, allowing us slowly to return to our more natural state (Ivanhoe, Reference Ivanhoe2003, xxvii). The role of the sage, then, is in part the role of the therapist. The sage has a deep understanding of the world and our part in it and can use this understanding to prod us into examining many of our unquestioned assumptions about what we should be pursuing and what adds value and gives meaning to our lives. At the same time, the sage is a model of quiet contentment, a vision of what we could achieve were we to quit striving and remain in ignorance of artificial distinctions, as noted in Chapter 65.

Importantly, this only works if the sage possesses these qualities, just as therapy can only work if you have an appropriate therapist who understands the problems you are dealing with and can effectively help you to get out of their grip, without inserting their own desires into the process. If the ruler is to be efficacious, merit is necessary, just merit of a very different sort from what we have seen in the Xunzi or the Mozi. Furthermore, insofar as the goal is not merely to help individuals return to their natural state but also to nourish whole political communities in this fashion, this merit takes on a recognizably political valence.

We may begin to understand the merits of the sage rulers themselves, but what about others? It is tempting to think, given the Laozi’s belief in the attractive force of the sage ruler and its vision of small agrarian communities, that there will be little if anything in the way of a bureaucratic structure. If so, there may be no need for political functionaries or bureaucrats and no need for a conception of merit in the political realm beyond that applying to the sage ruler. However, a closer reading of the Laozi disabuses us of this notion: In Chapter 28, it talks of the sage as distinct from the ruler, and Chapter 30 discusses those who serve in political and bureaucratic roles. Indeed, Chapter 30 may help clarify a range of issues:

While the focus here is on military action, the underlying theory may apply more broadly. It may at times be necessary to act. For all its utopianism, the Laozi cannot be accused of a youthful naivete. Even if the sage successfully models the attractiveness of an authentic, prereflective, spontaneous human life, socially constructed divisions and desires will maintain their grip on some. And when they do, there may be no option but to resort to force. However, such use of force is lamentable, not something to be praised. One does not gain praise for achieving a military victory, or indeed for engaging in any action that, however temporarily, leads one away from the Way. Further, force cannot be relied upon more broadly. It may work to quiet down a select few who are intent on causing disruptions and who lead others astray. However, force as a primary tool cannot succeed because force does not lead to understanding, and in order for people to live the sorts of lives that the Laozi envisions and thinks lead to the greatest contentment, they must understand why such lives are valuable and why their earlier desires cannot ever lead them to fulfilment.

Those who serve the sage ruler in accordance with the Way do not set themselves apart from others and would not see themselves as deserving of honors, accolades, or awards. Rather, in much the same way as the sage, these individuals working in the bureaucratic structure display a model of a way of life that is full of contentment while missing the elements of striving that bind up most of us. It is not by doing anything to others that those who serve in these bureaucratic positions display their merit. Rather, it is merely by being a certain way, naturally, without ulterior aim. Indeed, while Chapter 17 focuses on the ruler, it may serve just as well as a model for officers and functionaries:

Political merit does not display itself in such a way that it invites love and praise from those over whom it is exercised. Rather it displays itself most clearly in its perceived absence (Liu, Reference 65Liu, Mark and Ivanhoe1999). The truly meritorious are never seen for whom they are: Those who they affect see only the naturalness of their own actions. In this way, those of merit model themselves upon the Way itself, as seen in Chapter 37:

5 The Han Feizi 韓非子

The Han Feizi is a text attributed to Han Fei (c. 280–233 bce),Footnote ³³ a scion of the ruling house of the state of Han who may have at one time been a student of Xunzi.Footnote ³⁴ He developed a realist political theory that takes as its biggest target the ideal political organization of the early Confucians, though his negative project involves attacking many of the assumptions undergirding the ideas found in the Mozi and the Laozi as well. The crux of Han Fei’s political theory can be seen in the fundamental way in which he disagrees with the three texts examined so far. Despite their substantive differences, the Xunzi, Mozi, and Laozi all have conceptions of an ideal society, and in all these texts, the ways that people would behave in these ideal societies is thought to be substantially and fundamentally different from how actual people acted in the societies within which these texts were composed. Therefore, to be successful, the political theories in each of these texts require that the people (or at least a substantive majority of them) change their motivations, desires, and dispositions. For the Xunzi, this requires a moral cultivation that opens people up to new and rewarding sources of value. For the Mozi, it involves changing desires and motivations based on rational argument. And for the Laozi, it involves the sloughing off of inauthentic socially constructed desires, revealing an inner core of limited natural desires that would not bring one into conflict with others.

The Han Feizi, however, has no desire to change people’s desires or motivations. It is a purely political text, with no concern for moral cultivation or, indeed, any ethical ideas or ideals. Rather, the text begins “not from how society ought to be but how it is” (Graham, Reference Graham1989, 269), accepting not only the people as they are but also the rulers, ministers, bureaucrats, and officers throughout the state bureaucratic structure as they are. Han Fei’s conception of fundamental human nature is in many ways similar to how both Xunzi and Mozi think people acted before the development of the appropriate standards to constrain them, as well as how the Laozi thinks people act after having their heads turned by the socially created desires surrounding them. In short, people are fundamentally and primarily self-interested. This is not to say that they lack other-regarding interests. However, when push comes to shove, when other-regarding interests conflict with self-regarding ones, Han Fei accepts that the self-regarding ones will win out in almost every situation.Footnote ³⁵ As we see in Chapter 46,

The Han Feizi is quite clear here that other-regarding feelings toward one’s relatives is natural. The problem is not that the parents lack any concern toward their daughters. There is no conception here, as in the Mozi, that there is inherent conflict even between family members. Rather, sons provide material benefits while daughters result in material costs. The expenses of a daughter weigh more heavily than the natural loving concern that parents have toward all their children, and the latter is insufficient to prevent female infanticide from being a common occurrence. Han Fei is not concerned with passing moral judgment on these actions. Rather, he is merely explaining what truly motivates people’s actions since this, rather than some ideal notion of morality, is what is relevant to figuring out how actually to create and sustain political order.

There are three other points central to the Han Feizian picture. The first is that people are not particularly astute at evaluating what is genuinely in their own interests, and so their pursuit of their perceived interests often leads them to act to their overall detriment. As we see in Chapter 50:

Or, as the Han Feizi says in Chapter 18, “The people are stupid, dull, corrupt, and lazy, and thus they are bitter over small expenditures and forgetful of great benefits” (Harbsmeier, Reference Harbsmeier2025, 234). Not only do self-regarding interests regularly trump other-regarding interests, but people often are wrong about what is in their own interests: They act based on what they perceive to be in their own interests rather than what is actually in their interests. A second point is that people’s interest sets rarely change in any substantive fashion. Rather, whatever they contain, these interest sets remain fairly stable throughout their lifetimes. People may find new ways of satisfying their interest sets, but rarely does the content of this set change (Harris, Reference Harris2020a).

A third point is that the content of these interest sets is generally quite similar from person to person. Most people are motivated by what they perceive to be in their own interest, and what people perceive to be in their own interest is largely the same. This is not to say that all people want the same things or even that all people care more about their own interests than other interests. Rather, in Chapter 14, the Han Feizi acknowledges that this is not the case for everyone, making special reference to Bo Yi and Shu Qi, two brothers traditionally interpreted as having been paragons of virtue:

The fundamental point is that figures such as this, rather than being paragons of virtue to be lauded, are dangerous (Lewis, Reference Lewis2021, 99). This danger arises not merely because the content of their interest sets is different from the norm but more importantly because their actions cannot be regulated via the methods that can reliably guide, lead, and control the vast majority of the people in the state.Footnote ³⁷

This is what is important for Han Fei – finding methods by which to ensure that people who would otherwise come into conflict as they unerringly pursued their own perceived interests can be brought to work for the overall good of the state.Footnote ³⁸ As we see in Chapter 48,

The Han Feizi’s position naturally follows from the assumption that people will not change to any appreciable degree. If the Xunzi were correct, conflict could be alleviated by cultivating new sources of value. If the Mozi were correct, conflict could be eliminated by rational argument and the unification of norms of right and wrong. If the Laozi were correct, peace and prosperity would return upon the elimination of unnatural desires. However, these all require that people change their dispositions and desires, and this is, for the most part, impossible on the Han Feizi’s account. The only viable alternative is to work with the actual dispositions and desires that people have rather than trying to change them.Footnote ³⁹ Fortunately, most people like rewards and dislike punishments, so these two tools can be utilized to reduce conflict within the state, allowing both the state and those within it to flourish in ways that they otherwise would not be able to.

Rewards and punishments do not work by changing what people desire but rather by altering the conditions that allow them to get the things that they desire. In general, I’m lazy. I would prefer to get the stuff that I desire without exerting effort (or money) to get it. And if most people are like this, then conflict arises as we steal from each other to obtain what we want. However, activities of this sort can be eliminated even if we cannot eliminate the desires and dispositions of the people involved. If a law is established that prohibits stealing stuff and imposes a punishment for stealing that is greater than the value of the stuff I’d otherwise steal, I have reason not to steal the stuff. It is not that I no longer want the stuff. Rather, I want to avoid punishment more than I want to get stuff, and so I turn to alternative means to get the stuff I desire. If this is then broadened out such that there are a series of laws and attendant punishments that speak to all of the wide variety of ways that I might pursue my interests to the detriment of others, then these actions on my part (and on the part of others like me) can be eliminated.Footnote ⁴⁰ Rewards and punishments do not change our desires but rather change the conditions under which it makes sense to act on these desires. I still desire stuff. But with new laws in place that prohibit stealing and punishments that I fear more than I desire free stuff, it no longer makes sense for me to steal. Rather, it makes sense for me to legally earn the money necessary to buy what I want. An appropriately developed legal code will, on Han Fei’s account, effectively alter the way that people act on their desires to achieve social harmony without altering the fundamental natures of the desires and dispositions themselves.

In discussing laws, I am referring to the term fa (法). As noted in the discussion of Xunzi, the term originally had a broader meaning of “model” or “standard” but is typically used within the Han Feizi to refer to the laws or other standards implemented by the ruler.Footnote ⁴¹ These laws are the most fundamental tool to be employed in guiding and directing the actions of the people because they are formulated with an understanding of what people value and they rearrange the criteria for people’s successfully achieving those things that they desire. In laying out its legal vision, the Han Feizi distinguishes between the rule of man and the rule of law, clearly coming down on the side of the latter, but makes no distinction between the rule by law and the rule of law.Footnote ⁴² However, while the Han Feizi accepts that anything that the ruler promulgates as law is law, it spends a substantial amount of time arguing that the content of the law matters and that only those laws that accord with the underlying Way (dao) of the universe, as well as with human nature, can achieve the goals that the Han Feizi sets for the laws (Harris, Reference Harris2011, Reference Harris and Tiwald2025).

The law is not the only foundation upon which the Han Feizi aims to develop its political theory. Its conception of the well-ordered state is grounded upon two additional foundations, those of shi (勢) and shu (術). The former refers primarily to the power that rulers have merely in virtue of the position that that they hold, regardless of their particular capacities or talents, while the latter refers to a particular set of appropriate techniques or administrative methods employed by the ruler. When used alongside the law, these two ideas allow for the development of a politico-bureaucratic structure that can identify and exploit the politically relevant merits of those within its bounds to create and sustain a strong, stable, and flourishing state.

Shi refers to the power that the ruler has qua ruler.Footnote ⁴³ This is the power that the position of ruler, with all of its prestige, awesomeness, and leverage, bestows upon whomsoever holds that position. This phenomenon of positional power is not limited to early China but can be seen in all governments, regardless of their form; it helps to explain why, for example, the British prime minister may get Parliament to pass the laws he wants, even when a majority in the House of Commons opposes the legislation, or why the king of Thailand has an influence that far outstrips his enumerated powers. As the Han Feizi says in Chapter 14,

The point elucidated here is that for the ruler “to rely exclusively upon his own faculties for maintaining control is not nearly so effective as tapping the collective powers of the empire which are made available to him as a function of his status as ruler” (Ames, Reference Ames1994, 89). It is this positional power that ensures that the appropriate laws are promulgated, that rewards and punishments are attached to them, and that the administrative techniques described here are implemented. It is, then, yet another tool in the ruler’s arsenal for ensuring that those with the appropriate merit are tasked with acting on that merit in appropriate ways so as to ensure the thriving of the state.

The final foundation of the Han Feizi’s politico-bureaucratic ideal is the concept of shu – a particular set of appropriate techniques or administrative methods to be employed by the ruler. And for understanding both the role and content of political merit in this text, it is perhaps the most useful. Let us turn, then, to the Han Feizi’s understanding of technique, as described in Chapter 43: “‘Technique’ refers to awarding of offices on the basis of qualifications, following proposals in evaluating results, grasping the handles of life and death, and examining the abilities of the assembled ministers. This is what the ruler controls” (Harbsmeier, Reference Harbsmeier2025, 849–850). Fundamental to the Han Feizi’s creation of political order is a ruler who is able to ascertain who possesses politically relevant merits and ensure that those with these merits exercise them appropriately in service of the state.Footnote ⁴⁶ However, this in and of itself tells us little: It does not explain exactly what sort of merits are relevant or how the possession of such ability is to be ascertained. What we do have, though, is the beginnings of a framework of techniques that can be employed to ensure 1) that those with the appropriate merits are given the appropriate positions, 2) that those with the appropriate merits exercise these talents in these positions in service of the state, and 3) that once in the appropriate positions, these individuals do not go beyond their remit, acting in areas where they have not demonstrated relevant talents.

The Han Feizi takes up the first of these questions slightly later in Chapter 43 where it attacks the laws employed by Gongsun YangFootnote ⁴⁷ to ascertain politically relevant merit:

Many ideas in this passage are important for us. First, the content of the laws matters. It is not enough for the ruler to implement laws and their attendant rewards and punishments. Rather, the law is only a useful tool insofar as what it requires are those things that promote order in the state and what it prohibits are those things inimical to such order. This requires that one have a broad understanding of what sorts of talents, abilities, and merits are actually relevant to particular tasks. There is no such thing as merit or talent or ability, period. Rather, there are those who are talented at X, Y, or Z, and such talent is not necessarily transferrable. A warrior who is skilled at removing the heads of enemies is not necessarily skilled at amputating the gangrenous limb of a patient and ensuring their survival or at building a chariot whose wheels do not fall off or in serving effectively as minister of public works. The Han Feizi notes that this is perfectly clear in the case of the doctor. No one would expect that a victorious general would have the appropriate talents to be a good surgeon. However, this point gets lost when the focus turns to political or bureaucratic positions. There, it is often erroneously assumed that talents in a wide variety of different arenas somehow translate to effectiveness in the politico-bureaucratic realm.Footnote ⁴⁸ Relatedly, this concern underlies Han Fei’s excoriation of “worthiness” in Chapter 40 and elsewhere – it is not that he has a problem with people of worth, but rather he has a problem with how worth and worthiness are often conceived (Pines, Reference Pines2020, Reference Pines and Pines2024b).

It is important that individuals are tasked with doing things that there is good reason to believe they have the actual talents and abilities to complete successfully. And the best way of doing this, the Han Feizi seems to suggest, is by developing a heavily bureaucratized state where everyone starts at the bottom, engaged in lower-stakes activities. Then, as specific individuals demonstrate particular abilities and talents relevant for the competent execution of more important tasks, they are promoted to those positions. As they continue to succeed and demonstrate relevant merits, they continue to move up the bureaucratic hierarchy, taking on ever increasing levels of responsibility for which they have demonstrated, if not the actual relevant merit, at least promise of developing that merit appropriately.

This theory is one that we have no difficulty grasping and is the basis for promotions within hierarchical organizations the world over. However, it gives rise to the worry of the “Peter Principle,” which states that “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence,” and “Peter’s Corollary,” that, “In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties” (Peter and Hull, Reference Peter and Hull1969, 27). If individuals are promoted to increasing levels of responsibility based on previously exhibited talents, they will continue to be promoted until they reach the level at which they no longer have sufficient talent to competently carry out their tasks.

If the Han Feizi’s political theory is to be taken seriously, we must discern whether the text provides a technique for ensuring that this does not happen. And, while the Han Feizi does not directly respond to the worry as articulated here, its method for ensuring point 2) – that those with the appropriate talents exercise these talents in these positions in service of the state – potentially works to counter this worry as well. At this stage, the related worries are these: How can the ruler ensure that an individual who has been promoted based on demonstrated merit that, while relevantly similar, is not exactly the same as the merit required in the new position, truly possesses the required merit? And how can the ruler ensure that the individual exercises this merit appropriately? After all, mere possession of merit is insufficient if the individual lacks incentive to employ that merit. And, given the Han Feizi’s conception of human motivations, it cannot be expected that simply because an individual possesses a particular talent they will exercise it in ways that benefit the state. As we see in Chapter 11, “The ruler’s interest lies in having those of ability serve in office. The minister’s interest lies in obtaining a position without ability. The ruler’s interest lies in rank and emoluments going to those who toil. The minister’s interest lies in forming factions for self-interested ends” (Harbsmeier, Reference Harbsmeier2025, 152). Being a carpenter is hard work. Many carpenters may prefer to spend their time sitting on the deck of their house drinking beer and watching the world go by rather than straining their backs building palaces for the ruler. Thus the carpenter needs an overriding incentive to build palaces rather than relaxing and drinking beer. In sketching out a method for providing this, the Han Feizi introduces the concept of xingming (刑名), the matching of proposals and achievements (Makeham, Reference Makeham1994, 67–83). As we see in Chapter 7,

The trade minister might, for example, claim that constructing a bridge over a particular river would substantially increase the amount of goods that could be imported and exported, providing the ruler with both increased revenue from exports and increased access to goods that he desires and ensuring that the costs associated with constructing the bridge would soon be recouped by the profits from increased trade. The ruler listens to the proposal and then tasks the trade minister with constructing the bridge. After construction, the issue is revisited, and the ruler examines whether there is a correspondence between the claims that the minister made and the actual results achieved. If, for example, the bridge was soon washed away by annual floods, long before any benefit could be realized, or if it is constructed in a place where no one wants to cross the river, then the minister would be punished. If, however, trade and profits increased as a direct result of the bridge being constructed, the minister would be rewarded.

While this method focuses on ensuring that individuals who make claims about what they can accomplish actually do obtain these results, the implications are much broader. The Han Feizi envisions a self-regulating system ensuring that everyone within the politico-bureaucratic fulfills the obligations of their position. This is a system that prevents those in particular positions from making grandiose promises in a self-interested attempt to curry favor and gain undeserved rewards when knowing full well that their promises will never be fulfilled. Simultaneously, it is a system that prevents people from simply occupying a position without achieving anything. Just as a janitor who does not mop the floors is not doing their job, a trade minister who issues no trade proposals is not doing their job. And just as one who has overpromised can be identified through the xingming methodology, so too can one whose lack of achievements indicates that they are not fulfilling their job responsibilities.

There is one feature of this system that may be puzzling to the modern reader. Recall that the Han Feizi recommends punishing not only those whose achievements do not live up to their grandiose plans, but also those who achieve something much greater than was proposed. The problem of overpromising and underdelivering is easy to grasp, but isn’t underpromising and overdelivering a boon rather than a problem? The Han Feizi disagrees, taking overdelivering to be just as problematic as underdelivering. The seriousness with which it takes this point is visible in the following vignette from Chapter 7:

It is fairly easy to see the justification for punishing the Keeper of Clothing – he did not do the tasks assigned to him. But why punish the Keeper of Caps, who went above and beyond and in doing so ensured that the Marquis did not become cold? The answer seems to be that going above and beyond is dangerous to the entire system.

Examining why this might be the case returns us to the third concern mentioned here: ensuring that once in the appropriate positions, individuals in the system do not go beyond their remit, acting in areas where they have not demonstrated relevant talents. In thinking through this issue, we can begin by asking why a minister might go beyond their remit. There are two broad reasons: self-regarding reasons and other-regarding reasons. The former quite clearly could give rise to a range of problems. Ministers may work to directly undermine one other, in hopes that subverting others will lead to more benefits and rewards to oneself. But this kind of infighting has no benefit to the state – at most it benefits particular individuals and does so at the cost of order within the politico-bureaucratic system.

However, even if going beyond one’s remit is done with the best of intentions, which, for the Han Feizi, would be increasing the strength, stability, and order of the state, a wide range of problems could result. As the saying goes, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” Recall that specific individuals end up in particular positions because they have demonstrated those talents, skills, and aptitudes necessary to succeed in that position. The trade minister is given that position because they have demonstrated that they possess the relevant talents and abilities to succeed in that position, while the minister of public works is given that position because they have demonstrated the particular talents, skills, and aptitudes necessary to succeed in that position; there is no reason to think that the talents, skills, and aptitudes in the two positions are relevantly similar. No matter how sincere the trade minister is in their desire to alleviate flooding, for example, we should be worried about implementing any dam-building scheme they propose. The unintended consequences could be disastrous. While it may be impossible to eliminate unintended consequences, one way of minimizing them is to ensure that those in positions of power can exercise their power only over the narrow range of things where they are actually expert.

With this, we have an overview of the Han Feizian conception of politically relevant merit and how it is determined. For merit to be appropriately ascertained and channeled within the state, it is necessary to implement a pervasive set of laws regulating all aspects of human behavior that impact on the success of the state and to ensure that the ruler has the positional power necessary to ensure that these laws and their attendant rewards and punishments are unfailingly implemented. Further, not just any set of laws will work. Rather, laws must be based upon an understanding both of human nature and of the qualities of the natural world around us, for both place restrictions on what will be successful. Finally, it is essential to establish and entrench a bureaucratic structure that allows for the identification of those with particular merits that are useful in the political realm and for the slotting of such individuals into the niche where these merits can best be exploited in service of the state.

This is an amoral, realist system that takes people as they are and provides the appropriate inducements for them to exercise their talents in ways that will ensure the safety, security, and thriving of the state, even though the individuals themselves have no intrinsic (or cultivated) desire to pursue these ends. Rather, the Han Feizi develops a system that works by unifying the interests of the individual and the state, ensuring that the only way for the people to get the things that they desire is by doing the things that benefit the state.

6 Afterword: Thoughts and Implications

At one level, the question of meritocracy in the political realm is moot. Few in the contemporary world argue that merit is irrelevant in the political realm.Footnote ⁴⁹ From democracies to totalitarian dictatorships, advocates regularly defend their preferred system in part because it leads to the state being governed by those who have the appropriate merit. Plato thought that wisdom was politically relevant and so advocated rule by philosopher kings. Advocates of representative democracy argue that it allows the people to choose the individual with the appropriate merits to best promote their interests. Vladimir Putin continues to rule Russia in no small part because many Russians view him as possessing the talents and abilities that have led to significant improvements of living standards for themselves and a reassertion of their country as a world power. And, as we have just seen throughout this Element, political thinkers of early China also argued that political merit is essential.

The interesting debates, and what is at stake when philosophers and political theorists discuss meritocracy, are not whether merit is relevant but, rather, what merits are politically relevant, how the possessors of these merits can be identified, how such merits can be developed, what else beyond merit (however defined) is politically relevant, what sorts of political systems are best able to harness and appropriately direct the politically relevant merits of their populace, and how to deal with potential conflicts among those with a variety of different merits.

We have seen articulations of four different accounts of what merits are politically relevant, and there are many more, as can be seen not only by looking at the range of actual governments in the world today and the talents and abilities that they select for, but also by looking at the past two thousand years of discussions and debates throughout the world over who should rule and why. While the actual debates, discussions, and writings have not always been couched in terms of merit, such a framework may be useful for drawing out not only myriad conceptions of what is politically relevant merit, but also arguments and justifications for these conceptions. The contemporary focus on the role that Confucianism can play in this has great potential, but it should not be seen as providing the Chinese meritocratic vision; as we have seen, it is but one of many, and its account is susceptible to criticism not only from the West but from within its own tradition. Pushing the debate forward and solidifying the attractiveness of a Confucian conception of political meritocracy may very well require engaging with rival conceptions of political merit and demonstrating why a Confucian account better captures those merits that are politically relevant – if it does.

A further question is exactly how politically relevant merits are to be identified, and this is not always clear. The Han Feizian conception of promoting through the bureaucracy on the basis of task-specific abilities may sound promising. However, it is potentially susceptible to the worry that hierarchies tend to promote individuals within them until they reach the level at which they no longer have the requisite talents, leading to a long-term result where all positions are occupied by those who are incompetent at filling them. And while Han Fei does try to guard against this, we may wonder whether he does so successfully – and, more importantly, whether a modern system can be set up to effectively guard against this worry.

A Xunzian system, focused upon individuals’ moral merits, may alleviate this worry if we can be convinced that sufficient moral merit bestows upon the possessor the requisite political talents and abilities. However, this brings with it a worry about whether it is indeed possible to reliably identify those with moral merit. While early Confucians such as Kongzi, Mengzi, and Xunzi all seemed to believe that this was possible, it has long been challenged from within the tradition, as we saw when we examined the Laozi and the Han Feizi. Indeed, even later thinkers who saw themselves as following and developing the ideas of Kongzi recognized the worry and over the centuries set up an ever-changing set of methods for identifying this moral merit, culminating in the civil service exams of later Imperial China (Miyazaki, Reference Miyazaki1976; Elman, Reference Elman2013; Blitstein, Reference Blitstein and Jenco2020).

The idea of examinations for civil servants certainly warrants consideration and is a key component of many political organizations. However, the existence of such exams tells us nothing about their actual content or what that content should be. The American Foreign Service Officer Test, for example, is substantially different from the civil service exams of Imperial China. And, indeed, we could easily imagine Han Fei supporting a civil service exam – just with content that would be vastly different from what the Confucians would propose. Advocating for a meritocratic civil service is not something that is uniquely Confucian, and so those who promote Confucian meritocracy based on historical Chinese civil service exams need to articulate not merely the meritocratic elements of such exams but why the specifically Confucian content is relevant to contemporary merit assessment.

While there is every possibility that there will be convergence on a particular set of merits that are politically relevant (or, perhaps more narrowly and thus more realistically, on a particular set of merits that are relevant for a particular political post), there is still the question of how to develop those talents. Few would argue that people are simply born with fully developed talents, abilities, and merits.Footnote ⁵⁰ Rather, there needs to be an educational apparatus in place to effectively develop those merits that are relevant in the political arena. But what such an educational apparatus should look like will vary dramatically depending on what merits are determined to be politically relevant. A Confucian curriculum that focuses on the study of the Four Books (the Analects, the Mengzi, the Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean) is only relevant if gaining a deeper insight into these texts translates into improved performance in the politico-bureaucratic arena. Therefore, again, those promoting meritocratic rule must first entertain and evaluate the various possibilities for what constitutes politically relevant merit so as to appropriately develop the necessary undergirding educational system.

A question also arises as to what else beyond merit matters. There are a wide range of possibilities here, but I shall just point to one. Imagine that we have a meritocratic system that has appointed to the position of economic minister the individual who has the greatest grasp of economics and understands better than anyone else what is in the economic interests of the state. Additionally, imagine that the position of environmental minister is filled in the same way, with an individual who has the greatest grasp of what maximally benefits the environment. Further, imagine that the environmental minister advocates the prohibition of carbon-based fuels, significant restrictions on construction of polluting industries, and so on, while at the same time the economic minister points to the negative consequences of eliminating reliance on carbon-based fuels and the high economic costs of increased economic regulations. They are both correct, and implementing the policies each advocates is what constitutes each of them fulfilling the duties of the positions that they occupy.

What this points to, then, is the fact that merit cannot be all that matters. There must be a decision made about how to make tradeoffs when the various goals of a state come into conflict with one another. To what extent should we care about economic activity as opposed to environmental protection? In today’s world, we all likely have views about this. But our views are often informed more by our values than by our merits, and a wide range of responses to these questions should seem plausible even if we disagree with many of those answers. What role, then, has meritocracy to play? We could postulate some other comprehensive merit that allows one to look at conflicts between competing values, such as the economic versus environmental one before us, and somehow perceive which one is more important and how much focus there should be on the environment as opposed to the economy. Someone like Xunzi would likely think that the epistemological privilege of morally cultivated sages does bestow upon them the ability to see what is most important and why, whenever conflicts of this sort arise. I suspect, however, that few today are willing to go so far.

None of this is meant as an attack on either Confucian conceptions of merit or the role that it should play in the political realm today. Rather, this Element merely aims to broaden the debates on meritocracy by laying out the diverse ways in which those from early China conceived of politically relevant merit. And should we wish to “resurrect” Chinese conceptions of meritocracy and apply them to our contemporary world, it behooves us to not limit ourselves to a single candidate – at least not before evaluating and assessing the merits of other candidates. Hopefully the reader is equipped to continue such exploration.