Deception and Lying

Much of the analytic literature on lying and deception focuses on problems of the truth or falsity of statements, and is less interested in the implications of true or false statements for action.Footnote ⁴ For example, Thomas L. Carson defines deception as “intentionally causing someone to have a false belief that the deceiver believes to be false.”Footnote ⁵ This point underlies an important difference between deception and lying. Deception is always intentional. By contrast, a lie can be told in error. A false statement can be made by someone who believes it to be true; or an intended lie may turn out to be true. In other words, a lie may be told by accident.

Deception also implies success in ways that lies do not. There must be (or persist) a false belief, to count as deception.Footnote ⁶ By contrast, intentionally false statements count as lies whether or not they succeed in deceiving their intended (or unintended) audiences.

Another important difference between deception and lies is that deception is not limited to intentionally false statements, or even to any statement (false or true). Deception may consist in deliberate omission, or in the introduction of misleading information. It can take the form of lying, misleading, omission, and misrepresentation, including causing someone to persist in a false belief.Footnote ⁷ It can also include what the eminent contemporary philosopher Harry G. Frankfurt calls “bullshit.” Frankfurt describes bullshit as a misrepresentation of a speaker's nature or intentions. Unlike lies, it does not misrepresent a state of affairs or a speaker's beliefs about them, but rather his or her enterprise. A bullshitter “misrepresents what he is up to.”Footnote ⁸ Frankfurt is more critical of the bullshitter than of the liar, because the latter at least recognizes (and thus respects) the truth, while the bullshitter is indifferent to it.Footnote ⁹

Finally, it is striking that this scholarship addresses deception primarily in the form of false or misleading statements, rather than misleading actions.

Deception and Indirection

Deception can involve indirection, and some definitions of indirection specifically allude to it. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the noun indirection as (1): “indirect movement or action; a devious or circuitous course to some end … an indirect or devious way.” This meaning emphasizes indirect means to an end, and is not pejorative. But a second meaning stresses deceptive uses of indirect means (2): “Want of straightforwardness in action; an act, or practice, which is not straightforward and honest; deceit; malpractice.”Footnote ¹⁰

Indirection can be used to create misleading perceptions (that a road is empty, that an army is disordered). Three points are important in considering relationships between indirection and deception. First, deception is always deliberate and linked to specific goals and desires. Second, while it may seem spontaneous or accidental, it is carefully planned. Third, indirection is not inherently deceptive, though it may be subtle or difficult to perceive.

Strategy and Assessment

The Sunzi begins with a claim that prospects for victory can be assessed or calculated:

Assessment requires foreknowledge (xian zhi 先知):

Calculation (suan 筭) is carried out in the ancestral temple, but it is important to emphasize that this knowledge does not come from mantic practices or calendric calculation.Footnote ¹⁴ Other elements of assessment are empirical: knowledge of local weather patterns, information on roads and terrain (possibly obtained from local guides), and knowledge on troop numbers, supplies, and movements (possibly obtained from spies).

Assessment and foreknowledge are also psychological because, to know which strategies will be effective, it is necessary to understand the enemy.Footnote ¹⁵ The general is enjoined to “know the enemy and know yourself” (zhi bi zhi ji 知彼知己).Footnote ¹⁶ This knowledge includes the temperament of the enemy general and the discipline and loyalty of his troops. Understanding the enemy makes possible the strategic use of deception to create the circumstances for victory. The strategist general uses deception to disguise his capabilities and situation, feigning (in)capacity; (in)activity; disguising his location, etc. This secrecy ensures that the enemy will not know what to defend or attack.Footnote ¹⁷ Deception thus creates favorable circumstances for victory. Used together, foreknowledge, strategy and deception allow the strategist general to control the encounter and either bring the enemy to him or prevent the enemy from engaging.Footnote ¹⁸ The Sunzi describes this as “the method of attacking by strategy” (mou gong zhi fa 謀攻之法).Footnote ¹⁹

Chapter 3, “Attack by Strategy” (Mou gong 謀攻), emphasizes the importance of attacking the enemy's strategy.Footnote ²⁰ It claims that a skilled general can subdue the enemy without fighting, capture his cities without siege, and conquer his country without protracted warfare. These arguments are based on claims in Chapter 2 that the most effective military action is swift and minimally destructive. Alastair I. Johnston has questioned this specifically non-violent account of Sunzi strategy, and argues that the Sunzi valorizes violence far more than is generally recognized.Footnote ²¹ What is important about these claims for the present discussion is not whether the Sunzi lives up to ethical or practical claims to minimize violence and destruction in warfare, but rather its specific claim that strategy is the key element in military victory. This view also distinguishes the Sunzi from other Militarist texts, which describe tactics at great length, but put less emphasis on the central role of strategy.Footnote ²²

It is striking that the Sunzi repeatedly uses numbered lists—often of three, five, or nine items—to present much of the information that forms the basis of assessment and calculation. For example, it describes “five factors” (wu shi 五事) and “five deliberations” (wu ji) for assessing prospects for victory, and five qualities of good command.Footnote ²³ It describes three ways a ruler can harm an army and five essentials for victory.Footnote ²⁴ Military methods also come in a list of five: (1) measurement (of space), (2) estimation (of quantities), (3) calculations, (4) comparisons, and (5) (chances of) victory.Footnote ²⁵ To make the best use of troops the general must understand “Nine Transformations” (Jiu bian) and “five dangers” (wu wei 五危).Footnote ²⁶ Even “Attack by Fire” (Huo gong 火攻) comes in a list of five methods.Footnote ²⁷ These lists are elaborated by explanations of each term, but never by anecdotes or detailed illustrations.

These laconic lists resemble what Matthias Richter has described as pragmatic texts for selecting officials: these “catalogs” enumerated (un)desirable qualities for individuals in government service. Richter argues that pragmatic texts were integrated into larger compilations that are now read inappropriately as philosophical works. But the form of argument of the Sunzi is closer to the “catalog” lists than are most early Chinese philosophical texts.Footnote ²⁸

According to Richter, such texts claim that their methods for evaluating human talent allow them to “recognize” (zhi 知) talent, “distinguish” (bian 辨) the fit from the unfit, and “obtain” (de 得) individuals of ability.Footnote ²⁹ The Sunzi also uses the language of acquisition or attainment. The general is enjoined to “know” (zhi) the five factors, five deliberations, three ways in which an army may be harmed by the ruler, and the five essentials for victory. He must know the “Nine Transformations” (Chapter 8) to obtain the best advantage from his men.Footnote ³⁰ He obtains (de) results from the advantages of heaven and earth and from calculations in the temple.Footnote ³¹ He also uses schemes and deceptions to obtain the enemy's plans; and employs local guides to obtain (de) the advantages of terrain and circumstance.Footnote ³²

Richter emphasizes that our reading practices of Warring States texts tend to isolate their philosophical context from their concrete and practical concerns. This approach is instructive for the Sunzi because of its many practical concerns. It shares these concerns with other Militarist texts, but the Sunzi is distinctive for its explicit theory that combines strategy-based warfare and informed deception as the basis of effective strategy.

Deception in the Sunzi

The Sunzi strongly recommends the use of deception in connection with assessment (ji) forethought (lü) and stratagem (mou). Two passages make the explicit claim that deception is central to success in warfare:

Explicit praise of deception is rare; these two passages are the sole instances of the use of the terms gui 詭 (deception) and zha 詐 (ruse, trickery) in the Sunzi.

Although deceit is central to the strategic method of the Sunzi, it is rarely mentioned directly. The Sunzi illustrates the use of deception and cunning, but rarely mentions it. For example, immediately after the claim that warfare is based on deception:

Rather than presenting a defense or explanation of deception, this passage provides an explanation of how to use it effectively. The passage also emphasizes the spontaneous nature of “the strategist's keys to victory”: they cannot be discussed beforehand.

Nonetheless, the Sunzi repeatedly describes deceptive strategies. For example, “Weakness and Strength” (Xu shi 虛實) describes a skilled general using deception to control the battlefield by bringing the enemy to him in the circumstances of his choice.Footnote ³⁶ He uses deception to offer an apparent advantage with the result that the enemy does not know where to attack or defend.Footnote ³⁷ His interest in manipulating the perceptions of others extends to his own troops. “Nine Kinds of Ground” (Jiu di 九地) emphasizes this point:

The passage continues that he deliberately leads his men into danger and only then shows his hand: leading his troops into battle is like climbing a height and throwing away the ladder; he leads his troops deep in and only then releases the trigger.Footnote ³⁹ The chapter summarizes these skills as “the ability to accomplish your purposes by cunning” (qiao neng cheng shi 巧能成事).Footnote ⁴⁰

It is striking that Sunzi descriptions of how to use deception or protect against it never take the form of the anecdotes, dialogues, or teaching stories typical of many Masters texts. To put it another way, the Sunzi general is described as an expert, but not as a teacher. Although stories set in the form of a “teaching mode” have a long history that probably dates back to the Analects, this mode of narrative never appears in the Sunzi. Sun Wu 孫武, the apocryphal author of the Sunzi, is never presented as an authoritative teacher, or in any other kind of dialogue with either a student or potential patron.Footnote ⁴¹ Teaching scenes can establish the authority of a master, the nature of instruction, and sometimes the unsuitability of a student.Footnote ⁴² Despite the subtlety of the skills being recommended, none of this appears in the Sunzi. Instead, deception is presented through laconic accounts of what could be called acting by contraries through the use of deception and stratagem to mislead an opponent. Interestingly, methods of deception are not presented as numbered lists of the kind identified by Richter and discussed above.

Deception in Other Militarist Texts

Militarist texts present a spectrum of attitudes toward deception. At one end the Sunzi centrally and consistently advocates it. At the other the Wei Liaozi and Sima fa explicitly reject it. The Sun Bin, Wuzi, and Liutao take an intermediate position.

According to the Wei Liaozi:

This view is unequivocal. The Sima fa focuses more on administration, and discipline than on strategy, and emphasizes the divergent values of the civil and martial realms of society (wen and wu 文物). But that separation does not extend to the recognition of any virtue in deception:

The Sima fa criticizes both excess and deficiency of “awesomeness” (wei 威). Excess instills fear and works against righteousness and good administration; deficiency is linked to the employment of destructive officials. Both the Wei Liaozi and Sima fa set up an opposition between negative moral values associated with deception (zha) and positive ones associated with uprightness (zheng, Wei Liaozi) or virtue (de 德, the Sima fa).

A third view is to emphasize the use of benevolence and other non-martial virtues, but to allow for, and rationalize, the use of deception under limited circumstances. This is the view of the Sun Bin bingfa, Wuzi, and Liutao.

The Sun Bin bingfa emphasizes set formations and the specialization of the general, and focuses on specific tactics rather than broad issues.Footnote ⁴⁵ At several points it recommends deception to mislead an enemy general. In the chapter “Questions of King Wei” (Wei wang wen 威王問) King Wei asks Sun Bin how to employ troops in different situations, two of which involve deception. Sun Bin advises a commander with superiority in numbers and strength to feign poor discipline in order to encourage the enemy's ambitions.Footnote ⁴⁶ For an equally matched opponent, his advice is to dazzle him to make him divide his forces. But to work, this plan must be kept secret.Footnote ⁴⁷ The chapter concludes with four urgent considerations in warfare:

The chapter “Coordinating Military Assignments” (Guan yi 官一) recommends the use of “hidden schemes and strategic deceptions” (yin ni mou zha 隱匿謀詐) to lure the enemy into battle.Footnote ⁴⁹ The final chapter of the Sun Bin, “Extraordinary and Straightforward” (Qi zheng 奇正) recommends the combination of straightforward (zheng) and extraordinary (qi) strategies:

These topics are not pursued and there is little emphasis on deception or extraordinary (qi) methods, compared to the Sunzi. (Extraordinary methods are discussed further below.) As Lau and Ames point out, misrepresenting one's strength to confuse the enemy falls short of the sweeping claim in the first chapter of the Sunzi that the art of war is the art of deception.Footnote ⁵¹

Deception first appears in the Wuzi in a discussion of five reasons for going to war and five types of army associated with each: (1) a righteous (yi 義) army, motivated by desire for fame; (2) a strong (jiang 彊) army, motivated by desire for profit; (3) a hard (gang 剛) army, motivated by hatred; (4) a fierce (bao 暴) army, motivated by internal discord; and (5) a contrary (ni 逆) army, motivated by famine. Each has its proper mode of attack, and one is ruses and trickery:

In one case trickery is described as appropriate to the character of a particular state. Marquis Wu 武侯 asks Wu Qi 吳起 for advice when he is beset by six states (Qin, Chu, Zhao, Qi, Yan, and Han) in all four directions and the configuration of power (shi 勢) is not to his advantage. Wu Qi describes the character of each state and how best to address it, including by deception.

He describes the people of Qin as strong, with treacherous land, severe government and a contentious population who believe in rewards and punishments. They are prone to scatter and engage in individual combat; and are best attacked by false prospects for profit, which makes greedy soldiers abandon their general. With this ruse one can hunt down scattered soldiers, set up ambushes, take advantage of the moment, and capture their general.Footnote ⁵³ By contrast, the people of Yan are sincere, straightforward, and careful: “they love courage and right conduct and rarely use deceptions and stratagems” (zha mou 詐謀).Footnote ⁵⁴ They defend their positions but are not mobile; and are best attacked from behind. Another passage emphasizes the need to understand the talents (cai 才) of the enemy general and weigh the opportune moment according to the situation (yin xing yong quan 因形用權):

In summary, the Wuzi does not recommend deception as a military virtue, but does recommend it as a practical means to gain information about an enemy or to capture an enemy general.

The most extensive discussion of deception occurs not in the Sunzi but in the Liutao, which repeatedly discusses deception (gui), artifice (wei), and trickery (zha). Overall, the Liutao recommends the use of benevolence and wisdom, but takes the latter to include using deception to gain victory with minimal violence. Several passages illustrate this important point.

“The King's Wings” (Wang yi 王翼) is a discourse on selecting officials. Several official roles explicitly use deception.

These five types of officer all are responsible for the maintenance and manipulation of secret plans, foreknowledge, deceptive signals and communications, and spycraft in several specific military contexts. In another passage King Wu 武王 asks about selecting generals, and the Taigong 太公 explains fifteen cases where external appearance does not reflect internal character, of which two are particularly relevant. The ninth seems guileless but is untrustworthy (you er bu xin zhe 有悾悾而不信者). The eleventh seems to lack eloquence but is a person of merit and achievement (you gui ji er you gongxiao zhe 有詭激而有功效者).Footnote ⁵⁸

The chapter titled “The Unorthodox Army” (Qi bing 奇兵) describes indirect strategies that use deception to confuse an enemy army. For example, deep grass permits concealed escape; narrow passes and mountain forests allow a small force to attack a large one:

The chapter “Fullness and Emptiness” (Ying xu 盈虛) describes a conversation between King Wen 文王 and the Taigong about the sage rulers of antiquity. The Taigong describes Yao as acting by wu wei (discussed below) and encouraging the virtuous: “He becalmed his heartmind and put all the nodes [of social forms] into correct alignment [zheng jie 正節]. He used laws and measures to prohibit evil and artifice [xie wei 邪偽].”Footnote ⁶⁰

In “Honoring the Worthy” (Shang xian 上賢), when King Wen asks about appointing officials, the Taigong urges him to get rid of the deceptive and artful (zha wei 詐偽). He expounds on “Six Thieves” and “Seven Harms.” The latter include those who:

Several other passages provide workaday details on how to deceive enemy troops. For example, to determine whether a fortification is empty or inhabited, listen for drums and bells and look for birds startled into flight; if there are no vapors overhead, the enemy has tricked you with dummies (zha er wei ou ren 詐而為偶人).Footnote ⁶² In another passage King Wu asks about a small army facing a larger foe deep in enemy territory. The Taigong advises finding an opportunity to trick the enemy (zha di 詐敵) and escape quickly. If the enemy cannot be deceived, the only recourse is to spend money to gain intelligence from spies.Footnote ⁶³ Finally, King Wu asks how to attack a large force with a small one, absent advantages of terrain, timing, and alliances. Here the Taigong recommends deception in order to manipulate the situation:

In summary, the Sunzi stands apart from both other Militarist texts and Chinese philosophical literature in its treatment of deception. Only the Sunzi explicitly theorizes deception as a central principle of its strategy-centered approach to warfare. Nonetheless, it makes sparing use of the language of deception and trickery (gui, zha), and prefers detailed instructions on how to deceive an enemy general. Such instructions have many parallels in other bingfa texts.

Indirection and Wu wei

The discussion of deception above makes clear that at least some strategies require indirect or roundabout action to bring about the deceptions so central to Sunzi strategy. But what kind of indirection does the Sunzi recommend, and how does it compare to other Warring States accounts of indirection, specifically accounts of wu wei? This question is important because of recent scholarship on the nature of wu wei and how it is understood.

Several recent studies have emphasized its phenomenological and cognitive aspects, and suggest that wu wei is more a state of mind than a mode of action. For example, Pang Pu 龐朴 describes wu wei not as a form of action but as: “the state of vital energies and spirit at the exact moment of action.”Footnote ⁶⁵ Jean François Billeter makes a distinction between “reflexive” (réflexif) and active (actif) modes of action, and describes the actions and expertise of Cook Ding as “the idea of perfect action” (l'idée de l'activité parfaite): a perfect efficacy and economy of energy.Footnote ⁶⁶ Edward Slingerland argues that the attainment of “effortless action” was a central Warring States religious and philosophical ideal. He describes wu wei as “an almost supernatural efficacy” in which actions flow freely from spontaneous inclinations but accord perfectly with the dictates of the situation.Footnote ⁶⁷

As an example, Billeter describes the expertise of the craft experts of the Zhuangzi (who presumably use wu wei), not as a transitory state or “skill,” but rather as a set of dispositions that have been completely transformed. The story of Cook Ding provides an example in which “an artisan of genius” minutely describes the experience of his proper craft. As his mastery progresses:

Billeter argues that in the Zhuangzi, this state of mind is linked a particular version of egalitarianism in which domination is not the be-all and end-all of human relationships: “other relations than power of one over another are possible, and that they are in conformity with the very essence of human subjectivity.”Footnote ⁶⁹

Slingerland goes further and argues that wu wei was both a spiritual ideal and philosophical problematique in the Analects, Laozi, Mengzi, Zhuangzi, and Xunzi.Footnote ⁷⁰ Importantly, these texts are conventionally considered both Daoist and Confucian. Some of his claims rest on arguments from conceptual metaphor theory. Wu wei does not occur in the Mencius and rarely in the Xunzi, but on Slingerland's account, these texts contain conceptual metaphors for “effortless action.”Footnote ⁷¹ The issue of conceptual metaphor theory is beyond the scope of the present discussion, so I restrict myself to actual instances of the term wu wei and the claims of Pang Pu, Billeter, and Slingerland that it describes a state of mind, rather than an explicit mode of action, in order to understand how it differs from the Sunzi account of indirect action.

A few examples illustrate the centrality of accounts of indirect action, described as wu wei, in Warring States thought. Analects 15.5 describes Shun as “one who ruled by means of wu wei” (wu wei er zhi zhe 無為而治者). He made himself reverent, took up his [ritual] position facing south, and that was all.Footnote ⁷² This passage seems to emphasize that Shun did not “do” anything: wu wei consisted in orienting himself correctly—mentally and physically—and that was all.Footnote ⁷³

Claims for the efficacy of wu wei are especially prominent in the Daode jing where those who understand dao:

Here it is not clear whether wu wei is a disposition of mind or an indirect mode of action, for example governing through ministers, and much depends on how we read the Daode jing. By contrast, the Zhuangzi seems to describe wu wei as both an attitude of mind and a mode of action. The chapter “Perfect Happiness” describes it thus:

The Guanzi seems to contain two distinct accounts of effective action. The “Art of War” (Bing fa) chapter resembles the Sunzi in its recommendations for speed in battle and deceiving the enemy:

By contrast, in the “Art of the Heartmind” (Xin shu 1) chapter of the Guanzi, wu wei seems to be a quality of a sage:

According to Explanation VII, the dao of Heaven is vacuous and formless, so nothing opposes it; it flows everywhere and never changes:

What is important for the present discussion is that wu wei—whether understood as action or mindset—is described as indirect, spontaneous, and effortless. The Daode jing, Zhuangzi, and Guanzi all specifically describe it as removed from desires and intentions.Footnote ⁸⁰

Militarist Accounts of Direct and Indirect Actions

The Sunzi account of indirect or extraordinary action differs significantly from Warring States accounts of indirect action as wu wei. The Sunzi argues that effective strategy requires both indirect and straightforward modes of action, described by two sets of antonyms: qi 奇 and zheng 正 (indirect and direct, extraordinary and straightforward) and yu 迂 and zhi 直 (indirect or roundabout and straight). “Strategic Advantage” (Bing shi 兵勢) includes a sustained discussion of when to use direct and indirect methods of attack:

Neither method is inherently preferred; the important point is to know when to do what. This important point is overlooked by François Jullien in his account of Chinese and Greek military operations in Detour and Access. He is right to emphasize the importance of qi—the indirect—in military matters. But the antithesis he claims between a Greek or Western polemical directness (with no place for Trojan horses) and an imagined Chinese universal indirection loses sight of the complementarity of two modes of combat in which: “the indirect and direct produce each other” (qi zheng xiang sheng 奇正相生).Footnote ⁸²

A few examples illustrate this point. “Military Combat” (Jun zheng 軍爭) asserts that the difficulty of combat consists in “turning the roundabout into the direct” (yi yu wei zhi 以迂為直) and turning misfortune into advantage.Footnote ⁸³ Therefore it is important that deliberations take account of both methods:

Here, “indirect” consists of a roundabout route that presents a false appearance of advantage. In other words, indirection is at least to some extent deception. A later passage in the same chapter emphasizes the need for foreknowledge to assess the right mixture of straight and roundabout methods:

The term wu wei does not appear in the Sunzi, Wuzi, Sima fa, Wei Liaozi, or Sun Bin bingfa. It does appear in the Liutao, but in descriptions of the actions of sages or their imitators, not of generals. For example, one passage describes Yao as acting by wu wei: he did not impose untimely labor service and “reduced his desires, constrained his will, and managed affairs by wu wei.”Footnote ⁸⁶ In another he attributes it to the efficacious action of Heaven under the rule of a sage:

Finally, in “Honoring the Worthy” the Taigong advises King Wen against the artifices of those who affect simplicity and speak of wu wei in order to seek fame and profit.Footnote ⁸⁸ These passages describe wu wei as a principle of sage rulership, not as a principle of strategy or indirection.

These examples show that the actions and skills of the Sunzi general differ from those associated with wu wei in three ways. First, whereas wu wei is spontaneous and not premeditated, the apparent spontaneity of the Sunzi general is not spontaneous or effortless. Rather, it is the result of protracted and deliberate forethought, analysis, and manipulation. The Sunzi general may employ natural patterns, but for different reasons and in different ways than does the agent of wu wei. A second difference concerns desires and intentions. Wu wei is described repeatedly as removed from desires and intentions. Chris Fraser modifies Slingerland's account to identify wu wei with the absence of action motivated by an agent's desires, will, ambition, knowledge, and education; but here too the Sunzi general is distinguished by his desires, ambitions, and training because his actions arise directly from the intention and desire for victory.Footnote ⁸⁹ Third, deception is key to the false appearances engineered by the Sunzi general. The absence of wu wei as a mode of indirection in the Sunzi or other Militarist texts is all the more striking in the light of Slingerland's claims for the importance of wu wei as a central concept and ideal among Warring States thinkers, including those conventionally identified as both Daoist and Confucian, and central to the development of Warring States thought.Footnote ⁹⁰ By contrast, the Sunzi describes indirect action merely as an effective method of deception, with no inherent value or efficacy in itself.

Further, the three themes of strategy, deception, and indirect action are central and interrelated concepts in the Sunzi, in ways that distinguish it from other Militarist texts. The Sunzi repeatedly recommends skills and virtues associated with strategy to anticipate events and the use of deception and indirection to mislead both the enemy general and one's own troops.

Finally, it is worth noting that the deceptive strategies recommended in the Sunzi clearly conform to deception as defined by contemporary philosophers. Sunzi deception is deliberate, successful, and not confined to, or particularly reliant on, lying. It can include “bullshit” (on Frankfurt's definition), but only insofar as it misleads effectively. Unlike much contemporary bullshit, Sunzi deceptions are not designed to enhance the image or reputation of the general who uses deception-based strategy.

Military Deception

Xunzi's hostility to military deception can be broken down into two distinct antipathies. One is the broad hostility to Militarists who “advocate warfare.” A second is his rejection of deception as an aspect of military operations.

A range of Warring States thinkers attack military expertise they consider to advocate warfare, but only Xunzi specifically links this attack to deception. The Analects says little about warfare, but Analects 12.7 clearly states that government requires sufficient food, military expertise, and the confidence of the people, even if he ultimately considers it more expendable than food or the confidence of the people.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ A similar view appears in the Da Dai Li ji chapter “Using the Military” (Yong bing 用兵), where Confucius affirms that the sages used the military to suppress cruelty and violence. Only in later ages did rapacious men use it to kill the people and imperil the state.Footnote ¹¹⁰

The first attacks on aggressive warfare were Mohist. Paul van Els distinguishes three arguments that warfare harms the people in the Mohist chapters on warfare “Against Aggressive Warfare” (“Fei gong” 非攻): a “moral argument” (Chapter 17) based on humaneness and righteousness (ren yi 仁義); an “economic argument” (Chapter 18) based on the claim that war is always destructive if the true costs are accurately calculated; and a “religious argument” (Chapter 19) that warfare is against the interests of Heaven.Footnote ¹¹¹ Mohist economic arguments against warfare based on planning (ji) and calculation (shu) claim that actual loss always outweighs anticipated gain if one accurately calculates the true costs of a military expedition. These costs include wearing out of material (arrows, flags, tents, etc.), the exhaustion and death of pack animals and people, and the loss of worshipers to the spirits.Footnote ¹¹²

It is Mencius (7B4) who first specifically attacks experts in military strategy:

This passage sets up an opposition between benevolence and expertise at warfare. When King Wu fought the Shang, he claimed to the people that: “I come to bring you peace, not to wage war on the people.” Mencius concludes: “To wage a punitive war is to rectify. There is no one who does not wish himself rectified. What need is there for war?”Footnote ¹¹⁴ The Xunzi continues the attack on advocating warfare, but adds two new elements: the use of deceit as a principle of warfare and the broader ethical status of deception.

Xunzi explicitly attacks deception in military strategy in Chapter 15, “Debating Military Affairs,” which details a debate between Xun Qing 荀卿 (henceforward Xunzi) and the Lord of Linwu 臨武君 (henceforward, Linwu) before the latter's patron, King Xiaocheng of Zhao 趙孝成 (r. 265–244 b.c.e.). King Xiaocheng asks about the essential principles of warfare. Linwu's response reflects the theory and vocabulary of military writers of Xunzi's time, including concepts from the Sunzi. In the first exchange, Linwu recommends the strategic principles of taking advantage of the timeliness of Heaven (tian shi 天時) and the advantages of the earth (di li 地利), and observing enemy troop movements. Xunzi disagrees and argues that the most basic element of military activity is the unity of the people (yi min 壹民). If officers and people are not loyal and devoted, even a Tang or a Wu would not be sure of victory:Footnote ¹¹⁵

Linwu objects that the most important element in warfare is technical knowledge of the advantage conferred by strategic configuration (shi li 勢利). He praises the use of “shifts and dissimulations” (bian zha 變詐) and specifically opposes technical expertise to loyalty:

Xunzi counters that dissimulation (zha) does not work on the army of a humane man.Footnote ¹¹⁸ Deception only works on the lazy and weak and in situations where a ruler is separated from his subordinates and thus becomes separated from his power.Footnote ¹¹⁹ Thus a Jie 桀 can use deceptive strategies against another Jie, but a Jie cannot deceive a Yao 堯. Xunzi argues that if the relation between superiors and inferiors—civil or military—is as unified as are parent and child, dissimulation cannot disrupt that unity.Footnote ¹²⁰

This passage presents two opposing views of warfare, which are elaborated in the chapter. Linwu seems to draw on the Sunzi and possibly other bingfa texts, though he does not say so explicitly. He prioritizes the areas in which they claim expertise: technical knowledge of weather and terrain, close observation of enemy movements, exploitation of circumstantial advantages, unpredictability, and deception in order to confound and surprise the enemy. Xunzi by contrast insists on the importance of devotion (qin fu 親附) to the commander, and that loyalty, rather than foreknowledge, determines military victory.Footnote ¹²¹ Such loyalty is ultimately political, and is linked to good government because of the special motivation of soldiers and officials who serve a ruler like sons.Footnote ¹²² Xunzi argues that good government is the basis for military strength because good order (or good government) is strong while disorder is weak.Footnote ¹²³ Aaron Stalnaker argues that loyalty was of central importance to Xunzi because by his time, the key political issue in Warring States China was not rebellion by subordinates but rather effective managerial control.Footnote ¹²⁴

Xunzi goes on to argue that strength arises from the moral qualities, correct ritual conduct, and orderly government of a good ruler. On this basis he creates an ascending moral hierarchy of military methods. Qi has its soldiers practice hand-to-hand combat. Wei uses fixed standards in selecting personnel. Qin treats its soldiers harshly and manages them with rewards and punishments. Soldiers from Qi are inferior to those of Wei, who are in turn inferior to the soldiers of Qin. These methods are inferior to regulations of a Duke Huan of Qi 齊桓公 (d. 643 b.c.e.) or a Duke Wen of Jin 晋文公 (697–628 b.c.e.), which in turn are inferior to the benevolence and righteousness of a Tang 湯 or Wu.Footnote ¹²⁵ Xunzi's argument is that soldiers motivated by reward or profit and treated with dissimulation become secretive in their conduct. By contrast, correct ritual and right conduct (li 禮 sand yi 義) transform and unify the people, and deceptive strategies (zha, qiao) are no match for it.Footnote ¹²⁶

The discussion next turns to the key features of the general. Both the Xunzi and Sunzi agree on the need for impartiality and clear regulations, but Xunzi stresses that a good general rejects what is dubious (qi yi 棄疑) in his knowledge and never goes too far in his actions.Footnote ¹²⁷ By contrast, the Sunzi general “creates victory” by engineering and manipulating uncertainty.Footnote ¹²⁸ The Xunzi and the Sunzi are also in agreement in other areas of military method that do not bear on cunning and deception.Footnote ¹²⁹ For example, they agree on the need for generous treatment of conquered populations, prisoners, and enemy soldiers, albeit for different reasons.

It is important to consider the rhetoric of the chapter. The distance between these two positions is less than Xunzi's rhetorical stance leads us to suppose. Xunzi acknowledges the necessity for military expertise and the specialists connected with it, even though he considers them less important than government based on quasi-filial loyalty. Several passages praise the skills of military specialists. A ruler whose army's rewards and punishments are well used and whose military machines, weapons, armor, and equipment are well designed will be strong; if they are defective, he will be weak.Footnote ¹³⁰ Xunzi also praises the Six Arts (liu shu 六術) and Five Deliberations (wu quan 五權) of effective generalship, which include skill in such areas as encampments, surveillance of the enemy, and other advance preparations.Footnote ¹³¹ Likewise, the Sunzi stresses the importance of unity and the general's ability to inspire loyalty, which is an essential part of the Sunzi's first criterion for predicting victory.Footnote ¹³² At a certain point, Linwu effectively gives up and the dialogue shifts to a teaching narrative in which King Xiaocheng asks questions and Xunzi answers them.Footnote ¹³³ In other words, the authority of the teacher within Xunzi's text has shifted from Linwu to Xunzi.

The discussion then shifts the military regulations of a true king. According to Xunzi, a true king does not butcher inhabitants of a city, detain people arbitrarily, execute the young or elderly, destroy crops, incarcerate those who surrender, or pursue those who flee the battlefield. Even in punitive expeditions (zhu), there is no retribution against the common people. As Xunzi puts it, a true king has punitive expeditions but no warfare (you zhu er wu zhan 誅而無戰). Nor does he butcher the inhabitants of conquered cities, conceal his army (qian jun 潛軍, move it by stealth), detain people, or commit his army to the field for more than one season at a time.Footnote ¹³⁴

It is again striking that the Sunzi would agree with most of these recommendations. An important exception is the use of stealth, which the Xunzi rejects as “unjust” and the Sunzi extols as effective strategy.

Another disagreement comes over the principle of an army taking advantage of the moment (shi). Xunzi's student Li Si 李斯 (c. 280–208 b.c.e.) asks about the victories of the state of Qin, and suggests that Qin's power is due not to benevolence and righteousness but to taking advantage of opportunities offered by the timely moment. Xunzi counters that these “opportunities” are not real; the real opportunity is to use benevolence and righteousness.Footnote ¹³⁵ Here Xunzi again asserts the priority of ren and yi over strategy and, by implication, deception. Although there is some agreement between the Sunzi and Xunzi on military matters, the two diverge absolutely on the acceptability of deception, and Xunzi disparages the efficacy of Linwu's principles because they fail to meet his standard of ethics.

By contrast, some other Ru accepted military deception, and Xunzi's hostility to it was not accepted even by all Han Confucians. For example, in the “Exhibiting the Martial” (Zhi wu 指武) chapter of the Shuo yuan, Liu Xiang 劉向 (77–06 b.c.e.) uses the example of King Wen to argue for the need to understand deception:

As Robin McNeal observes, Liu Xiang clearly identified as a Confucian, so his choice to write a chapter on military thought and to argue for its importance and the need to understand the workings of deception indicate that not all Confucians were inherently hostile to military thinking.Footnote ¹³⁷

Political Deception

I now argue that Xunzi's attack on military deception is part of a broader attack on what Xunzi considers incorrect uses of artifice in political and philosophical contexts: deceptive practices in seeking office, government, and the use of deceptive language in argument.

On Xunzi's view, an important function of sage government is to prevent deception in government and social practices, and he attacked three kinds of political deception: (1) dissolute practices and customs that undermine government, (2) fraudulent officials who misrepresent their abilities, and (3) deceptive officials in search of profit. Xunzi attacks licentious or dissolute (jian) behavior in the “Discourse on Music” (Yue lun 樂論):

The problem is that jian is inherently deceptive because its indirect effects lead to disorder. By contrast, sage kings prevent the people from engaging in dissolute or misleading customs (jian guai zhi su 姦怪之俗).Footnote ¹³⁹ On this view, an important function of correct government is to eliminate dissolution and depravity (jian xie 姦邪) in order to ensure the livelihood and wellbeing of the people by protecting them from these indirect effects.Footnote ¹⁴⁰

A second type of political deception is the self-misrepresentation of deceitful persons (jian ren 姦人) who try to steal a false reputation for virtue and ministers who lie about their competence.Footnote ¹⁴¹ A ruler who appoints such incompetents is merely benighted, but a minister who lies about his ability is a fraud (zha). When a benighted ruler appoints a fraudulent minister, destruction is sure to follow.Footnote ¹⁴²

A variant of self-misrepresentation is unwillingness to take a subordinate role. Xunzi criticizes such individuals as having “the mind of a fraud” (jian ren zhi xin 姦人之心); they seek the reputation of a sage but their intentions and actions reveal a deceptive mind (jian xin 姦心) and a deceptive way (jian dao 姦道).Footnote ¹⁴³ In his view, such people cannot deceive a junzi, just as (the expert assessor of horses) Bo Le 伯樂 could not be deceived (qi) about horses.Footnote ¹⁴⁴

A third type of political deception puts economic profit over moral principle. Xunzi argues that deceptive individuals persist, despite their ultimate destructiveness, because rulers do not honor correct rituals and conduct.Footnote ¹⁴⁵ When rulers seek only profit, they treacherously deceive (dan zha 憚詐) their people for small profits within their state and they deceive their allies for large profits outside it.

Xunzi's move here is to link profit-seeking with stratagem. He argues that rulers who seek profit rely on “strategies of the opportune moment” (quan mou 權謀) and:

Thus rulers who favor opportunistic stratagems (quan mou) and love schemes (zha) endanger their states because their ministers and the people follow their examples and turn to subversion and rebellion.Footnote ¹⁴⁷ By contrast, if merchants and traders are honest and without deceit (wu zha), they can travel securely, goods circulate freely, and the country's needs are supplied.Footnote ¹⁴⁸

Xunzi further argues that straightforwardness and effort lead to success while deceit and artifice (zha wei 詐偽) lead to obstruction.Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Thus, avoiding deception is a practical matter, and the corrective to all three kinds of political deception is rule by a sage king or junzi. Xunzi argues that under sage rule, officials are not deceptive and the people do not adopt dissolute and strange customs (jian guai zhi su 姦怪之俗).Footnote ¹⁵⁰ When rules and edicts are clear, even those who could profit do not put over deceptions (qi) on the people or the allies of a state.Footnote ¹⁵¹

Xunzi also compares clear laws to objective standards: joining halves of tallies and contracts; counting sticks (chou 籌); the steelyard and balance beam; and units of measure such as the dou 斗 (peck) and gai 概 (level). These standards and instruments of precise measurement guarantee impartiality. By contrast, if a superior loves opportunistic strategies (quan mou) his ministers will be prone to deception (zha) and taking advantage of others (qi); and if he loves what is twisted and partial (qu si 曲私) his ministers and inferiors will take advantage of others.Footnote ¹⁵² Xunzi considers the acme of governmental instruction (zheng jiao zhi ji 政教之極) to eliminate dissolute and strange practices (jian guai zhi shu 姦怪之屬).Footnote ¹⁵³ He also stresses the importance of environment in nurturing truthfulness or deception. A person in a good environment gains humaneness and morality without being aware of it. Those who live among bad people hear nothing but deceit, calumny, treachery, and artifice (qi wu zha wei 欺誣詐偽).Footnote ¹⁵⁴

In all these arguments, Xunzi's objection to jian (a term whose semantic range includes both dissolution and deception), zha, and ultimately to opportunistic stratagems (quan mou), is twofold. On the one hand, they cause disorder and destruction; but they have another and subtler psychological side effect. Xunzi claims that the use of deception undermines trust, even when it is used on a limited basis against enemies. Once trust is undermined, there is no rapport between superiors and subordinates, and the social hierarchy that is crucial to Xunzi's view of order is undermined.

Philosophical Deception

Xunzi's views on the positive use of artifice (discussed above) go hand in hand with a corresponding critique of what he considers the destructive use of artifice. He is vehement in his attack on philosophical opponents whose theories he considers deceitful and heterodox, including the use of deceitful language. These arguments occur throughout the Xunzi, and are of three broad kinds: (1) the claim that sages do not plan; (2) claims that deceptive language creates disorder, including the implication that names should be regulated; and (3) analogies between the instruments of craftsmen and li and yi.

They begin, perhaps surprisingly in “Against Physiognomy” (Fei xiang 非相). The general context of this chapter is Xunzi's attack on physiognomy on the ethical grounds that physiognomizing people's forms is inferior to assessing their heartminds. People cannot change their bone structure or face shape, but they can practice self-cultivation. The chapter concludes with an account of various kinds of people and modes of argument, presumably in an account of describing what kinds of person to employ.Footnote ¹⁵⁵ Xunzi describes the argumentation of the petty person, the junzi and the sage.

Sages do not ponder or plan because their argumentation is spontaneous and appropriate. At the other extreme is the argumentation of the petty:

They are the “deceitful man's hero” (jian ren zhi xiong 姦人之雄), the kind of man a sage king executes first, because he cannot change.Footnote ¹⁵⁸ This passage opposes the spontaneity of the sage to the forethought and strategy of the inferior and deceptive man, thereby linking planning, forethought, and strategy to deception and trickery. In this argument, the petty person is the analogue of the Sunzi general, whose hallmark is careful planning and using knowledge of the psychology of his opponent to anticipate his decisions and movements. The sage is the opposite of both. Here, Xunzi's spontaneous sage may resemble the agent of wu wei (discussed above). Nonetheless, Xunzi is entirely opposed to the indirect strategies of the Sunzi, which do not use the kind of indirection exemplified by wu wei.

The theme of opposing sagacity to trickery continues in “Against the Twelve Masters” (Fei shier zi 非十二子), but the attack shifts from forethought and spontaneity to the use of deceptive language. Here the attack is on philosophical opponents who engage in deceptive language to create disorder in the world:

Here Xunzi levels the charge of deception against a list of philosophical opponents that include Mozi (Mo Di 墨翟), Song Xing 宋鈃, Shen Dao 慎到, Hui Shi 惠施, and Deng Xi 鄧析. Each has enough principle behind his words to deceive and mislead the ignorant masses.Footnote ¹⁶⁰ Xunzi describes three deceptions forbidden by the sage kings of antiquity: deceptive undertakings (jian shi 姦事), actions not appropriate for the people; deceptive minds (jian xin 姦心), knowledge that does not fit the standards of the former kings; and deceptive theories (jian shuo 姦說), which do not conform to ritual and moral principle (li and yi). On Xunzi's view, the greatest threat to social order comes from those who are wise but use their skill (qiao) for deception (zha), and apply precise language and discrimination to what is useless. Therefore the sage kings prohibited using deception for profit and using doctrines and distinctions for subversion.Footnote ¹⁶¹

Xunzi's interest in social order also extends to attacks on philosophical doctrines and to those who have dissolute minds, follow dissolute daos, and promulgate deceptive theories. For example, in “The Accomplishments of the Ru” (Ru xiao 儒效) he attacks vulgar Ru who promote themselves with exertion and artifice (wei 偽, in its negative sense), and are no different than Mozi.Footnote ¹⁶² He argues that one should pursue every kind of learning and doctrine that results in good order, but should abandon any other kind:

By contrast, under the guidance of a junzi:

An extended attack on deceptive language appears in “Rectifying Names” (Zheng ming 正名), where Xunzi offers a definition of artifice (wei 偽) in its positive sense of deliberate conscious activity:

Xunzi argues that a true king regulates names carefully because skill at propositions and creating names on one's own disorder the correct use of names and create suspicion, discord, and litigation. Therefore the true kings called them “great deceptions” (da jian 大姦) and punished them as severely as forging tallies and tampering with weights and measures.Footnote ¹⁶⁶ Xunzi argues that unorthodox explanations and perverse sayings (xie shuo pi yan 邪說辟言) are the products of individual invention (shan zuo 擅作) and diverge from the correct dao.Footnote ¹⁶⁷ Xunzi opposes “correct dao” to the theories of the hundred schools:

Xunzi's arguments on deceptive language bear on two issues in contemporary Xunzi scholarship on Xunzi's view of name rectification and the nature of “names” (ming 名). One is the merits of a so-called “constructivist” position on naming and whether order (including the order created by naming) derives from natural categories or is a deliberate human “construction.” This issue is related to Xunzi's views on artifice. On a constructivist interpretation of Xunzi, moral standards are human artifacts and not natural features of the world.Footnote ¹⁶⁹

Xunzi's ming/names and the process of rectifying or attuning them are fundamentally ethical in nature, especially Xunzi's account of naming as a prerogative of a benevolent ruler. On a broadly constructivist account of Xunzi's zheng ming, deception in any of these senses profoundly interferes with the ethical context of name rectification. Such interference is all the more serious for Xunzi given his view that names do not have intrinsic appropriateness, and are thus vulnerable to misappropriation.

A second question is whether ming refers only to names in the sense of conventional labels or more broadly to concepts. Kurtis Hagen notes the widespread tendency of contemporary Chinese and Japanese scholarship on the Xunzi to understand ming as “concepts” (Chinese gainian 概念, Japanese gainen 概念). As Lin Lizhen 林麗眞 puts it, Xunzi's ming includes not only terms or concepts, but also “judgment” and “disputation.”Footnote ¹⁷⁰ If we understand ming only as names, Xunzi's attacks on deceptive naming may seem overblown. But if we understand ming more broadly as concepts, judgments, and disputation, Xunzi's reasons for attacking deceptive language become clearer.

Finally, Xunzi's hostility to philosophical deception is linked to a pervasive analogy he makes between ritual and morality (li and yi) and the precision implements of expert craftsmen. Several passages liken instruments for precise measurement to ritual (or dao) and oppose them to deception and fraud. A passage in the “Discourse on Ritual” (Li lun 禮論) opposes ritual and instruments of precise measurement to deception as manifested in theories of “hard and white” and “same and different”:

Xunzi opposes this moral “measurement” to innovation, which he considers a kind of deception. Advocates of innovation argue that past circumstances are different from present ones, so innovation is necessary. Xunzi responds that the masses are deceived (qi) by such claims. If they can be easily deceived about what is before their own eyes, how much more easily can they be deceived about the ancient past. But a sage cannot be deceived.Footnote ¹⁷²

Finally, resistance to innovation is linked to Xunzi's view of culture as created by the “artifice” of sages (in the positive sense) but also as rooted in facilities generated by heaven. For this reason, the artifice of culture is not arbitrary, and must be protected carefully. On this view, the creation of culture was “generated” (sheng 生) by sages, rather than “created” (zuo 作). This view explains Xunzi's hostility to innovation, including his claim (contra the Mohists) that the most important figures in the history of technical innovation were not the inventors of instruments but those who had mastered the arts associated with them and employed them correctly.Footnote ¹⁷³ For Xunzi, the most important invention of the past was ritual and moral principles (li and yi), which allowed correct “measurement”.Footnote ¹⁷⁴

In summary, Xunzi attacks a range of philosophical deceptions by opponents who in his view cannot distinguish right and wrong, straight and crooked, or the causes of order and chaos. Instead, they take up strange theories (guai shuo 怪說) and extraordinary propositions (qi ci 奇辭), and lack ritual or rectitude. “Such,” he laments, “are the theories of the degenerate people of a disordered age.”Footnote ¹⁷⁵ Elsewhere he links this kind of behavior to two of what Confucius described as five kinds of evil: (1) a mind that is penetrating but treacherous (xin da er xian 心達而險) and (2) using techniques of discrimination to defend false doctrines (yan wei er bian 言偽而辯).Footnote ¹⁷⁶