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Disaster, Heaven, and Political Responsibility: Mencius and Dong Zhongshu on Humane Government
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 November 2023
Abstract
This paper investigates the Confucian conception of political responsibility as a political virtue essential for an ordinary non-Confucian ruler's actualization of humane government by paying close attention to the early Confucian discourses of Heaven and disaster. After briefly discussing Confucius's seminal idea of responsibility, this paper shows how Mencius developed the political conception of responsibility, as a noncausal responsibility shared by the ruler and the virtuous ministers for a humane government, especially under the condition of natural disasters. It then discusses how the Han Confucian philosopher Dong Zhongshu reformulated the Mencian theory of responsibility and humane government under radically altered political circumstances by advancing a new version of Confucianism, central to which is the causal conception of political responsibility. This paper concludes by discussing how the evolution of Confucian political theory from Mencius to Dong Zhongshu should be understood with a view to the question of political legitimacy.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of University of Notre Dame
References
1 I use the male pronoun for a ruler because the three early Confucians discussed in this paper—Confucius, Mencius, and Dong Zhongshu—took for granted that a ruler is a male.
2 It is commonly opposed to the Way of the Hegemon (badao 覇道), which Mencius defined as “[a rule by] one who, supported by force, pretends to being humane” (Mencius 2A3). English translations of the Mencius are adapted from Mencius, trans. Irene Bloom (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).
3 See Loubna El Amine, Classical Confucian Political Thought: A New Interpretation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 136–37.
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11 Analects 2.4.
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21 Mencius 1A4.
22 Mencius 1A3.
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28 Mencius 1A7.
29 Chan, Confucian Perfectionism, 30.
30 Wu is Wen's son who brought to an end the punitive expedition against Zhou Xin, the last ruler of the Shang dynasty, which had been initiated by Wen. In the Confucian tradition, Wu is commonly understood as the cofounder of the Zhou dynasty.
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34 This does not mean that Mencius's political theory has no prudential ground. For example, Mencius persuades King Xuan of Qi to share his pleasure of enjoying material goods with the people because it would benefit him and further help him become a universal ruler (Mencius 1A7).
35 Mencius 4A2; 7B1.
36 Arguably, Duke Wen of Teng seems to be the only ruler that Mencius found decent or sufficiently humane (Mencius 3A2), but as a ruler of a small state squeezed between two powerful states, Duke Wen's most eminent concern was how to protect his people from Teng's aggressive neighbors.
37 Mencius 5A7.
38 Ibid. (emphasis added).
39 Mencius 6B15.
40 According to the Mencius, Tai Jia, Tang's grandson, was banished by Yi Yin and restored to kingship only after he reformed himself. King Cheng, too, was sidelined by the Duke of Zhou, his uncle, to return to power after self-reform.
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44 CQFL 44.1. The English translations of the Chunqiu Fanlu (CQFL) were adapted from Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn, trans. Sarah A. Queen and John S. Major (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016).
45 Dong says, “Heaven has Five Phases. [They are] Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. Wood gives birth to Fire; Fire gives birth to Earth; Earth gives birth to Metal; Metal gives birth to Water. Water makes winter; Metal makes autumn; Earth makes midsummer; Fire makes summer; Wood makes spring” (CQFL 38.1).
46 CQFL 44.1.
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49 CQFL 19.1
50 CQFL 7.1. The authors of the Chunqiu Fanlu employ “king” and “ruler” interchangeably. As the English translators of the Chunqiu Fanlu rightly note (Queen and Major, Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn, 153n1), the statement contains puns: between “king” (wang 王) and “move toward” (wang 往) and between “ruler” (jun 君) and “following” (qun 群, in the sense of the people gathering around the ruler).
51 Mencius 5B7.
52 CQFL 29.2.
53 Ibid.
54 See, for instance, Huang Yushun, “Dong zhongshu sixiang xitong de jiegou xing huanyuan: ‘Tian ren san ce’ de zhengzhi zhexue jiedu” [The restoration of Dong Zhongshu's system of thought: A political philosophical reading of the Three Strategies of Heaven and Human Beings], Sichuan daxue xuebao 5 (2020): 39–50; Gan Chunsong, “Cong tiandao pubian xing lai jiangou da yītong zhixu de zhengzhi yuanze: Dong zhongshu ‘tian’ guannian shujie” [Constructing the political doctrine of the Grand Unity from the universalism of the Way of Heaven: Interpreting Dong Zhongshu's notion of “Heaven”], Zhexue dongtai 1 (2021): 74–83.
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56 Mencius 4A20.
57 CQFL 3.2
58 CQFL 30.2.
59 In CQFL 44.1, Dong states that “the beauty of humaneness rests with Heaven. Heaven is humane. . . . Human beings receive their destiny [ming 命] from Heaven. Human beings derive their humaneness from Heaven and thereby are humane. . . . It is the Way of humankind alone that is able to connect with Heaven.”
60 CQFL 56.1.
61 CQFL 30.2.
62 Mencius attributes the longevity of the Shang dynasty to the existence of the virtuous ministers as well as “the inherited customs of the old families and the legacy of good government” (Mencius 2A1).
63 Indeed, the ruler's anxiety over the usurpation of the throne by powerful ministers was the most eminent concern of Han Fei, the iconic advocate of Legalism in ancient China. See Yuri Pines, “Submerged by Absolute Power: The Ruler's Predicament in the Han Feizi,” in Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei, ed. Paul R. Goldin (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013), 67–86. For the manipulations of the doctrine of the Mandate of Heaven during the Warring States period, see Waley, Arthur, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China (London: Allen and Unwin, 1939), 153–54Google Scholar.
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65 CQFL 3.1.
66 CQFL 74–76.
67 CQFL 60.1.
68 Ibid.
69 Tan, Sor-hoon, Confucian Democracy: A Deweyan Reconstruction (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004)Google Scholar.