Recently I was asked to write an article for the Australia China Foundation Association (ACFA) web site about Asian and particularly, Chinese Philosophy and why it has been misunderstood in the west for centuries. I must admit this was an article I planned to write for Shadow in the Flame so I highly recommend it to you as a starter for understanding why Chinese philosophy differs from western philosophy although I will write more on this subject in the future.

While we look back on Confucius with great respect, he thought of himself as standing on the shoulders of the ancient Chinese scholars who had left a large body of work which Confucius helped preserve by collating it and writing critiques. This work already stretched back at least two thousand years when Confucius was alive 2,500 years ago.

Yet practically from their earliest contact with the Orient, Western philosophers have had little understanding of the philosophical traditions of China. In fact their common view was, and still is in many places, that ancient Chinese writing is not philosophy, but religion or some form of mysticism.

However, apart from anything else, the strangest thing about this view is, that in all three of the major Chinese philosophies, that is;

• Confucianism
• Taoism
• Buddhism

there is no God, which is viewed as essential in the traditional western understanding of, and a prerequisite to be, a religion. So while the West has often pointed to China as the great atheist nation they have at the same time tended to lump the huge body of ethical and metaphysical discussion, which goes back at least 4,500 years, into the same basket as religion and  mysticism. Western philosophy on the other hand traces its roots back to the Ancient Greeks around 2,300 years ago.

Find out why some Western philosophers point to Eastern philosophy and say “Well, this isn’t really philosophy”

Xun Zi said there is something wrong with Mencius’s view that Human Nature is good. He thought that view was too idealistic and didn’t believe that was really the case. Human Nature, he said, is not really good.

His view was more Machiavellian; he believed that Human Nature is bad, so you just have to control it. (And from this you get a hint of how the Legalist philosophy grew out of this line of argument) 

Xun Zi - he believed that Human Nature is bad, so you just have to control it.

Xun Zi says, if I perform a good moral action, that is just because I am scared of punishment or I’m scared of the loss I might incur such as loss of face. I do it not because I intrinsically want to but because I’m scared of the consequences of not doing it. So in that sense that’s not real morality.

There is No Moral Action – Only Fear of Consequences

Some Confucian philosophers interpret Xun Zi as saying: There is no moral action there is just potential choices and each has its consequences.

For example, imagine I’m a kid and I’m hungry and I fight with my brother over a piece of cake. Our mother sees us and punishes both of us and neither of us get the cake. So through this error or action I learn to suppress my desire to fight so my mum will see us both being good and maybe give us 2 cakes. So in that sense when you are performing a right moral act, doing the right thing, you are just calculating your long term best interests, your long term benefit and you are just making a rational choice. So Ultimately it is about satisfying your own desire, your own self interest.

Confucians say “this is not what we Confucianists have in mind – real moral actions are be those performed intrinsically for the sake of doing it.

Not because I like it

Not because I desire it

Not because it satisfies me

Just because it is Moral

So these guys hate Xun Zi because he starts from the opposite premise that they hold true – that Human Nature is good

Support for Xun Zi

Another group of Confucian philosophers, who are more inclined to support Xun Zi, say:

I’m not sure that is what Confucius was saying so if that is what you are going to use against Xun Zi you have a problem. They say, If you go back to Mencius, he says,

If we perform a moral action that is because it is prompted by the 4 moral sprouts in our heart but it is also because you like it. It satisfies you, it is something that satisfies your heart’s desire so in that case there is still a case of satisfying your own desire. It’s just that in this case you happen to desire to do good. (That’s their interpretation of Mencius)

So is it really intrinsically a moral action and if its not, you can’t use it as an argument against Xun Zi.

This led them to ask “How is moral action possible in Chinese Philosophy?”

Is this something that has to be guided by or driven by desire or is this something that’s performed for the sake of that thing it self?

Or

Is it something we are told to do – is it something that is welded externally to me that’s not part of me? It’s just something that is forced on me.

This is the question that people are still struggling with today.

Post Script

In ancient Chinese Philosophy there were at one time four themes on human nature

• Human Nature is Good
• Human Nature is bad
• Human Nature is both Good and bad
• Human Nature is neither Good nor Bad, it just about a later development.

I’m not sure why the later two views are not talked about any more in Chinese Philosophy but when Confucianism was adopted as the state doctrine / orthodoxy by the Han Dynasty things tended to get stereotyped and conflicting views were squeezed out.

Mencius was against the view that human nature is an empty vessel – he used the famous example – if you walk by a lake and see a child drowning its not possible that you don’t feel anything. You must feel something and that something is just the sprout of compassion telling you to act. If you listen to it you will go and rescue the child but if you listen to your senses of desire “Oh the water is too cold or I’ll ruin my good clothes for example, you would stop yourself from helping. So Mencius is quite adamant that Human Nature is good.

In part one I introduced you to Mencius who was a second generation Confucian and basically he says:

Mencius said "Human Nature is good and the reason we become bad is that we forget our own heart".

Human Nature is good and the reason we become bad is that we forget our own heart.

But like all ancient Chinese texts it is not that easy to translate into English so in the Chinese form what is meant by Heart is usually translated as Heart / Mind because it is very hard to distinguish between the two when it is used in the Chinese text. Sometimes it means emotion like

         The heart can love

         The heart can feel

         The heart can hurt

Sometimes it is used to mean

          The heart judges

          The Heart reflects

          The heart deliberates

Mencius’s Four Sprouts of Human Nature

So heart / mind is really the same thing in Chinese philosophy. When people talk about the heart you can think of it as the mind in western philosophy.

Mencius was saying Human Nature is good because the heart / mind has 4 sprouts. He believed we are born with these original sprouts in us

1. The spout of Compassion
2. the sprout of shame
3. the sprout of a sense of propriety (politeness, decorum, respectfulness, modesty, good manners, decency)
4. the sprout of what’s right and wrong

Human nature is like a crop – you have to cultivate it and then it will grow naturally. He takes into consideration we may grow up in a harsh environment that prevents one or all of the sprouts from growing but generally if you follow the natural path the sprouts will grow into a “good crop”.

So Mencius was saying we have all these things all ready in us. If you perform a bad action it just means you didn’t pay attention to your heart – you abandoned it and followed your desire. Or put another way; you follow your body and that’s your problem. Mencius famously said:

• Don’t listen to your ears
• But listen to your heart

What he means is you can’t let your senses lead you astray because the senses are about desires so if you let your senses control things you will inevitably do bad things. Mencius said if you just develop these sprouts in your heart, its like a fire starting up, you just need to jump start them and then they will keep growing them self.

Chuang Tzu on Mencius

At this point I would like to introduce you to a famous Taoist because he picked up on what Mencius said. His name is Chuang Tzu.

Chuang Tzu - a leading Taoist philosopher

Chuang Tzu said

“No, no you can’t let the heart guide you because the heart is where all judgments are made, it’s trying to tell you this is right, this is wrong and that’s the core of all disorder. The heart tells you; this is good or this is bad so when someone disagrees with you, you get into a fight with the person and then there are arguments, disagreements and strife. So Chuang Tzu modified Mencius’ saying and said

• Don’t listen to your ears
• Don’t listen to your heart
• Listen to your energy

He said “Why do you listen to your heart. You have so many organs in your body, what’s the difference between the heart and the liver or lung anyway. Why do you let your heart be the guide? Actually there is no difference, if you look at them they are all one, they are all part of the whole”.  Chuang Tzu said;

“Try not to differentiate things with your heart, just listen, just see everything as one and then you will be peaceful, calm and you won’t be so disturbed by emotion”.

Chuang Tzu introduced two major concepts, one is the concept of STILLNESS and he used the metaphor of a mirror. so “you should be still as the mirror – you should just reflect whatever comes in and then you don’t make judgments so you can objectively see things as they are”.

The other concept he introduced was the concept of EMPTINESS. This means that you don’t listen with your ears, you don’t listen with your heart, you listen with your energy. So in this way it is pure emptiness.

Xun Zi – The Traitor

The next person I want to introduce you to is Xun Zi he is a third generation Confucianist but many followers of Confucius hate him. They see him as a traitor because he basically said Human Nature is bad and Confucianists don’t like that interpretation.

They think he is secretly a follower of Taoism and that he is trying to make Confucianism into something else (as they did with Taoism – I will discuss this in another article). The other thing they hold against him is that one of his pupils, Han Fe started another school of philosophy called the Legalists, so they blame him for that.

Xun Zi also uses Chuang Tzu’s concept of Stillness and Emptiness but interestingly he modifies them a little.

Remember Chuang Tzu said stillness is like a mirror but Xun Zi said it is ridiculous to say we can be unmoved by emotion, that’s not the case. We are ineffably moved by emotion. When the wind blows our mind moves but the thing is not to let the mud underneath disturb your perception – disturb your clarity. His idea was that you should be still like a pan of water. So in this way it is not complete stillness – when the wind blows you will still be moved like ripples on the water.

He says do not let your dreams or fantasy or false beliefs disturb or distort your perception – that’s called clarity – that’s called STILLNESS.

And Emptiness is not about listening to your Chi and forgetting about your heart – he says because our heart stores things – it’s like a storehouse – something will come in, you have to store it somewhere – you can’t just get rid of everything. But as long as you can keep room in your heart, you don’t let what’s been stored interfere with what’s coming in – then that’s fine.

So Xun Zi’s idea of emptiness is not letting what has been stored, that’s your memories, your assumptions, your biases interfere with any new information you are going to get.

From a philosophical point of view the huge body of work written about Confucian thinking by second and third generation Confucian philosophers is probably far more important for many reasons

The History of the Philosophy of Moral Action in Ancient China

People often say that the great Eastern Texts; by which they generally mean, the Analects of Confucius, The Tao Te Ching and Buddhist texts, are not really philosophy but something else such as religion or mysticism.

However while the Analects and the Tao Te Ching are the two most translated Ancient Chinese texts they are probably not the most philosophically rigorous works in these genres and to really appreciate the philosophical discussion that has gone on in China over the last 2,500 years it is necessary to read some of the disciples of these great Chinese thinkers as well.

Lack of Quality Translations a Problem for Western Readers

And therein lies the problem. I believe that our lack of appreciation of Ancient Chinese philosophy is due to Western ignorance of most of the works that have been written rather than to any failing in the philosophical works themselves.

And that ignorance is mainly due to the scarcity of translations of the texts until quite recently (the last 200 years). However there is still a long way to go and there are still many more great texts that will be translated in the future but are not available to those of us who cannot read Ancient or modern Chinese today.

But one translation does not open a door to greater understanding. The lack of good translations of the more important works of a plethora of later Confucian philosophers such as Mencius, Xun Zi, and the Taoist Chuang Tzu and others has been a giant hurdle for Western philosophers that has hindered their understanding of the value of these works.

Translating Ancient Chinese to modern Chinese is hard enough but translating it into English or French or German is a 100 times more difficult and most translations get some of the texts or the concepts they are translating wrong.

In this article I want to concentrate on Confucian Thinking but because that is also a huge topic, I will look at just one of the philosophical issues followers of Confucius  have debated over the centuries. In doing so I hope to establish that the ancient Chinese philosophers were as rigorous as any in Western Philosophy.

The area I want to discuss is

How Confucian’s view Moral Action and Human Nature.

Basically:

• What do Confucians think about Moral Action
• Is moral action possible in Confucian Philosophy or put another way
• Is it possible for a person to Act Morally?

Now I doubt that there are many people who have not heard of or read the “Sayings of Confucius” known as the Analects. In fact that text has probably been read by more people than the bible. But in real life Confucius favoured a style of teaching later made famous by the ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates, where he would take his students into the garden and just discuss issues or answer questions. He actually wrote very little down.

In fact the Analects was not written by Confucius. It was compiled long after his death from notes made by his students and from texts written by them and others.

From a philosophical point of view the huge body of work written about Confucian thinking by second and third generation Confucian philosophers is probably far more important for many reasons, not the least of which is they tend to be more philosophically rigorous, let’s face it, they had more time to digest and think about it and of course they had vigorous debates over it which was a luxury denied to Confucius..

Moral Action Becomes an Issue about 200 BC

Confucian thinking about Moral Action really got going about 200 BC (Confucius was born in 552 BC and he died in 479 BC). The thing that prompted this line of inquiry was the terrible times China experienced during the Warring States period which was a time of extreme brutality and this got the philosophers thinking about questions of Human Nature and the relationship between the mind and our desires. The issues they discussed included such as topics as:

• What is wrong with human nature
• How can we train people, teach people or revise Human Nature
• What is the relationship of the mind to desire
• How can we control our desire 
• Is desire the cause of everything evil

The disciple of Confucius most favoured by the Chinese was a chap called Mencius and in later dynasties most people just studied him because he commented on the Analects and on Confucius; he was the prophet disciple that clarified everything.

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Part one of a three part article submitted by Ric Vatner who has been a keen student of Ancient Chinese Philosophy for over 20 years.

Ric’s father who was Russian grew up in China before World War ll and imparted his knowlege of the culture and philosophy of the Chinese people to Ric through the stories he told him as a child. In later life they often discussed or more correctly, debated philosophical issues with Ric advocating the Western views he learned at school or church and his father balancing that by outlining the Chinese philosophy.

Ric says “I found debating my father quite frustrating as he had a good understanding of both the Christian and Jewish religions as well as Eastern Philosophy and he was a great Chess and Bridge player so just as I thought I was about to score the winning point he would trump me with another approach. I really enjoyed those discussions and I slowly learned not to be so narrow minded when thinking about issues.”