Abstract
This article argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, Xunzi’s and Hobbes’s understandings of human nature are qualitatively different, which is responsible for the difference in their respective normative political theory of a civil polity. This article has two main theses: first, where Hobbes’s deepest concern was with human beings’ unsocial passions, Xunzi was most concerned with human beings’ appetitive desires (yu 欲), material self-interest, and resulting social strife; second, as a result, where Hobbes strove to transform the pathological (anti-)politics of resentment into the politics of recognition by creating rational egalitarian citizenship under the all-encompassing constitutional sovereign power, Xunzi attempted to nourish human beings’ basic appetitive desires (yu 欲) by instituting a li 禮 ordered civil entity. This article concludes by showing how Confucian civility that Xunzi reconstructed by means of the li 禮 can effectively deal with unsocial passions.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alford, C. Fred. 1991. The Self in Social Theory: A Psychoanalytic Account of Its Construction in Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Rawls, and Rousseau. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Arendt, Hannah. 1958. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Baumgold, Deborah. 2005. “Hobbes’s and Locke’s Contract Theories: Political, Not Metaphysical.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 8: 289–308.
Beitz, Charles R. 1999. Political Theory and International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Berkowitz, Peter. 1999. Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Boyd, Richard. 2004. Uncivil Society: The Perils of Pluralism and the Making of Modern Liberalism. Lanham, MD: Lexington.
Cho, Francisca and Richard K. Squier. 2008. “Reductionism: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 76: 412–417.
Cua, A.S. 1979. “Dimensions of Li (Propriety): Reflections on an Aspect of Hsün Tzu’s Ethics.” Philosophy East and West 29: 373–394.
Elster, Jon. 2000. Ulysses Unbound: Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and Constraints. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fingarette, Herbert. 1972. Confucius: The Secular as Sacred. New York: Harber & Row.
Freud, Sigmund. 1989. The Future of an Illusion. Trans. by James Strachey. New York: Norton.
Gardner, D.K. 2003. Z hu Xi’s Reading of the Analects: Canon, Commentary, and the Classical Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press.
Goldin, Paul R. 1999. Rituals of the Way: The Philosophy of Xunzi. Chicago and La Salle: Open Court.
Hagen, Kurtis. 2003. “Xunzi and the Nature of Confucian Ritual.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 71: 371–403.
____. 2007. The Philosophy of Xunzi: A Reconstruction. Chicago and La Salle: Open Court.
Hirschman, Albert O. 1977. The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hobbes, Thomas. 1985. Leviathan. Ed. by C.B. Macpherson. New York: Penguin.
Holmes, Stephen. 1995. Passions and Constraint: On the Theory of Liberal Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hutton, Eric L. 2006. “Character, Situationism, and Early Confucian Thought.” Philosophical Studies 127: 37–58.
____. 2008. “Un-Democratic Values in Plato and Xunzi.” In Polishing the Chinese Mirror. Ed. by Marthe Chandler and Ronnie Littlejohn. New York: Global Scholarly Publications.
Ivanhoe, Philip J. 2000. Confucian Moral Self-Cultivation. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Kateb, George. 1989. “Hobbes and the Irrationality of Politics.” Political Theory 17: 355–391.
Kline III, T.C. and Philip J. Ivanhoe, eds. 2000. Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Knoblock, John. 1988–1994. Xunzi: A Translation and Study of Complete Works, 3 vols. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Lai, Karyn. 2006. “Li in the Analects: Training in Moral Competence and the Question of Flexibility.” Philosophy East and West 56: 69–83.
Li, Chenyang. 2006. “The Confucian Ideal of Harmony.” Philosophy East and West 56: 583–603.
____. 2007. “Li as Cultural Grammar: On the Relation between Li and Ren in Confucius’ Analects.” Philosophy East and West 57: 311–329.
Macpherson, C.B. 1962. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pateman, Carole. 1988. The Sexual Contract. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Roetz, Heiner. 1993. Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age: A Reconstruction under the Aspect of the Breakthrough toward Postconventional Thinking. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Rosemont, Henry. 2000. “State and Society in the Xunzi: A Philosophical Commentary.” In Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi. Eds. by T. C. Kline III and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 2002. “The Second Discourse.” In The Social Contract and The First and Second Discourses. Ed. by Susan Dunn. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Shun, Kwong-loi. 1993. “Jen and Li in the Analects.” Philosophy East and West 43: 457–479.
Smith, Adam. 2002. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Ed. by Knud Kaakonssen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Strauss, Leo. 1952. The Political Philosophy of Hobbes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
____. 1965. Natural Right and History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
____. 1995. Liberalism Ancient and Modern. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Taylor, Charles. 1994. “The Politics of Recognition.” In Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. Ed. by Amy Gutmann. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Tőnnies, Ferdinand. 2001. Community and Civil Society. Ed. by Jose Harris & Trans. by Margaret Hollis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tu, Wei-ming. 1968. “The Creative Tension between Jen and Li.” Philosophy East and West 18: 29–39.
Wee, Cecilia. 2007. “Hsün Tzu on Family and Familial Relations.” Asian Philosophy 17: 127–139.