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Xunzi: Those who argue about the consequences, or those who argue about the virtues?
Author: Zhang Xin (a doctoral student from the Department of Philosophy of the Daedan School of Science and Technology of Duke, the purpose of the study is Confucian philosophy and Chinese and Western philosophy)
Source: “Confucius Research”, 2020 Issue 5
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Abstract
Xunzi came up with a consequent consideration when discussing the political effectiveness of the ceremony, that is, The goal of href=”https://tw94lovedaddy.net/”>Pampering network pptGift gifts are to systematically promote the gain of social goodness. The ethical efficacy of Rong is intended to cultivate fantasy moral personality, which produces distinct moral ethical characteristics. The consideration of consequences in Xunzi’s thinking is based on virtue as the constitutional condition. Virtue does not mean the consequence of restoration as a non-moral morality, but has its own value. The cultivation of virtue and virtue politics can add a wide range of social effects in a long period of meaning. Xunzi is not the consequences or morality speculator of the classics in the Oriental Ethics Society, but should be a person who is aware of the morality consequences of the broader morality. The Xunzi style of virtue consequences has a major inspirational representation of the consequences and virtue arguments in the oriental ethics academic spectrum.
Keywords: Xunzi; Consequences; Morality Discussion; Morality Consequence Discussion
1. Proposing questions
According to the revival of morality in the English world, more and more students understand and discuss Confucian ethics under the theoretical reference of morality theory. [1] Under this academic structure, there are two very different ideas about each other: one is to develop and perfect Oriental moral ethics theory by borrowing and receiving Confucian ethics resources, such as Machel Slote and Huang Yong [2]; the other is to directly describe Confucianism or perhaps Confucianism as a classical form of moral ethics, such as Bryan W. Van Norden, May Sim and Yu Yuan [3]. The purpose of the first type of thinking does not cause disputes, because the confirmation in Confucianism contains rich moral and moral thinking. However, the purpose of the second type of thinking has caused persistent disputes, and Roger Ames, Henry Rosemont, Robert Neville, Li Mingxiong and others have expressed differences on this approach.[4]
In particular, Xunzi, this problem becomes doubled, and the importance of this recurrence lies in the following two points. On the one hand, in terms of the history of Confucianism, Xunzi was all excluded from Confucianism from the Song and Ming dynasties to the modern New Confucianism. This historical fact expresses the significant difference between Xunzi’s thinking and Confucianism’s theory of mind and nature. It is precisely based on this reason that when Yu Yuan developed the moral ethics dialogue between Confucius and Aristotle, he clearly eliminated Xunzi from the scope of consideration. [5] On the other hand, more fundamentally, there are rich texts in the book “Xunzi” that can be used separately to support the consequences and morality discussions. David Soles believes that the foundation of Xunzi’s ethics is the consequences of rules. [6] Heiner Roetz pointed out that the personal ethics and social ethics in Xunzi’s thinking should be divided, and that social ethics is the consequence theory. [7] In terms of this disagreement, Erci Hutton believed that there was sufficient source of Xunzi’s understanding of moral ethics. [8] Eirik Harris also believed that Xunzi’s political philosophy was best understood as a theory based on virtue, and his political philosophy was a natural extension of Xunzi’s moral theory based on virtue. [9] As we all know, in the Eastern Ethics Scope, moral theory, consequence theory and moral ethics are three types of unconventional ethics theory. Therefore, the above-mentioned discussion on the consequences of Xunzi’s thoughts and the discussion on virtues will be incompatible, and the theoretical consequences will be Xunzi who present two complete differences. However, the consequences of this theory are actually difficult to accept. The purpose of this article is to make a critical assessment of the ethical attributes of Xunzi’s thoughts under the above-mentioned question consciousness, in order to understand the depth of the two dimensions of the virtue and consequences of Xunzi’s thoughts.
2. The political effectiveness of gifts: Considerations of consequences in Xunzi’s thinking
As we all know, “gifts” are the focus of Xunzi’s thinking, “gifts are the ultimate of human nature” (“Xunzi·gifts”). [10] The “gift” in Xunzi’s thinking does not only refer to the gifts of daily life, but rather to the complete setting of the entire personal life, and to contact the existence of many different lives such as political, social, social, etc. Although there is no strict distinction between ethics and political philosophy in Xunzi’s thinking,As for the natural logic of Xunzi’s thinking, “Treunion” should first be understood in the meaning of political philosophy, which is determined by its natural evil initiative. In fact, the “tyranny” advocated by Mencius was laid on “benevolence”, and behind the “benevolence” was his nature of good at scheming; therefore, for Mencius, his political philosophy was a natural extension of his ethics based on virtue. Although both Mencius and Xunzi advocated moral politics, there was a complete disagreement in the study logic within his thinking: the former “talk about politics from morality” and the latter “talk about morality from politics.” [11] According to Sato’s assessment, Xunzi inherited the objective analysis of political mechanisms from the Jixia School, and this analysis method clearly differed from Mencius’ moral argumentation. [12] Therefore, compared with Mencius, Xunzi’s statement on the political effectiveness of gifts has a clear semantic expansion; Xunzi organically combined the analytical terms of “tradition”, “ambiguity”, and “division” of the Jixia School. [13] Xunzi’s statement on the political effectiveness of gifts is relatively independent of its metaphysical ethical effectiveness, so it is necessary to first develop the political effectiveness of gifts.
The important political effectiveness of “gift” is “nurturing”, “gifting means nourishing” (“Traditional Commentary”). Xunzi believed that the origin of the gift was to deal with the conflict between “desire” and “things”. The structure of “more desires” and “less things” became the starting point of Xunzi’s thinking. As the saying goes, “If you want to be evil, you will have more desires but few things, and few things will have to fight” (“Fuguo”). Before the trade, the basic preservation dilemma of human beings was how to get out of the conflict, chaos and destruction caused by “there are too many desires but few things”. “If people are born with desires, but if they cannot get them, they cannot be able to seek without seeking; if they seek without dividing boundaries, they cannot be able to fight; if they are in conflict, they cannot be able to fight with each other.” (“Talent Commentary”) What Xunzi calls “there are too many desires but few things” should refer to “moderate scarcity” rather than “extreme scarcity”. In a very lack of conditions, gifts are not the best way to solve this survival dilemma. In Xunzi’s view, the source of the gift is to make human desires fair and end the struggle under natural conditions. “The ancient kings were worried about the chaos, so they set up gifts to divide them to nourish people’s desires and give them their desires, so that desires will not be sacrificing things, and things will not be equal to desires. The two are confronted and long, which is where the gifts arise. Therefore, gifts are nourishing.” (“Talk Review”) It is obvious that Xunzi’s proof of the origin of gifts is the consequences of thinking. According to the perspective of Oriental Ethics, the so-called consequence theory is “determining the theory of action against errors based on the consequences”, and “vocalizing that the consequences are the unique standard of action against errors in the action that forms consequences.” [14] It is precisely based on this that Xu Xunzi pointed out that Xunzi’s explanation of the source of gifts is “most sufficient”To see his utilitarian nature,” [15] Li Siguang also pointed out that Xunzi interprets the value of gifts with “function”. [16] The “consequences” (utilitarian) emphasized by Xunzi is the realization of the order of justice and harmony. [17] However, it is necessary to note that Xunzi settles in the general social system of whole life and long-term meaning to consider its consequences; in response to this, Xunzi emphasizes the current direct desire to see and direct the current state of direct desire to see. Xunzi points out:
The human feelings are that they have a gluttonous appetite, their clothes are nurturing, their actions a