Li Zehou considers ethics and morality to be of major significance for the contemporary world. Hence, he attached great importance to his ethical thought. This becomes very clear when we investigate the many works in which he repeatedly tried to explain his novel ideas in this realm. He published a summarized account of his ethical thought in his work An Outline of Ethics, (Lunlixue gangyao 倫理學綱要), which was later—in a somewhat rewritten and restructured form—republished as one of the major parts of his book Outline of Philosophy (Zhexue gangyao 哲學綱要) and then again in 2016 in the newest version of his Anthropo-Historical Ontology. Some of the important aspects of this theory were later published in his more recent works entitled A Response to Sandel and other Writings, which was published in Beijing in 2014¹ and Lunlixue gangyao xupian 倫理學綱要續篇 [Outline of Ethics—Continuation], respectively. He has also often elaborated upon several specific ethical questions in numerous articles, essays, and interviews. Here, we have at least to mention a few most important ones. These include:

• Lunli wenti ji qita 倫理問題及其它 [About Ethics and Other Issues], 2014;

• Guanyu “Youguan lunlixuede dawen” de buchong shuoming 關於「有關倫理學的補充說明」[Additional Explanation to “Some Questions and Answers regarding Ethics”], 2008, 2009;

• Cong ‘Liangde lun’ tan pushi jiazhi yu Zhongguo moshi 從「兩德論」談普世價值與中國模式 [On Universal Values and the Chinese Model from the Perspective of the “Theory of Two Moralities”], 2011;

• Goujian zhengyi jichushangde hexie—cong Sangdeerde “Gongzheng” shuoqi 構建正義基礎上的和諧—從桑德爾的「公正」說起 [Constructing Righteousness on the Basis of Harmony—On Sandel’s Concept of Justice], 2013.

In several exhaustive interviews and debates with various Chinese scholars, Li has additionally explained many of the complex issues regarding his ethical system. In this regard, I shall only mention two comprehensive debates about the concept of emotion-based substance, one with Liu Xuyuan 劉緒源² (2012) and the other with Liu Yuedi 劉悅笛³ (2014).

In his theory, Li Zehou proceeded from three crucial arguments, which he understood as vital for the understanding of his ethical thought:

The most essential foundations of my ethics rest on three most important distinctions. The first one regards ethics and morality, which have continuously been confused or falsely understood as being synonymous in both China and the Western world: in contrast to previous discourses, I have strictly differentiated between different meanings of these two terms. In my view, ethics consists of external social contents and norms, while morality is a psychological formation or structure. Secondly, in this internal psychological formations or structures, I additionally distinguish between the human abilities (or the rational driving force) on the one hand, and the human feelings (or the emotional auxiliary force) on the other, whereas I lay stress upon the importance of this auxiliary power. Thirdly, in this inner mental formations or structures—including both abilities and sensuality—I also differentiate between different contents belonging to the traditional religious morality on the one, and modern social morality on the other hand.

我的倫理學的要點是做出了三個重要區分. 第一是對中外一直都混同使用的倫理 (ethics) 道德 (morality) 兩詞做了前所未有的嚴格的詞義區分, 即將倫理作為外在社會內容、規範和道德作為內在心理形式、 結構的區分. 第二是在內在心理形式、結構上, 又做了人性能力 (理性動力) 與人性情感 (情感助力) 的區分, 並強調情感助力的重要性. 第三就是內在心理形式、結構 (包括能力和情感) 含有傳統宗教性與現代社會性的不同內容的區分.

Li Zehou 2016b, 158

Since they are vital for the understanding of his thought, let us take a closer look at these three crucial foundations of Li Zehou’s ethics. As we have seen, he emphasized that the first precondition for the establishment of any coherent ethical theory was a necessity to draw an explicit and clear discrimination line between ethics and morality. He pointed out that ethics must be seen as a system of regulating inter-human relationships and human actions in the particular network of associations and connections. Morality, on the other hand, belongs to the internal psychological forms and values of particular individuals. In other words, ethics is external and consists of systems, customs, norms, rituals, laws, etc. Morality, on the other hand, is internal and embraces will, ideas or concepts, and emotions.

External aspects are of primary importance because external ethics is gradually incorporated into human inwardness and shapes the basis of the structure of human moral mind. The main elements that constitute this structure are human will, concepts or ideas, and emotion. The former two belong to reason: the concepts or ideas represent the contents of reason, and the will constitutes its form. This form, however, is absolute and can be compared to Kant’s categorical imperative. It is the form of free will, which is unconditional and represents a universal necessity. It has been shaped through historical sedimentation from different concepts, which belong to the contents of reason. As we have seen above, morality as a psychological formation of human inwardness is composed from reason and emotions. Even though Li has often criticized modern Western ethical theories (including Kant’s) because they were exclusively focusing on rational elements without considering the vital role of human emotions, he still emphasizes the primary role of reason, especially of the free will.

In addition, Li also emphasized that morality itself could further be divided in two parts: an external part, which manifests itself in the modern social moralities, as well as an internal part, which forms the core of traditional religious moralities⁴ (Li Zehou 2016b, 17). In present times, similar to morality, ethics can also be divided into two central discourses. First, it is a part of political philosophy that mainly deals with problems of (human) rights, justice, and the structure of social power. Second, it also often occurs in the framework of religious philosophy in which it is mainly connected to questions regarding the concept of goodness (ibid., 19). Actually, these two areas of ethics are standing in an analogous relation with Li Zehou’s aforementioned distinction between two kinds of morality, which will be treated in detail in later chapters of this book. However, the most important and fundamental distinction, which has to be considered when dealing with Li’s ethical thought, is the fundamental distinction between ethics and morality, which has been explained above and will be elucidated in greater detail in the following sections. Here, we shall only once again summarize this difference by exposing that ethics mainly deals with external social norms and regulations of relations and patterns of behavior between people living in a certain culture, group, society or community, whereas morality belongs to mental formations constituting and being reflected in individual consciousness. Hence, while morality is a psychological formation of human inwardness, ethics—among others—also includes traditional conventions, customs, socially integrated habits, and ceremonies. It is also important to note that Li’s distinction between ethics and morality is very different from the one that was established and applied by most contemporary Western philosophers and other representatives of Neo-Marxism, Critical theory, and pragmatism.⁵

In a certain sense, Li Zehou’s ethics can be seen as a comparative discourse of moral philosophy between East and West. In this discourse, he often concentrated on the relation between reason and emotion. Although he has held modern Western moral philosophy and ethics (especially Kant’s ethics) in high esteem, he still criticized it for its almost exclusive focus upon reason and rationality. In his view, Kant’s structure of universal moral laws completely lacked any consideration of human emotions. In contrast to such understandings, Li claimed that qing (情) in the sense of human emotion (or the spontaneous responsiveness to concrete situations) should be seen as a foundation of ethics. In this regard, he critically retained the legacy of traditional Chinese ethical thought, but without neglecting the development of Western moral philosophy (Cai 2011, 255). On the other hand, Li accentuates that even though morality as a psychological formation of human inwardness is composed from reason and emotions, the most important element and the driving power of moral behavior is the rational will, whereas qing (情) (as emotionality) is only secondary and can be seen as a kind of auxiliary force. Li emphasizes that, as such, he is much closer to Kant than to Hume.

Similar to Kant, Li saw morality—which was, in his view, the inner dimension of human axiological conscience—as a system of self-imposed constraints or regulations, standing in sharp contrast to those imposed to us from outside and by force. In this regard, he emphasized that such a view is not only a constitutive part of Kant’s categorical imperative, but also represents a core part of Confucian ethics.⁶ Li was especially interested in the question: From where these universal principles were derived, or, in other words, what were the origins of ethical normativity. In both Chinese and Western traditions, he identifies certain tendencies to describe these origins with transcendent concepts such as “pure reason,” “God,” “Heaven (tian 天),” or the Way (dao 道). In his view, however, morality could not be reduced to “religious morality,” which means that its universal principles were not purely a priori, but had to be attributed to “social morality” in the sense of common social values and rules that govern any concrete society and are necessary for its existence and development.

Against this background, Li pointed out certain specific features of traditional Chinese moral philosophy, particularly Confucianism. In this context, qing (as emotionality or emotional responsiveness to situations) was the basis of morality and manifested itself as a mutual care or empathy between individuals that was derived from people’s sociality. However, in the development of Confucian ethics, reason was especially important, for it served as the basis of the propriety of social order. It regulated the cultivation of emotion and elevated natural affections to “reasoned emotions” (Cai Zhen 2011, 256). Since in this schema, emotions were guided and regulated by reason, the blending of emotion and reason was the core of Confucian ethics. In this context, Li emphasized that although Kant accurately understood that moral limits were, in fact, rational guidelines, he failed to explain the problem of why people were motivated to follow moral orders. In this context, some interpreters, like Cai Zhen (2011), claim that Li Zehou focused his theory upon the Confucian ethics of emotion: “Since the motivation that actually moves people to act morally must be related to emotion, Confucian’s emphasis on emotion’s priority over reason had stronger explanatory power in this regard” (ibid.). However, this interpretation is rather questionable, because as already mentioned, Li sees rationality as the primary driving force of moral action; in his view, emotions are merely an auxiliary (though very important) faculty. On the other hand, Li attempted to underline the importance of Confucian ethical discourses by comparing them with the axiological framework of current theories of human evolution that highlight the inherent connection between human ethics and their natural sociality.

The schema below offers a general outline of his approach to ethics and morality. As we will see later, rituals form a very important part of his ethical theory. In Li’s view, they have been generated from the concept of qing (情) in the sense of general social or collective emotionality and lead in the process of collective history and individual socialization to reason, which governs qing (情) in the sense of individual feelings and emotions. Hence, it was this very historical process that caused the remolding of external and collective ethical regulations into individual morality:

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Simplified scheme of ethics

Li, Zehou 2016, 1079

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Similar to several other aspects of his philosophy, Li’s main inspiration in the context of ethics comes from Chinese tradition, especially from Confucian ethical thought. By nature, ethics is an important—and often even constitutive—part of any philosophy. However, in comparison to Western philosophy, ethics as a vital portion of philosophical thinking has been far more emphasized throughout the course of Chinese intellectual history. In China, it also received much greater attention both theoretically and practically.

In his theoretical discourses on ethics, Li mostly followed the basic contents and methods that prevailed in his own tradition, creatively transforming them to a new, modernized axiological system that could become a reasonable and applicable tool for constructing a new ethics for all people, living in the globalized societies of the twenty-first century.

On the other hand, Immanuel Kant’s philosophy was an essential source of Li Zehou’s theory. Kant was important not only for his epistemological and aesthetic thought, but also represented a vital inspiration for Li’s thought in the field of ethics. One could say that in Li’s own fusion of the Kantian and Confucian ethics the latter was eventually much more important, and the previous was more or less understood as a kind of a complement (Li Zehou 2016b, 212). However, Kant certainly played an important role in Li’s ethical system. Li emphasized many times that Kant was the first and leading representative of deontological ethics, and that therefore any debate on ethics could not overlook his work (Li Zehou 2016, 71). Hence, it is by no means coincidental that Li devoted two long chapters of his first important theoretical book, Critique of Critical Philosophy (A New Approach to Kant),⁷ to Kant’s central ethical work, namely, the Critique of Practical Reason.⁸ He very much appreciated Kant’s notion of the categorical imperative and emphasized his presumption that human beings should always represent the ultimate goal and never be looked upon merely as some means of reaching some external objective.

However, Li strongly opposed ethical relativism, even though this ethical view is often also understood as being grounded in Kant’s philosophy, particularly in his highlighting the role of the human subject in creating reality. Although Li recognized that in politics, such a view could offer some help in defending the rights of different minorities and other marginalized or excluded social groups, he was still convinced that its essential and conceptual grounds are theoretically superficial and trivial. He criticized it for its failure to understand the basic fact that all kinds of ethics necessarily share the same universal forms that are handed down from one generation to the next. In this sense, ethical relativism necessarily leads to the negation of the important role of subjective activity and the free will of the autonomous individual (Chong 1999, 165).

Li also intensely respected the emerging of reason in Kant’s philosophy of Enlightenment, although he mainly understood it as the result of an incipient modernity, and not as a universal transcendental principle. He emphasized that reason cannot be “pure” in the Kantian sense. For him, it was rather a strong reaction to the requirements and inclinations of its era and an echo of the powerful voices of the French Revolution. In Li’s view, Kant’s pure and practical reason was thus a child of the Enlightenment movement, a manifestation of his rejection of feudalism and his claims for freedom, independence, and equality (Li Zehou 2007, 302).

For Li, the notion of transcendental practical reason was problematic because it led to the idea of the absoluteness of values, which he decisively rejected. (Li Zehou 2016b, 215). He also criticizes the stagnant and inflexible nature of Kant’s a priori forms of knowledge. For Li, Kant’s view of universal necessity, in which these forms were embedded, was too one-dimensional, unable to transform or modify itself in the process of human evolvement. Therefore, in Li’s view, these forms were merely empty shapes of abstract outlines, firmly and immovably stuck in the insubstantial world of transcendental reality (Li Zehou 2007, 316). In his understanding, Kant’s philosophy was still caught into an idealist framework, which he unequivocally rejected. He criticized the Kantian understanding of practical reason because due to its transcendental nature, this kind of reason was completely disconnected from concrete human beings and the societies in which they lived. Hence, Li reproached this view through promoting an ahistorical interpretation of reality, one that apparently surpassed every kind of development, even the evolvement of concrete human beings and the humankind as a whole.

In this context, Li preferred the Confucian (or traditional Chinese) notion of human reason, which he named pragmatic reason (shiyong lixing 實用理性). This kind of reason is not entirely comparable to pure rationality as the one that prevailed in the history of Western philosophy, but is rather a specific form of human reasonableness. It arises and operates within the so-called emotio-rational structure (qingli jiegou 情理結構) of the human mind. It is rooted in tangible human conditions and functions in accordance with human social emotionality, converting these socially incorporated universal collective emotions through rites in the process of “condensation” or “solidification” of reason (lixing ningju 理性凝聚) into rational concepts of right and wrong or good and evil. The common rationality of these concepts influences and directs individual subjective emotions of each member of society. In the concrete developments of social life, however, these rational concepts can dissolve and become essential parts of individual feelings. Li denotes this process, which takes place in individual psychology, with the phrase, “the melting of reason” (lixing ronghua 理性融化).

Li emphasized that pragmatic reason is a mental formation, which arises as a product of a dynamic historical development. It is a part of inborn human capacities similar to the ones contained in the traditional Chinese understanding of humanness (ren xing 人性). In Li’s philosophy, this idea is seen as a dynamic human capacity, which inter alia includes human reason. As such, pragmatic reason arises from the dynamic evolvement of humanness. Thus, in contrast to Kant’s practical reason, which represents an unchangeable a priori form belonging to a set of “universal necessities,” Li’s pragmatic reason is shaped in and proceeds from more realistic and earthly human foundations. This tight connection between Li’s notion of pragmatic reason and the entireness of humanness (ren xing) reveals the crucial dissimilarity between human beings and animals (Li Zehou and Liu Xuyuan 2011, 77). Following this train of thought, Li also presented his own, distinctive explanation of this difference: in contrast to traditional interpretations, which linked the uniqueness of human beings with upright posture, social norms, simple ways of making and using utensils, or primitive forms of language and communication, he offered a theory that is derived from early Marxism and its emphasis on material practice. In Li’s view, the abovementioned features are not uniquely and specifically human, for they can also be observed in the behavior of some kinds of animals. In contrast to traditional assessments, Li identifies the critical dissimilarity in the fact that, for human beings, the making and using of tools is a kind of universal necessity (ibid.). If humans had only their bodily biological settings to depend on, they could never survive or evolve further (as human beings). Hence, for Li, humans are “supra-biological” (chao shengwu 超生物) beings.

In contrast to this view, Kant understood universal necessity in an entirely different way, suggesting that the a priori forms of reason were parts of specific human mental structures, which exist prior to experiences and are completely separated from them. Kant exposed the transcendental nature of these forms, but did so without clarifying their source. In contrast, Li attempted to unravel the enigma of their origin, suggesting a new theory based upon the presumption that “the empirical is being transformed into the transcendental” (jingyan bian xianyan 經驗變先驗) (Li Zehou 2016b, 29). In this theory, the individual transcendental forms of human mind were shaped from joint human experience through long periods of historic sedimentation as a part of human cultural-psychological formations.

In his first comprehensive theoretical work, the Critique of Critical Philosophy, Li already brought this issue to the very point, emphasizing that Kant’s “universal necessity” should be replaced by “objective sociality” (keguan shehuixing 客觀社會性):

In my book “Critique of Critical Philosophy,” I have repeatedly explained that Kant’s so-called universal necessity is, in fact, objective sociality (which is sometimes also called social objectivity). This universal necessity is guided, shaped and accumulated through the history of particular periods and societies.

[批判] 書裡一再講 Kant 所謂的普遍必然性，實際上是客觀社會性（有時稱之為社會客觀性），它們的普遍必然是一定的時代，社會，歷史所規定，形成和積累的普遍必然.

Li Zehou 2016b, 326–327

In this context, Li points out that humankind as such, as well as humanness as our defining characteristics, are both products of history. This fusion of basic human features with the evolvement of humankind per se, is a central supposition and simultaneously the basic method of his anthropo-historical ontology. Hence, this approach lies at the center of his investigation of ethical questions. Therefore, ethics represents a logically coherent part of his philosophical system, in which he was always (irrespective of the concrete discipline or field he was elaborating on) proceeding from the specific elements that make human beings human.

With this in mind, it is easier to understand why Li saw human reason as consisting of two parts: conceptual thought or comprehension and the will. As we have seen, the latter is the form of reason, while the former represents its contents, namely the notions of good and evil, right and wrong (Li Zehou 2016b, 210). Li explained this in the following way:

Human will is our capacity of attentive, conscious, rational control, and domination of reason over our sensitivity. This is the psychological power of the form of reason. But what are the concrete contents of this reason? These are the concepts of good and evil, right and wrong.

意志是人的自覺、有意識的理性對感性的支配、主宰的能力，這是心理的理性形 式力量，但這理性的具體內容是什麼，便是善惡、是非觀念.

Li Zehou 2016b, 210

As already mentioned, reason is—in contrast to Kant’s notion—seen as a historical concept that cannot be reduced to any fixed and unchangeable a-priori mental forms, for it is shaped through the pragmatic requirements and necessities of human social life.

In the framework of anthropo-historical ontology, the “a-priori” form of reason is seen as imbedded in the preservation and the evolution of the sustainable survival of humankind as an entirety (not of any particular group or community existing in any concrete time and space).

In this context, the central Confucian virtue of humaneness (ren 仁) is also of utmost importance. Although it is tightly linked to Li’s view of human inborn capacities or humanness (ren xing 人性), it forms a part of a specifically Chinese (or East Asian) cultural-psychological formation (wenhua—xinli jiegou 文化—心理結構), which manifests itself in the so-called emotion-based substance (qing benti 情本體) shaped on the culturally determined level of sedimentation (jidian 積澱). Li explains:

Up till today, I am still insisting that “humaneness” is a structure that incorporates four aspects. It is a special configuration of inborn human capacities (humanness), which is composed of “the kinship basis, psychological principles, humanism, and the individual personality.” As I have pointed out in my work Reading the Analects Today, it can be equated with the so-called emotio-rational structure or the emotion-based substance. It implies a mutual interaction between reason and emotion, which makes us different from animals and also from rational machines. This is the core notion of my theory of humanness, which I have not changed for several decades.

我至今仍然堅持「仁」是這個四方面的結構體，即由「血緣基礎、心理原則、人道主義和個體人格」所形成的人性結構，也就是我後來「論語今讀」所提出的「情理結構」(emotio-rational structure) 即「情本體」(emotion-based substance)，其中的情理交融既區別於禽獸動物，也區別於理性機器，這是我數十年沒有變動的人性論的觀點圓心.

Li Zehou 2015, 118

In Li’s system, emotion and reason are a comprehensive entity, consisting of two oppositional notions, the functioning of which is defined by a mutually interactive, correlative, and complementary relation. Such a unity also represents the foundation of the so-called emotio-rational structure of the human mind. In Chinese culture, it operates on the basis of the emotion-based substance. In Li’s view, such a substance could surpass the “coldness” (Li Zehou 1985, 21) and exaggerated individuality contained in contemporary Western theories of rationality:

Postmodern philosophies have broken out of the narrow cage of the enlightened reason. But, on the other hand, they are negating and destroying humanness. Therefore, I would like to propose a step forward on this new way with the help of the “emotion-based substance,” which is based upon Chinese tradition.

後現代哲學打破了啟蒙理性的牢籠，但終究是否定性、破壞性的；提出以中國傳統為依據的 “情本體”，就是要在它的基礎上再往前走一步.

Li Zehou and Liu Xuyuan 2012, 14

We must not forget that in this coherent structure, reason is the primary, decisive, controlling, and guiding element. However, the functioning and the impact of this specific formation, which in China is implanted in the ontology of emotion-based substance, can by no means be reduced to the sphere of ethics, for it is also tightly linked to political philosophy. The impact of the emotion-based substance is not limited only to individuals, their actions and behaviors, or to their particular experiences. It is firmly set in in the traditional Confucian ethics, in which the Way (Dao 道) and the rites (li 禮) both begin at and arise from (collective) emotionality (see Guodian chu mu zhu jian 1989, Yu cong II: 179.). Therefore, it is also a social, historical, and political substance. This incorporation of emotion into politics corresponds to Li’s proposal regarding the two kinds of morality, which will be explained in detail in later parts of this book. According to this differentiation, the religious morality should “guide by example and appropriately construct” (fandao he shidang goujian 範導和適當構建) the social morality.

In regard to both ethics and political philosophy, Li does not agree with the normative regularity of Western Enlightenment models (Li Zehou and Liu Xuyuan 2012: 15). In this respect, he established the concepts of intention (neitui 内推) and extension (waitui 外推) of the emotion-based substance. The former pertains to the realm of individual human inwardness, while the latter manifests itself in social and political interactions (ibid.).

The intention of the emotion-based substance (qing bentide neitui 情本體的内推) pertains to the specifically Chinese traditional philosophy, in the context of which religion should be replaced by aesthetics.⁹ Its extension (qing bentide waitui 情本體的外推), on the other hand, is an emotion-based political philosophy, which holds that “music is integrated into the governance” (yue yu zheng tong 樂與政通) and that “harmony is higher than justice” (hexie gaoyu zhengyi 和諧高于正義). This last statement is rather controversial as it can easily be misunderstood especially by readers who are unfamiliar with the essence or the complex scope of the traditional Chinese notion of harmony.¹⁰ Because of these misunderstandings, Li has repeatedly explained the notion and its specific context. He highlighted that justice and harmony are products of entirely different social, political, and ideational backgrounds. The notion of justice was shaped in a tradition of universality, which emphasized the equality of all humans, while the idea of harmony was highly situational and contextual, which means that it was tightly linked to concrete situations that were always connected to particular relational, social, and axiological contexts. Besides, the Chinese notion of harmony was realized and fulfilled in and through social rituality. In contrast to such a background, the elementary criterion by which human interactions and relations were regulated in accordance with justice, was normative law. Li demonstrated the fundamental differences between these two regulative criteria of human interactions and social life in the following contrastive scheme, in which he highlighted seven crucial differences between them (Li Zehou and Liu Xuyuan 2012, 16):

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In establishing his theory of the two kinds of morality, which forms the very foundation of his ethics and political philosophy, Li highlighted the importance of the fact that in China, a normative law-based Legalism (fa jia 法家) only prevailed for a brief period of fifteen years during the short-lived Qin Dynasty (221–206 BC). Its successor, the Han Dynasty (206 BC–AD 220), however, was still confronted with the question of how to rule over a giant unified superpower-state. In addressing this problem, the court scholar Dong Zhongshu 董仲舒 took (hitherto already widely forgotten) Confucianism as a basis for the new social and political doctrine. However, in his system Confucian rituality complemented the Legalist concept of law (Rošker 2019, 245). Such an incorporation of several Legalist essentials into the structure of original Confucianism led to the “blending of ritual and law” (li fa jiaorong 禮法交融) and to the “reciprocal utilization of Confucianism and Legalism” (Rufa huyong 儒法互用). In Li’s view, this synthesis was tremendously significant for the further development of the Chinese state and society. He accentuates that in working out this combination, Dong accomplished a “transformative creation” (zhuanhuaxingde chuangzao 轉化性的創造). He also thinks that in contemporary China, which is also marked by transitional elements (similar to the period of the Han rule), it is high time to find and apply a new transformative creation (ibid.). In this context, Li Zehou highlights the need for contemporary China to enact and adhere to a strict division between state and religion, advocating a firm differentiation between “public social morality” (shehuixing gongde 社會性公德) and “private religious morality” (zongjiaoxing side 宗教性私德).¹¹ This is important in order to deconstruct the traditional “trinity of politics, ethics, and religion” (zhengzhi, lunli, zongjiao san he yi 政治、倫理、宗教三合一). Actually, this “trinity” is nothing else but the traditional “rule of one man” (ren zhi 人治) (Li Zehou and Liu Xuyuan 2012, 16).

Li Zehou also strongly emphasized that it was tremendously important not to conceal the hierarchic boundary between reason and emotion in which the latter aspect was controlled by the former. He was convinced that in China, this could lead to favoritism and to the absolutism of the so-called human feelings (ren qing 人情), a notion that is presently all too often misused to cover up private interests or a greedy desire for power (Rošker 2019, 245). The Chinese people must not allow such negative aspects or misinterpretations of their own tradition to overrule the modern legal system in their society.

On the other hand, traditional “private religious morality” can guide by example and thus influence or to help appropriately construct the “public social morality.” Before tolerating such an influence, we must first make sure that there is a clear distinction between these two kinds of morality. The influence of the private religious morality can be permitted and launched only after the definite establishment of the public social morality in the sense of John Rawls’ “overlapping consensus”¹² and on the basis of a well-developed modern economy. In such an ideal case, the private religious morality could unfold its genuine essence as a morality of cosmic sentiment and human warmth (Rošker 2019, 246). In such case, private religious morality could reveal its aesthetic power. A society in which such a union or synthesis of both kinds of morality could be achieved, could truly be identified with the emotion-based substance of Chinese culture.

Li criticized the ahistorical nature of the common understanding of justice in modern liberalist societies. He claimed that such connotations of the concept are, in essence, imbedded in Kant’s transcendental ethics, for in such frameworks, justice is always defined through abstract rational principles. In his view, most people never ask themselves why communities and societies actually require rational laws, which guarantee individual freedom of choice, equal rights, the implementation of the categorical imperative, or the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of population. Irrespective of the question to which particular line of thought they belonged, i.e., no matter whether they were utilitarian, libertarians, or liberalist, such questions are seldom discussed. Even though general ideas of cooperative agreements that should serve individual advantages and safety were often debated, the question about the origins, conditions and real possibilities of establishing such agreements are seldom raised. Therefore, Li emphasized that “without reference to historical factors, there is very little to say in this regard, and we can only come to suppositional rational postulations” (Li, Zehou 2016, 1076).

Li Zehou’s alternative to the modern Western concepts of liberalism and individualism is based on his understanding and his interpretation of traditional Chinese culture. He tries to place this alternative into the framework of his theory of the “typically Chinese” psychological formations that is determined by the fusion of emotion and reason, which is embedded into the emotion-based substance. In his view, such psychological formations allow people to relatively smoothly live together with the members of their families, but also function well within wider social groups and communities. All of these specific features are defined by a specifically East Asian paradigm of social interactions, which Li named relationalism (guanxizhuyi 關係主義). He saw this notion as standing in sharp contrast to individualism, which, in his view, stresses personal independency, and enfolds separateness, exclusiveness and exclusion of the Other. He critically questioned basic standards underlying the majority of modern Western political theories that mainly placed their basic approaches into the framework of the Aristotelian virtue ethics, which rested on the concept of individuality. Even though according to him, traditional Chinese ethics also belonged to a broader conception of virtue ethics, it differed from traditional European ethical thought, which was originally formed on the basis of the ancient Greek idea of free civil society of equal individuals. In the course of later developments, Judeo-Christian concepts of final judgment before God in which all individuals were likewise equal also had a profound impact on these lines of thought. In traditional China, however, communities were mainly shaped according to the relations within the network of kinship systems, which were, in contrast to such basic, individual centered feature of traditional European ethics—based on the inequality of the clan members. This system was rooted on the advanced development of Chinese culture in the Neolithic era. In this period, the social production was based on small agricultural communities, the functioning of which was founded on strong and clearly defined kinship relations. Such a system led to the establishment of tribal clans, which was connected with a necessary shift in the ideational superstructure. This shift could be put into effect with the help of the rationalization of shamanistic rituality. Together these factors shaped a specifically Chinese ethics of relationalism,¹³ in which the individual self-awareness was defined through their relationships with other members of their society. In this framework, individual identity was shaped through their relations with other people, and this specific characteristic of societal structure gradually led to the transformation of the idea of relationalism into a “traditional unconscious” (chuantong wuyishi 傳統無意識) (Li Zehou 2016, 1079).

In the Western cultural areas, however, a comparable feature of “traditional unconscious” was—due to the prevailing ideologies, described above—mainly defined by individualism. The distinction between the emphasis on relationalism and individualism respectively is a fundamental dissimilarity between the two types of ethics that correspondingly prevailed in the Chinese and in the Euro-American cultural milieus (Rošker 2019, 247). On the other hand, Li also problematized the Western concept of communitarianism. He saw this idea, which has been held in high esteem by several notable Western and Chinese theoreticians, as only applicable to modern countries and cultures with a long liberalist tradition. In his essay “A Response to Michael Sandel and Other Matters,” he emphasized that communitarianism “is the product of developed countries with long traditions of liberalism. It has referential value, but if directly or indiscriminately adopted in other societies can be quite dangerous” (Li, Zehou 2016, 1086). However, it would be wrong to say that Li absolutely negated the idea of liberalism as such. For him, it was far more reflective of and suitable to the needs of modern social life than, for instance, utilitarianism, which had little regard for the minority and its individuals. Li pointed out that such an attitude could give rise to enormous difficulties and could even lead to tragedies. The suggestion of “greatest happiness for the greatest number,” for instance, could be appropriated in service of austere religious discriminations and even genocides.

In this regard, he nevertheless recommended a different kind of liberalism. Although he criticized exaggerated liberalist emphasis on individualism as a basic social system, he still acknowledges that the main value of this line of thought can be found in its highlighting the need to protect individual rights:

Liberalism stresses that all people are ends in themselves and should not be used as instruments or means. It emphasizes individuals’ freedom to choose and make decisions for themselves. This hugely elevates the position and value of the individual, as well as respect for personal character, and thereby liberates the individual from various forms of enslavement by the past’s political and economic systems, traditional customs, and ideologies.

Li Zehou 2016, 1084

He also pointed out that in certain aspects, liberalism was similar to his own idea of a “modern social morality” (xiandai shehuixing daode 現代社會性道德), which will be treated in detail in the next chapter. According to Li Zehou, both notions were equally based on ideas such as tolerance, democracy, equality, independence, and freedom. On the other hand, they also embraced neutrality of values, mutual respect, high evaluation of cooperation and so on. In contrast to numerous promoters of Western liberal ideologies, however, he sees the abovementioned ideas as certain kinds of moral values that were shaped on the foundation of public reason, prevalent in modern societies. He emphasized that it was very important to strictly disconnect all such ideas from any kind of traditional religious moralities¹⁴ that were defined by faith and emotions. He proposed an innovative variant of liberalism, which was considerably more dynamic and historical as the conventional model of this system. But Li also exposes that overall, liberalism as such is still not the best possible system: he claimed that the liberalist order is by no means eternally and universally applicable, and that it should rather be seen as a kind of transitory system. He emphasized that it represents a necessary product of a certain stage or period within the historical development. Liberalism should therefore be seen and understood as a part of historicism. Li believed that we should always bear in mind that history could not end with capitalism and liberal society (ibid., 1136). In order to move forward toward a more ideal future, Li hence proposed certain regulative measures derived from his idea of emotion-based substance, as for instance, the scheme in which “harmony is higher than justice.” According to him, liberalism could be transcended and surpassed precisely with the help of such schemes and regulative systems.

Li also highlighted the intrinsic connection between individualistic liberalism and the shaping and developing of the capitalist system. Because he also emphasized that in many aspects his own theories were based upon “early” Marxism, one could anticipate that he also opposed capitalism as such. He certainly claimed that this system is by no means the best possible or the last stage of history.

However, [Li] does not see the capitalist period as an unbearable one. On the contrary, he is quite fond of the numerous material advantages and the high level of technological development it brought. Hence, he also rejects any violent attempts to destroy it. It is quite understandable in this sense that Li eliminated from Marxism the concepts of class struggle and revolution. On the other hand, precisely these two elements are doubtless the essential driving forces behind the Marxist historical model of dialectical materialism. In light of these circumstances, we might ask ourselves whether Li’s philosophy could still be allied with the immensely influential political-economic theory and one of the most dominant discourses of the 20th century, widely known and associated with Marxism.

Rošker 2019, 248

In his view of human progress, Li has assumed the method of historical materialism, attempting to use it in order to complement and upgrade Kant’s epistemology and ethics. However, by eliminating the concept of class struggle¹⁵ from his own theory, his dialectics of human progress was no longer based upon social contradictions that could have led to syntheses arising from mutual sublations. “Instead of fighting his way through reciprocally conflicting oppositions towards the revolutionary salvation, he strove for the realization of social progress by means of du and harmony” (ibid.). In fact, his change of Marxist foundations was not limited to the concept of class struggle. After 1964, Li entirely stopped working with even the most elementary paradigms of such discourses, as for example, with the category of social classes. He was strictly against any kinds of violent “solutions” of social conflicts. Hence, it is by no means coincidental that Li departed from the Marxist concept of revolution as early as in his thirties.

Woei-Lien Chong exposed that Li wrote against violent disorders as a lever for social changes as early as 1964. She recorded that, although in essence Li’s theoretical systems always remained historical and teleological, his later writings no longer contained gnostic-apocalyptic factors that appeared in his early works. Even though he still used certain points related to such a gnostic-apocalyptic arrangement, he “purified them” off their revolutionary connotations. In this way, Chong showed that he was against the very concept of revolution well before the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. If we consider the political situation in the People’s Republic of China in the sixties, such an attitude at that time was certainly very daring (Chong 1999, 295).

This elementary aversion against violence was even more explicit in his book Farewell to Revolution, which he published in 1997 together with Liu Zaifu 劉再复. In Li’s view, humankind should pursue progress through sensible reforms instead of violent revolutions. In this regard, he certainly drew inspiration from the traditional Chinese ideas of harmony, middle way, and du. According to him, such positive notions could (and should) replace violent attempts to resolve national and social conflicts in contemporary societies.