1 Unfolding the Difference: Etymological Meanings and Later Connotations

Such distortion of the difference between the two notions is in Western sources probably a result of the fact that the ancient Greek ēthos and the Latin mos had similar connotations, and this similarity has consequently led Cicero to translate the former from Greek into the latter in Latin.

On the other hand, in contemporary (especially practical) philosophy the two notions are usually strictly and clearly discriminated. However, there are many different definitions of what distinguishes them from one another (Fisher 2004, 397) and most of these are quite different from or even stand in a direct opposition to the distinction established by Li Zehou.

The field of ethics is usually understood as involving systematization, argumentation, and evaluation of the concepts of right and wrong behavior. Philosophers today usually divide ethical theories into particular subject areas as meta-ethics, descriptive, normative, and applied ethics. The term “ethics” refers to a guide to behavior wider in scope than morality, a framework of criteria that individuals adopt as their own guide to life, as long as it is also seen as a proper guide for others (Gert and Gert 2017, 5). The term “morality” may also be used either in a descriptive or in the normative sense. In the first case, it refers to certain codes of conduct put forward by a society or a group or accepted by an individual for her own behavior. In the latter, it denotes a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons (Gert and Gert 2017, 5).

Most often, morality is understood as something that refers to norms and systems of norms guiding human social behavior and possessing absolute validity, while ethics is seen as an academic discipline dealing with morality:

Ethics studies morality. Morality is a term used to cover those practices and activities that are considered importantly right and wrong; the rules that govern those activities; and the values that are embedded, fostered, or pursued by those activities and practices. The morality of a society is related to its mores, or the customs that a society or group accepts as being right and wrong, as well as those laws of a society that add legal prohibitions and sanctions to many activities considered to be immoral. Hence, ethics presupposes the existence of morality, as well as the existence of moral people who judge right from wrong and generally act in accordance with norms they accept and to which they and the rest of society hold others.

De George 1999, 19

In such views, morality is a social—rather than individual—phenomenon based upon generally recognized and obligatory norms and values, while ethics is determined as a philosophical discipline studying and investigating human life practices through the lens of the conditions defining their morality. In other words, morality is commonly seen as consisting of particular classes of behavior-governing norms and “ethics” is the study of moral norms that includes their grounding and their justification (McGavin 2013, 495) or as the study of how it is most rational to behave (Gert and Gert 2017, 6). Peter Singer, a well-known (but also very controversial) representative of contemporary Western ethical discourses, has advocated a similar view:

The terms ethics and morality are closely related. We now often refer to ethical judgments or ethical principles where it once would have been more common to speak of moral judgments or moral principles. These applications are an extension of the meaning of ethics. Strictly speaking, however, the term refers not to morality itself but to the field of study, or branch of inquiry, that has morality as its subject matter. In this sense, ethics is equivalent to moral philosophy.

Singer 2017, 627

In some other similarly constructed classifications, morality is defined as practice and ethics as theory. In such discourses, morality can be molded by education, customs, and by patterns of behavior and expression prevailing in a certain society. In these views, morality is a practice of what “ought to be.” It is seen as an entirety of codes of conduct prevailing in a society and integrated by its individual members. Hence, moral norms are practical rules or strategies, governing at the same time each given member of human societies (Miller 2016, 64). As a theory of morality, ethics offers a theoretical examination of morality and is understood as a subarea of philosophy. It contains reflections and discussions on good life and morally proper actions. It systemizes morality, searches for its legitimizations, and develops criteria for its evaluation (Köberer 2014, 21–22). In such “standard views” (Gordon 2017, 3), morality is understood as the object of ethics, which, on the other hand, is the philosophical theory of morality and the systematic analysis of moral norms and values.

Often, morality is also defined as a special field in the ethical realm: in this view, ethics is the generic term for ethical and moral issues in the abovementioned sense, and morality a special part of ethics (e.g., Williams 2006, 5).

In the Western academia we also come across other, less dominant views, according to which “Morality is a cultural phenomenon. Each society has its morality. On the contrary, ethics aims to cross-cultural, universal morality” (Marina 2000, 321).

However, most contemporary Chinese scholars emphasize the difficulties linked to a search for a clear definition of the main differences between ethics and morality:

Ethics (lunli 倫理) and morality belong to the most fundamental concepts of the ethical studies (lunlixue 倫理學). Questions such as what is “ethics,” what is “morality,” and ultimately, about the nature of their mutual relation, belong to the central problems debated in ethical studies from the ancient until the present times.

倫理與道德是倫理學的兩個最基本概念。 從古至今, 關於什麼是 “倫理”, 什麼是 “道德”, 以及二者到底有著什麼樣的關係, 一直就是倫理學界討論的主要話題之一。 倫理與道德的關係十分緊密, 以至於我們經常將二者混同, 但是嚴格地講, 倫理與道德是有著顯著區別的兩個概念.

>Zou Yu 2004, 15

Here, Zou Yu applies the distinction between ethics in the sense of a set of moral concepts and axiological principles that guide human behavior (lunli 倫理) and other connotations of the term, which explicitly refer to ethics as an academic discipline or a field of study (lunlixue 倫理學). In contrast to the Indo-European terminologies, this distinction is relatively common and often applied in the Chinese discourses.¹

Some Chinese sources describe the terms ethics and morality either as synonyms or as two notions referring to the general and concrete levels of the same meaning, as for instance in the following citation:

According to the 5th edition of the Modern Chinese dictionary, the so-called ethics refers to all kinds of moral principles regulating the relations between people.

從一般意義上講，所謂倫理，是指人與人相處的各種道德準則 （據《現代漢語詞典》第５版）.

You Zhenglin 2017, 108

In most cases, morality is understood as a collective social phenomenon:

From the viewpoint of ethics (as a science investigating the norms of human behavior), morality is defining the collective behavior of members of a certain group in accordance with ethical principles that are believed or accepted by this group.

從倫理學（即研究人類行為規範的一門學科）的角度來看，道德是某一群體依照所信奉的倫理原則制定的群體行為準則.

Wu Jian 2005, 1

Very often, ethics is also defined as a theory or science of morality:

Ethics is the science of superior morality; it is the method and the process that determines such morality. It is a science that can implement the basic approaches of morality.

倫理學是關於優良道德的科學, 是關於優良道德的製定方法和製定過程以及實現途徑的科學.

Wang Haiming 2002, 90

Similar to the dominant Western descriptions, Chinese scholars often define ethics as a science or a discourse that investigates moral principles:

Ethics is either seen as a discipline that explores the goodness, or as one that investigates moral laws or regulations.

倫理學或者被看做是研究善的，或者被看做是研究服從某種道德律法或規則的正當的行為.

Liao Shenbai 2009, 2

In the English translation of their article on ethics and morality, contemporary Chinese theoreticians Song Xiren and Cui Hui describe the relation between ethics and morality in a different, but somehow comparable way:

In simple terms, ethos is regarded as the reasonable relationship between men; while morality is thought of as norms, which the ethical order ought to have. As a way of governing man’s actions in society, on the one hand morality shapes virtues of individuals and on the other hand establishes customs of a group. The sum total of ideas and norms which are popular and accepted in a society is the ideology of social morals. Thus, it can be seen that ethos implies an objective relationship and the moral principle of this relationship.

Song and Cui 2009, 212

Some Chinese authors regard the Chinese word ethics (lunli 倫理) as a Western concept, and morality (daode 道德) as a Chinese concept:

The contemporary meaning of “ethics” includes the characteristics of reason, science, and universal will as defined in the Western cultures, while the term “morality” includes Eastern nuances such as sensuality, humanism, the cultivation of men and so on.

當代 “倫理” 概念蘊含著西方文化的理性、科學、公共意誌等屬性， “道德” 概念蘊含著更多的東方文化的情性、人文、個人修養等色彩.

Yao Xinyu 2006, 21

In Li’s ethical system, the various above listed understandings of the difference between ethics and morality reopen the question of how these two discourses relate to each other in the framework of a moral theory. Nevertheless, before introducing Li’s view on this implicational distinction, let me shortly present the etymological sources and semantic developments of these two notions in the history of Chinese language, because in this aspect, an attentive consideration of their Chinese meanings can contribute to a better understanding of Li’s theory.

The modern Chinese word for ethics is lunli 倫理, a compound composed of the characters lun 倫 and li 理. The original meaning of the former² is linked to the semantic scope of class or category (see Wang Li et al. 2017, 36; Peng 1986, 430; Unger 2000, 61) and mostly refers to ordered or “normal” relations between people. It often appears in various Confucian classics in this sense.³ The character li 理 denotes a dynamic structure, a structural pattern, principle, or order.⁴ Hence, the compound lunli 倫理 designates a structural order (or an ordered network) of inter-human relations. This is the sense that it carries in the classical Confucian work Li ji 禮記 (The Classic of Rites):

All modulations of sound take their rise from the mind of man; and music connects us with ethics, i.e., the structure (li 理) of human relations (lun 倫).

凡音者，生於人心者也。樂者，通倫理者也.

Li ji s.d., Yue ji: 5

The compound lunli 理倫 became more commonly used during the Han Dynasty when it appeared in a wide variety of different Confucian sources, for instance, in Dong Zhongshu’s 董仲舒 Chunqiu fanlu 春秋繁露. (The Rich Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals), in which the author highlights the importance of the concordance between the laws of cosmos and those regulating the relationships between people:

We act in accordance with ethics to assist the laws of nature.

行有倫理，副天地也.

Dong Zhongshu s.d., Ren fu tian shu: 1

Here, we observe the holistic tendency that was typical for classical Chinese philosophy rooted in a presumption of a structural, complementary, and correlative connection between nature and society. This connection was highlighted in several other sources of the early Han Dynasty, as for instance, in the Huang-Lao Daoist work Huai Nanzi 淮南子:

The book “Qin zu” explores the eight ultimate directions and is the highest source of wisdom. Regarding the spheres above us, it explains the three lights (of the sun, moon, and stars); concerning the spheres below, it teaches how to harmonize water and earth. It orders the ways of past and present, and defines the ethical order.

《泰族》者，橫八極，致高乘，上明三光，下和水土，經古今之道，治 倫理之序.

Huai Nanzi s.d., Yaolüe: 20

Already at the very beginning of the Han Dynasty rule, ethical regulations were seen as an important content of politics and education, which is clearly documented in Jia Yi’s 賈誼 Xin shu (New Writings):

Officials who were in charge with the implementation of morality were responsible for maintaining the social order of four classes and they taught people the ethics of rites and justice.

祧師，典春以掌國之眾庶四民之序，以禮義倫理教訓人民.

Jia Yi s.d., Vol. 5, Fu zuo: 8

In the same work, Jia Yi also warns against the severe consequences of not considering such regulations:

Shang Yang has violated rituality and justice (morality) and he abandoned ethics. He focused solely upon his own ambitions. He continued to act like this for two years, and the customs of the state Qin were increasingly declining.

商君違禮義，棄倫理，并心於進取，行之二歲，秦俗日敗.

Jia Yi s.d., Vol. 3, Shi bian: 3

In the same period, ethics was already seen as an important and essential characteristic of human beings, namely as the crucial feature that distinguishes them from animals:

People who do not live in accordance with the hierarchical order are like wild animals; they live in chaos and don’t know about ethics.

無上下之序者，禽獸之性，則亂不知倫理.

Wang Chong s.d., Shu xu: 49

In modern Chinese, the Western concept of morality has mostly been translated using the term daode 道德. This compound comprises two characters that were defined in the oldest etymological Chinese dictionary Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (Interpreting Texts and Explaining Characters) in the following way:

1. Dao: the way on which one walks 道: 所行道也. (Xu Shen s.d.)

2. De: to rise, to ascend, to go up, or to offer as a tribute 德: 升也. (ibid.)

In the historical development of the classical Chinese language, both terms obtained various additional semantic connotations.

Besides implying a path, a road, or a journey, dao was often used to express a method, a principle, but also law or reason. All these connotations referred to a certain way in which something could be done or achieved. In Daoism, it also represented the origin of all things. In other contexts, it could mean to speak or to formulate something, to take a course of action, to lead or to flow smoothly. Its original meaning was probably also tightly connected to the connotation of rites that were paid to the spirits of roads before attending a journey.

The term de, on the other hand, could mean kindness, good deeds, reward, or good fortune, but its central and most important meaning was linked to the concept of moral virtues, to the potential for being virtuous, or to the method of virtuous behavior. Both terms appeared together in various early classical texts, such as the Confucian Analects or in the main works of philosophical Daoism, but in the pre-Qin period, they were not applied to the current meaning of morality.⁵ Rather, the compound expressed the path of virtue,⁶ the characteristics of the dao,⁷ or acting in accordance with one’s own humanness.⁸ In all such context, the terms dao and de were seen as conveying similar or related contents that were often used in a mutually complementary way, without, however, representing a compound word with a unified meaning. In the chapter Dao de shuo 道德說 of his Xin shu 新書 (New Writings), Jia Yi connected the two terms by comparing dao to the axiological system underlying our aesthetic judgments of a jade stone, and de to the method of making such judgments (Jia Yi s.d., Dao de shuo: 1).

From the late Qing Dynasty on, daode was increasingly expressed by the English term “morality.” Since this connotation was new, complex, and very different from the traditional meanings that were associated with the two characters, such translation often led to confusions:

By the end of the Qing Dynasty and during the early republican period, the traditional Chinese word “daode” was seriously alienated; its new meaning could not match its traditional connotations. This was probably directly connected to the fact that at the time, an excessive amount of foreign works on ethics was introduced into China, which led to confusions in the translation process … Because of this, the traditional Chinese interpretation of “morality” became lost in present debates on moral theories. This is also the reason for the disorder regarding the prevailing moral principles in contemporary Chinese reality.

中國傳統中的 “道德” 一詞，在清末民初這段時間中出現了嚴重異化，古今 “道德” 的文義出現了對不上號的問題，這，大概與該時期大量引入外國的倫理學著作和思想的時候，在翻譯上所出現的概念困惑情況有直接的關係 … 這就是說，現在中國絕大部分討論中國道德的理論之所以大量喪失了中國傳統 “道德” 的正解，中國現實中的道德觀之所以出現混亂現象，實在是新文化運動以來造成的中國文化傳統出現斷裂的後遺症.

Qian Jun 2014, 5

This confusion was omnipresent in the manifold different understandings and usages of both terms in question, i.e. daode, as well as lunli. Just as most other modern philosophical terms, the new meanings of the two notions came to China through Japanese translations. In 1881 Inoue Tetsujirō (1855–1944) borrowed the Chinese term lunli to translate “ethics” as rinrigaku 倫理學, which literally means “ethical teachings.” Later the word “morality” was given the Japanese translation dōtoku 道德. (Chen 2009, 195). Cai Yuanpei, the author of one of the first widely influential modern books on the history of Chinese ethics,⁹ has adopted the most common Western interpretations of the two terms, defining lunlixue 倫理學 (ethics) as a scientific discipline, which investigates ethical principles. In his view, it was the theory of morality (daode 道德), while the cultivation of the Self (xiu shen 修身) rather represented its practical aspects (Cai Yuanpei 2007, 1).

2 Li Zehou’s Distinction

Against this background, it is even easier to understand how important it was for Li Zehou to clarify his own understanding of these two notions that are crucial for his ethical theory.

The distinction Li makes between ethics and morality not only differs from all abovementioned definitions but also from most well-established and authoritative contemporary Western interpretations that created various advancements and added different innovative approaches to such discussions. At a first glance, Li’s distinction between ethics and morality seems to be quite similar to Hegel’s differentiation between Moralität and Sittlichkeit, which underlies the theory of his Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts. However, Li has repeatedly denied the existence of any notable Hegelian influences in his philosophy (see for instance Li Zehou 2016, 44, 76, 133). In a speech delivered at a conference organized in order to celebrate the 200th jubilee of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, he even proposed an anti-Hegelian slogan, “Kant yes, Hegel no” (Yao Kangde, bu yao Heigeer 要康德, 不要黑格爾), and he often criticized the abovementioned distinction for being an integral part of Hegel’s deterministic thought which he labelled “objective idealism,” and denounced it for annihilating the problem of human subjectivity (Gu Xin 1996, 206).

In this context, I should also mention Jürgen Habermas, who believed that in contrast to Kant, Hegel had a “sharper view” of the “phenomena of successful coexistence” (Habermas 2019, 42ff), because for him the reconciling force of state organizational power was the social bond that is supposed to hold together individuals, who are becoming increasingly isolated from the unfolding capitalist dynamics. In addition, Habermas aimed to connect and upgrade the ethical and moral aspects of the critical theory with those of American pragmatism, launching another crucial difference between the two notions. As is well known, Habermas proceeded from an attempt to reformulate Kant’s ethics by grounding moral norms in communication and he denoted this new ethical paradigm with the term “discourse ethics” (Habermas 1989, 38). For him, ethics has to do with the pursuit of one’s own happiness or well-being and private lifestyle, that is, how we should live to make good lives for ourselves, while morality has to do with other people’s interests and deontological constraints. (Gordon 2017, 3)

Li criticized Habermas, pointing out that in his “discourse ethics,” the ethical problems remain embedded in the particular biographical context and do not claim universal validity. In this framework, they are limited to questions about designing one’s own life against the background of the respective cultural community. In this context, Habermas also discusses discourses of practical morality, which in his view require the break with all self-evident qualities of the accustomed concrete morality as well as the distancing from those life contexts with which one’s own identity is inseparably connected (Habermas 1991, 113).¹⁰ Thus, Habermas believes that we make moral use of practical reason when we ask what is equally good for everyone; an ethical use, when we ask what is good for me or for us (Habermas 1991a, 149).

Li pointed out that such approaches lacked an important element of the Marxist theory, namely that of the material basis, which profoundly influences the ethical conditions of societies:

Globalization can be developed in a more rational way. It can adapt to different cultures and religions. It can embrace differences and remain based upon consensus, maintaining the tension between them. In this way, the relation between the two is no longer merely a passive opposition, for social existence furnishes the consensus with a very strong material basis. In my view, Habermas lacks this basis; he only talks about negotiations and rational discussions. These are purely academic ideals impossible to realize without this material basis.

全球化可以向更加合理的方向發展，並且適應不同的文化和宗教。也就是說可以既有差異又有共識，保持兩者之間有張力，並不是消極地對立，社會存在從而給共識以一個非常強大的物質基礎。我覺得哈貝馬斯就是沒有這個基礎，他就單單講協商，講商談理性，那隻是書齋理想，沒有這個物質基礎就不可能.

Li Zehou and Tong Shijun 2012, 169

According to Li, most of the contemporary and classical theories miss a decisive point in their attempts to define ethics and morality. Hence, he repeatedly explained his own view on the distinction between ethics and morality, which differs from all of the abovementioned interpretations:

I am strictly and clearly differentiating between ethics and morality. Ethics is external, it is a system or an order consisting of concrete ideas: therefore, it is relative and can be changed in accordance with different periods of time. Although some aspects are carried on, the concrete contents, like for instance the concept of “a loyal ruler” or of “respecting the festivals” can differ in different situations. “Morality,” on the other hand, is internal. It represents human psychological formations. In my view, it is the categorical imperative of which Kant spoke. In fact, it is a mental form. In other words: people are cultured by ethics, by different systems and orders, but on the other hand, they all possess psychological formations that have an absolute nature. From the viewpoint of history, they are products of practice, and in individuals, they appear through education. They are cultivated in humans through education in a broadest sense, i.e., through guidance, refinement, and influences. When we teach children from the earliest age not to grab other people’s candies, not to lie or insult other persons and so on, we are cultivating their morality.

我把倫理（ethics）和道德（moral）做一種較嚴格的明確區分。倫 理是外在的，制度、秩序或者說具體的觀念，因此是相對的，不同 時代有不同的變化。雖然會有繼承的一面，但是有變化的，比如 說 “忠君”、“守節” 的含義都有不同。內在的是 “道德”，是人類的心理結構，我認為就是康德講的絕對命令。它實際上是一種心理形式。也就是說，即倫理、制度、秩序所培養出來的人們所具有的心理結構是絕對性的。從歷史來講是通過實踐，從個體來講就是經過教育。廣義的教育即對人從小就有的教導、培養、影響，等等，比如從小教小孩子不要搶別人的糖果，不講謊話，不要欺辱別人，等等，這培養的就是道德.

ibid., 172

Here,—once again—it becomes obvious that Li differs from Kant in emphasizing that no human capacities are a priori or innate, but rather belong to humans as a result of history and education. For Li, ethics is a system established in accordance with external conceptions of good and evil. It is also a system that implements and reproduces these external axiological conceptions in individuals and societies. This means that ethics, which is relative in the sense that it is always based upon concrete historical experiences, continuously constructs, shapes, and sediments into the forms and structures of human mind elements of the ethical substance,¹¹ which actually belong to the absolute ethics. In this way, the absolute is constructed through and by the relative. In other words, this is the transformation of the empirical into the transcendental. In this process, principles of reason arise from ritual. Morality, on the other hand, consists of the formal structures of internal psychology, in which emotions are determined by principles of reason.¹² For Li, ethics is represented by external institutions, standards, norms, orders and customs, while morality is linked to those psychological characteristics and behaviors that accord with and fulfill the institutions, orders, norms, and laws.

In this sense, Li’s understanding differs from most other traditional and modern philosophical approaches. He points out that even though Hegel, for instance, also differentiated between ethics and morality, he failed to see the importance of morality as the extremely specific forms of the individual’s mental structures; instead, he saw it as a set of abstract universal principles (Li, Zehou 2016, 1108). In Li’s view, however, ethics and morality are both products of history, which is circumstantial, for it develops in accord with the particular nature of specific periods, cultures, and societies. Hence, all ethics and moralities are equally determined by concrete historical circumstances. But history is also accumulative.¹³ Its progressive nature means that advancements of material life are always followed by advancements in terms of ethics and morality. In this context, Li highlights that in his view, the sedimentation of particular shared ideas of good and evil as well as matching emotions occurs through the history and socialization of human beings. In this way, people progressively come to possess joint ethical criteria and moral standards (ibid., 1135). These three essential levels of history, i.e., its circumstantial, progressive, and accumulative aspects, are linked to the relative nature of ethics. However, Li Zehou strongly opposes the promotion of this relativity to a kind of sanctified or generally valid truth. Hence, he clearly and repeatedly rejected the idea of ethical relativism, and even more rigorously criticized situationism.

In Li’s view, most contemporary philosophers and theoreticians of ethics do not fully understand the importance of such differentiations:

Other later scholars have similarly made this distinction, but their understandings also differ fundamentally from my own. Sandel’s many examples do not clearly distinguish the ethics of political action, trials, and policies, which are related to institutions, from the morals of individual behavior and psychology. Of course, absolute distinction between them is challenging but also extremely necessary. Conflating political and individual action makes clarifying ethical and moral issues very difficult.

ibid., 1108

Hence, Li repeatedly exposes that the crucial distinction between the two notions can be found in the external and internal levels of human consciousness. While the former pertain to ethics, the latter define human morality. The actual social content of ethics changes with time, but morality, which manifests itself in moral formations, embedded in emotio-rational structure of human mind, are absolute. Hence, ethics refers to common social procedures, institutions, laws and regulations; it consists of external social norms and requirements on the person’s actions. Morality, on the other hand, is a unique human capacity, which manifests itself in human mental formations and constitutes an extremely important and unique value for human existence and its continuation, surpassing the laws of causality, and going beyond space and time.

The internal psychological formations that constitute morality contain human rational capacities of free will, which represent the driving force behind our actions. On the other hand, it also includes human feelings, which function as an auxiliary force. Li often highlights the importance of this auxiliary power. Hence, these psychological formations include both rational capacities and sensuality, but in their external or social dimensions, their concrete contents belong to two different types of morality, for Li also distinguishes between traditional religious and modern social morality. This distinction is important for the understanding of his ethical system. Therefore, we will introduce his ethical theory of the two kinds of morality (liang de lun 兩德倫) in greater detail in the fourth section of this chapter. But before introducing this distinction, we shall take a closer look at the very development of ethics and morality.

3 Historical and Developmental Foundations: From Qing 情 as Collective Emotionality to Qing 情 as Individual Emotion

As we can see from the graphical scheme of Li Zehou’s ethical system,¹⁴ he outlined the developmental line of ethics and morality by an arrangement of the so-called four arrows (Li, Zehou 2016, 1109), which lead from collective human condition or shared emotionality through rituality and reason to individual emotions in the following order: Qing (collective emotionality) → Ritual Regulations ←→ Reason → Qing (individual emotion).

In the original Chinese version of this schema, the developmental line begins and ends with the same character, namely qing 情, which is usually translated as “emotion.” At first sight, it might appear a bit strange that a development, which begins with a certain notion, leads toward a final stage designated by the same notion. However, we must not forget that in Chinese, this character has various different connotations. Because of the semantic complexity of the term qing, Li argues that it might be better not to translate it at all, but rather just apply the original Chinese term in English:

I hope that in several decades, or even longer, the terms “qing” and “du,” which occupy a very important position in my Chinese vocabulary—similar to “dao,” “yin-yang,” etc., will become a common part of English terminology. It is very difficult to find a suitable English translation for such words. The term “qing,” for instance, can not be equated to mean emotion, feeling, affection, etc.

我希望幾十年或更長時間以後, “情” (qing) 與 “度” (du) 這兩 個在我的 學中占有重要位置的中文詞匯, 能與 “道” (dao), “陰陽” (yin-yang) 等英譯 一 樣, 成爲西文的通用詞匯. 因爲這些詞都很難找到可以恰當對應的西語譯名. 例如, “情” 就很難等同於 emotion, feeling, affection, passion 等等.

Li Zehou 2018, 1

The term qing 情 does not only refer to emotions (qinggan 情感), but also to situations (qingkuang 情況), (different) contexts or atmospheres (qingjing 情境), and facts (qingshi 情實). Li explains the difference between these different connotations of the same character by pointing out that even though the first qing (here translated as “emotionality”) includes human emotions and desires, it is not limited to them, but rather refers more broadly to the circumstances (qingjing 情境) of the existence of human communities, which are interrelated with shared human emotions and desires. The latter usage of the term qing 情 in this model means “emotion” and refers to individual feelings and desires. We could also say (see D’Ambrosio 2016, 728) that in such view, emotions are developed and cultivated broadly in society and narrowly in the individual’s psychological structures. Even though Li sometimes suggests that the term qing should not be translated but incorporated into the English terminology (similar to the categories dao 道 or yinyang 陰陽), it still makes sense to translate it with the terms “emotionality” (in the sense of collective responsiveness to concrete circumstances or situations) and “emotion” (in the sense of individual feelings), respectively. Both abovementioned implications of the term can also be found in Western discourses (see Hatzimoysis 2009, 215).

As we can clearly see from the above schema, Li Zehou sees the origin of the process, in which humans developed ethics and morality, in the concept qing 情, which appears in this context as the shared human emotionality, generated by the collective situation determining the existence of human beings.¹⁵ Through long-lasting historical developments, these conditions were increasingly modified and ordered through rituality in its broadest meaning of customs, norms, orders, regulations and laws. In this schema, rituals are condensed patterns of productive and operative human interaction. These first two stages of human evolvement (i.e., collective emotionality and ritual) belong to ethics. Ethical principles are then sustained, reproduced, and developed through education (or, in its widest sense, through socialization) of individuals, shaping their reason (which consists of the free will and ideas or concepts), and their individual emotions that are reflected in their individual decisions and behavioral patterns. The last two stages in this developmental scheme, namely reason and emotion, belong to morality.

The four arrows that are placed between the four items of this model represent their relationships. The first arrow moves from qing (collective emotionality and emotional responsiveness to situations or concrete circumstances) to ritual regulations, the second and the third from ritual to reason and back, respectively. Although ritual generates reason, reason simultaneously also influences rites.¹⁶ The fourth arrow pointing from reason to qing (in the sense of individual emotions) principally denotes the governance of emotions by reason as a result of the cultivation of will through solidification of reason. Here reason controls and cultivates emotions of concrete individuals through their identification with concepts of good and evil, thereby controlling behavior. Because of this, the “free will” of “human capacity” is simply the capacity to consciously act according to one’s conceptions of good and evil. As already mentioned, the free will is the form, while the ideas of good and evil constitute the content of reason:

What needs to be made clear here is that conceptions of good and evil are not the “free will” of the solidification of reason but rather the concrete rational ideas that are the content of this “free will.” Ritual, which originated through practices of shamanism, includes formal aspects of the emotio-rational structure in willpower while also possessing the content of concrete notions of good and evil. Therefore “reason” here has two major connotations: the solidification of reason (will) and the construction of reason (knowledge, as conceptions of good and evil). The movement from ritual to reason cultivates these two aspects of individual reason.

Li, Zehou 2016, 1110

Even though the notions of “good” and “evil” are hence relative and changeable in particular culturally determined situations, they also include an absolute criterion that is established in reference to social existence and the survival of humankind. Hence, developing instincts of love and hate to emotional powers and implementing rational directives is the process of moral cultivation of humanness (ibid., 1111). In this context, developing and cultivating “good” instincts and eliminating, guiding, and blocking the “evil” ones usually appear through appropriate rational recognition of good and evil. Here, the condensation of reason in the form of the free will serves to control and decrease “improper” basic instincts. In this context, Li Zehou also highlights the importance of moral emotions. The aforementioned basic conceptions of good and evil, for instance, together with their rational understanding, pervade all kinds of emotions. The relationships between each of these emotions and rational psychological elements are differently structured, so their particular forms can be tremendously multifaceted and complex. But the general process model leading from ritual (represented by external norms, guidance, punishments) to reason (manifesting itself in the conceptions of good and evil or right and wrong, in rational understanding and the function of free will as the dominant power of the condensed rational form) and emotions, is relatively easy to see and to comprehend. Li explains this process with the help of the example from Chinese culture and describes the traditional Chinese way of cultivating emotions:

In ancient China the terms li 禮 (ritual) and yue 樂 (music) were spoken of together. Ritual came from shamanistic ceremonies, taboos, totems, and so on, which included music and involved hierarchical distinctions that then become the patterns for rational knowledge (conceptions of good and evil and of right and wrong). However, through music and ceremonies (yi 儀) this also directly shapes emotions that despite their natural physiological basis are distinctly human.

ibid., 1113

As we have seen, qing in the sense of collective emotionality or responsiveness to concrete situations is the developmental foundation of ritual, which generates, but is at the same time also influenced by reason, and reason dominates and controls qing in the sense of individual emotions. However, even though reason thus governs and regulates emotions, the latter also play a considerable auxiliary role in moral behavior. This integration of reason and emotion is a very important element in Li’s moral philosophy. It manifests itself in a psychological formation, which he called the emotio-rational structure (qingli jiegou 情理結構) of human mind.

In this model of development, we can—once again—clearly see how much importance Li Zehou attaches to history and education. Ritual regulations are produced through the historical living existence of qing (collective emotionality and shared situations) and instilled into individuals as reason (concepts of good and evil) through education. In this process, norms and ethical systems both develop and are gradually condensed into reason in accordance with particular concrete stages of social development under the corresponding socio-historical conditions. Through the progression of such condensation of reason (lixing ningju 理性凝聚), free will controls and dominates individual behavior and instinctual desires. This stage is followed by the melting of reason (lixing ronghua 理性融化) into emotion, in which order, rules, and forms permeate and interweave into individual sensation.

On the individual level, this means that norms are useful for creating harmony in interpersonal relationships given particular social, political, and economic circumstances. When individuals internalize social norms, they identify with them both emotionally and rationally, and then act accordingly.

D’Ambrosio 2016, 728

Hence, in the course of such development, ethical norms are abstracted and rationalized into moral systems.

As we have seen above, the idea of the condensation of reason, which is a result of the continuous accumulation of experience, plays a vital and instrumental role in this development. On the one hand, Li conceived it as a “true implication of Kant’s first (“universal laws”) and third (“free will”) principles” (Li Zehou, 2016, 1107).¹⁷ In addition, Li takes this idea to explain the constitution of his own supposition that “the empirical is being transformed into the transcendental” (jingyan bian xianyan 經驗變先驗). In this way, he aims to show why human psychological formations that are often understood as being “innate” or “transcendental” by individuals, are actually a product of the dynamic evolvement of human experience and practice.

While Kant believes that free will also belongs to a-priori reason, Li believes that it is formed through experience. The same applies to reason, which also comes from experience, and is formed through the long history of humankind, in which it was slowly accumulated in sedimentation and condensed. Individual human emotions and psychological structures of thought are products of human cultures. Although all these formations appear a-priori for the individual, they can only be understood from the perspective of the entire humankind. As soon as we consider this dimension of human evolvement, it becomes clear that human moral psychology as we know it is completed through the sedimentation of experience.

Li coins the term “condensation of reason” in order to emphasize the control and domination of reason over the individual emotions, desires, and inclinations. It begins to form during the earliest stages of human development, as can be observed both in the beginning of human evolution and in the developmental process of small children. In such beginnings of evolvement, the free will as the most distinctive moral capacity of human beings is shaped through external pressures, limitations, and restrictions, as well as through the learning of particular ethical procedures and the following of certain norms. All these elements gradually lead to the shaping of internal moral consciousness, which includes concepts and emotions.

In other words, we can also say that through ethics (which consists of external norms, requirements, institutions, and regulations) we come to morality (that includes free will and other internal psychological formations). These capacities that human beings possess, which manifest themselves in their humanness (ren xing 人性) always move from experience to the a-priori, from social traditions and customs (with the help of socialization and education) to mentalities.

4 Two Kinds of Morality

As mentioned in the section on the difference between ethics and morality, Li also differentiates between two kinds of morality. In his theory, he draws a clear demarcation line between religious morality (zongjiaoxing daode 宗教性道德)—associated with subjective emotions, values, and beliefs—and social morality (shehuixing daode 社會性道德), which is linked to justice, equality, reason, independence, and human rights. In this schema, modern social morality and public virtue are distinguished from religious morality and private virtue. For Li, the former is primary, and he often emphasizes that “religious morality stems from social morality” (Li Zehou 2016b, 35). In several works, and particularly in his paper entitled “Liang zhong daode lun” 兩種道德論 (“Theory of the Two Kinds of Morality”), he explains the distinction between these two kinds of morality in great detail (see Li Zehou 2016b, 29–57).

Religious morality pertains to the religious nature of private virtues or private religious morality (zongjiaoxing side 宗教性私德) and is imbedded in individual values that originate from subjective feelings and develop through inherent cultivation and beliefs. Social morality, on the other hand, is rooted in public social virtues (shehuixing gongde 社會性公德) that are adopted as products of external laws, ethical codes, regulations, and orders¹⁸ (Li Zehou 2008a, 6). Here, it should be mentioned that Li also distinguishes between two kinds of ethics, which stand in an analogous relation with the two kinds of morality. He points out that this differentiation is particularly important in the present times. First, it appears as a part of political philosophy, in which it mainly deals with various 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 (Li Zehou 2007a, 5). However, the distinction between the two kinds of morality is more important, for it has a paradigmatic rather than merely a discursive nature.

As we have seen, morality is different from ethics (or legislation), which enforces restrictions upon the individual from outside. In Li’s system, morality manifests itself in internal control, which enables a person’s reasoning to suppress and to overcome her individual desires, selfish interests, inclinations and instincts, and leads her to act in accordance with social norms.¹⁹ Li sees this rational guidance and control as a specific human ability, which came to life through what he called “condensation” or “solidification of reason” (Li Zehou 2016b, 30). Thus, morality always refers to individual psychological forms. In Li’s ethical system, however, these forms are additionally subdivided into an internal and an external realm. While the former includes mental forms of reason (i.e., concepts, ideas, free will) and emotions, the external dimension consists of two kinds of morality in question. These two axiological categories are thus embedded into the external realm of the inner individual moral world, which belongs to cultural-historical formations and is therefore historically shaped and socially determined.

In principle, these two kinds of morality are “often intermingled and difficult to separate” (Li Zehou 2016b, 34). In traditional cultures, there was no clear distinction between them. A strong delineation between the two moral systems was established relatively recently, namely, not before the age of Enlightenment. Hence, the demarcation line between religious and social morality is actually a product of modernity. Therefore, Li often denotes the first kind as “traditional religious morality” (chuantong zongjiaoxing daode 傳統宗教性道德) and the second one as “modern social morality” (xiandai shehuixing daode 現代社會性道德).

As already mentioned, Li emphasizes that the fundamental axiological basis of modern societies must rest on social morality, which is rooted in public reason and therefore of primary nature. This also concretely and fundamentally means that we must not harm individual rights. In spite of his high evaluation of traditional Chinese social models that were based on relationalism (guanxizhuyi 關係主義) and reciprocity of humaneness, Li emphasizes that in modern ages, individual existence is the groundwork of the existence of society as a whole. Hence, individual rights cannot be invaded. In other words, the idea of “the priority of the social over the religious morality” is the foundation of modern life.²⁰ In this context, he highlights the importance of a modern legal system and a properly determinable concept of justice.

On the other hand, religious morality serves in this framework only as a regulative principle. Therefore, public education must also be based on modern social morality. In such a system, individuals can still freely decide on their beliefs and their private virtues. They are still free to choose their private values and beliefs and to follow their own religious morality, which is a part of human emotion-based substance.

Therefore, Li firmly believes in the significance of such a complementary role of religious morality and private virtues. He argues that in its function as “regulative principle,” religious morality is still very important, for it can fill up the axiological and emotional vacuum, which dominates the alienated contemporary societies. Besides, it offers people a way to harmonize with each other. Li claims that private virtues can “alleviate the emotional vapidity and coldness of human relationships brought by mechanistic public reason, formal justice, the market economy, fair trade, and the atomic individual” (Li, Zehou 2016, 1127). However, he repeatedly emphasizes that faith and emotion contained and constituted in religious morality can merely function as regulative and properly constitutive principles. This means that they are necessarily unable to determine or even replace modern social morality and public reason on which it is grounded. Hence, the proper constitution of religious morality is of great value for a society of true humaneness, provided that it cannot harm or deviate from the principles of social morality, for these principles have an absolute priority.

In such a correlative scheme, in which the two kinds of morality complement one another, the model of human relations is not reduced to a static and fixed system of immovable rules but rather functions as a vibrant inter-human network that is able to diminish the social gap between rich and poor, surpassing the static model of stagnant social classes.

Li also relates the two kinds of morality to the traditional Chinese model of “inner sage and external ruler” (neisheng waiwang 內聖外王). In such view, the “inner sage” symbolizes and incorporates religious morality. According to Li, this notion can assist people—through philosophy, religion, art, and literature—in their search for meaning and the spiritual realms of life. The “external ruler,” on the other hand, stands for public virtues and symbolizes social morality.²¹ This concept is important as a foundation of a reasonable, just, and democratic political system. Li tries to develop this traditional binary category by upholding a “new way of the inner sage and external ruler” (Li, Zehou 2016, 1137). In Chinese tradition there was always an exaggeratedly intense focus on individual cultivation of private values. Hence, the “inner sageness” could never transform itself or advance straight into “outer rule.” However, the current post-modern, globalized world is governed by instrumental rationality, and this “external ruler” should be supplemented by the “internal sage,” i.e., the ancient Chinese model of self-cultivation (Rošker 2019, 158). In this context, the traditional religious morality could be revived in order to supplement the domination of global reason, but would at the same time not be allowed (as it was the case in traditional China) to become a dominant model of “ruling by virtue” (yi de zhi guo 以德治國).

In this context, it is important to note that according to Li Zehou, religious morality of traditional China originated from the shamanistic ceremonies of the clan-based societies of the Neolithic era. These ceremonies were based in the so-called ritual ethics and shaped the traditional Chinese codes of conduct and modes of life over thousands of years. Li highlights that in ancient, traditional, and premodern China, people were convinced and truly believed that “ritual ethics” had a “universal nature, which surpasses time and space”; hence, this ritually determined system of ceremonial codes became the “religious morality” of the Chinese people (Li Zehou 2016b, 35). In the human mind these ritualized patterns contained the sprouts of intellectual activity while at the same time allowing for the expression of feelings. In his book From Shamanism to Rituality, Explaining Rituality as a Return to the Humanness, Li describes this development in the following way:

In this process of rationalization, all kinds of activities that originally only served as intermediaries or tools for performing shamanistic ceremonies became symbolic systems and operators. They were increasingly objectified, objectivized, and recorded, but still contained strong emotions and beliefs like fear, respect, loyalty, and honesty.

本在巫術禮儀中作為中介或工具的自然對象和各種活動，都在這一 理性化的過程中演化而成為符號性的系統和系統操作。它日益對象化、客觀化、敘事化，卻又仍然包含有畏、敬、忠、誠等強烈情感和信仰於其中.

Li Zehou 2015, 16–17

These feelings and faiths became the most important foundations for the later establishment and spread of Confucian moral virtues and values. Because the shamanistic rituals were a form of the unity of human beings with the spirits (yu shen tongzai 與神同在), they were not venerating any objectified deities, but could be perceived as a sensual experience of the inherent and were inseparable from them. Li exposes that in such a union, there was no room for any “transcendence” or for any objectively existing God (ibid., 23). In this procedure of rationalization the shamans, who were originally spiritual or religious leaders, progressively also became ethical and political leaders. According to Li, this is also the main reason or the source of the tripartite nature of Confucianism, in which religion, ethics, and politics are amalgamated into a coherent and inseparable unity. However, he is convinced that this union of politics, ethics, and religion, which is still widespread in modern and contemporary Chinese societies, needs to be changed in order to achieve a “Chinese style of separation of religion and state” (Li Zehou 2016, 190).

He also criticizes various Modern Confucian attempts to revive the traditional Chinese unity of morals and to synthesize modern social morality with the traditional religious one. He sharply criticizes them for

taking the contemporary requirement for fulfilling individual desires, (which, in fact, belongs to the individual-based liberalism) as the basis of traditional Chinese “unity of self and the objects” or of the “great spiritual self.” Moreover, the latter should still envelop the former and modify it to become a part of “inherent relations.”²² (Such ideas) overlook the huge discrepancies and basic contradictions between the two approaches.

將滿足個體欲望現代要求 (實既個人本位的自由主義) 作為中國傳統 “物我一體” “精神大我” … 的基礎, 而仍以後者 “籠罩” 前者, 成為 “內的關係” 而忽視了這兩者的重大差異和根本矛盾.

Li Zehou 2016b, 54

But, on the other hand, the proponents of Westernization and China’s modernization also failed to establish a functioning complementary model of social and religious morality, in which the social morality could assume the primary and dominant position. On the contrary, their theories and their propaganda additionally contributed to the muddling of the two kinds of morality. In the 1919 May Fourth Movement, for instance, social morality, which is concerned with human rights, democracy and libertarianism, and is supposed to be value neutral, became part of the anti-traditional stance. Hence, the representatives of this movement have made it a part of an ideology and a part of religious morality (ibid.).

In principle, Li certainly believes that modern China should restore rationality, by which he—in contrast to Modern Confucian philosophers like Mou Zongsan 牟宗三—did not imply that it should reconstruct any kind of “transcendental” but rather a pragmatic reason (ibid.). He believes that the revival of paradigmatic cultural values, will prevent China’s transformation into a pure “market society,” which is based upon a commercialized culture, entirely ruled by material desires (Li, Zehou 2016, 1071).

By applying the revived and modernized complementary model of the “new way of the inner sage and external ruler,” a spontaneous regulation of these unlimited desires and inclinations could become possible without rigidly constraining human desires through religions or ideologies of guilt. Hence, Li emphasizes that it is important for Chinese people to revive their own traditional “culture of pleasure,” which rested on a complementary equilibrium of reason and emotions.

Such ideas could also function for the construction of alternative models of morality, preventing the absolute domination of liberal standards, which prevail in contemporary (especially Western) societies. Hence, Li advocates the use of the “emotio-rational structure” drawn from traditional Chinese thought to correct the public reason, which is also typical for liberalism, especially its overemphasis on procedural formal justice, the exaggerate stress upon the nuclear individual, and upon an absolute free choice. In certain situations, his theory of two moralities also includes the infiltration of “substantive justice.” This kind of justice can be found in some traditional Chinese discourses: we can seize it through many categories and through various historical models, as for instance through qing, i.e., the emotional responds to different situations, through relationality, the emotio-rational structure, the concept du (度) as a specific Chinese kind of grasping the proper measure, and situational flexibility.

In Li’s view, this could help implement the regulation and proper ethical constitution of contemporary societies and could guide societies through virtue rather than mere utilitarian categories of benefit, free choice, and other values serving the market rather than people. But when referring to the values and basic paradigms of liberalism, Li also points out that Chinese and Western societies differ in their social development and in their respective cultural traditions. It is thus not a coincidence that in their histories, they also established different ideas on morality and virtue ethics, with Aristotle and Christianity on the one side and traditional Chinese virtue ethics on the other (Li, Zehou 2016, 1130).

Here, it is important to note that the relationship between the constitutive principles of modern social morality on the one, and the regulative ones of traditional religious morality is always historically concrete and shaped in accordance with the material circumstances and conditions determining the distinct society in question. Neither moral values, nor social or political rights are composed of any a-priori principles; both are clearly products of history.

Li also exposes that the axiological standards or central criteria applied by the two kinds of morality are different. In this sense, the modern social morality is based upon what is “right,” i.e., upon a domination of public reason that ought to be accorded with in modern social life. In contrast to this platform, traditional religious moralities in existing religions, traditions, cultures, and ideologies mainly rely on the concept of “goodness.” Although what is “right” is often equated with what is “good,” he emphasizes that these two concepts need to be distinguished from one another, because in numerous cultures what is “right or wrong” differs significantly from what is “good or evil.” Li Zehou sees the neutrality of values as an important constituent of modern societies. For him, right does not necessarily have to rely on any particular tradition or present conception of “good.” As regards the numerous problems and excesses arising from value neutrality, “these can be dealt with through making judgments and decisions according to what is rationally and emotionally appropriate according to particular situations” (ibid., 1133).

On the basis of the emotio-rational structure, which prevailed in the social consciousness of the Chinese cultures, these judgments made in concrete situations could be more balanced and just. Li thinks that taking into account human emotion (as Confucianism did), coupled with psychological considerations that were also important in Chinese tradition and with its desire to maintain people’s inherent connection with the world, will definitely expand contemporary social morality, and provide alternative opinions and suggestions for its improvement (Li Zehou 2016b, 57). He believes that approaches based on the theory of two types of morality provide good methods to combine the Chinese tradition with contemporary political philosophical investigations that seek a separation of church and state.

5 Political Philosophy and Moral Psychology

As we have seen in the previous sections, Li strictly differentiates between ethics and morality, highlighting that the former belongs to the outer norms while the latter pertains to human inwardness. We next see how these two discourses relate to one another in his ethical theory.

Li’s distinction between ethics and morality is also reflected in an analogous differentiation between the two theoretical disciplines dealing with each of them. In Li’s ethical system, human morality is a system pertaining to moral psychology, a discourse that refers to the internal psychological structures of the individual.²³ Ethics, on the other hand, belongs to the realms explored and transformed by political philosophy.²⁴ However, he also exposes (Li Zehou 2016, 1111) that even though his ethical thought contains elements of both discourses, it cannot be limited to (or identified with) either of these two fields as such.

In the Chinese traditional one-world-view, due to the holistic Chinese cosmology, these two discourses are somewhat difficult to separate:

From ancient times until the present day, the Chinese notion of “tian 天” has a double nature. On the one hand, it refers to a non-anthropomorphic deity in the sense of Heaven, and, on the other, to the natural sky. This means that such a worldview affirms human life from two perspectives, the material and the spiritual. Therefore, people are supposed to deal with their life and to investigate the world in which they live, including its essence and all its particular circumstances, in an affirmative, positive, and optimistic way. This applies to both political philosophy with its ethical norms, and moral psychology, which refers to individual moral cultivation.

中國的 “天” 從古至今皆有雙重性格，一方面是非人格神而有神性的 上天 (Heaven)，另一方面是自然的天空 (sky)。這種兩重性的意義在於，它從物質和精神兩個方面肯定著人的生活，從而人就該以肯定 性的積極樂觀的情感態度來論證、認識此生此世、此性此情。無論 在倫理規範的政治哲學上，還是在個體修養的道德心理學上，都如此.

Li Zehou 2016d, 8

This correlative interaction between moral psychology and political philosophy also marks Li’s specific ethical system. In his anthropo-historical ontology, Li proceeds from the entirety of the humankind, which is, however, connected to and reflected in the individual. Even though many people see some of his notions, as for instance the concept of emotion-based substance, as chiefly pertaining to the individual (see e.g., Li Zehou and Liu Xuyuan 2011a, 51), he emphasizes that it cannot be limited to the inward moral psychology, but also comprises a dimension of extension, in which it represents a part of political philosophy. In this sense, he proceeds from traditional Chinese philosophy, in which the concept of emotion (qing 情) includes collective perspectives that are determined by particular material social conditions.

However, in spite of their correlativity and their mutual influence, we must not forget that moral psychology and political philosophy are still two separate discourses. In Western philosophy, this separation is mainly seen as an absolute one. The dominant currents of Western political philosophy are mostly based upon reason: this is also the reason why it is difficult for the majority of Western theoreticians to understand Li’s model, in which “harmony is higher than justice” (hexie gaoyu zhengyi 和諧高于正義). While the Western concept of justice is linked to rational approaches, Li’s harmony does not only pertain to emotion, but rather to the complementary relation between reason and emotion (Li Zehou and Liu Yuedi 2014, 195).

Li Zehou believes that moral psychology is not actually a psychology, but rather pertains to philosophy (Li Zehou and Liu Yuedi 2014a, 7). It includes motivation of human actions, in which free will (as the distinctive human capacity) operates in accordance with the conceptions of good and evil, which represent a kind of rational knowledge. However, emotions also belong to the main components of human moral psychology and since they are governed by reason in Li’s theoretical model, their role in human moral actions is also very significant. This correlativity of reason and emotions represents a foundation of the aforementioned emotio-rational structure of the human mind. Emotions possess a remarkable impulsive power, by which they help human beings carry out rational behavior. This is possible because the governance of reason “involves not only control, suppression, and even extinguishing of desires (although this is its principal aspect), but also the cultivation, development, and even catharsis of certain emotions and desires as well” (ibid.).

Moral principles are not limited to moral psychology, but can also belong to the realm of political and ethical philosophy. Hence, Li emphasizes that there is a difference between the three crucial moral principles of Kant’s deontology, namely the categorical imperative, the concept of humans as ends, and the free will, which is capable of constituting universal legislation. In Li’s view (ibid., 1105), the notion that humans as ends belongs to the realm of political philosophy and modern ethics, which deals with external human culture, whereas the first and third principles fall under the moral psychology of human inwardness. Li sees Kant’s second principle as a product of its time, defined by contents of historical actuality. In his opinion, the principle of “human beings as ends in themselves” is a kind of social ideal that is similar to those of human rights or equality a result of historical social development reaching a specific stage. In fact, it is a part of modern social morality (Li Zehou 2016d, 9). The categorical imperative and the free will, on the other hand, have always represented crucial parts of that which makes human beings human. Hence, Li understands Kant’s first and third principle as belonging to moral psychology, but the second one as pertaining to political philosophy establishing universal laws for all of humankind (Li Zehou and Liu Yuedi 2014, 24). In this respect, Li’s understanding of Kant’s three principles of morality (and their mutual relation) differs from the majority of prevailing interpretations:

Although in Kant’s thought these²⁵ maintain an internal connection to his second principle that humans are as ends … they nevertheless differ importantly from it. As this “free will” capable of “universal legislation” is merely a formal element of psychology, it finds great difficulty in possessing substantial content and is thus exceedingly vague and unspecific.

ibid.

This questioning of the absolute and static nature of free will belongs to the main critiques of Kant’s deontology. Li Zehou also criticizes Kant’s ahistorical view of such human mental formations, for in his view, they all are products of history, i.e., of the human material practice. According to Li, Kant’s understanding is necessary a product of the Western “two-worlds view,” which makes an existence of absolute transcendental forms possible. In Li’s understanding, Kant’s theory is also too formal, for his a-priori formations lack any kind of concrete content. However, in contrast with the majority of similar critiques (e.g., Hegel’s, Marx’s, or Comte’s), Li does not assume the thoroughly relativist view of human moral capacities. For him, they are products of history, but at the same time they are also the core part of humanness, i.e., that which makes us human (Li Zehou 2016b, 19–21). In this context, he exposes that such absoluteness can be found in humans themselves. In this sense, the notion “human” should be written as such, “Human,” for it refers to every individual that has, does, will, or possibly could ever exist (Li Zehou and Liu Yuedi 2014, 24). Such absoluteness defines the entirety of the humankind and its potential. For the individual, it appears as an “a-priori principle.” Everyone who is human has an absolute duty to submit to this concept, and one who does not is not a human. Hence, in spite of criticizing Kant for his ahistorical view of human autonomy and freedom, Li still holds his deontological ethics in highest esteem and exposes its “epoch-defining, eternal value for humanity” (Li, Zehou 2016, 1104).

According to Li, moral psychology, which refers to the internal psychological structures of the individual, contains three major elements: the concepts of good and evil, human emotions, and human capacity of free will. He emphasizes the importance of humanness and deals therefore with questions of individual moral psychology in a very detailed way. However, in this context, he repeatedly emphasizes that he is not so much interested in its empirical aspects as in its philosophical perspectives. Therefore, his ethics also contains elements of political philosophy. He establishes it on the basis of a unity of emotion and reason, and investigates from this perspective concrete people living in concrete relationships. On such foundations, Li’s ethical and political philosophy deals—inter alia—with important notions deriving from Chinese such as “harmony is higher than justice” or “integration of Confucianism and Legalism.” All such notions, which will be explained in detail in later sections of this book, belong to historical discourses that are not a priori or transcendental, but rather express important contents of concrete historical developments. Li elaborates on them through the lens of his anthropo-historical ontology and sees them as rooted in the important tread of what he calls “emotion-based substance.”

He believes that in the near future, political philosophy will become an exceptionally significant academic discipline in China, because contemporary economic and political institutions are defined by modern legal structures and are based on contractual models, which take the individual as a constitutive unit. Political philosophy, which is dedicated to investigating the multifaceted problems related to these phenomena, can help clarify various questions linked to China’s modernization and solve many problems prevailing in its transitional periods. Proceeding from the theory of two moralities, such

political philosophy should explore methods, by which Chinese tradition could systematically transform these universal values, derived from the West, in order to create a model which is more suitable to the Chinese way.

因為它在政治哲學上就要研究如何使中國傳統範導這些西方傳來的普世價值創造出一種適合中國的道路和模式.

Li Zehou 2011a, 6

In Li’s view, the relicts of the traditional blending of religion, politics and ethics in Chinese religious morality are still an obstacle for the realization of contemporary social morality, which relies on an abstracted individual and takes the concrete living individual and their particular experiences as the subject, and as the foundational unit of society. In such contexts, the individual has priority over the community. However, in traditional China (similar to many other premodern cultures), the individuals mostly belonged to their community. In such systems, the individuals took the sustained existence of the community as the main principle of action. To a certain extent, this type of traditional morality still dominates the individuals in China in an indirect or even a direct manner. In this context, Li repeatedly emphasizes that society is always made up of individuals, and therefore it should not be valued higher than the individual. However, every individual is different as are their existences and their interests. Such discrepancies need to be regulated by social contracts, which could establish the basis for the contemporary social morals, regulating both legal and political spheres of society.

On the other hand, he points out that in contemporary era, legal and political philosophies are, among other issues, also confronted with numerous complex problems related to the process of globalization. They need to deal with questions such as how different countries and societies with different interests should relate and collaborate with each other, or how individuals can become “citizens of the world.” In this respect, Li is skeptical and does not believe in various “recipes” offered by philosophies of libertarianism or communitarianism. He criticizes the former for dogmatically endorsing the idea that “the group exists for the individual,” and even positing it as an ahistorical a-priori principle. Communitarianism, on the other hand, promotes the notion that “the individual exists for the group,” which might have some advantages in Western societies, which are much too exclusively focused upon the abstract individual. However, in contemporary China, it is anti-modern and anti-historical.

As always, Li also supports a historical perspective and points out that in his view, human beings evolve from the model in which “individuals exist for the group” to structures in which “the group exists for the individual.” From this perspective, libertarianism is more suitable for the current Chinese societies than communitarianism. Even though he thinks that the arguments for communitarianism are substantial, Li believes that under the current circumstances, this ideology might actually worsen China’s present situation in ethics, politics, and economy.