1 Individualism vs. Relationalism

Li believes that a crucial difference between the Western and the traditional Chinese ethics lies in their respective views on the relation between individual and society. He critically questions the Western systems of ethics and moral philosophy, which is rooted in the notion of individualism. At the threshold of the modern era, individualism began gradually as a way of adapting to the new social, economic, and political conditions in Europe:

All streams of individualism and liberalism emerged and expanded with the occurrence and development of modern capitalism.

整個個人主義、自由主義的思潮，都是隨著近現代資本主義的發生和發展而湧現並擴張的.

Li Zehou 2013, 4

The roots of such developments, however, can be found much earlier in European history. Li explains that in his view, the Western notion of “people as individuals” has become that tradition’s “traditional unconscious” and that this view was already formed with the shaping of the idea of free civil society of equal individuals in ancient Greece. Later, it was strongly influenced by Judeo-Christian notions of final judgment before God in which each person is equal (Li, Zehou 2016, 1080). Henceforth, it developed into economic, political, social and philosophical theories expressing and relying on individual self-determination and independence. Individualism in the widest sense generally regards the individual as a primary entity and opposes everything that hinders individual development. It found numerous different formulations (that were often not in agreement with each other) in various prevailing philosophies of the Euro-American modern era. In axiology, the term refers to political and social philosophies that accentuates the moral worth of the individual. Li points out (ibid.) that in terms of a theoretical reflection individuals can be elevated to conceptions of absolute, transcendental “selves” or evolve into atomic individuals that are independent of other people and other similar principles of pure reason.

For Li, even though Western and Chinese philosophies are similar in following their distinct kinds of virtue ethics, there are still profound general differences between them. While the former is rooted in the idea of a free and abstract individual, the latter is based on a network of relations and could be denoted as a “relational virtue ethics” (guanxizhuyide meide lunli 關係主義的美德倫理) (Li Zehou and Liu Yuedi 2014, 209). This basic distinction leads to great differences in the ethical thought that prevailed in these two cultural-philosophical discourses, not only concerning their respective views on the relation between the individual and society, but also regarding the relation between reason and emotion.

Li emphasizes that traditional Chinese societies were structured as networks of relations that bounded together individuals who were not constituted as isolated and independent entities but rather as the so-called relational selves,² which means that humans were essentially interrelated and their social relationships largely determined their identities. Li’s highlighting such a concept of the human self, which is always situated in particular concrete situations and social settings is linked to the Chinese, especially Confucian traditions, where conceptions of the person focus on relationships. This also implies that each person’s chosen pursuits, failures and achievements, can only be understood under consideration of their interactions with others (Lai 2018, 64). According to Ambrosio, “In this way, Confucianism amounts to a moral interpretation of relationships as the fundamental constituents of human life and morality” (D’Ambrosio 2016, 720). Hence, it is in such relationality that people achieve and experience meaning as moral human persons, including values and attitudes toward life (Li, Zehou 2016, 1096).

Ancient Confucians have defined the main structure of human social networks as consisting of five basic relationships (wu lun 五倫). The first description (or definition) of the moral contents of these relations can be found in Mengzi:

There must be love between fathers and sons, moral appropriateness between rulers and subordinates, difference between husbands and wives; there must be precedence of the old over the young, and trust between friends.

父子有親，君臣有義，夫婦有別，長幼有序，朋友有信.

Mengzi s.d., Teng Wen gong I: 4

Li interprets the five relations model as a conception of interpersonal relationships, ethical order, and mutual responsibilities, which is rationalized but also includes emotions (Li, Zehou 2016, 1097). These basic relations roughly define in which way interpersonal interactions should be carried out because specific duties and behavioral patterns are assigned to each of them. This model can be viewed as a summary of the elementary human relations in any civic society, for it consists of the familial, the political, and companion relationships. However, it also demonstrates the Confucian emphasis on the family, for three of the five basic relationships are rooted in it. Moreover, as we have seen from the above quotation, the Confucian system of the five basic relationships is not merely a description of our social relationships but also a set of prescriptive norms regulating our social interactions, for each relationship is governed by a virtue (Wang 2016, 194). The crucial role in these moral interactions plays filial piety or family reverence (xiao 孝).³ This virtue, which is a constitutive element of the love from a child toward its parents is mostly seen as one of the cardinal virtues in Confucian ethics.⁴ In concrete contexts, this mostly implies the fulfillment of filial obligations toward one’s parents.⁵ Among other issues, filial piety is important because the parent-child relationship provides the earliest social environment in which a child learns to respond and to understand normativity in relationships (Lai 2016, 121). Hence, virtue is cultured first and foremost within the family, and within the constraints of duties and responsibilities that constitute family relationships. The priority of family love over love for others outside the family (or, in other words, the priority of closeness over distance), is therefore crucial to Confucian moral epistemology. It is in the family that one first and foremost learns the life of virtue (Fan 2010, xii). The natural sympathy between parents and children establishes the human disposition of love. The love between parent and child constitutes the very ground of the fundamental human virtue of humaneness (ren 仁). It must be developed and cultivated in order to build a good society (Fan 2010, 16).

There is also a strong emphasis on the importance of the relationship between husband and wife, for in the Chinese ideational tradition the universe is seen as coming directly from relations between male and female. Hence, Mencius saw the relation between husband and wife as “the greatest human relationship” (Mengzi s.d., Wang Zhang I: 2).

Confucianism also lays emphasis to the relationships between friends. The Analects highlights the significance of looking out and encouraging our friends (see for instance Lunyu s.d., Xue er: 4), and Mencius declares the “way” of friendship to be very important, for it contains constructive criticism (Mengzi s.d., Li lou II: 58). Although at first glimpse the relation between friends seems similar to general citizenship, it is still modeled after the relationship between siblings, with emphasis on the order of the relation (Fan 2010, 36). The crucial feature of this relationship is trust (xin 信), which comprises rational promises between equals on the one side, but also includes feelings of trustful comradeship on the other. Such emphasis on interpersonal trust can be seen as a basis for the general reliability of human relationships (Fan 2010, 134).

Similarly, in the relationship between rulers and subordinates we find a calling for each to accomplish their respective obligations while also emphasizing the emotional bond between them. The ruler is primarily obliged to ensure the well-being of his people, and the subordinates not only have the duty to obey to his decrees, but also to criticize and even overturn him in case he does not fulfill his social and moral duties (see Lunyu s.d., Zi Lu: 15, and Xunzi s.d., Wang zhi: 5).

In this way, Confucianism amounts to a moral interpretation of relationships as the fundamental constituents of human life and morality. Morality is hence rooted in the harmonious interplay between different persons, embedded in various social roles. Li uses the term “relationalism” or (in his own translation) “guanxi-ism” (guanxizhuyi 關係主義) to denote such particularities of Confucian ethics, which establishes morality on the basis of social relations, instead on the foundation of individualism. According to Li Zehou, such understanding is a typical product of the Chinese one-world view.

Because of the Confucian one-world view, people have cherished interpersonal relationships and earthly emotions even more. They were mourning the impermanent nature of life and death. Seeking for the meaning of their existence, they found it in the midst of their actual life among other people. In this way, they found innumerous infinities within the finite and they discovered that redemption can be achieved in this world.

由於儒家的 “一個世界” 觀，人們便重視人際關係，人世情感，感傷於生死無常，人生若寄，把生的意義寄託和歸宿在人間，“於有限中寓無限”，“即入世而求超脫”.

Li Zehou 2016d, 11

For Li, such attitude and such understanding is more accurate and closer to reality than social theories based on the notion of an abstract individual, because in the real world there is no such thing as a completely independent, “pure” self, separated from all intentions, emotions and relationships.⁶ Henry Rosemont and Roger Ames seem to agree with such a view, for they state:

It increasingly seemed to us that describing the proper performances of persons in their various roles and the appropriate attitude expressed in such roles in their relationship to others with whom they are engaged, sufficed to articulate an ethics that seemed … to conform to our own everyday experience much better than those abstract accounts reflected in the writings of the heroes of Western moral philosophy, past and present.

Rosemont and Ames 2016, 9

Li also criticizes such Western discourses for their one-dimensional emphasis on individual autonomy and the idea of free choice. Such paradigms ultimately rest on the underlying presumption, according to which individuals can be separated and abstracted from social contexts, relationships, and even from such assets of human condition that are vital to human life, for instance, from the ability and need for interpersonal connectedness and mutual care (Fan 2010, 13). From the perspective of Confucianism as relationalism, however, humans are basically relational existences. Thus, Li emphasizes:

That people are raised and cared for by their families and communities leaves them with duties and responsibilities to this relationality and even their “kind” (humankind). People do not belong to themselves alone. The very first passage of the Classic of Filial Piety (Xiao jing) tells us that as our bodies are received from our parents, we are not allowed to harm them. If even harming one’s body is denounced, how could suicide possibly be allowed?

Li, Zehou 2016, 1131

In the relational system, an individual is not expected to act as an independent, detached moral agent (Lai 2008, 6). Hence, he or she is rarely judged according to an idealized standard of independent selfhood. In such an understanding of the self, relationships and environments largely determine individual values, thoughts, beliefs, motivations, behaviors, and actions. In addition, relationships in this framework are always marked by reciprocal and co-relative complementarity: “A good teacher and a good student can only emerge together, and your welfare and the welfare of your neighbor are coterminous and mutually entailing” (Rosemont and Ames 2016, 12). Even though relationalism involves unequal rankings—for a ruler is the authority of minister, a father the authority of son, and so on—both persons involved in a relationship are still metaphysically and morally complementary to each other in order to form profound social unities composed by their relations.

Such ideas stimulate a view of cooperation that surpasses the gap between independent singularity and obliterated self and challenges the dichotomies between the self and the other or between the individual and the whole. This view is rooted in the paradigm of contrastive complementation, because the distinctiveness of an individual may be measured not simply in terms of their individual merits but also in terms of their wider social impact. This in turn is evaluated according to the individual’s position within his or her contextual environment and his or her relations with other individuals (Lai 2008, 88). From an ethical viewpoint, such a relational network has various significant implications, particularly in comparison with the frameworks, which postulate independent stability of individuals.

As we shall see in later sections, this type of ethics leads to harmony (he 和) than to abstract notions of justice. Relationalism also includes a type of virtue ethics, although this type of virtue ethics is not founded on the concept of an isolated individual but is rather defined by the relationships, which are intrinsically emotional.⁷ However, Li Zehou also emphasizes (Li, Zehou 2016, 1097) that in this system, it is important to cultivate these underlying emotions, which are rooted in biological instincts, and to link them to fundamental mutual obligations. This means that emotions have to be rationalized, ordered, standardized, and incorporated into a relational network within the human emotio-rational structure. In this structure, relations are objective, while emotions and obligations are subjective and must be differentiated.

Correspondingly, particular virtues can only manifest themselves in certain relationships (D’Ambrosio 2016, 727). An important characteristic of relationalism is also the factor of inequality or mutual non-equivalence of older and younger, senior and junior, external and internal, upper and lower or close and distant. According to Li, China heavily emphasizes kinship relations, in which people are necessarily not equal (Li, Zehou 2016, 1080). Relationalism therefore includes rational order, but also involves emotional identification and is generated within concrete circumstances, which include emotionality. In such framework, all situations and each person’s relationalities are unique. Therefore, their respective duties, responsibilities, and actions similarly also differ to a great extent due to particular circumstances. In the social system based upon relationality, abstract norms, principles and criteria cannot be used for making judgments or decisions independent of concrete particulars (ibid., 1083). In order to function in a harmonious and constructive way, the system of relationalism must be channeled by du, the dynamic proper measure.

Even though the system of relationalism proceeds from the relational individual and is rooted in the immediate family, it also develops outward from it toward the larger community and further toward the natural environments in which people live.⁸ Mencius, for instance, described this structure in the following way:

The foundation of the world is the state, the foundation of the state is the family and the foundation of the family is the person.

天下之本在國，國之本在家，家之本在身.

Mengzi s.d., Li Lou I: 5

Li explains this importance of relationalism for the constitution of the person, which shaped the basic model of social and moral interactions in China, through historical considerations. In the Neolithic period, the area of today’s China was occupied by relatively advanced cultures, in which people based their societies on small-scale agricultural production. This type of production developed communities that were mainly constructed through kinship relationships. Against such a social and cultural background, the rationalization of the shamanistic tradition has led to the integration of ideas linked to “relational selves” and to the system of relationalism into the Chinese “traditional unconscious” (chuantong wuyishi 傳統無意識). Analogously, the relational individuals, who were existentially organic parts of particular social groups, also became part of the concrete collective social consciousness (jiti shehui yishi 集體社會意識).⁹ Such consciousness mirrored the mode in which individuals viewed themselves as a part of their group and in which patterns of cohesion among individuals brought comprehensible unity to inter-human relations. This kind of awareness was formed through shamanistic ceremonies (Li Zehou 1985, 17). The primary collective rites, particularly those that included music and dance, had an authoritative influence on early humans, producing “intense feelings of respect, love and loyalty, which sedimented into the emotional, moral and aesthetic psychological structures necessary for truly human communities to evolve” (Chandler 2016, 163).

Such a historical importance of family clan systems in Chinese culture hence led to the general social significance of relationships between people. In this way, concrete interpersonal relationships formed a network, which became a socio-historical paradigm, and one that was not limited to simple sets of ordered pairs, but also gained great social and ethical importance and assumed an instrumental function as a basic element of systemized social interactions.

The discrepancy between the accent on relationalism and individualism, respectively, is a basic dissimilarity between the two types of ethics, which correspondingly prevailed in the Chinese and in the Western societies. One of the major differences between them is that the former is rooted in the emotio-rational structure, while the latter is rather linked to the rule of reason. However, Li Zehou does not understand relationalism as a complete negation of modern individualism. In his view, it merely represents an alternative to its absolute omnipotence. In other words, it is “not a denial of modern individualism but rather merely opposes rightist liberalism’s view of individualism as supreme” (Li Zehou 2016, 1099). Nevertheless, the difference between individualism and relationalism is an important starting point for Li Zehou’s critique of communitarianism (Li Zehou and Liu Yuedi 2014, 194), which will be further introduced in the following sections of this chapter.

The relational network in itself, however, is not a perfect system either. It contains several flaws, dangers and deficiencies. At least at the formal level, individualism, which is based upon equality of all people, enables mutual respect of all people and their opinions. The hierarchically structured relationalism, on the other hand, could never lead to the type of discourse ethics as envisioned by Habermas. Another insufficiency of relationalism can be found in its tendency to harmonize particular situations on the grounds of existing achievements and values, and also on the basis of existing power relations. Though it heavily emphasizes flexible and contextual dynamicity, its hierarchical structure is conservative in the sense that it rarely allows innovations that could break the framework of existing ideas and structures of social interaction (ibid., 208–209). This danger is also tightly connected to another one, namely to the predominant role of emotions, which connects people in these networks in a way that precludes the effective functioning of legal sanctions, acts and regulations. In this way, “its greatest benefit turns out to be its greatest risk” (ibid., 209). Besides, due to globalization, the traditional relationalism is falling apart in China as well. Hence, it has to be modified and adapted to the conditions of the modern era.

Traditional spiritual conventions cannot be rebuilt or reestablished anymore. Individual equality, freedom, independence and rights have replaced traditional relationalism and its role-ethics. Where can we thus find a basis for the Chinese virtue ethics? We can only establish it by exposing the emotion-based substance and by attaching importance to the emotive nature of humanness. Hence, in order to establish a new foundation of the Chinese virtue ethics, we have to transformatively re-create human relationships and shape them in accordance with human emotion and psychology.

傳統制度和精神指歸已不可能再造和復現。個體的平等、自由、獨立、權利，取代了傳統的關係主義和角色倫理。那麼，中國的美德 倫理究竟到哪裡去尋找它的根基呢？只有提出情本體，重視人性情感，將關係、角色的社會倫理建構原則，轉換性創造為情感、心理的塑造，才能為中國的美德倫理尋找新的根基.

Li Zehou 2016d, 10

On the firm grounds of modern law, which should constitute the basis of contemporary Chinese social morality, the focus on relations could serve as a regulative and properly constitutive principle (Li, Zehou 2016, 1139). Li acknowledges that individualism and contractual principles will necessarily arise from modern commercial production, fair trade, and the free sale of labor (ibid., 1136). However, he points out that relations can (and should) still be seen as a vital element, which ensures a more adjusted and more comprehensive social life:

They can surpass the material benefits and harms, adjust the functions of pure equality, and coordinate human interactions based upon absolute freedom: they can preclude contradictions, quarrels and conflicts and prevent market economies to become market societies that are merely concentrated upon money.

它們可以起著超越物質利害、調節純粹平等的作用，協調絕對自由的個人之間的關係、矛盾、糾紛和衝突，使市場經濟不變為一切向錢看的市場社會的市場社會.

Li Zehou 2016d, 10

In spite of these problematic actions, however, Li endorses the system of relationalism and even thinks that—in a modified form—it could worldwide serve as an alternative to pure individualism (ibid., 208), which has led Western culture to a cul-de-sac of profit obsession and alienation.

Hence, he endorses a revitalization of traditional Chinese moral philosophy suitable for the complexities of modern societies. This means that its traditional emphasis upon family emotion as both the root and the substance of moral competency must (and can only) be revived on a basis of steady legal regulations in order to prevent misuse of intimate relationships, which can amount to nepotism, cronyism, and other forms of social and political corruption. “Just as intimacy needs the restraining complement of integrity, concrete family feelings require the guiding complement of some form of more general ideals” (Rosemont and Ames 2016, 30).

2 Harmony Is Higher than Justice

Therefore, Li takes traditional relationalism as an important part of traditional Chinese religious morality with strong emotional aspects to exercise a regulative and properly constitutive function. In this way, he posits it as a counterbalance to individualism, aiming thereby to complement the insufficiencies of the exclusive application of modern social morality. While most of the Western theories of virtue ethics divorce the family from the state and distinguish thereby between public and private spheres, traditional Chinese ethical patterns of relationalism connect state and family through seeing a good citizen as cultivated by being a good family member first (Li, Zehou 2016, 1093). The former emphasize reason and regard it as supreme, while the latter are rooted in the emotio-rational structure. Thus, Western ethics emphasizes justice, while the Chinese culture strives for harmony. This difference is paradigmatic for it defines the essential structure of the two ethical discourses (Li Zehou 2016a, 12). Li points out that describing morality in terms of social harmony rather than abstract notions of justice belongs to the most significant particularities of Confucian ethics and religious morality. He highlights systemic flaws in the conceptualization of individualism advocated by Western theories, for they theorize about the individual abstractly, which enables them to isolate reason and to extract general principles from particular situations (D’Ambrosio 2016, 726). In its essence, this pattern of thought can be questioned from the viewpoint of moral philosophy as such, for as we have seen in the section on relationalism, “all moral arguments for equality and social justice grounded in the concept of the individual freedom can be met by counter arguments equally moral” (Rosemont and Ames 2016, 9). Furthermore, the product of such theorization is a notion of justice as an abstract constellation of rationally defined rules. In various ideologies that underlie such a conceptualization, communities are not the natural state of and for human beings, but only the artificial construct of otherwise discrete individuals (ibid., 11). This view ignores the importance of social ties and roles in forming the individual. Therefore, Li’s ethical theory thoroughly stresses contexts and emotions as factors of utmost importance.

In his view, Confucian, relation-based religious morality could (and should) complement and regulate the modern social morality. In this context, Li emphasizes that we can only discuss harmony once we have justice. In other words, harmony would not replace justice but merely regulate it. In present China, people have first to realize rule by law and justice. Without a firm establishment of such a system, it is perilous to enforce just a rule by harmony. Even though he emphasizes the importance of its “proper constitution,” the basic principle that underlies the functioning of harmony is that it must not harm social morality, which is principal. Li’s idea of harmony “is built upon justice, which is why it is only a ‘regulative and properly constitutive’ principle and unable to determine or rule ‘justice’” (Li, Zehou 2016, 1093). Only in such framework can the reestablishment of harmony as a paradigmatic regulative and properly constitutive principle in the construction of public reason inherent in the norms and laws of modern social morality, present us with many significant theoretical and practical solutions for numerous problems of modern societies, including the phenomenon of widespread alienation. While harmony implicates transforming the people and developing their virtues through education, justice provides the basic governing by law.

According to such a model, harmony and justice must evolve simultaneously. In this way, Li creates a truly comparative dimension as he reflects on both Chinese and Western discourses, shaping thereby an emergent theory of morality, in which he founds social harmony on general, but modifiable principles of justice. Such combination of harmony and justice “appears to be well able to establish the foundation for a global ethics that reaches across cultural bounds and addresses the moral concerns of more than one tradition” (D’Ambrosio 2016, 735).

However, it is also important to note that in Li’s system, the incorporation of harmony into justice should include the pervasion of emotion-based substance into the modern institutions of liberal democracy and the rule of law. In this schema, rational principles would offer the basis for the establishment of an emotion-based harmony. Since customs and norms, expressed in social rituality, originate in emotions (li shengyu qing 禮生於情) and since morality is founded upon rituals as condensed patterns of concrete human interaction, moral action is always necessarily linked to natural human emotions. Therefore, emotions need to be developed and cultivated largely in society and narrowly within the individual’s psychological structures. Along these lines, individuals can internalize social norms and identify with them both emotionally as well as rationally. This enables them to act in accordance with morality, for in this process social norms are rationalized and abstracted into moral systems (ibid., 728). Concerning the human inwardness, such a model hence focuses upon the cultivation of human emotions. In terms of society, it emphasizes social harmony and communal goodwill on the foundation of individual human rights.

Li recommends this model as being in accord with both reason and emotion (heqing heli 合情合理), which he believes distinguishes Confucian harmony from most approaches to justice and morality in the Western traditions. Thus, although in general he considers Rawls’s “veil of ignorance,” for instance, as advantageous, he argues that it overlooks concrete particulars and emotional responses. This neglect shows that Rawls’s theory fails to consider the entirety of concrete situations. Therefore, such concepts cannot be used as absolute principles but only as general guidelines (ibid., 725).¹⁰ In order to decide on the particular degree to which such principles can serve as regulatory strategies for particular actions, we must consider all concrete factors by which a certain situation is conditioned and respond in a rationally and emotionally appropriate manner. Hence, although abstract principles of justice must form the basis of ethics, harmony should still represent the ultimate goal, which can only be achieved through combining both rational considerations and emotional reflections.

When Li Zehou exposes that “harmony is higher than justice,” it is because he considers harmony (between people, as well as between mind and body, and between humans and nature) as enabling the regulation and proper constitution of reason-based modern social morality by the emotio-rational structure and relationality. For him, harmony is the highest level of preserving the incessant and sustainable extension of human existence as well as the most effective basis for fundamental ethical concepts such as “common good” and “good life” (Li Zehou 2013, 8). Even though harmony cannot serve as a replacement of the notion of fair and reasonable justice, it can still be considered as “higher” than mere distinctions of right from wrong that underlay the common Western interpretation of this notion.

This is why we say that “harmony is most precious,” instead of seeking for an absolute criterion for distinguishing right from wrong or for defining justice. This is also an expression of differences between the a-priori reason and the wisdom of the pragmatic reason.

所以才說 “和為貴”，而並不去追求一個是非、正義的絕對標準。這也是實用理性的智慧不同於先驗理性的地方.

Li Zehou 2006a, 11

At first glimpse, Li’s statement that harmony is higher than justice is rather controversial. Inter alia, this is partly due to the recent ideological misuses of the concept. However, in original Confucian teachings and in other dominant traditional discourses, the concept has nothing to do with conflict avoidance or a simple preservation of unity, social peace, discipline, and order. On the contrary, the Confucian notion of harmony is rooted in diversity (see Rošker 2013; Li Chenyang 2014). Li also lays stress upon this issue:

Traditional ritual system emphasizes differences on horizontal and vertical levels. It achieves harmony in and between these differences. Even without the specific traditional social order and its contents, its principle of “harmony in diversity” (which acknowledges differences and seeks harmony in them) is still valuable in present times.

傳統禮制強調上下左右的差別，在這差別中達到和諧幸福。去掉傳統禮制的特定社會秩序和內容，其 “和而不同” 的原則（即肯定差異，在差異中追求和諧）仍然有現代價值.

Li Zehou 2006a, 11

Besides, the ideas of priority of justice on the one hand, and the higher position of harmony on the other, do not contradict one another, since the idea of the priority of the right over the good represents the basis of modern societies. Here, harmony is considered to be higher than justice because it offers the regulative and properly constitutive principle for human life in such societies. In concrete situations, the two can deviate from or even be in conflict with each other. Li points out (Li, Zehou 2016, 1136) that coordinating and integrating the two often requires great political art. It is the art of properly combining and fusing universality with particularity, which is in turn connected to the art of (applying) the “du” (“du” de yishu “度” 的藝術, see for instance, Li Zehou and Liu Yuedi 2014, 204). Before we examine these two approaches more in detail, we shall illuminate the process that allows us to consider all these approaches, methods and factors in the present, modern times.

In China, the integration of harmony, together with a system of interpersonal relationships based in the structural unification of emotions and reason, into the realm of modern social morality could be achieved through transformative creation (zhuanhuaxingde chuangzao 轉化性的創造) of its own tradition. Such a reconstruction of a democratic system would not merely insert traditional components into a new framework, but simultaneously underscore the innovative elements that would be autonomously created in this process.

In this context, Li emphasizes the importance of an arduous historical development. His historicism includes an endorsement of liberalism in which the totality exists for the individual and individual rights have priority. However, for him, liberalism is only a result of a certain stage of historical development. Hence, Li often emphasizes that liberalism or capitalism does not represent the end of history, for history necessarily transcends them.

Against this background, it is easier to understand why harmony also serves as a paradigm for an unbiased and just balance of inequality underlying the elementary structure of Confucian interpersonal relations. The long-term continuance of this relationality can only be preserved with harmony, based upon emotions. Even though people are unequal in the relational system, they can still cohabit in harmony because they are linked together by warm emotional ties. This system differs profoundly from the ancient Greek idea of virtue ethics founded on equal, autonomous, and even homogeneous individuals, and also from Rawls’s idea of the sense of justice. Emotions here vary in accord with different relationships. Thus, they cannot be generally viewed or subsumed under a blurry notion of “love.” In relationalism, the content, forms, and the connotations of love change, depending on the concrete relationship:

In the family, although everyone has love, that love takes on different forms for different family members. Loving one’s parents is not the same as loving one’s children, and loving a spouse is not the same as loving a friend. Expressions of love toward elders should have an element of respect, and elders should be tender in loving younger people. Love itself is intricate, rich, and complex. This allows for social harmony to possess idealized diversity while providing happiness and satisfaction, similar to music.

Li, Zehou 2016, 1097–1098

Although ancient Greek philosophy also talks about harmony, the Greek concept fundamentally differs from the Confucian one. The former is a harmony of rational order, as in Pythagoras’ relating of the movement of astronomic bodies to music, which does not include any connection with emotions. The Confucian notion of harmony, on the other hand, is founded on the idea of “ritual and music” (li yue 禮樂), which lays great stress upon practical and concrete actualization through emotions.¹¹ This actualization is therefore not limited to a mere rational ordering, but also includes a specific logic of emotions.

For example, fathers are meant to educate their children. This is a rational duty. However, at the same time, Confucians advocate “exchanging children” with other families for the purpose of educating them, because without exchanging children the strictness necessary for education can create an emotional distance between fathers and their children, which Mencius sees as extremely bad (4A18). Such distancing refers not only to rational disagreement over right and wrong but also the emotional divergence and conflict that results therefrom. Thus, we have on the one hand the notion of fulfilling one’s fatherly duty (educating one’s child), emphasized in the Xunzi, and on the other hand the importance of emotional harmony within the family as seen in the Analects.

ibid., 1098

Li Zehou’s idea of the way in which justice and harmony interact, develop, and involve each other is also a manifestation of the dialectical relation between concrete situations and universal principles imbedded in abstract theories of moral thought.

He suggests, for instance, that in some cases, the employment of the basic utilitarian principle of “the greatest happiness for the greatest number” is reasonable and just. However, these cases have to be analyzed, evaluated, and measured within their concrete historical and situational contexts; they can by no means be applied as universally valid measures. Sacrifice, for example, cannot always be understood as being good or bad just because of some abstract principle.¹² Such principles cannot serve as standards of justice in judging individual behavior. Each individual’s relationality is unique and the same applies for the concrete situations in which he or she is acting. Hence, we must consider that their respective responsibilities, obligations, and actions also necessarily differ due to these distinctive circumstances. It is therefore reasonable and logical not to exclusively apply abstract principles of justice to make judgments or decisions independent of concrete particulars. As all abovementioned issues essentially involve relationality and human emotion, they seem generally quite difficult to regulate solely through the principles of justice and public reason, which function between independent individuals (Li, Zehou 2016, 1102).

In this regard, Li points out that in contrast to principle-based judgments, Confucianism talks about the interplay between abstract principles on the one hand, and their flexible application in actual practice on the other. This dynamic relationship between principles (jing 經) and flexibility (quan 權),¹³ which can be seen as a relation between universality and particularity, involves the issues of how to manage formal justice and substantive justice in various concrete circumstances (ibid., 1102). In Li’s view, Confucianism offers us various methods to implement this kind of flexibility by not uncritically obeying the established principles of ritual through consideration of emotions involved in the particular situation (ibid., 1119). Thus, Confucianism clearly shows that reason is not solely found within ritual in the sense of established principles of social norms and laws, but it is also linked to ritual, which includes particular patterns of emotionality. Such an understanding of ritual is important, because rituality originates in emotions (li shengyu qing 禮生於情) and is hence embedded in the emotion-rational structure of humanity.

Therefore, Li once again points to the importance of applying du 度 as the “properly measured ordering of systems” (jiezhi you du 節制有度), the functioning of which begins with regulating the natural emotion between relatives by molding them into rationalized forms. Such a measure defines by virtue of right proportions of emotion and reason, for it is rooted in their mutual fusion (Li Zehou 2014b, 4).¹⁴

Relying on empiricism rather than a priori theories, Li highlights that du (in the sense of grasping the dynamic and changeable proper measure) can only be mastered within actual practice. Hence, it is determined by particularity rather than the universality of abstract principles. Applying du involves a movement from the particular to the universal, and not vice versa. Instead of judging along the lines of a single principle, one would assess and treat the problems and benefits of concrete actions through the art of grasping its flexible and dynamic equilibrium. Du can surpass and simultaneously balance the tension between history and morality and in so doing provide guidance and norms for proper moral behavior. This is especially important, for in Li’s view, “historicism and ethicism are often at odds with one another”¹⁵ (Li, Zehou 2016, 1140). Concretely, this means that we should, for example,

promote economic development insofar as it improves people’s lives, and yet at the same time we should remain emotionally aware of the suffering that remains in the world and retain a sense of benevolence toward others in order to allow historical tragedy and moral emotion to guide our grasp and establishment of “du.” … We cannot simply adopt strict utilitarian or liberal principles of justice (ibid., 1091).

In the context of comparing justice and harmony and explaining the role of du in judging moral behavior, Li also exposes the problematic nature of the concept of equality, and he warns against approaching issues of justice or moral duty through such abstract conceptions. He exposes that the real world is much more defined by diversity and variety than by some abstract equality and points out that in this regard, we also have to consider problems linked to the factual economic and social inequality. In his view, the gap between rich and poor should also be treated with applying du in the sense of grasping a proper measure in accordance with particular situations and contexts (ibid., 1090).

The concept of such flexible and dynamic proper measure, which, as we have seen, belongs to the basic methodological tools of Li Zehou’s thought, negates the priority of universality and rejects the method of one-dimensionally imposing abstract rational principles on concrete actions, relations, or objects. It involves dealing with situations differently according to their particular circumstances. Hence, Li’s philosophy essentially rejects the idea that morality (and ethics) could be derived from such universal application of abstract reason.¹⁶ But du can be applied in various situations; its crucial function is providing guidance by finding a balance within the tension between history and morality and between reason and emotionality. Grasping the du thus naturally means having empathy or compassion for weaker groups.

3 Utilitarianism, Communitarianism and the Response to Sandel

Proceeding from such a clarification of the basic difference between justice and harmony, and from a search for possibilities of establishing a mutually complementary relation between these two concepts, Li explains his views on the Western pragmatic philosophy.¹⁷ He also evaluates theories of utilitarianism and the socio-political model of communitarianism. The elucidation of these, and several other related questions is an important subject in many of his works.¹⁸ Several ideas and assessments linked to these issues can be found in his famous essay regarding his view on the ethical theory of Michael Sandel, which has been translated into English by Paul J. D’Ambrosio and Robert A. Carleo (see Li, Zehou 2016). In this lengthy treatise, Li responds to Sandel’s theory along the lines of his own ethical thought.¹⁹

Li’s critique of Sandel is mainly based upon his questioning of the ideas that were advocated by the contemporary American philosopher in three of his most well-known works, namely, Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (1996), Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (2009), and What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets (2012). Li claims that although these books include several important ideas and concerns, which have to be taken seriously, Sandel’s theory presents very little original thought:

Sandel relies on examples from historical and contemporary America, which is not even three hundred years old, to make his points. Vast differences exist between America and China in terms of both their histories and present states. I do not want to, nor could I, discuss in detail all of Sandel’s various points and issues. I rather would simply like to respond to Sandel’s basic ideas according to China’s history and current circumstances.

Li, Zehou 2016, 1069

First of all, Li does not agree with Sandel’s critique of utilitarianism. In his own critique of this theory, Li proceeds from the problem of justice. He believes that the traditional Western concept of justice itself is established in line with the Western type of reason that relies on abstractions from concrete situations in order to form general laws and rules. In his view, Sandel’s approach is based upon similar suppositions: “Li specifically opposes Sandel’s ‘theory of justice’ for allegedly failing to recognize the extent to which emotions and reason are integrated with one another” (D’Ambrosio 2016, 720).²⁰ As we have seen in the previous section, the Western concept of justice is defined through abstract rational principles. Sandel’s critique however, is not centered upon this problem, for his own theory of communitarianism is likewise rooted in the notion of justice as a moral and political ideal.²¹ He rather attacks utilitarianism for its basic groundwork, in which the ideal of justice is based on a principle that aims to achieve the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. But Li does not entirely negate this principle, for in his view, it is “reasonable in certain ways and can or even should still be used in political policy making and the implementation of laws” (ibid., 1081). For governments, which maintain social existence, sacrificing individuals or the minority in order to protect the existence, happiness (in the sense of having fundamental material aspects of individual’s needs), safety and welfare of the majority is sometimes an unavoidable necessity. Li thinks that in such cases, this attitude is not unjust (Li Zehou 2014, 204). He emphasizes, however, that only by confining “the greatest happiness for the greatest number” to material aspects of life can utilitarianism be considered political philosophy. But even considering this limitation, it is still important to see that the utilitarian model is but a historical necessity closely connected with the needs of human survival. Therefore, each case has to be understood and analyzed according to its concrete historical contexts, and none can be evaluated abstractly. Judgments and decisions can never be made without consideration of concrete, specific circumstances. All such issues must be evaluated differently in different countries, historical periods, and under different conditions. While the Holocaust and the Nanjing massacre were crimes against humanity and therefore absolutely inexcusable, the dropping of the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be justified, for even though it caused a disaster, it prevented the deaths of even more people (ibid.).

According to Li, “These questions cannot be decided by intellectual calculation according to abstract principles” (ibid., 1083). In this context, Li frequently points out that in his view, all ethical behavior has to be seen and evaluated on the grounds of the basic criteria, which follow the preservation and sustainable development of the existence of the human species. The use of these guidelines also involves the application of the aforementioned combination of principles (jing 經) and flexible engagement (quan 權) with regard to concrete situations.²²

However, the idea of sacrifice as a necessary evil is in contradiction with Li’s own endorsement of Kant’s idea of human beings as ends. On the other hand, he exposes that this was not always the case, nor does he predict that it will necessarily always be applicable in the future. Instead he simply argues that given our current historical conditions, this principle is moral (D’Ambrosio 2016, 725).²³ Hence, he has repeatedly emphasized that all people are as ends in themselves and should not be used as instruments or means. He also often exposed that individuals must have the freedom to choose and to make decisions for themselves. In his view, the idea of human beings as ends in themselves

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

Hence, he still agrees with Michael Sandel’s view that due to its neglecting the interests of minorities, utilitarianism can be dangerous; it can cause a lot of suffering and bring about severe problems (Li Zehou 2014, 205).

On the whole, however, Li refutes Michael Sandel’s general critique of utilitarianism. On the other hand, he neither agrees with the communitarian model, which is propagated by Sandel as a more humanist alternative to the liberal system. He emphasizes that he is against this model in spite of its current popularity among numerous Chinese scholars (Li Zehou and Yang Guorong 2014, 124). In his view, the main reason for this trend, which is especially strong in the Modern or New Confucian stream of thought, is because they oppose liberalism, for in their understanding, its premises of a “nuclear” and “autonomous” individual are completely incompatible with traditional Chinese, especially Confucian social model, which is rooted in interpersonal social relations (Li Zehou 2016, 23). Hence, they believe that communitarianism with its emphasis on community is more compatible with China’s tradition. But in Li’s view, the communitarian model is very dangerous for contemporary China, for in the name of different (large or small) communities, it could lead to the renewed enhancement of massive control of individuals by society and to the oppression of their individual rights under the banner of “public will.” In this context, Li warns against the “dictatorship of the masses” and emphasizes that the Chinese people should not forget their historical lessons (ibid.). Just as we can only discuss harmony once we have justice, we can only discuss the “rule by people” once we have the rule of (and by) law (Li, Zehou 2016, 1100).

Li Zehou does not believe communitarianism could ever replace liberalism. In his view, liberalism is still a better alternative²⁴ (Li Zehou and Liu Yuedi 2014, 214). He does not agree with Sandel’s critique of John Rawls’s theories. Although Sandel emphasizes that the laws and systems of contemporary societies lack moral dimensions, Li believes that following the norms of public reason can certainly be seen as moral behavior (Li Zehou and Yang Guorong 2014, 119). Hence, even though he agrees with Sandel in his basic presumption that morality and politics cannot be separated (Li Zehou and Yang Guorong 2014, 121), he still emphasizes that Sandel’s model is not a suitable alternative. At most, communitarian elements can only assist as a supplement to liberalism by reducing some of its concrete problems. He explains the main reason for this standpoint as follows:

The concept of modern social morals I discuss is overall very close to liberalism. In addition to freedom, equality, independence, human rights, and democracy, it also includes tolerance, compromise, cooperation, mutual respect, equality of opportunity, and value neutrality. These are all founded on the public reason of modern society. It is my view that we should admit that these are moral, and distinguish them from religious morals, which are full of particular emotional beliefs and involve the pursuit of “goodness.” The critique of liberalism found in Sandel and other communitarians, on the other hand, does not see these virtues of public reason as moral.

Li, Zehou 2016, 1130

Therefore, he rejects the communitarian view of the concept of human rights, pointing out the abstract nature of such criticism. In his own view, rights must always be seen in the context of their respective contents, which arise in different concrete historical circumstances and under different conditions (Li Zehou and Yang Guorong 2014, 124). Even though Sandel claims that in general, defining rights should be sensitive to historical and cultural components, Li still thinks his ethics is not sufficiently linked to the concrete social reality. Therefore, communitarianism cannot be counted as a model that is rooted in a genuine philosophical ethics.

Although he exposes the dangers of the communitarian social models, Li still holds to his opinion that rights should never be completely separated from concepts of “goodness.” That which is valuable in traditional morals has to be preserved, while many of its other elements, which are unsuitable for the modern era, have to be abolished. However, instead of unifying different religious moralities and using them as a replacement of the public reason, he once again draws attention to the necessity of applying them merely in the function of the “regulative and properly constitutive” principle—but not to the point of replacing rights.

In this way we can avoid modern individual rights once again becoming subordinate to traditional conceptions of “goodness” and the re-enslavement of the individual to the community. However, it is not easy to say what concrete measures we can take to control this. That is why I call this “political art.”

ibid., 1133

In Li’s view, harmonious relations between individuals living in a community can only be achieved through the mutual interaction between rational cultivation of individual emotions, needs and desires on the one hand, and the community as a whole on the other. Even though communitarianism is a model for people’s communities, it lacks the component of human emotion and is not rooted in interpersonal relations (Li Zehou and Liu Yuedi 2014, 209). Only on the coherent basis of such an interplay of particular individuals on the one hand and individuals and community as a whole on the other can it become possible to establish a basis of a sensible, fair, and democratic political order. Li aims to develop this model by upholding the aforementioned “new way of the inner sage and external ruler.”²⁵

In this aspect, however, Li Zehou’s critique might be too harsh, for Sandel’s idea of the individual self is rooted in the “narrative” nature. In his book Liberalism and the Limits of Justice, Sandel argues that human beings must be understood as members of families, communities or nations, and hence as people, rooted in history (Sandel 1982, 179).

On the other hand, Li Zehou supports Sandel’s critiques regarding the severe problems brought about by the system of market societies. Since they are predominantly based upon rational exchange and the principles of free trade, they can lead to a decay and erosion of morality. Although in such societies, human desires and inclinations can be bought and sold, they actually neglect the important role of human emotions in the functioning of society, because feelings cannot be merchandised (Li Zehou and Liu Yuedi 2014). On the other hand, we have to acknowledge that Sandel is, at least to a certain extent, aware of this problem. Although he does not explicitly state whether emotions can or cannot be bought or sold, the reason for this hesitation is simply that he does not want to mix economy and feelings at such a level (D’Ambrosio 2016, 929).²⁶

The market and its laws cannot and must not be seen as a universally valid, positive powers that could be recognized as the common good. Li emphasizes that “in this regard, the issues that Sandel brings up have great value and should be taken into consideration” (Li, Zehou 2016, 1139). However, he exposes that he cannot agree with Sandel’s proposal regarding communitarianism as a suitable alternative to the market society. He repeatedly emphasizes that the greatest danger incorporated in the communitarian model is that it could lead us back to the domination and prevailing authority of traditional values, ideologies, and customs. In such a system, the individual would become oppressed anew by traditional morals that could serve as instrumental functions of governments.

Sandel and communitarianism lack Hegel’s historical sense of concrete universals. They fail to recognize the important shift from Hegel to Marx and don’t see that liberalism is historically rooted in modern economic life. Therefore, the liberal individual freedom and value neutrality they oppose are in fact pressing necessities for many nations in breaking free from the economic and political manifestations of their traditional societies.

Li, Zehou 2016, 1128

In contrast to such “alternatives,” traditions could well be incorporated into modern social moralities with their new values such as public reason, contractual principles, and respect for the individual human subject. Li is convinced that his own theory of anthropo-historical ontology provides new paths for achieving this goal on the basis of ontologically fundamental psychology (xinli cheng benti 心理成本體), and through the idea of historically constructed reason in which the empirical of the humankind becomes transcendental for the individual. In this model, reason alone is no longer the sole and supreme principle, for it is replaced by the emotio-rational structure. Such a system is certainly easier to realize in a society, based upon relationalism (guanxizhuyi 關係主義) and operating on the grounds of the emotion-based substance (qing benti 情本體). However, in Li’s view, it can provide us a universalizable course for establishing a new global ethics. In this regard, he once again points to the importance of applying du 度 in the sense of a dynamic proper measure. Firmly rooted in the concrete social circumstances, it can help people to grasp the most suitable policy:

Some people emphasize market economy, others warn against it, for it can bring about various crises. Some people emphasize globalization, others are against it. The important question is how to master all these possibilities and how to balance them by applying du, the dynamic proper measure.

這個強調市場經濟，那個強調市場經濟帶來的危害，一個強調全球一體化，一個反對，都對啊。怎麼掌握這個東西的度，才是重要的.

Li Zehou 2016, 57

In order to discover how and to which degree the du 度 should be applied, doctrines and universal moral principles have to be discussed under consideration of the specific circumstances determining concrete actual situations. This idea can be linked to the correlative relation of the aforementioned elements of jing 經 and quan 權. At times Li describes du as a measure applied in the dynamic relationship between culture and society on the one, and human inwardness on the other, with the term “Chinese dialectics” (Zhongguo bianzheng fa 中國辯證法, see for instance Li Zehou 1985b, 34 and 1980, 91). Here, we might actually find a similarity between Li’s view and Sandel’s ideas. The latter has also argued for a dialectical relation between moral principles and concrete situations (see for instance Sandel 2010, 28). Li Zehou, however, is more focused upon their respective differences.

Among other issues, he reproaches Michael Sandel with primarily individualistic rather than relational understanding of persons. Although he acknowledges Sandel’s recognition of and emphasis on relationality, he still claims it is not fundamental enough: “Even while Sandel opposes individualism and liberalism, his advocacy of virtue ethics still rests on ancient Greek ideas of equality” (Li, Zehou 2016, 1080–1081). Such a concept of equality leads to abstractions that unavoidably neglects elements of dependence and overlooks the impact of emotional bonds. Li argues that communitarianism is still rooted in individualism, which understands the self as an isolated individual that is essentially equal to others. Relationalism, on the other hand, is different because it sees individuals as constituted by society whereby inequality is an important paradigm of social interactions. In Li Zehou’s view, the communitarian model of society is constructed of different connected yet isolated individuals, whereas relationalism sees the person and society as mutually correlative and complementary. Some scholars (including Sandel himself) believe that such a critique is not entirely justified:

Sandel understandably feels unjustly accused here, as he is among the contemporary Western philosophers most emphatic about recognizing human relationality—what he calls the “situated” nature of the self.

Carleo 2016, 1028–1029

In this regard, we have to point out that Li’s critique is not directed against this “situated” nature of individuals, but rather proceeds from his own notion of the specifically Chinese relationalism (guanxizhuyi 關係主義), which is, as we have seen, tightly linked to the concept of the emotion-based substance (qing benti 情本體) and should hence be discriminated not only from individualism, but also from communitarianism. “In this respect, he draws on the idea that human emotions are the beginning of the Way (dao 道)” (D’Ambrosio 2016, 720). Therefore, they are mirrored and expressed in formal proprieties of social life (lijie 禮節).

In relationalism, relationships are interpersonal bounds of moral nature and as such, they become the basic components of morality and ethical life. In such a system, morality is grounded upon social norms, customs and rituals, which are condensed (ningju 凝聚) patterns of effective and productive human interaction.²⁷ As a central factor included in relational systems, natural human emotions are developed and cultivated externally in society and culture, but internally in the mental structures of every individual.

This does not imply, however, that relationalism should be applied as a total replacement for individualism.

Li is adamant that his idea “harmony is higher than justice” means that he wants to infuse Western principles of justice into Confucian emotion-based morality, and not that he wants to abandon theories of justice. Rational principles would ideally provide the grounding upon which emotion-based harmony could be established.

D’Ambrosio 2016, 727

Just as the amalgamation of emotion and reason in a coherent emotio-rational structure is not a total rejection of reason but only a denial of its absolute domination, relationalism is not a total rejection of modern individualism. It merely competes against the view of individualism as supreme. Hence, Li sees relationalism as an important element of traditional Chinese religious morals, which can provide the regulative and properly constitutive principle for the individualism contained in modern social morality (Li Zehou 2016, 1099). At the same time, he emphasizes (ibid.) that it also possesses a universally applicable nature, which could in principle allow it to be expanded and realized globally.

While Li emphasizes the difference between Sandel and himself, some scholars (e.g., D’Ambrosio 2016; Carleo 2016) emphasize that in many aspects, the two philosophers are actually more compatible than it seems on the first glimpse. Their general orientations are quite similar. Basically, they proceed from comparable concerns and expose similar problems. Even though their basic approaches are rooted in different philosophical traditions, further comparative studies of their ethical systems could certainly provide a solid foundation for a global ethics that surpasses the boundaries between different particular cultures.

4 Western and Chinese Liberalism

As we have seen, Li Zehou is against the communitarian theory, while under certain conditions he still endorses some utilitarian principles. However, in spite of his critical views on liberalism, he still thinks its theory is much more developed and advanced than the political theories of utilitarianism²⁸ (Li, Zehou 2016, 1084). While utilitarianism calculates people as individuals on the basis of “unified human desires,” liberalism is founded in the modern concept of individual human rights through contract theories. Hence, it mirrors and is much more appropriate to handle diverse problems brought about by the modern market economies and their basic control over the conditions of human life. In contrast to utilitarianism, liberalism is rooted in the idea of equality and it lays stress upon the diversity of individuals. The representatives of this political theory see all people as ends in themselves and emphasize that they must not be used as means or instruments for achieving some external goals. Another Kantian idea that is assumed by liberalist theoreticians is that of individual’s freedom to choose and decide for themselves. Hence the value of the individual, his or her position, and personality are immensely elevated. Li emphasizes that it was liberalism that set the individual free from various kinds of enslavement by traditional ideologies, customs, and social or political orders. This is also the main reason that he sees communitarianism as dangerous; for him, it represents a step back from the already achieved modern values.

Similar to the natural sciences, liberalism can presuppose actually nonexisting suppositions in order to establish its theoretical conclusions: hence, its central ideas such as the “veil of ignorance” and “atomic individuals” are mere theoretical premises without historical reality. In his own philosophy, Li Zehou always follows his historical worldview, and therefore he cannot endorse such methodological procedures, for in his view, “they are unable to truly clarify and respond to the origin and development of philosophical issues” (Li, Zehou 2016, 1084). On the other hand, he still emphasizes that its theoretical bases are much more reflective and suitable to the requirements of people living in modern societies than those of utilitarianism.

Yet, because it is based upon the free buying and selling of labor and competition, which often leads to the economic survival of the fittest, it is still linked to numerous problems. Generally speaking, however, the benefits of a liberal market economy still enormously compensate its harms.

In Li’s view, the liberalist principles of justice and public reason as well as those of atomic individual and human rights are the elementary concepts of modern social morality. He exposes that they represent the realization of the ideas promoted by the Enlightenment thinkers. They have led to the establishment of modern market economies and liberal societies not because of these theories, but because they were supported by the development of economic structures. This is also one of the reasons that they will continue to spread and expand globally. Since they are a result of trends and tendencies of concrete actual life, Li believes they cannot be repelled in spite of their often problematic nature. Modern economy—characterized and determined by the laws of market, by the production and exchange of commodities, and by free trade—functions as the basis and the origin of contemporary social actualities.

Some critics believe that Li tends to depoliticize the inherently political concept of freedom by subsuming it into a more general and abstract anthropological account of human existence. But Li is aware that the concepts of freedom, individual human rights, equality, and democracy promoted by liberalist thinkers are artificial; hence, theoretical equality can often in fact strengthen practical inequality. In reality, the liberalist concept of freedom is limited to the free exchange of commodities. For him, it is clear that liberalism can lead to a vast damage and destruction of morality. He emphasizes that liberal ideals are simply fiction (Li, Zehou 2016, 1085). In his view, this is because they were established as abstract principles, completely separated from concrete historical circumstances. Li emphasizes that long ago, Marx has already pointed out the exploitation of surplus value in the trading of labor as a commodity under the facade of allegedly “free and equal” conditions. Hence, Marxism has clearly shown that the theoretical concepts of “liberty and equality” are, in fact, highly deceitful and often simply false. Li points out that all these problems are caused by the failure to distinguish between “formal justice,” which regards freedom and equality in political procedures on the one side, and “substantive justice,” which also considers the lack of freedom and equality in terms of economic position on the other. In his view, the most basic solution of these problems seems to be “uprooting economic inequality and striving for distributive justice” (Li, Zehou 2018, 1087).

Besides the abovementioned elementary points, Li does not agree with the Marxist solution to these problems. In his philosophy, he was deeply influenced by Marx’ early works, especially by his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, but he does not agree with the later evolvement of Marx’s economic theories.²⁹ Li disapproves of the logic of the crucial concepts elaborated by Marx in his Capital and criticizes it through the lens of Kantian “transcendental illusions,” revealing that Marx has summed up the “two-fold character of commodities” in the “two-fold character of labor.” Here, the crucial point was that—according to Li—Marx saw “exchange value” as a product of “abstract labor,” since for him, the exchange of commodities was an act characterized by a total abstraction from use value.³⁰ According to Li, ideas such as socially necessary labor time, which were derived from the concept of abstract human labor, do make sense in rational analysis, but since they are completely separated from actual circumstances of concrete human lives, they are not empirically operational (Rošker 2019, 26). In Li’s view, Marx has completely separated the concept of labor from its concrete empirical environment; he abstracted the “labor-power” from the actual labor and from the concrete historical practice. This has caused him to slip into an abstract Hegelian idealistic speculation, in which he aimed to prove his concept of surplus value through a unified and homogenized, abstract idea of the “expenditure of human labor-power.” In this abstract construct, the class struggle and the proletarian revolution became necessary, since Marx did not consider any of the complex, historically determined elements—as for instance, the developmental stage of technologies in different societies and cultures (ibid.).

As mentioned above, Li regards the abstracted notions as a form of Kantian “transcendental illusions.” Kant has defined this kind of illusion as an illusion,

which influences principles whose use is not ever meant for experience, since in that case we would at least have a touchstone for their correctness, but which instead, contrary to all the warnings of criticism, carries us away beyond the empirical use of the categories, and holds out to us the semblance of extending the pure understanding.

Kant 1998, 385 /B 352/

For Li, these ideas belong to such conceptions of objects that can only be thought of, but not known, because they are formed through abstract thought without any empirical foundation. Hence, they are a kind of ideal illusions brought about by the transcendental reason. Transcendental illusions are still actively effective in guiding and organizing human thought, because they help us to achieve the greatest possible unity of reason (Kant 1998, 389). Concerning this aspect, they positively encourage human capacity to act and to change the world. Hence, according to Li, they have a profound philosophical significance. However, because they are completely separated from the empirical life (i.e., due to their transcendental nature), they cannot be directly applied in concrete policies and strategies of actual societies:

The system of equal distribution that has been implemented in the past in our people’s communes was such a case: it seemingly aimed to achieve justice and equality. However, because it has not considered or taken into account the multifarious other aspects and complex empirical factors, it resulted in stagnation and regression of productive forces. The economic wages were overall equal, but the living standard and the quality of life of the people were stagnating or even deteriorating.

列入以前我們人民公社所採取的工分制, 就因為沒有考慮, 計算其他方面的複雜經驗因素, 貌似公正, 平等, 造成的卻是生產力的停滞和倒退; 經濟收入大體平等了, 人民生活水準和質量卻停滯或下降了.

Li Zehou 2006, 146

Therefore, Li does not criticize liberalism through the lens of such Marxian economic categories. He emphasizes that even though the Marxist theories and the Maoist praxis have offered the hitherto most coherent opposition to liberalism, their revolutionary experiments have produced the well-known, disastrous results, which is by no means a coincidence.

In present China, liberalism also represents a huge step on the path of achieving public reason and individual rights. Li explains:

For example, in China today peasants are free to move from their villages and the countryside to work in the city, choosing their own occupations and selling their labor. Graduates are no longer forced to work for specific organizations and in particular areas but rather are free to choose their own career and even start their own business. Such individual rights are taken for granted today but were difficult to imagine under China’s planned economy a few decades ago. Whether the planned economy was reasonable and just for its time is a separate question. In any case, communist China’s Reform and Opening is a historically significant, major social change, and while it may involve more direct control of labor by capital, it is certainly a step toward the ideal of having people fulfill their natural talents and represents an overall development of society as a whole.

Li, Zehou 2016, 1084–1085

However, since China is still a developing country, liberalism in China could also lead to numerous severe problems. At present, laws are not yet fully established in the country and people still lack awareness of their importance; if they can avoid them, they tend not to follow them. Laws are still not effectively implemented and enforced in China. In this regard, liberalism functions better in developed regions in which the prevailing modern social morality is already supported by firmly established law. Hence, when speaking about the infringement of morality, we cannot mix premodern and modern elements.

Particularly when speaking about China, one must be careful and analyze such questions in accordance with the conditions and circumstances specific to the country. In this context, Li once again emphasizes that in evaluating and making decisions in different situations, we should attempt to grasp the du, the dynamic “proper measure” by taking into consideration the tension between history and morality in order to provide suitable criteria and norms for the regulation and guidance of moral behavior (Li, Zehou 2016, 1091). Grasping the proper du in each situation conforms to emotion as well as reason. In this sense, it is tightly linked to the emotio-rational structure prevailing in the Chinese society and the culturally psychological formations of the Chinese people. At first glimpse, this method is similar to certain ideas developed by some prominent modern theoreticians of liberalism. John Rawls’s concept of “difference principle,” for instance, also aims to overcome static and universal codes of equality by emphasizing that inequalities in the distribution of goods and commodities can only be allowed if they bring advantages to the least well-off positions of society. However, Li emphasizes that there are major differences between these two methods, for applying du is not led by any emphatic factors guided by the idea of helping weaker social groups or individuals. Besides, the “difference principle” is rooted in purely rational considerations:

Rawls seems to talk very little about where the “difference principle” comes from. I think it may be an elevation of Roosevelt’s New Deal philosophy. Theoretically, it could also have originated with Kant’s idea of helping others. Kant’s conception here is not the same as rightist liberalism’s notion of philanthropy. From an anthropological perspective, such compassion is the duty of anyone living in a community. Without the weak, the strong cannot exist. The inter-reliance of their objective existences thus carries responsibility for such “help.”

Li, Zehou 2016, 1092

In Li’s view, the infiltration of emotion into these relationships of responsibility could certainly contribute to the social harmony (ibid.). On the other hand, he thinks that in a certain sense, the idea of the “difference principle” has been implemented in China in the last decades after the economic liberalization. The basic idea of Deng’s policy was to let certain strata of population get rich first so that ultimately even those in the underdeveloped countryside would also benefit. Such a practice could resolve some of the theoretical problems connected to the idea of a universal social benefit in spite of the absence of economic equality. However, the next step is “figuring out how to move toward fairer and more reasonable distributive justice and common prosperity. This requires a new theory” (Li, Zehou 2016, 1092). If we observe Rawls’s theory of justice from the viewpoint of Marxist historical materialism, we can see that it is rooted in the conditions of modern economy. For Li, this pragmatic, materialist foundation makes its elementary paradigms quite reasonable and sound. In this context, he points out that thousands of scholars have analyzed and elaborated upon Rawls’s theories, but almost no one has exposed this important point. Hence, he emphasizes that incorporating Chinese tradition and its concrete experiences into the modern economic life could lead to the establishment of just, free, and fair institutions, based upon principles of equality. Such a model could surpass Rawls’s theory, but would necessary require a complex and deep theoretical discussion with numerous new and innovative ideas. Hence, he humbly states: “I can only point out this conceptual possibility” (ibid.).

A problematic aspect of liberalism is also its supposition that individual freedom is a “universal (necessity),” which is rooted either in transcendental forms or in some logical postulates, such as “natural human rights” or human nature. Rawls’s concept of “original position” is such an example. Friedrich Hayek, on the other hand, does speak about “empirical traditions,” which

arose from unintentionally conforming to certain traditional and largely moral practices, many of which men tend to dislike, whose significance they usually fail to understand, whose validity they cannot prove, and which have nonetheless fairly rapidly spread by means of an evolutionary selection—the comparative increase of population and wealth—of those groups that happened to follow them.

Hayek 1988, 6

But in Li’s view, even Hayek failed to see that such “empirical traditions” of individual freedom were not something inherent to the humankind but are products of modernization. They did not exist in precapitalist societies, including China. Hence, their allegedly “universal” nature still lacks theoretical proof and belongs to ahistorical presumptions (Li Zehou 2010, 39). In this respect, Li still adheres to Marxist “economic determinism” and believes that their origin is in the socially incorporated development of industrial production. The acceptance and spread of liberalist ideas can therefore only occur in stable, economically secure societies. In China, they are gaining popularity, but this would not be possible without its current economic expansion and its widespread industrial production. Even considering this limitation, their alleged “universality” is problematic, because in different societies and cultures, liberal values can at the most serve as a framework of modern social morality, which is necessarily linked to different traditional religious moralities. They can function as public reason but by no means replace private consciousness or “private virtues,” for the latter are, in fact, the essence of genuine human freedom.

Another important problem clearly visible in American and European liberalism lies in the fact that the social reality in which it is implemented often contradicts the underlying theories. In American and European liberalism, each individual can freely choose whether to participate in politics. But because of their alienation from the mechanistic emotionless actual political systems, vast numbers of population do not choose to participate. The highly valued “freedom of the press” leads in reality to manipulation and artificial unification of people and to massive control over them. The enlightenment ideal of a critical and active human subject has resulted in the opposite, for the liberalist political system produces apolitical, ignorant men and women.

Liberalism propagates reason, but in fact, reason has become an efficient tool for irrational endeavors. It advocates individual autonomy but in reality, this autonomy has led to absolute alienation of the individual and to the enslavement of their spiritual lives. As regards their material lives, it has—due to the policies of noninterference and laissez-faire—led to a severe social gap between the rich and the poor and to oligopoly. Because different races, genders, cultures and religions cannot equally adapt to this kind of economic freedom, liberalism can also lead to tensions and conflicts. Since it is rooted only in formal, and not in substantial justice, it also posits weaker groups and individuals in deprivileged positions. With regards to its cultural and spiritual aspects, societies that are increasingly atomized because they take the individual as its core unit, bring about emotional indifference, interpersonal coldness, depressions, and spiritual emptiness. Even though people live under conditions in which their physical needs are basically fulfilled, their lives have no goals and their worlds are without meaning.

自由主義提倡理性, 結果理性成了反理性的有效工具. 自由主義倡導的個體自主, 結果變成了個體全面被異化, 成了對個人從心靈到生活的枷鎖和奴隸. 在物質生活方面, 由不干預即放篵的經濟自由貿易, 使貧富分化厲害, 加強了經濟控制下的寡頭話語權以及由於種族, 性別, 文化, 宗教對經濟自由的適應能力不一而增大了社會生活的緊張和衝突. 不問實質, 只求形式公正使弱勢群體或個體出於不利境地. 在文化—精神領域, 以個人為本位中心日益原子化的社會, 帶來的是人情淡薄, 人際冷漠, 心理躁動, 精神空虛. 在衣飾基本無憂的情況下, 人生無目的, 世界無意義.

Li Zehou 2010, 40–41

An influential result of these problems is a widespread revival of various kinds of irrational or antirational religious discourses, and also of new morally permeated political theories, such as the communitarian philosophy.

The liberalist view of the dispersed individual self as a basic unit and the supreme value of the society can actually lead to the mechanistically structured societies, consisting of “collectives.” In contrast to relationalism, which is an organic version of a community in which individuals are interrelated according to their social roles and positions, collectivism is a mechanistic addition of a faceless mass of discrete, atomic individuals. Friedrich Hayek acknowledged that the concept of individualism can merely serve as a methodological tool because its core notions such as the atomic individual, freedom, or an isolated self never existed in any historical, actual societies (ibid., 42). But Li Zehou also emphasizes that a reliable social or political theory cannot be exclusively built on abstract concepts. This stands in sharp contrast to the Chinese system of society, which operates in accordance with the pragmatic reason and is always firmly rooted in history. However, even though communitarianism proceeds from a revival of traditional moralities and views community as prior to the individual, Li still believes that for contemporary China, liberalism is a more appropriate theory. Hence, liberalism should be established in China as a modern social morality that would still need to be regulated and appropriated by China’s traditional religious morality. Traditional China was ruled by a mixture of religious and social moralities, whereby religion functioned as a force of shaping and controlling the people’s inwardness. In this manner Chinese individuals were too oppressed, thus their social functions have to be strengthened by a new social morality that emphasizes their freedom and autonomy and simultaneously allows them to compete with each other in order to elevate the level of social wealth.

In Li’s view, societies develop from social orders that are based on placing communal interests over the individual ones to those that are functioning in accordance with the opposite principle, namely, the priority of individual interests over those of the community. Liberalism is based upon the latter principle without considering the former. Hence, it is ahistorical. Conversely, Communitarianism is grounded on the former principle and ignores the latter; hence, it is antihistorical. In China, the individual-based liberal social morality should therefore be tightly connected to the community-based traditional morality in order to develop a historically aware and simultaneously modern society.

For similar reasons, Li also disagrees with Sandel regarding the problem of value neutrality. Li certainly sees the dangers of promoting this value within the structures of unequal power relations. Sandel emphasizes that events which promote the revival of Nazism should be forbidden, but not the ones that oppose racial segregation. Analogously, he sees the intrusion of the market upon morality as profoundly interwoven with value neutrality. Li exposes that the problem with value neutrality ascends from the progressively universal and generally accepted ideas of good and evil that were shaped through the historical evolvement of humankind (Li, Zehou 2016, 1121). Especially in today’s China, individual rights and value neutrality are important methods of breaking beyond traditional institutions that integrate politics and religion (ibid., 1129). For both the Chinese and people of countries that are still developing their new modernities, such values represent pressing necessities in breaking free from the economic and political manifestations of their traditional societies. Hence, in Li’s view, prioritization of rights, value neutrality, and individual freedom are needed for a just and humanist social development:

What is needed now is to affirm and reinforce such ethics, as at present we lack even formalistic aspects of rule by law and of law, equality, human rights, or freedom of expression in China.

ibid., 1128

Li sees such principles, which result from the economic life of modern people, as the moral content of the modern rule of law. He thinks that it is important for China that principles such as neutrality of values and individual human rights are abided not only by political and economic institutions, but also by individuals in their personal conduct.

According to Li, liberalism is therefore the most suitable political order for contemporary China, which still struggles with problems of modernization and its relation with the Chinese tradition. Although in its present form, liberalism was shaped and implemented by Western political theoreticians and philosophers such as John Locke, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Friedrich Hayek, John Rawls, etc., Li points out that similar ideas can be found in recent Chinese history as well. In his early works on Kang Youwei, the important scholar and political reformer from the late Qing dynasty, Li described him as a pioneer of a “Chinese style liberalism.” Of course, such specific kind of “liberalism” cannot be entirely compared to the Western style liberalism, i.e., the kind of liberalism that prevailed in the global modernization process. In Li’s view, Chinese liberalism was the fundamental idea that underlie the political movement of the “Hundred Days Reform” (Bai ri weixin 百日維新).³¹ The concept of liberty on which it was founded was tightly connected to tolerance, harmonization, and a strong aim to raise political awareness among the Chinese. With his “three phases theory” (san shi shuo 三世說),³² Kang aimed to reconcile the ideas underlying the reform movement and to appease the politically radical streams of thought within it. In his reinterpretation of this theory, Kang has unified certain core elements from Confucian and from liberalist thought (Li Zehou 2016b, 194). Unfortunately, this theory was forgotten after the unlucky downfall of the reform movement. Li believes that Chinese history might have taken a different course if Emperor Guangxu 光緒, who supported the reform, would not have prematurely died (ibid.). In this regard, Li Zehou repeatedly emphasizes the importance of the coincidental nature of history. In his view, each individual has therefore a responsibility for shaping and influencing his or her time.

The Chinese-style liberalism that was first formulated by Kang Youwei includes all crucial general values endorsed by all liberal theories, such as freedom, equality, human rights, and democracy. All these values are rooted in the Kantian paradigm of “human beings as ends”:

Kang Youwei wanted to liberate the individual from the severe oppression of tradition, and especially from the yoke of family and clan domination. He wanted individuals to become independent, autonomous, and free persons, whom he called “natural people.” Is this not also an elementary idea of liberalism?

康有為要把個人從傳統, 特別是從大家庭, 大家族的各種嚴重束縛中解放出來, 成為獨立自主, 自由平等的個體, 即他所謂的 “天民”, 這不就是自由主義的基本觀念嗎?

ibid., 198

However, Kang’s model of “Chinese liberalism” still differs from the Western-style liberalism since it entails numerous elements linked to the specifically Chinese cultural tradition. Li summarizes them in three central aspects (ibid., 1978):

1. Historicism: while most of the Western liberalist thinkers regard the abovementioned values as something natural or God-given, the Chinese model places them into a framework of a dynamic development of human history, which is guided by the evolvement of economy. Kang Youwei already emphasized that fundamental liberal values were products of modern industrial economies. However, in future, these forms of political-economic order can be replaced by other, more advanced ones. Such a view on social evolution is based upon the determinism (or necessity) of economic development. In this view, which is essentially materialistic, and places the postulate of human life on the highest level, Li sees a tight connection to the Confucian teachings.³³

2. Idealism: while Western liberalism is teleological, for its representatives see modern capitalism and liberal democracy as the best and ultimate stages of economic and political order, the Chinese model does not acknowledge the existence of such a final stage. Its pioneer Kang Youwei exposed that in Western societies, all these values were in fact established for the protection of private property, which is neither natural, nor God-given or eternal, and can hence be surpassed.

3. The classical Western liberalism is based upon the enlightenment values while the Chinese model is rooted in the emotion-based substance.

Li emphasizes that this form of liberalism negates the absoluteness of the radical liberal ideology; hence it has a potential to obtain global significance. He cannot and does not want to define it but claims that this Chinese model of liberalism contains elements of social democracy, post-Marxism and of the sinization of Marxism. Just like Li’s entire philosophical system, this model also represents a combination of Marxism and Confucianism.

In this context, Li sharply distances himself from Mou Zongsan, who also wanted to establish a Chinese model of liberalism on a Confucian basis. Mou proposed to complement liberalism with Confucianism. He pointed out that the liberal voting system does not guarantee any moral qualification of the state leader, i.e., of the president. But Li Zehou highlights that in modern societies, the president must primarily be concerned with economic, and not with moral issues. In this respect, he points to his own theory of two moralities and the differentiation between public and private virtues. In his view, Mou’s theory is dangerous because it aims to reestablish the traditional Chinese system, in which social and religious morality were intermingled and merged together (ibid., 204). The realization of such a system would lead to a new oppression of the individual by the old, outmoded ways of traditional morality.