Among the previous articles which Wong discusses is my own "Mengzi and Xunzi: Two Views of Human Agency" (1992). On many points, I want to take what Wong says as friendly ammendments to my own work. For example, I argued (on the basis of a passage from Xunzi's "Rectifying Names") that Xunzi thinks (contrary to Mengzi) that the mind can act against recalcitrant desires when it morally "approves of" (ke) something. Wong suggests that we distinguish between
a weak and a strong sense in which the mind's approval can override desire. In the weak sense, the mind's approval can cause an agent to act contrary to what the agent desires most immediately, but what the mind approves is ultimately based on what it will take to best satisfy over the long term the total set of the agent's desires. . . . In the strong sense, approval can override desire even when it has not relation at all to what will satisfy over the long term the agent's total set of desires. (Wong, 1996: 207-8)Wong then notes that ". . . if approval overrides desire in this strong sense, there must be some basis for approving of an action other than its relation to the satisfaction of desire" (Wong, 1996: 208). So far I am in complete agreement with Wong. However, Wong goes on to say, ". . . it would seem that only a weak sense of the mind's overriding desire can emerge from Xunzi's philosophy" (Wong, 1996: 208). Here, I disagree. Furthermore, I shall argue that Wong's own position does not requires that he hold this view.
The focus on Wong's article is a problem suggested by Xunzi's accounts of human nature and the creation of morality: ". . . Xunzi shares with Hobbes a pessimistic (from the moral viewpoint) conception of human nature. How did [the sage kings], with their "unlovely emotions" and self-regarding desires, turn themselves into beings who loved and delighted in morality?" (Wong, 1996: 206)
Wong's solution to this problem is a modification of an interpretation that David S. Nivison proposed (many years ago, but only recently published in Nivison, 1996): ". . . Xunzi must assume that human beings just have a sense of duty. This sense of duty . . . amounts to a capability of performing moral duty for its own sake and not for self-interested reasons" (Wong, 1996: 215). So far, this sounds suspiciously like Mengzi. However, Xunzi's "sense of duty as an original feature of human nature need not have any particular content" (ibid.). Consequently, although humans have an innate capability to perform a moral duty for its own sake, what humans regard as a moral duty is determined by socialization. (This does not make Xunzi a relativist, as I argue in my 1993, because Xunzi think there is a unique way to socialize human beings that will achieve goods such as harmony, happiness and social order.)
This is all Nivison's reading. Wong's modification is interesting and important, however, because it answers an objection recently raised by Donald Munro (1996). Specifically, if Xunzi really has a well-developed theory of human nature, and in particular thinks that human nature is evil, why does he make several comments that seem to suggest vaguely "virtuous" inclinations in human nature (Munro, 1996: 198)? Wong admits that Xunzi refers to such inclinations; however these feelings are, in a sense, "proto-moral" (my phrase, not Wong's). They "are not yet moral in content. They are primitive responses not yet refined and regulated by moral rules." (Wong, 1996: 217) So I take Wong's interpretation to be the following: Xunzi holds that making humans virtuous is not like "molding hot wax" (Ivanhoe, 1994), nor is it like "making cups and bowls out of willow wood" (Gaozi's metaphor, quoted in Mengzi 6A1), nor is it like tending "sprouts" which will naturally grow into their proper form if tended carefully (Mengzi 2A2 et passim). Rather, for Xunzi, making humans moral is like training circus tigers. Tigers do not naturally jump through hoops on cue. However, they do have natural instincts that can be redirected so that jumping through hoops on cue becomes almost "second nature" to them.
Wong's interpretation is a significant contribution to our understanding of Xunzi for at least two reasons. First, it answers Munro's objection. Second, it gives us a much more detailed picture of how Xunzi thinks the moral sense develops from natural, "proto-moral" inclinations. Now, though, I wonder whether Wong needs to disagree with me at all. I take it that Wong accepts Nivison's suggestion that humans have a capacity to come to regard things as morally binding. But it is this same sense that I appealed to in arguing that Xunzi thinks we can "override" our desires on the basis of what we morally "approve of." So it looks as if Nivison, Wong and I agree that Xunzi holds all of the following:
1. Human nature is what is innate in humans.
2. Human nature consists of (i) selfish desires (for food, sex, etc.), (ii) "proto-moral"
inclinations" (fondness for relatives, an impulse to reciprocate benefits, etc.), and (iii) an
"unfilled" capacity to perform what are regarded as moral obligations for their own sake.
3. The "content" of our capacity to perform moral obligations is given to us by
socialization.
4. "Approval" of something as a moral obligation is capable of overriding a contrary
desire.
5. Humans can see by self-interested calculation that transforming their society into a
moral society, and transforming themsleves into morality-loving creatures, is in everyone's
long-term interests.
6. We are capable of transforming ourselves into morality-loving creatures because of our
"proto-moral" inclinations and our "unfilled" capacity to perform moral obligations for their
own sake. Our "proto-moral" inclinations provide the "raw material" and the "motivational
energy" for our "filled" moral sense.
Admittedly, Wong's position does not necessitate his attributing to Xunzi "4" above. However, as I understand him, his main objection to acknowledging that approval could override desire in a strong sense is that the "only basis for approval of an action given in [Xunzi's] philosophy is desire -- that the action is best, given the agent's long-term interests, even if it is not dictated by her immediate desires" (Wong, 1996: 208). But if Wong agrees that Xunzi thinks humans innately have an "unfilled" sense of duty, then he must admit that there is another basis for approval in Xunzi's philosophical psychology: namely, moral approval of an action. Given the evidence provided by the "Rectifying Names" passage (which Wong obligingly quotes, 1996: 207), why not acknowledge that Xunzi believes in "strong overriding"?
Does Wong offer any other evidence against my interpretation? He presents a dichotomy which he thinks my position cannot handle:
Notice, however, that if approval overrides desire in this strong sense, there must be some basis for approving of an action other than its relation to the satisfaction of desire. Kant, of course, held that pure practical reason yielded the categorical imperative, which applies to all rational agents regardless of the content of their particular desires and emotions. On the [alternative, Platonistic] moral perception view, it is simply the apprehension of moral qualities that is the basis of approval. (Wong, 1996: 208)Wong cites a passage from Xunzi's "A Discussion of Rites" ("[As for the king's officials] let them understand clearly that to advance in the face of death and to value honor is the way to satisfy their desire for life") and says that this
certainly rules out the Kantian option of holding that the mind can act on the dictates of pure practical reason. Nor can Xunzi hold that the mind can act on an approval based on perception of irreducible moral properties, because he does not think there are such properties. (Wong, 1996: 209)I agree that Xunzi does not have the sort of Platonistic picture that Wong describes. I also agree that Xunzi's worldview is very different from that of Kant in many important ways. There is nothing corresponding to the noumenal-phenomenal distinction in Xunzi. Xunzi is not concerned, as was Kant, to accomodate both morality and Newtonian physics. Nothing like the categorical imperative is central to Xunzi's thought. However, there is one respect in which I think there are important (albeit thin) parallels between Xunzi and Kant: both think humans have a mental faculty that can recognize something as morally obligatory, both think that such recognition is distinct from desire, and both think that the recognition of something as morally obigatory can override desire.
As for the passage Wong cites, I do not think it rules out the possibility of approval overriding desire. In the "Discussion of Rites" passage, Xunzi is simply discussing what Wong describes earlier in his own paper: ". . . we need enough enforcement of the moral rules so that we would not be fools to obey the rules" (Wong, 1996: 204). Consequently, a wise ruler will make sure his officials "understand clearly that to advance in the face of death and to value honor is the way to satisfy their desire for life." This does not indicate that there is no role for "strong overriding" in moral cultivation.
Turning to another matter, there are some details of interpretation of Mengzi on which Wong and I also seem to disagree. In my 1992, I said that Mengzi 6A10 suggested that Mengzi thought humans can only act on their strongest desires (but that sometimes our strongest desire is the desire for righteousness). Wong writes, ". . . we need not interpret Mencius as believing that we act simply on the strongest desire of the moment. Rather, he allows for the mind's approval to have an effect on what we desire" (Wong, 1996: 209). Again, I think Wong and I do not really disagree. In my 1992 article, I said that Mengzi believes we can only act on our strongest desires. However, I also made clear (or at least tried to make clear) that Mengzi does not think our desires are fixed, once and for all: ". . . Mengzi believes that humans are capable of, and responsible for, the management of their moral motivations" (Van Norden, 1992: 168). How do we alter our motivations? "[A]ccording to Mengzi, one engages in an activity called 'concentration' (si)" (ibid., 169). "Concentration" stimulates the growth of the moral "sprouts"; that is, it strengthens the moral motivations, so that they can become stronger than the non-moral motivations. Mengzi's use of the term "concentration" (si) suggests that it involves an awareness of and a positive feeling toward the sprouts.
Wong is attracted by an interpretation of Mengzi 6A10 suggested by Kwong-loi Shun: ". . . it is not that the beggar has a desire for life that is overriden by a stronger desire for rightness; rather, the beggar has a desire for rightness over life which might be a consequence of the approving activity of the mind." (Wong, 1996: 221, n. 18) Here I think I do disagree with Wong and Shun, but perhaps only slightly. I think the beggar example should be read consistently with Mencius's general picture of ethical cultivation, which I take to be the following. We all have certain paradigmatic cases in which we simply react in certain ways, unreflectively. The problem is that most of us fail to act the same way in relevantly similar situations. Thus, like King Xuan in 1A7, we feel sorry for an ox being led to slaughter, but we ignore the suffering of fellow humans in our state. Consequently, we need to "extend" those paradigmatic reactions to other, relevantly similar, situations. It is the approving activity of the mind ("concentration," si) that is required in order to produce this extension.
David S. Nivison shows (1996) how this interpretation makes sense of a number of passages in the Mengzi. For example, we see that enigmatic 7A17 ("Do not do what one does not do; do not desire what one does not desire. Simply be like this.") means, "Never do what you do not do in the paradigmatic cases; never desire what you do not desire in the paradigmatic cases. That is all there is to being virtuous."
So, I think the beggar simply desires righteousness more than life in the paradigmatic case. However, "concentration" is required in order for him (or us) to extend this paradigmatic reaction to other cases. All of this is quite consistent (see above) with the claim that only desires motivate.
I have argued that Wong and I agree more than he realizes. Even where we do disagree, I think it is mainly over matters of detail. Details are certainly important, but I think it is a sign of maturity in a field when many scholars, working independently, arrive at a consensus on key issues. I find it very satisfying that the study of Chinese philosophy is reaching this level of maturity.