External and internal moral development in Neo-Confucian thought

¶ … External vs. The Internal View in Neo-Confucian Thought

Since the beginning of time, philosophers have made a living looking at how people conduct themselves and trying to make sense of it. Sometimes the philosopher will devise a theory about how the human world works by looking inside themselves and trying to determine the answer, and other times they will observe what people actually do and make comments based on that. Two Chinese philosophers and teachers, Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming, who were the most prominent Neo-Confucian thinkers, had different ideas with regard to how people developed a moral sense and translated that to the world. They also understood the law very differently. This paper looks at the two philosophers and their perspectives on some key issues so as to determine how they differed, were similar and how they relate to a modern world that often seems to be largely amoral or, at the very least, selectively moral.

Biographies

Zhu Xi

He is one of the most noted philosophers and teachers in the extensive history of China and he is regarded as probably the foremost Neo-Confucian scholar. Of the time in which he was raised, one scholar notes that;

"When the Song dynasty (960 -- 1279) was established in the tenth century, the so-called Five Classics -- the Book of Changes, the Book of History, the Book of Poetry, the Book of Rites, and the Spring and Autumn Annals -- had long been regarded as the authoritative texts in the Confucian tradition"[footnoteRef:1] [1: Daniel K. Gardner, Zhu Xi's Reading of the Analects: Canon, Commentary, and the Classical Tradition, New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. p. 1.]

These books, some thought were edited by Confucius himself, established the Chinese dynastic tradition and the religious philosophy that was such a part of Chinese tradition. During his Xi's lifetime the I Ching, a book of Neo-Confucian thought and belief, was the prominent study guide of his fellow philosophers, but Xi studied and taught from what became known as the Four Books -- Greater Learning, the Analects, the Mencius, and the Mean[footnoteRef:2] -- which formed the basis of civil service examinations for the next 700 years. His influence in his sphere was not felt until after his death, but Zhu Xi is still considered probably the most influential teach and philosopher after Confucius himself. [2: Ibid.]

Wang Yangming

Wang was a "Ming general and statesman"[footnoteRef:3] who was harkened back to the teachings of Xi more than 250 years previously. He continued the tradition that Xi had established, but he perfected the language for a new time. He agreed in principle with much that Xi had to say, but they disagree on some key points. His main point of contention was with the rationalist dualism of Xi.[footnoteRef:4] [3: William Theodore De Bary, and Irene Bloom, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 849.] [4: Woobong Ha, "Sirhak in Late Choson Korea and Ancient Learning in Early Modern Japan from the Perspective of the History of Interaction," Korean Studies 30 (2006).]

Wang, like Xi lived a life that was fraught with many successes and defeats. As a member of the Chinese elite there was always court intrigue and petty jealousies to deal with. Wang's father had been expelled from a good position because he offended a eunuch in the court, and Wang was subject to the same. However, where his father was not able to recover prior to his death, Wang was able to eventually rise to a governorship and then road at the front of troops as a general.[footnoteRef:5] He was instrumental in defeating several uprisings in the kingdom, and he was also an advocate for leniency toward enemy combatants. However, he was vilified for his refusal to follow the strict teachings of Xi, and he did not receive the accolades he deserved as an intellectual rival of Xi's until fifty years after his death. Today he is thought of as the second of the great Neo-Confucian scholars behind only Xi. [5: Xuezhi Guo, The Ideal Chinese Political Leader: A Historical and Cultural Perspective, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. p. 41.]

Neo-Confucian Teaching Comparison

Both scholars were concerned the principles of Confucius be continued and that Chinese teaching be maintained in this manner. Both scholars fought the incursion of the foreign Buddhist and Daoist teachings, as did all Neo-Confucian scholars, and they tried to preserve the most precious of the ancient writings. Both subscribed to the Four Books over the Five Classics, and taught from within those treatises. However, they had different ideas on some critical points within the Neo-Confucian teachings.

Heart

This word, heart or in Chinese xin, has the same meaning as it does in Western understanding. Unless speaking in actual physiological terms, the heart is the driving force of a person. It can also be termed the mind or soul, and it is what determines the moral philosophy of the individual.

When it came to beliefs regarding the heart, Xi was considered a realist. Tophoff explains that Xi believed "Things are knowable to the mind, and a deep study of investigating the world of things and of men eventually may lead to developing of a moral self, to self-knowledge and, finally, to sage-hood." [footnoteRef:10] Thus he departed from the traditional Confucian belief that through ritual and memorizing a person could realize who they were morally. The difference is that Xi believed that a person actually had to take the ritual and the teaching to heart and understand it as a person, and then as it pertained to society, rather than just memorizing some platitudes rather that actually believing what they said. In Xi's mind, it was the belief that was central rather than just the gathering of knowledge and performing some meaningless ritual. [10: Michael M. Tophoff, "The Ethics of Knowledge and Action in Postmodern Organizations," Journal of Buddhist Ethics 14 (2007).]

Wang and Xi were similar in this teaching in that they both believed that it was belief rather than just ritual and memorization that perfected the individual, but Wang, as was mentioned in the above section, was focused on introspection. "Wang emphasized intuitive knowledge, through the investigation of one's inner by self-cultivation."[footnoteRef:11] So, it is said by some that Wang ascribed more to a more Buddhist interpretation of Confucian principles. He believed that a person needed to look within, meditate and introspect, rather than to just gather knowledge and look outside themselves for moral stance. Wang wrote a poem to explain his belief in heart that says [11: Michael M. Tophoff, "The Ethics of Knowledge and Action in Postmodern Organizations," Journal of Buddhist Ethics 14 (2007).]

In every man there is a (mariners) compass,

His mind-and-heart is the seat of a ten thousand changes.

Foolishly, I once saw things in reverse:

Leaves and branches thought I outside.[footnoteRef:12] [12: Ibid.]

The meaning is hard to miss. It is the inside of the person that counts when trying to decipher the mysteries of the world and universe rather than the outside. It seems then that the largest gulf between the two philosophers is that one was an introvert (in that he believed in self-knowledge) and the other was an extravert.

Material Force

The old school, or original Confucian teaching, was usurped by the Neo-Confucian because "it emphasized realistic validity and historical comprehension instead of natural law."[footnoteRef:13] Basically, this is a difference between the temporal and the celestial. Confucian principle identifies more with what a person can be taught and retain rather than what they know through some knowledge of the universe. The Neo-Confucian believed that people were tapped into some celestial force that guided them either through an understanding of their own nature or through a social force that guided all actions. This basic disconnect may be best seen through the Neo-Confucian understanding of qi, or material force. This does not mean that the Neo-Confucian did not believe in rational thought, quite the contrary, but both Xi and Wang focused much less on the earthbound ritual and memorization of ancient texts than did their predecessors. [13: Woobong Ha, "Sirhak in Late Choson Korea and Ancient Learning in Early Modern Japan from the Perspective of the History of Interaction," Korean Studies 30 (2006)]

Xi's basic beliefs about qi can be summed up with the statement that "separate from the mind there exists an outside world of things."[footnoteRef:14] Although the qi is a force that exists inside the person and is demonstrated through their vitality and drive, Xi believed that this also came from the ability to look outside oneself. His rational thought would not let him believe that someone could simply rely on the force within themselves to attain morality. His was a message of internalizing the external to develop the person's qi. [14: Michael M. Tophoff, "The Ethics of Knowledge and Action in Postmodern Organizations," Journal of Buddhist Ethics 14 (2007): 181-198.]

Wang, from his internal focus, believed that the material force emanated from within the individual and was teamed with the heart to produce the actions which were central to his or her moral actions. As Tophoff relates "Action which proceeds from this deep seeing into one's nature may be called right action, in the moral sense."[footnoteRef:15] The qi helps the person to perform what they understand is right from the inner examination of their true nature. [15: Michael M. Tophoff, "The Ethics of Knowledge and Action in Postmodern Organizations," Journal of Buddhist Ethics 14 (2007): 181-198.]

Nature

This is probably the greatest disconnect between the two teachers. What is the nature of a person and from where are they able to gain the understanding of what morality and right actions are, and how they should conduct themselves in the world? It is a disconnect because of the overriding perspectives with which the two looked at the world. Human nature, in many Western religions is seen as inherently bad, and it must be perfected by an external, metaphysical entity. The closeness of the relationship the individual has with this entity (God, Allah, Yahweh) determines whether they will have a moral stance or not. The reason that the relationship has to be close is because the person, in and of him or herself, is naturally depraved (to use a Calvinist word). The Chinese philosophy of Confucius was not quite so harsh, but it was interpreted in different ways.

The teaching of Xi was that people had a common nature that drew them to one another.[footnoteRef:16] He is said to always be looking for the societal norm that perfects the inner one. Huang states that he believed "a virtuous person is not only concerned with others' external well-being but also their virtuous characters, and a virtuous person's concern with others' well-being, both internal and external, is neither self-indulgent nor self-effacing…"[footnoteRef:17] Every person is looking to the benefit of his or her neighbor, not to the exclusion of themselves, but to the perfecting of themselves. [16: Yoong Huang, "The Self-Centeredness Objection to Virtue Ethics: Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucian Response," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 84.4.] [17: Yoong Huang, "The Self-Centeredness Objection to Virtue Ethics: Zhu Xi's Neo-Confucian Response," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 84.4.]

Wang's perspective on this was slightly different in that people are perfecting themselves and their own nature rather than looking to benefit society by helping everyone else perfect theirs. He believed that when individuals realized their own true nature only then could society be said to be moral.[footnoteRef:18] Wang then believed that a person's nature was good, that individual just had to discover that fact and bring it out. [18: William Theodore De Bary, and Irene Bloom, Sources of Chinese Tradition, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 849.]

Discussion

The concepts mentioned above are closely intertwined in the teaching of Chinese Confucian philosophy. The Neo-Confucian says that "we are all born with a fully developed moral mind which is obscured by murky selfish desires. The project of self-cultivation involves dissipating these desires."[footnoteRef:19] Heart, nature and force are all innate characteristics that work with one another to produce the law that the society lives by. A person is either ruled by their heart (mind) or their nature. Their material force allows them to project that which they are, and the law of the land is guided by the collective working of the material force. Of course, this is an ideal world and both Xi and Wang understood this. It is difficult for a person to fully understand their true inner self without the benefit of life experience, and some never learn it. [19: Chenyang Li, The Sage and the Second Sex: Confucianism, Ethics, and Gender. Chicago: Open Court, 2000.]

In the Western religions it is believed, as has been stated, that humans are innately bad. There has to be some external force which shows them how they can be good and leads them down the right path. It can be said that people are self-interested and that they have to be shown what is correct and what is not with relation to the rest of the humanity. This is not a Neo-Confucian thought, and it therefore makes it somewhat more difficult to grasp what Xi and Wang are trying to say.

The belief, especially of Wang, is that people are not inherently bad, but are innately good. This does not mean that they individual will not do things that society thinks are bad because they have not come to understand their true nature yet. Xi believes in this internalization also, but he thinks that people get their drive to be moral from an external locus rather than an internal one. It is possible for the individual to be good without the society because both philosophers believed in the essential goodness of nature (the natural world) also. An individual could reach perfection through an external view of the world around them or through an introspective search for their true nature. It is difficult to say how this internal true nature would manifest itself, and looking at different cultures it seems that sometimes this search could result in some poor morals. The two philosophers were living in a world that was, as many people would say, civilized, and there was a belief in the rule of law and of order. It has happened before in the annals of world history, that a people is subjected to a different set of morals because they are subjugated by a selfish ruler. Again, these philosophies might work in a perfect world, but it is rarely perfect.

Conclusion

Examining Xi and Wang as a comparative exercise is enlightening. They had very different beliefs how the four different forces worked within the individual, but they did both believe that a society could realize a moral character through the perfection of the individual. Just because they had very different perspectives on how a person was to get there does not diminish the fact that a utopian reality could be obtained.