CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by ScholarBank@NUS NATURAL LAW AND NORMATIVITY IN THE HUANGDI SIJING ERNEST KAM CHUEN HWEE (B.A. (Hons), NUS) A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2005 Acknowledgements My interest in Huang-Lao began towards the end of my Honors Year and I acknowledge my debt to Prof. Alan Chan, my supervisor, for introducing me to the Huangdi Sijing as a choice for research. Without his encouragement, I may never have thought of furthering my studies beyond my Bachelor’s Degree. Prof. Chan has also been extremely generous in the advice and support he has given me these past three years. For these and also for painstakingly going through the drafts of this dissertation, I am eternally grateful to him. A special word of thanks is due to A/P Tan Sor Hoon. Though she was not my supervisor, she has been extremely patient in answering whatever queries I have had and tolerant of my unexpected and frequent visits all this while. I am grateful too to all who have helped me during my Graduate Seminar Presentation: Kim Hak Ze for agreeing to lend me his laptop (which the projector unfortunately refused to cooperate with), A/P Nuyen Anh Tuan for volunteering to lend me his, and Weng Hong whose Mac I borrowed eventually. A word of thanks also to all my fellow graduate students and A/P Saranindranath Tagore for their comments and suggestions during the seminar. Outside of NUS, I am thankful to the following professors for their invaluable assistance: Prof. Harold Roth for sending me his oft-cited unpublished paper, and Professors Randall Peerenboom, Carine Defoort, Karen Turner and Chad Hansen for so kindly responding to questions related to their work. I would like to also thank my parents for their love, support, understanding and encouragement for as long as I can remember. Last but not least, praise and thanks to You, Almighty God, Holy Lord - Creator, Savior and Sanctifier. Thank you also Holy Theotokos, for your perpetual succor. Table of Contents Summary …………………………………………….…………..… i Chapter 1: The Huang-Lao School and the Huangdi Sijing…………….. 1 Chapter 2: Of Law, Fa and Xing ………………………………….………... 25 Chapter 3: Exploring Natural Law Readings of the Huangdi Sijing…. 68 Chapter 4: An Alternative Account of Normativity …………..….…… 108 Bibliography ………………………………….…………….…. 156 Summary In 1973, archeologists in China recovered a silk manuscript at Mawangdui, Changsha, which was later identified as the Huangdi Sijing (HDSJ/Four Canons of the Yellow Emperor) that had been lost for two millennia. The result of its discovery was a renewed interest in the study of the little-known Huang-Lao School of Daoism. Many scholars tend to read ideas within the HDSJ as typical of the school in general. However, any study of a school proper must take into account other texts identified as its members. I therefore take the conservative stance of reading my findings of the text locally, without presuming them to be true of Huang-Lao in general. The best-known line of the HDSJ is “Dao produces fa (which is usually translated either as model or law)”. It suggests to scholars that a pre-existing Dao normatively limits social institutions and the actions of agents. The most noteworthy works that have dealt indirectly on the subject of normativity are those that propose natural law readings. Careful analysis reveals that fa does not have the same extension as the Western notion of law. Hence, the label natural law should only be used with caution. Based on Hart’s minimum separation thesis, we understand natural law to consist of a necessary connection between law and morality. Randall Peerenboom claims that the HDSJ contains immutable laws of nature (which Joseph Needham denied the Chinese ever considering) and that human laws and institutions are grounded on these. Hence, the text contains a doctrine of natural law. Though punishment by Heaven/Tian for unethical actions is mentioned, Peerenboom understands these in modern scientific terms. Unfortunately, in this case, where the cosmos is robbed of a moral context, his natural law claim fails. Further, since laws of nature may not exist in the text per evidence supplied by Carine Defoort i and Sarah Queen, his formulation is problematic. Karen Turner’s natural law reading on the other hand incorporates a moral element in the notion of zheng, where the order generated by the Dao is a just (zheng) one. Close scrutiny of zheng’s usage in the HDSJ reveals that it is not necessarily moral in character, thus reducing the feasibility of her account. Also, positive sanction of nue/atrocity on some occasions in the text also makes any natural law reading implausible. Against this backdrop, I suggest that Tian in the Pre-Qin context (as in the HDSJ) does indeed carry moralistic connotations. At the same time, the Dao- discourse is suggestive of instrumental control of the cosmos, thus reducing the text’s moral texture. It may be discerned that the HDSJ’s author(s) has left normative devices in it in the form of a narrative, whose participant becomes constrained by the dictates of a moral Tian, as well as a hidden discourse that prescribes/proscribes behavior proper of a quasi-Yellow Emperor. Further, as the Dao-discourse is best understood as a device of persuasion that induces the participation of a power-hungry warlord, we may see the limited moral vision as a by-product of that rhetorical process. ii Chapter 1: The Huang-Lao School and the Huangdi Sijing My aim in this dissertation is to investigate the issue of normativity and other philosophical topics found in the Huangdi Sijing1 黄帝四经 (HDSJ) or The Yellow Emperor’s Four Canons, which was supposedly lost for two millennia but subsequently recovered at an archeological dig at Mawangdui 马王堆 in 1973. Though this document has more often than not been attributed to the little-known Huang-Lao 黄老 School of Daoism, I have decided not to assume that the doctrines contained within it are typical of that school. That is to say that though many would claim (and I would not deny) that texts that are properly classified within the Huang-Lao fold share some family resemblances, I am reluctant to take whatever characteristics found within the HDSJ to be common to all adherents of Huang-Lao. It ought to be noted that prior to 1973, interest in the Huang-Lao School was relatively lukewarm. The effect of the recovery of the HDSJ was that of a phenomenal increase in the number of articles written on the school in general and the HDSJ in particular. This creates the mistaken impression that the HDSJ adds substantially to our knowledge of what Huang-Lao entails. That it tells us more of the history of early Daoism cannot be doubted, though the significance of the text has somewhat been exaggerated. Thus, my proposal in this current chapter will be to adopt the conservative stance of taking whatever findings made in the subsequent chapters to be true only of the HDSJ without assuming them to be true of Huang-Lao in general. Among works written in English which deal with the topic of normativity in the HDSJ (albeit indirectly), the most noteworthy ones are those which propose 1 I use the Hanyu Pinyin format for this and all subsequent Chinese names and terms, except for authors’ names if cited otherwise in the bibliography. 1 natural law readings. I will analyze two such readings in Chapter 3 and show that while these have their merits, they are not without problems. But before any study of natural law may proceed, a careful study must first be made regarding the Chinese understanding of law. I will therefore analyze two Chinese terms that have most frequently been translated as law – fa 法 and xing 刑, in Chapter 2. It will be shown that while these terms bear similarities with Western notions of law, the differences between them give us cause for caution in our use of natural law in the subsequent chapters. Finally in Chapter 4, I will offer an alternative account of normativity in the HDSJ that should escape criticism made of the natural law readings presented in the previous chapter. I will now proceed with the subject matter of this chapter proper. The Huang-Lao School Though the term Huang-Lao has been in existence for over two millennia now, its meaning has remained unclear. That the prefix Huang refers to Huangdi 黄帝 (the Yellow Emperor) and that the suffix Lao refers to Laozi 老子 is fairly uncontroversial.2 Prior to the discovery of 1973, Huang-Lao studies have largely been confined to scrutinizing the occurrences of the term Huang-Lao in the Shiji 史记 and Hanshu 汉书. In recent times however, many scholars have tried to propose updated definitions based on characteristics which they identify in certain 2 One noteworthy explanation of the term is found in the Ziran 自然 Chapter of the Lun Heng 论衡 by Wang Chong 王充at the close of the Later Han Dynasty: “Huang refers to Huangdi; Lao refers to Laozi (黄者，黄帝也；老者， 老子也). The doctrine of Huang-Lao … (is to) rule by inaction/wuwei (黄老之 操 ……其治无为).” 2 texts that they believe to be true of the Huang-Lao School in general.3 Here are a few: 1. As a school with a philosophy best understood as a foundational naturalism, grounded on laws of nature.4 2. As a school with three basic orientations: cosmology, psychology and self- cultivation, and political thought.5 3.