This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Confucian Meritocratic Democracy A Comparative and Philosophical Study of Confucian Meritocracy and Democracy Hong, Cheng Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 01. Oct. 2021 Confucian Meritocratic Democracy A Comparative and Philosophical Study of Confucian Meritocracy and Democracy Cheng Hong 1309190 King’s College London A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF PHD August 2018 1 Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................... 6 Note on Translations and Transliterations ............................................. 7 The Annotated Timeline of Some Chinese Dynasties and Key Confucian Events Relevant to this Thesis ............................................... 8 1. Introduction ...................................................................................... 12 1.1 Theoretical Background ..................................................................................................... 13 1.11 The Development of Confucianism ............................................................................. 13 1.12 Modern Relevance of Confucianism ........................................................................... 15 1.2 Contemporary Confucian Political Theory ........................................................................ 18 1.21 Confucian Democrats ................................................................................................. 18 1.22 Confucian Meritocrats ................................................................................................ 21 1.23 A Philosophical Thought Experiment ......................................................................... 24 1.3 A Note on the Central Claim and Scope of the Thesis ...................................................... 28 1.31 Classical Confucianism............................................................................................... 28 1.32 Political Confucianism ................................................................................................ 30 1.33 Two Definitions of Democracy ................................................................................... 33 1.34 Two Approaches towards Justifying Democracy ........................................................ 35 1.4 A Philosophical Approach to Study Classical Confucianism ............................................ 39 1.41 Jiezhejiang .................................................................................................................. 40 1.42 New Text School .......................................................................................................... 42 1.43 Hermeneutic of Restoration ........................................................................................ 44 1.5 Chapter Outline .................................................................................................................. 45 2. Confucian Meritocracy and Ren ....................................................... 49 2.1 The Junzi and the Confucian Ren Statesperson ................................................................. 49 2.2 Ren in Classical Confucianism .......................................................................................... 51 2.21 The Meaning of Ren .................................................................................................... 52 2.22 Equal Potential Capacities to Become Confucian Ren Statespersons ........................ 54 2.23 Self-cultivation and ‘Return to Li’ .............................................................................. 57 2.3 Confucian Meritocratic Beliefs .......................................................................................... 61 2.4 Political Truths of Ren ....................................................................................................... 62 2.41 Truths in Normative Political Theories....................................................................... 63 2.42 Proceduralist View of Political Truths ....................................................................... 65 2 2.43 Pursuing Ren ............................................................................................................... 71 3. Political Authority ............................................................................ 75 3.1 The Political Authority of the Confucian Ren Statespersons ............................................. 75 3.2 The ‘General Acceptability’ Approach to Political Authority ........................................... 79 3.21 Confucian Moral Persuasion ...................................................................................... 81 3.22 Acceptability and Acceptance ..................................................................................... 90 3.23 Expert/Boss Fallacy .................................................................................................... 95 3.3 Serve the Well-being of the Citizens ................................................................................. 98 3.4 ‘Control View’ of Political Authority .............................................................................. 101 3.41 Autonomy .................................................................................................................. 102 3.42 Paternalism ............................................................................................................... 108 3.5 Reciprocity ....................................................................................................................... 112 3.51 My Own Judgement ................................................................................................... 113 3.52 My Own Benefit ......................................................................................................... 115 3.6 Confucian Political Authority: Service and Reciprocity .................................................. 117 3.61 The General Acceptability of Confucian Political Authority .................................... 117 3.62 The Practical Aim of Confucian Political Authority ................................................. 119 4. Political Rights .................................................................................. 122 4.1 Political Rights and Classical Confucianism ................................................................... 122 4.2 Early Confucian Views on Self-interest and Human Nature ........................................... 126 4.21 Li 利 (self-interest) vs. Yi 義(righteousness) ............................................................. 127 4.22 Is Human Nature Good or Evil? ............................................................................... 128 4.3 Individualism and Modern Democracy ............................................................................ 133 4.4 Reasonable Citizens ......................................................................................................... 138 4.41 Political Participation............................................................................................... 139 4.42 Educative Programs .................................................................................................. 140 4.43 A Large State ............................................................................................................. 141 4.5 Harmonious Community .................................................................................................. 143 4.6 Confucian Political Rights: Making Political Decisions about Strictly Local Matters .... 147 4.61 The Possibility of Confucian Political Rights ........................................................... 148 4.62 Fidelity Desideratum and Universal Acceptability of Confucian Political Rights ... 150 4.63 Confucian Political Rights and Democratic Rights .................................................. 153 5. Political Equality .............................................................................. 155 5.1 Political Influence ............................................................................................................ 156 3 5.11 Absolute Political Influence .....................................................................................