An Orderly State: Self-Cultivation versus Rewards and Punishments
Most of the Eastern Zhou Chinese philosophers, dating back to 551 BCE, discussed self-cultivation in their teachings. Their texts contained ethical and political reflections. The well-known Confucius emphasized that humans needed to practice lifelong self-cultivation to attain spontaneous and effortless ordering of a country in The Analects. However, another philosopher, Mozi, disagreed with the Confucius’ idea of self-cultivation. Mozi highlighted that people needed a superior leader to change and shape their behaviors in order to have a peaceful state. He showed little interest in self-cultivation. So, in my essay, I compared the different views of Confucius and Mozi about self-cultivation, which were based on presuppositions about human nature and the ideal practices of men. Which of the systems—self-cultivation or obeying one’s superior—was the primary goal for humans to accomplish in order to have an orderly state? Importantly, from my perspective, self-cultivation is important for individuals and the society at large in order to bring good changes to a state.
First, what did Confucius think about human nature? Confucius did not talk about human nature in The Analects, but he believed that “by nature people are similar; they diverge as the result of practice” (The Analects,” 17.2). This quote shows Confucius believed that humans were different from each other because of their actions, behaviors, and attitudes, and not because of their nature. Therefore, Confucius did not focus on human nature, but on men’s daily routines practiced through self-cultivation in their lives. He argued that self-cultivation was lifelong love for learning and devotion to traditional cultural forms. Confucius stated that a man would attain a state of perfect mastery of junzi (gentleman) by cultivating himself continuously and intuitively with knowledge, virtues, and rites. In this state, the gentleman possessed the supreme virtue of ren (Goodness)—the quality of a perfectly accomplished person. Hence, I believe that Confucius‘ primary goal for men in their lives was to become the gentlemen through self-cultivation. No matter how bad one’s nature was, one still had the opportunity to turn over a new leaf by cultivating oneself with knowledge and culture to achieve the quality of Goodness. This chance provided hope and motivation for anyone in a society to repent from his or her mistakes, keep refining himself or herself, and become a cultivated person in a society.
In Confucius’ opinion, the gentleman should practice three ethics: li (rituals), yi (righteousness), and ren (humanness). For instance, he said, “the gentleman takes rightness as his substance, puts it into practice by means of rituals, gives it expression through modesty, and perfects it by being trustworthy. Now that is a gentleman” (The Analects, 15.18). He emphasized that the gentleman should practice rituals because they gave external forms to Goodness. For example, Confucius said:
If you are respectful but lack ritual you will become exasperating; if you are careful but lack ritual you will become timid; if you are courageous but lack ritual you will become unruly; and if you are upright but lack ritual you will become inflexible. (8.2) The above saying indicated that rituals acted as guidance for men to perform rightness in their lives. At the same time, the gentleman must cultivate humanness by practicing a simple manner and slow speech because for Confucius “a clever tongue and fine appearance are rarely signs of Goodness” (The Analects, 1.3). Overall, the gentleman should possess a love for learning, devotion to culture, and emphasis on rituals.
How did Mozi’s view of human nature differ from Confucius? Mozi believed that human nature was highly malleable. Men were induced to take any form of behavior because human beings could change their attitudes and characters quickly and easily. Mozi argued that the ruler, who was the most benevolent person in a state, needed to set standardized rules in order to unify his nation and attain an orderly state. For instance, he said:
In ancient times, when people first came into being and before there was government and laws, each person followed their own norm for deciding what was right and wrong. And so where there was one person there was one norm, where there were two people there were two norms, where there were ten people there were ten norms. As many people as there were, that was how many norms were recognized. In this way came to approve their own norms for what is right and wrong and thereby condemn the norms of others. And so they mutually condemned each other’s norms. For this reason, within families, there was resentment and hatred between fathers and sons and elder and younger brother that caused them to separate and disperse and made it impossible for them to cooperate harmoniously with one another. (Chap.11, pg.65)
Therefore, Mozi believed that all subjects in a state should obey the most benevolent person, the ruler, in all issues to determine what was right or wrong. He believed that a country would incline to act according to the ruler’s desire in order to win the ruler’s favor. Unlike Confucius, Mozi did not show appreciation towards morality. His primary goal was to change and shape humans’ behaviors under the ruler’s authority. In my opinion, this suggestion by Mozi would create a state of idealess men because they were not trained to think, but were told to follow their leader. In addition to obeying one’s superior, Mozi also mentioned that the ideal practice of men was to show impartial caring. Mozi said, “The business of a benevolent person is to promote what is beneficial to the world and eliminate what is harmful” (Chap.16, pg. 68). He identified the source of the different harms as partiality. For instance, a man hates someone because he has prejudices against that person. Therefore, Mozi suggested that in order to have a peaceful family and an orderly state, people must condemn partiality and practice universal love. For example, one must love others’ parents as one’s own parents, which was in contrast to Confucius’ idea that emphasized filial piety towards one’s own parents.
Furthermore, unlike Confucius, who emphasized rituals no matter at what cost to develop the worthy gentleman, Mozi used cost-benefit analysis to decide which rites to perform. For instance, he disagreed with lavish funerals and prolonged mourning (Chap. 25), and condemned musical performance (Chap. 32). Mozi mentioned that an extravagant funeral and prolonged mourning could not enrich the poor, increase the population, or bring stability to uncertain situations. Moreover, he said in order to have musical performances, people were taxed to pay for musical instruments. The shows were only enjoyed by the king and high-ranking officers; they were not for the whole nation’s pleasure. Hence, Mozi argued that people should carry out moderate funerals in order not to waste useful resources, and the government should tax people only for practical items, such as boats. I agree with Mozi because we are living in a community and we should perform activities that benefit all of us as a group; this will promote efficiency in administration and prevent corruption in the government.
Most important, how did self-cultivation, mentioned by Confucius, or obeying one’s superior, argued by Mozi, affect the governance of a state? Confucius argued that men who practiced self-cultivation would go in the right direction in their lives. With knowledge about culture and behaviors guided by rites, a cultivated person would not wander from the way of Goodness or become bad. For instance, Confucius said that “someone who is broadly learned with regard to culture, and whose conduct is restrained by the rites, can be counted upon to not go astray” (The Analects, 6.27). This quote shows that Confucius believed that a self-cultivated person would not take the wrong path or decisions in his life. Therefore, a state with a cultivated nation, possessing the quality of Goodness, did not need laws because everyone in the country had attained the quality of perfection and would not perform bad acts. The government did not need to make an effort to rule its citizens to reach an orderly state. In other words, from Confucius’ texts, I believe that self-cultivation is important to produce the gentleman in order to create a state lived by perfect individuals who do not need decrees to govern them. Everyone is good at taking care of himself and herself by practicing li, yi, and ren, and passes down the good teaching from one generation to another. In contrast, Mozi argued that a country could attain an orderly and peaceful state by obeying the most benevolent person, the ruler. When all subjects conformed to the leader, it would create a consistent state with universal objective standards. A benevolent ruler institutionalized the society’s norm and created a bureaucratic government. As a result, everyone in a state should follow and trust the leader’s command, no matter whether the situation was good or bad. For instance, Mozi said:
The leader of each district would be most the most benevolent person in the district. When he announced his rule to the people of the district he would say, ‘ Whenever you hear of anything either good or bad, you must report it to the ruler of the state. Whenever the ruler of the state approves of something all of you must also approve of it. Whenever the ruler of the state condemns something all of you must also condemn it. Eliminate any bad teachings that you may have and study the good teachings of the ruler of the state. Eliminate any bad practices that you may have and study the good practices of the ruler of the state. If you do this then how could the state ever become disordered?’ (Chap.11, pg. 67)
Furthermore, in order to make such a uniform state, a ruler governed by using a strict rewards and punishments system. The ruler must honor the worthy and righteous, and punish those who did not obey their superior. For instance, a ruler should promote worthy men as their reward and punish disobedient subjects with the Five Punishments: tattooing the face, cutting off the nose, cutting off the feet, castration, and death. From my perspective, I believe Confucius’s argument of self-cultivation should apply in the ruling of a government in order to achieve an orderly and peaceful state, rather than following the leader blindly as mentioned by Mozi. I define self-cultivation as a lifelong journey of educating oneself to reach perfection in knowledge, attitudes, behavior, and speech. I agree with Confucius’ idea of self-cultivation because a ruler must cultivate himself with knowledge, culture, and rites to possess the quality of Goodness. Then, he will set a good example for commoners to follow. As a result, everyone in a state possesses the ability to assess each other’s qualities when one focuses on cultivating and correcting oneself first, then one has the capability to evaluate others (The Analects, 14.29). Therefore, instead of obeying the ruler’s command blindly, subjects should have sufficient knowledge obtained through self-cultivation to check the leader’s behavior. This system of checks and balances prevents the ruler from becoming supreme in an undesirable way and oppressing the subjects. Someone needs to rise and speak out when there is something wrong with the governance of a leader. For instance, Confucius said, “Raise up the straight and apply them to the crooked, and the people will submit to you. If you raise up the crooked and apply them to the straight, the people will never submit’ (The Analects, 2.19). Moreover, I agree with Confucius’ saying, “[the] true king rules through the gradual transformative power of virtue rather than through harsh laws and punishments” (The Analects, 13.12). I believe that subjects should act well and perform good deeds as an end in and of itself, and not because they are told to do so through rewards or punishments.
In sum, everyone should cultivate himself with knowledge and not just blindly obey a ruler because a leader can wander away from Goodness. As Mozi stated that humans are malleable, a benevolent ruler could change from good to bad. Lastly, I believe that there is a big flaw in Mozi’s suggestion of obeying one’s superior no matter what the situation was; this would create an idealess and stagnant state.