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obvious interpersonal differences in intelligence and ability as proof that equality is nonsensical
(Yan 1998 (1914), 758-759), Zhang responds by drawing a distinction between innate capacity
and the event of being born. He calls only the former ―natural‖ (ZQJ, 25), analogizing this
concept of ―natural‖ to the neo-Confucian (xinxue) concept of liangzhi (良知, ―innate moral
knowledge‖). To neo-Confucians like Wang Yangming, liangzhi was an always-already source
of moral-philosophical insight into the world that was perpetually in danger of being obscured by
what were seen as externally derived passions and material influences.
7
To recover and develop
this natural, moral capacity, Wang advocated meditative self-cultivation and the daily practice of
Confucian virtues. Liangzhi, however, was not ―natural‖ in the ziran (自然) sense; that is, these
capacities could not develop necessarily simply as part of the process of living or maturing, nor
could they be duplicated by the application of external encouragement. As ―naturally given‖
(tian fu 天賦), liangzhi required self-motivated, directed efforts (gongfu 功夫) to actualize its
potential.
By seeing natural rights as more like liangzhi and less like ongoing biological processes,
Zhang characterizes them as widely diffuse, innate capacities that exist prior to government but
not to the deliberate human effort to cultivate them. Although not spontaneously effective, these
capacities must be self-directed; they cannot be imposed by government or created through force,
because the government can work only on material that is already there in individuals. Quoting
Herbert Spencer‘s refutation of Bentham, who insisted that governments ―create‖ rights, Zhang
insists on an a priori basis for the free actions of individuals and their unforced capacities for
action:
7
In Wang Yangming‘s words, ―The nature endowed in us by heaven is pure and perfect…It is the original substance
of the clear character which is called innate knowledge of the good‖ (translated in Chan 1963, 661).
Convention