26
the appeal of one‘s ideas and actions in a larger community that emanate outward and change
shared environments.
The Nexus of Efficacy and Legitimacy
15
In most strands of Confucianism, including most prominently the school that Zhu Xi
inaugurated, acting effectively meant to act in cosmologically sanctioned ways, whether by
following established ritual or by cultivating moral insight within oneself. Although the precise
means of abiding by this cosmic moral order (often misleadingly translated in English as
―Heaven‖) were widely debated, it was agreed that earthly peace and prosperity lie in the balance.
Only proper moral actions, informed by ―virtue‖ (德), could be effective actions—that is,
capable of inspiring others and aligning political and social institutions with cosmological
principles.
16
An important consequence of the individual‘s position in this cosmological relationship
was that although he or she acted through embedded social relationships and according to a
presumably universal standard of virtue, his or her political motivations were seen to arise
beyond and (sometimes) in tension with both. Chang Hao attributes this widely shared
Confucian belief to a pattern of authority established by Confucius‘ ideal of the junzi, a concept
15
I am indebted to Professor Chang Hao for encouraging me to see the connections between neo-Confucian moral
theory and Zhang‘s ideas about democratic legitimacy.
16
It is difficult to square what I am calling ―effective actions‖ with what would be identified in the Western tradition
as explicitly ―political‖ ones per se, because so many of the former took the form of non-verbal interventions in
personal relationships. A typical example is from the Analects: when asked by one of his students why he did not
participate in government, Confucius responded, ―The Book of History says, ‗Oh! Simply by being filial [to his
parents] and friendly to his brothers a man can exert an influence upon government.‘ In so doing a man is, in fact,
taking part in government. How can there be any question of his having actively to ‗take part in government‘?‖
(Analects 2.21). I discuss the implications of such a view for political action more fully in chapter six.
Convention