Shi Political Philosophy

The reconstitution of the order is the goal and inner motivation of Northern Song Confucianism revival movement. Zhu Xi insisted that:" From the beginning of the Song Dynasty, the people has already worshipped the Confucian etiquette and the Confucian classics. The end of this worship is to resume YAO,Shun and the Three Dynasties(Xia,Shang and Zhou).They have been better than the Tang dynasty but the theory of this revival was not elucidated clearly until Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi.""The revival to YAO,Shun and the Three Dynasties" is the strong currents in The Northern Song which is disclosed in Zhu Xi's works. The important aspects of this movement are the ancient literature movement and the learning in the pursuit of argumentation. Both the advocate of the ancient literature and the learning in the pursuit of argumentation wanted to reconstitute the ideal "the Three Dynasties" order which is the ideal social situation for Confucianism.The ideal of the Three Dynasties belonging to Wang An-Shi is to reconstitution of the ideal ethical-moral society of the Confucianism. In short there are two characters in Wang's ideal:the first is that the society is a hierarchical constitution which founded on the moral conduct. This point shows the tendency of Wang's political elitism. The second is that the society is a moral Utopia which shows Wang's moral idealism.Wang always argued that we can just discuss the "nature" through the "birth". The distinction between them makes the tension of the thought and this tension makes Wang's thought on human nature moving deeply. From the point of the human nature there are four phrase in Wang's thought progress which includes "the all-goodness of the nature","can-be-evilness","both-goodness-and-evilness" and "cannot use good or evil to describe". The end of Wang's thought on the human nature is that we cannot use good or evil to describe the human nature which compose the premise of his "nature-becoming" theory. The "nature-becoming" theory is not only a theory of the moral cultivation and art, but also a political ideal and national view. In Wang's view the given nature of the people is not perfect and need be modified and supplemented through the way of the Confucian etiquette and music and eventually can "nature-becoming" and "nature-acquirement" and this mission becomes the end of the emperor,government and nation. The nation should be evaluated by this end and the good government,nation,society should be the one which can realize the "nature-becoming" and this realization will be the basic element of the legitimate and rationality of the nation.Wang's point "beginning-with-Shu" means that the emperor should clear the directed thought of the country before we govern the country. Wang criticized that Li Shi-Ming did not know the deeper truth and insisted everything we should take YAO and SHUN as our example. This insistence shows that Wang's choice is the latter and the end of his reformation is not the richness and strangeness of the country, instead the end is to revival of the ideal of the Three-Dynasties. The SHU of his choice is of Confucianism and his reformation is under the direction of the ideal of the Confucianism. Wang thought the first need of his government was to change the social consume and his policy should concern on the constitution of the moral consume and reformation of the people's moral life. This concern embodied the basic character of the Confucian's political thought. Wang's "making law" is absolutely not the meaning of criminal law, but means the reconstitution of the Three Dynasties'constitution including the education system. The financial policy of Wang wants to solve the problem of people's well-being, and further to realize the benevolent government, ie. the political of the Three-Dynasties.Wang's financial policy served his idea which means that to rich the people is the foundation of people's moral improving, the foundation of the benevolent government, the start point of his realization of his ideal of the Three Dynasties.The core of the Confucianism's discrimination between righteousness and profits is the discrimination of the principle which guides human action. The profit means the subject's private benefit. On the aspect of individual's rule, undoubtedly Wang insisted the traditional Confucianism spirit which consists that the principle we should take will be the principle of righteousness, and not the contrary to take the benefit to be the first principle. Meanwhile when Wang managed the international relationship he insisted the opposition way. He suggested the emperor that the nation should take account the benefit first and the principle of the nation's behavior should follow the benefits of the nation. This account shows his aspect of realism as a politician. The most remarkable character of Wang's theory, contrasted with Confucius,Mencius Cheng Hao,Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi is that his recognition to the justice of distribution.The Mencius's difference between forced government and benevolent government has two aspects:the first is the distinction between the means of the force and of the moral, the second is between the nature,embodying and the using. The latter one is the distinction of the emperor's first intention,the mind's tactic and between the sincerity and hypocrite. On the aspect of the emperor's mind tactic we can see that there is no difference between Wang and Cheng Hao,Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi. But we cannot find any sign which show"the distinction between the means of the force and of the moral" exist in Wang's theory of the difference between forced government and benevolent government. Wang preferred to using the principle of the force, instead the principle of moral, to deal with the international relationship, which is absolutely a principle of power and is the biggest difference between Wang and Mencius,Cheng and Zhu's theory of the difference between forced government and benevolent government. This difference manifests his political realism.The "Theory of disaster task divisions" in Chinese history functioned as a restriction to the absolute power of the emperor through the authority of Heaven. The negation to this thought means the negation to the authority of Heaven and release the absolute power of the emperor unrestricted. The thought on the power of the emperor in Wang's system shows a general limitation and restriction and we can see that Wang want to restrict the emperor's power through the authority of Heaven. In the discourse of Wang we cannot see the possibility of raising the claim of "without fear of disaster" and we can conclude that he cannot give a suggestion like that to the emperor and in his system there is not such argument.Although Wang had the same ideal and goal with Zhang Zai,Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi, the understandings to the ideal of the Three Dynasties are different. In Zhang Zai's thought the Three Dynasties is a society in which the people can be only educated by the Confucianism's doctrine from child and every person should be a non-private and non-self sage, from this foundation the society should be a peaceful society generation after generation. Zhang Zai's ideal of "people are my brothers and all things are my kinds" and "the realm of Great Harmony" founded on his theory of "Heaven" and "TAI XU". Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi had the similar position with Zhang and embodied in their ideal of "the realm of Great Harmony". Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi's theory of "Li" and'Nature" is the foundation of their Three Dynasties ideal and to some extend is their argument for this ideal. But clearly we cannot find such idea and the theory foundation prepared for such ideal from Wang's thought, although they are all Confucianism idealist.