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Law and ritual in Chinese Philosophy

Law and Ritual, two important aspects in Chinese culture an its history, have been playing a role of assistance and opponent. In Chinese history, there were many cases and situations that the ritual helped and improved the development of the natural law, and the law, on the other hand, greatly influenced the tradition of ritual.

Though with many remarkable historical researches, the two parts of the topic, which are Law and Ritual, still independently exist on Wikipedia, in association with being intentionally or non-intentionally introduced and considered independently. (see the individual topic: Ritual and Law in wikipedia). There are many classes in Chinese history that had different perspectives on the ritual and law, so that many definitions and interpretations of ritual in researches or academic materials have been continuously introduced.

The potential connection between ritual and law could be found by evaluating the relationships between ritual and law. Relationships depend on one question: which one plays the dominant role, and in the way, two comprehensive relationships between ritual and law are: ritual below law, and law constructed by ritual. Historical cases, events, and situations would be introduced to explain and analyse why and how it worked like that.

And after relationships were figured out, remarks from different classed in Chinese history would also be introduced.

Law and ritual in Chinese Philosophy

Language	English
Subject	Philosophy
Publication place	China

Influence

Ritual and law have always been influencing Chinese people and their lifestyle and habits time to time and sometimes, they even shaped and ruled the specific habits. Eating, drinking tea/alcohol, napping, and entertainment(including music(as known as karaoke in China) were formed and shaped by ritual.

Eating

Eating is considered the most important thing in China, and "Communal eating is the most important ritual in China". Cafeterias could be found in every school in China, from primary schools to junior high schools to high school, and to universities and colleges. Even some of the company have their own "staff canteen" as well. And the table for meals would be a round one at most times, where a thin and rotatable glass would be placed so that any one could rotate the glass to change the layout of the dishes. And in ancient China, the economy system was always the Natural Economy, where farmers played the major part so that qualified and enough food could be ordered.

Drinking

Drinking tea

As drinking is also another important human activity, drinking tea is probably the first ritual observed in the law office today. What is more interesting is drinking alcohol, especially in modern China.

Drinking alcohol

And drinking alcohol could be found across China, people may drink alcohol at lunch or dinner, or even before going to sleep. Frequency of drinking alcohol reaches its maximum when people are socializing with each other and when they people spend holidays with their families especially on the New Year. And there are three dominant rituals in drinking alcohol are serving alcohol (jingjiu), receiving alcohol(jiejiu), and persuading alcohol(quanjiu). Serving alcohol(jingjiu) and receiving alcohol(jiejiu) have their own rules, which usually happens from junior/adults to senior citizens and employees to employers. There are certain rules as well: when juniors/adults/employees serve alcohol to senior citizens/employers, servers should stand up and consume the whole cup(in some area, servers should hold the cup with both hands). When receiving alcohol, if it is from subordinate or the young, receivers could just remain seated and drink however they want, whereas if it is from senior citizens or employers, one should follow the same protocol as serving alcohol as a way of showing respects. And persuading alcohol(quanjiu) usually happens among peers by persuading peers to drink more.

Interactions Between Ritual and Law

Law Constructed by Ritual

When it comes to the establishment of law or justice, the ritual is definitely cornerstone. Law, on the other hand, in some extent, seems overpasses ritual. Though this relationship seems so complicated that it was unlikely to find a standard that could exactly evaluate which one shapes the other one, examples in Chinese history that represented this “unbalanced” relationship could be listed many. One example explaining this relationship was found in the Mencius.

"Mencius said, ‘When Tang dwelled in Bo, his territory was adjacent to Ge. The Lord of Ge was dissolute and did not perform sacrifices. Tang sent a messenger to inquire about this. He said, ‘Why do you not perform sacrifices?’ The Lord of Ge said, ‘I have no way of obtaining sacrificial animals.’ Tang had oxen and sheep sent to him. The Lord of Ge ate them and still, he did not perform sacrifices. Tang again sent a messenger to inquire, ‘Why do you not perform sacrifices?’ The Lord of Ge replied, ‘I have no way of obtaining millet.’ Tang sent the people of Bo to help with the plowing and had the elderly and the young bring gifts of food. The Lord of Ge led his people out to intercept those who were bringing the wine and food, millet and rice, seizing the gifts and killing those who did not hand them over. There was a boy who was bearing provisions of millet and meat; he was killed and his present was seized. When the Classic of Documents says, ‘The Lord of Ge was an enemy to the provision-bearers,’ it refers to this.’"

This story is a typical one that ritual was applied as a tool of social justice for rulers to establish their reputations or find an excuse to conquer another state. In the story, the reason “Lord of Ge” was punished is he ignored, despised, and even deprived the ritual(tradition). At that time, sacrifices should be made periodically and quantitatively, where he neither had his own ability to produce the number of goods to sacrifice, nor properly utilized the help from another state, and even privately consumed this to fulfill his own life. Another example about how ritual became a tool of law recorded in Confucian political philosophy.

“In Confucian political philosophy, it is more important to have virtuous people in government than to have a good system of laws. While every aspect of life is to be guided by Li(ritual), which exemplifies the appropriate forms of all civilized behavior, including but not limited to ethical behavior, law is at best necessary evils. At their worst, laws undermine efforts at achieving a polity of virtuous people.”

In the narrative above, the influence of ritual was extraordinarily and even emotionally. expressed. Words like “evils” were placed in order to enhance the inner connection between the ritual and law.

Ritual below Law

Though, as described above, the law is based on the ritual, but there was a great deal of circumstances under which ritual outweighed law. And these situations always come by different interpretations of ritual at different times. Ritual had never failed to be dominant in Chinese history, and an example of this could be also found in the Mencius.

“Chunyu Kun said, “Is it a matter of ritual propriety that, in giving and receiving things, men and women should not touch one another?”

Mencius said,  “This is according to ritual.”

“If one’s sister-in-law is drowning, may one save her with his hand?”

“If one’s sister-in-law were drowning and one did not save her, one would be a wolf. For men and women, in giving and receiving, not to touch one another is according to ritual. To save a sister-in-law from drowning by using one’s hand is a matter of expedience.”

“Now the whole world is drowning, and yet you do not save it. Why is this?”

“When the world is drowning, one saves it through the Way. If one’s sister-in-law is drowning, one saves her with one’s hand. Would you like me to save the world with my hand?”

As is shown above, the dialogue was a debate about whether the ritual is applicable in all situations, where Mencius also agreed that in some situations, the human should act by ritual, not by law.  

Genre

Different Genre in Chinese history, including Confucianism, Xun-zi and so on, had different understanding and interpretations on the ritual and law respectively, but what is the consensus is that they all admitted that there is and will be a relationship between the ritual and the law. This section would only focus on the most famous one which is Confucianism.

Confucianism

The term "T'ien"

The first order of business is terminological. The English word "Heaven" translates the Chinese term "t'ien", and the translation is elegant because both words can denote a deity and also the sky. But just because the translation is so fortuitous, it may have obscured the fact that we know very little about what "t'ien" meant in early China.

The pre-Confucian history of the term "t'ien" is marked by some of the same sorts of ambiguity we encountered in the Confucian text. In time, the word came to denote a complex of overlapping concepts. As far back as the twelfth century, the philosopher Chu His tried to organise this complex by analysing T'ien into three distinct aspects: T'ien as Ruler or God; T'ien as Ethical Law; T'ien as Nature. And the emperors in Ancient Chinese were also call "T'ien Zi"(The son of T'ien), where their actions were regarded as the willing of T'ien so that emperors were empowered.

The Justice and Injustice of T'ien

The Justice

There is evidence that the Chinese did not treat the law as merely a tool of oppresive government even in the pre-Qin period.Confucians often cite the law of ancient kings to criticise the existing practices of rules.The Legalist Shang Yang's insistence on meting out punishment when the crown prince of Qin broke a law is in the direction of turning laws into tools that could be wielded against, as well as for, the ruling class.Though not commonly practiced, the Chinese, including many Confucians over the centuries, have had the ideal that when the "son of heaven" breaks a law, he should be punished in the same way as the common people. In the seventeenth century, the Confucian Huang Zongxi, contrary to the earlier Confucian view, asserted that only if there is "rule by law" can there be "rule by men". He used the "higher law" of the early kings cited by Confucius and Mencius to criticise positive dynastic laws and conceived of the former law as higher than the state or rulers.Randall Peerenboom argues that the Huang-lao thought of the pre-Qin and Han pe- riods subscribes to a natural-law theory that sees a necessary relationship between law and ritual. If laws were not always perceived as immoral or at best amoral instruments of arbitrary despotic rule, then fa and li in early Chinese politics may not have been as far apart as some Confucians believe.

The Injustice

When the Chou founders made their claim that the conquest of the Shang was by the grace of T'ien, the power of their assertion rested on the established authority of T'ien as a religioud figure. The evidence, however, that during the Westen Chou, the notion of T'ie as the benevolent god of state may have existed side by side with popular agricultural traditions, most likely very old, which cast T'ien as the unpredictable ruler of the sky, whose whose whims were as likely to be malevolent as otherwise.

Challenges in contemporary China

However, contemporary Confucianism in China has been under attack by Marxist philosophers for decades as being mired in a feudal social theory. The deep themes that Confucianism needs to develop in a contemporary social theory are humaneness(ren) and ritual propriety(li). The importance of these themes makes it impossible for Confucianism to adopt the discourses of the two most important families of social theory.

Reference

Ivanhoe, P. J. (Ed.). (2011). Mencius. Columbia University Press.

Szto, M. (2014). Chinese Ritual and the Practice of Law. Touro L. Rev., 30, 103.

Tan, S. H. (2011). The dao of politics: Li (rituals/rites) and laws as pragmatic tools of government. Philosophy East and West, 468-491.

Nakajima. Ritual and Justice in Chinese Philosophy

Shih, H. (1953). The natural law in the Chinese tradition. Nat. L. Inst. Proc., 5, 117.

Eno, R. (1990). Confucian Creation of Heaven, The: Philosophy and the Defense of Ritual Mastery. SUNY Press.

PAPER, JORDAN (1995). THE SPIRITS ARE DRUNK: COMPARATIVE APPROACHES TO CHINESE RELIGION. p. 49.

Knoblock, J. (1988). Xunzi: A translation and study of the complete works (Vol. 1). Stanford University Press.

Neville, Robert Cummings (2008-06-13). Ritual and Deference: Extending Chinese Philosophy in a Comparative Context. SUNY Press.

Duyvendak, J. J. L. (1928). The Book of Lord Shang Probsthain. pp. 778–779.

Huang, Zongxi (1993). Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince.

Peerenboom, R. P. (1995-01-01). Law and Morality in Ancient China: The Silk Manuscripts of Huang-Lao. SUNY Press