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Two Rival Interpretations of Xunzi's Views on the Basis of Morality
Author(s) -
Slater Michael R.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
journal of religious ethics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.306
H-Index - 20
eISSN - 1467-9795
pISSN - 0384-9694
DOI - 10.1111/jore.12181
Subject(s) - interpretation (philosophy) , morality , scrutiny , philosophy , epistemology , normative , order (exchange) , heaven , omnipresence , theology , linguistics , finance , economics
This essay examines the textual evidence and arguments for two rival ways of interpreting Xunzi's accounts of the origins and normative bases of ritual and the Way: a human‐centered line of interpretation which maintains that the moral order constituted by the Confucian Way and its ritual tradition was the artificial creation of a group of ancient sages, and a Heaven‐centered line of interpretation which maintains, in contrast, that those same sages based the Confucian Way and its ritual tradition on a cosmic moral order that they discovered already existing in the world. It argues that the weight of textual evidence best supports a version of the former view, and shows that three representative versions of the latter view do not withstand critical scrutiny.