CHAPTER 1

What Is Political Authority?

In this and the following chapters, I shall attempt to develop a Confucian conceptionof political authority by answering a number of questions, namely:What is political authority? What are its purposes? How can it be justified? Dopeople who are ruled play any role in the justification? What scope of authorityshould a state or government have? What institutional structure of authorityshould a state adopt? Viewed together, the answers to these questions will formthe backbone of a theory of political authority. Although the texts of early Confucianthinkers do not outline anything close to a systematic theory of politicalauthority, they share similar core ideas and views that can be reconstructed anddeveloped into a more or less coherent perspective. My aim is to expound thisperspective and assess its philosophical plausibility.

This chapter deals with the first four questions of authority—its nature, itspurposes, its justifications, and the role of the people in these justifications. Itdevelops a perfectionist perspective that takes the well-being of the people andtheir willing acceptance of political rule as fundamental to the legitimacy ofpolitical authority. In the first section I start with the Western Zhou dynastyconception of Heaven's Mandate (tianming), which says that the right to rule isbased on Heaven's Mandate. I reject two interpretations that treat the rightbestowed by Heaven as a dominium or ownership right. The second sectionargues that for early Confucians, political authority exists for the benefit of thegoverned and is justified by its ability to protect and promote the people's wellbeing.I call this view of authority the service conception and explain its mainfeatures and implications. The third section argues that according to the serviceconception, political rights are justified instrumentally by the contribution theymake to the betterment of people's lives, and thus no persons, be they rulers orthe people, have any natural political right to rule. I defend this view of politicalrights and point out problems with the opposing idea of popular sovereignty.The fourth section argues that early Confucianism also contains a noninstrumentaljustification of authority, in the sense that an authoritative political relationis constituted in part by the people's willing acceptance of and compliancewith the political rule. The final section integrates the instrumental and constitutiveaspects of political authority by developing a perfectionist approach andlaying out the approach's key features. This approach, as we shall see in chapters3 and 4, plays a critical role in my strategy to relate the Confucian ideal todemocratic political institutions.

The Dominium Conception

Political authority is taken here in a normative sense, namely, as a legitimateright to rule at the highest level within a jurisdiction. What is the source ofpolitical authority for early Confucians? The best starting point is the idea oftianming, arguably the single most important political idea of the WesternZhou period and one that shaped the subsequent political thinking of the entiretraditional Chinese political thought. The term tianming expresses the notionthat the right to rule is based on Heaven's Mandate. In The Book of History(Shang shu), the Duke of Zhou frequently invokes this idea to justify his country'srevolt against the Shang regime. This shows that the people in Zhou alreadyknew the distinction between sheer might and legitimate authority torule. Might was thought to be necessary for authority, but it was Heaven's Mandatethat ultimately conferred legitimacy on rulership.

However, what does political authority or the right to rule amount to? Whatrights and duties are associated with political authority in this theory of Heaven'sMandate? There seems to be textual support for two interpretations of tianming—theownership interpretation and the democratic rights interpretation—and scholars have argued for both interpretations. The first interpretationsays that Heaven bestows on the chosen ruler an ownership right to the peopleand land over which the ruler rules. The second interpretation holds an oppositeview, namely, that Heaven bestows a fundamental moral right to rule to thepeople themselves, with the right to own the territory in which they live. Thesetwo incompatible interpretations, however, share the same conception of politicalauthority (or sovereignty) as an entitlement of dominium or ownership.They differ only in the identity of the dominus or owner—that is, whether thoseentitled to political authority are the rulers or the people. On this dominiumconception, political authority is something that can be owned and passed on,and it contains entitlements to resources within the jurisdiction of the dominus.Since an examination of these two interpretations requires detailed textualanalyses that might detract from the thrust of the overall argument in thischapter, I shall only state the main conclusions of this examination here andleave the exegetical arguments to appendix 2. I argue there that early Confucianismdoes not endorse the dominium conception of political authority,whether the dominium is vested in a person or a people. Political authority, orthe right to rule, according to the Confucian view, does not contain any ownershipclaim over the people, land, or authority itself. It is not a dominium but animperium—that is, the legitimate right to govern within a jurisdiction. When aruler is said to have received Heaven's Mandate, it is this right to rule that he hasreceived. This right is no more than the power to make and implement laws andpolicies within a certain territorial jurisdiction and is conditional on the abilityof the ruler to protect and promote the people's well-being. Political authorityexists for this purpose, and its justification depends on its ability to serve thispurpose well. In appendix 2 I also argue that early Confucian texts, especiallyMencius, do not take the people as the natural dominus—the people do notpossess any natural fundamental right to rule. The democratic idea of popularsovereignty cannot be found in the texts. While the conclusions of my analysisin appendix 2 are primarily about what Confucianism is not, they also pointtoward a highly interesting, albeit rudimentary, alternative conception of politicalauthority. The rest of this chapter is devoted to a further analysis anddevelopment of this conception.

The Service Conception

The Zhou dynasty concept of Heaven's Mandate says that Heaven gave the rightto rule to the Zhou dynasty in order that the people could receive proper protectionunder its authority. And it is the protection of the people that is also thekey condition for Zhou being able to keep the mandate. A similar idea can befound in a passage of a lost chapter of The Book of History, which is quoted inMencius: "The Book of History says, 'Heaven populated the earth below, madethe people a lord, and made him their teacher, that he might assist Heaven inloving them'" (1B.3). Zhou's idea that the purpose of tianming is to protect thepeople has been further developed in later periods, for example, in this well-knownpassage by Mencius which states that the people are more importantthan the ruler: "The people are of supreme importance; the altars to the gods ofearth and grain come next; last comes the ruler" (Mencius 7B.14), and in Xunzi'soften cited idea that "Heaven did not create the people for the sake of thelord; Heaven established the lord for the sake of the people." Xunzi writes,

Heaven did not create the people for the sake of the lord; Heaven establishedthe lord for the sake of the people. Hence, in antiquity land was not grantedin fiefs of ranked sizes just to give honored position to the feudal lords andfor no other purpose. Offices and ranks were not arranged in hierarchicalorder and provided with suitable titles and emoluments just to give honoredstatus to the grand officers and for no other purpose. (Xunzi 27.68)

If we combine the ideas of these two thinkers, we have the following view ofpolitical authority: the people have independent worth (Mencius), and the authorityof the ruler and all other officials is an instrument to serve them (Xunzi).Borrowing a term from the contemporary British legal and political philosopherJoseph Raz, I shall call this combined idea the "service conception" ofpolitical authority. The service conception states that the point of setting uppolitical authority, and more generally a regime, is to serve the ruled, who haveworth in themselves. Political offices of all levels—along with the associatedpower, status, and emoluments—are created to benefit the ruled rather than theofficeholders themselves.

The Confucian service conception of authority has several important implicationsthat are worth exploring here. First, there are two hierarchies in theruler-ruled relationship as understood by this conception. One is the hierarchyof power—the ruler rules while the ruled respects and obeys. However, there isalso a more fundamental hierarchy of value or worth. The service conceptionstates that the people—the ruled—have worth independent of the ruler-ruledrelationship, whereas the ruler's worth is only derivative. Of course, we need todistinguish between the ruler as an office and the ruler as a person holding theoffice. The service conception states that the office's value is entirely instrumentalto, or derived from, the worth of the people, and the features of the office—thepower, respect, and emolument that come with it—are justified ultimatelywith reference to its instrumental function. But the service conception does notdeny that the person holding that office has independent worth, who may indeedhave great worth if he possesses superior abilities and virtues to effectivelydischarge his office. It also does not deny that the ruler (rather than the office)should develop a noninstrumental, ethical relationship with the ruled—a pointI shall develop later in this chapter.

Second, the service conception is clearly in opposition to the ownershipinterpretation of tianming, namely, that tianming grants the ruler an ownershipright to the land and people. The service conception not only rejects thisbut also affirms the instrumentality of political authority, namely, that politicalauthority serves the interests of the people (in today's terms, the public interestor common good) rather than the private interests of the ruler. A similar notionthat appears in Shuo yuan states that Heaven establishes rulership for thesake of the people and not for the sake of the position itself; if the ruler governsfor his private interests (si yu) and not for the interests of others, he has failedto act according to Heaven's decree and has forgotten what it truly means to bea ruler.

Third, according to the service conception, the raison d'être of political authority—toserve the people—is also the very basis for Heaven's Mandate andhence the ruler's legitimacy. The following passage from Chun qiu fan lu expoundsXunzi's idea and explicitly links the ruler's service to the people to thebasis of Heaven's Mandate: "If a person's virtue is sufficient to ensure peace andcontentment for the people, Heaven will give its mandate to him to govern, butif the vice of a serving ruler is sufficient to seriously harm the people, Heavenwill take away the mandate from him." This apparently religious justification oflegitimacy has a thoroughly worldly character—what ultimately matters is thewell-being of the people and whether they are well served by the ruler. It isimportant to note that although this justification of authority is instrumentaland consequentialist, it is not the maximizing form of consequentialism. Thepassage does not imply that if a serving ruler is less than perfect in terms ofvirtue and competence, we must keep searching for a better one. It implies thatthe criterion for legitimacy is one of sufficiency—a ruler should possess sufficientvirtues and abilities (which should be reflected by a good track record)—andthat any vices demonstrated by a ruler must be serious enough to significantlyharm the people's interests in order for him to be removed. This makesgood political sense as continuity and stability are fundamentally important inpolitics and constant changes of leadership only cause confusion and undermineeffective governance. This point also has important bearing upon theevaluation of regime types, especially the principle of monarchical heredity, asI discuss in appendix 2.

A Non-Rights-Based Justification

According to the service conception I have developed thus far, political authorityexists to serve the ruled, and the political rights attached to this authority arejustified instrumentally by the contribution they make to the betterment ofpeople's lives. These political rights are not fundamental moral rights that belongto individuals but are more on a par with the rights of officials such as thepolice, who have rights because their proper exercise of them can protect andpromote the well-being of the people. Theoretically one could extend this viewto a general view about all political rights, a view that is not articulated in Confucianismbut which can be regarded as a natural extension of, or at least fullycompatible with, its core political ideas. The general view is that the distributionof political rights or powers, and the institutional form that these rights orpowers take, should be evaluated by the service conception. A person possessingpolitical rights or a share in an institution of political authority must havethis possession justified by reference to the good of the people. In this sensethere is no natural right to political power as such. There is no natural rulerwhose right requires no justification with regard to the interests or needs ofother people.

But this idea applies even to the governed insofar as they also possess certainpolitical rights. When the ruled take turns to rule (as in classical Athens), orwhen citizens cast votes to elect their leaders (as in a democracy), they are sharingin and exercising political power and are therefore actively engaging in theact of ruling. However small the portion of power an individual citizen possesses,the aggregate effects of their individual powers can be tremendous. Collectively,citizens assert a great deal of influence on the choice of rulers, themaking of laws and policies, and hence the livelihood of the people. There is agreat deal of truth in what the American judge Louis Brandeis said: in a democracy,the most important office is the office of citizen. Because citizenship is aform of political office, it too needs to be justified according to the service conception.It is necessary to ask whether such an institutional arrangement servesthe well-being of the people. There is no natural citizenship just as there is nonatural rulership. It is important to note that this view is not a rejection ofdemocracy as a set of political institutions but a rejection of a certain way ofjustifying democracy, one that appeals to a fundamental moral right of politicalparticipation or sovereign rule of the people. Rejecting such a rights-based justificationof democracy is entirely compatible with justifying democracy instrumentallyas a means of achieving certain goods, such as the protection andpromotion of the people's well-being. Whether Confucianism would find anyinstrumental justification of democracy compelling will be discussed in chapters3 and 4.

The service conception affirms the primacy of the people, not in terms oftheir political rights, but in terms of their worth. Political rights, whether thoseof the rulers or those of the ruled, are justified by the fact that they promote thewell-being of the people. One may question whether this service conception isdefective as a normative vision precisely because it does not recognize the politicalrights of citizens as being fundamental natural or moral rights (which areoften expressed in terms of the notion of popular sovereignty, i.e., that the peoplecollectively are the ultimate source of political authority and laws). As Iargue in appendix 2, Confucianism does not recognize this notion of popularsovereignty. So the question we need to ask is this: From a normative perspective,should Confucianism endorse and incorporate a notion of popular sovereigntyeven if traditionally it does not have one? If people today no longer thinkthat ultimate authority or sovereignty belongs to the ruler, should it thereforebelong to the people instead? One could go further and argue that the Confucianservice conception of political authority can be best explained by the morefundamental notion of popular sovereignty. The conception holds that politicalauthority exists to serve the people and is justified according to the extent thatit does so. An intuitive rationale for this conception is precisely that becausepolitical authority ultimately belongs to the people, they can legitimately expectauthority to be held and exercised in such a way as to bring them benefit, in thesame way a piece of property is used to benefit its owner.