!"#$%&'(!)%*+,%-$(.+//%**00 Roger!T.!Ames Brian Bruya Chen Xunwu! Chi Zhen! Jason Clower Benjamin Coles Ding Zijiang Gu Danke! Huang Chun-chieh Huang Yong Wolfgang Kubin Li Xuetao! Lin Wei!! Liu Jeeloo Ma Shikui! University of Hawai'i, USA Eastern Michigan University, USA University of Texas at San Antonio, USA Shanghai Academy of Social Science California State University, Chico, USA Renming University of China! California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, USA Jiangsu University of Technology! National Taiwan University The Chinese University of Hong Kong University of Bonn, Germany Beijing Foreign Studies University!! Jinan University!!! California State University at Fullerton, USA! Minzu University of China Joshua Mason Ni Peimin Peng Fasheng Peng Ping Shi Zhikang Misha Tadd Tong Xiaohua Tu Wei-ming Wang Hong Wang Hongyin! Wang Keyou Wen Haiming! Xin Hongjuan Zhang Longxi Zhu Yuan Zhuo Zhenying West Chester University of Pennsylvania, USA Grand Valley State University, USA Hefei University of Technology Beijing Foreign Studies University! Shanghai International Studies University Peking University Central Compilation & Translation Bureau Harvard University, USA Soochow University Nankai University Shandong University Renming University of China! Ningbo University City University of Hong Kong Renming University of China! Zhejiang Normal University 1)2%&+,3(4+-,) (in alphabetical order of surnames) Roger T. Ames Bai Huawen! Cai Renhou Chen Lai Chen Lüsheng Chen Zuwu Cheng Chung-ying Ding Weixiang! Dong Ping Fang Zhaohui Gan Chunsong Guo Qiyong Huang Chin-hsing Huang Chun-chieh Huang Yong Tomohisa Ikeda! Jing Haifeng Wolfgang Kubin Lai Yonghai Li Xueqin Li Xuetao Li Zehou Liang Heng Liang Tao Liao Kebin Liu Jiahe Liu Mengxi Lou Yulie Mou Zhongjian Ni Peimin University of Hawai'i, USA Peking University!!!! Tunghai University Tsinghua University National Museum of China Chinese Academy of Social Sciences University of Hawai'i, USA Shaanxi Normal University Zhejiang University Tsinghua University Peking University Wuhan University Academia Sinica National Taiwan University The Chinese University of Hong Kong The University of Tokyo, Japan Shenzhen University University of Bonn, Germany Nanjing University Tsinghua University Beijing Foreign Studies University Chinese Academy of Social Sciences! People's Daily Renmin University of China Peking University! Beijing Normal University Chinese National Academy of Arts! Peking University Minzu University of China Grand Valley State University, USA Ouyang Zhenren Peng Lin Qian Ming Shan Chun Shen Qingsong Shu Dagang Tang Enjia Tu Wei-ming Wang Bo Wang Daming Wang Erh-min Wen Haiming Wu Genyou Wu Guang Wu Zhen Xie Maosong Xu Qi Yan Binggang Yang Guorong Yang Sung-moo Yao Xinzhong Yu Ronggen Yuan Xingpei Zhan Shichuang Zhang Liwen Zhang Longxi Zhang Xinmin Zhao Yufei Zhou Zhijiang Zhu Hanmin Wuhan University Tsinghua University Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences China University of Political Science and Law University of Toronto, Canada Sichuan University The Confucian Academy of Hong Kong Harvard University, USA Peking University Guizhou Foundation for Confucianism Promotion Academia Sinica Renmin University of China Wuhan University Zhejiang Academy of Social Sciences Fudan University The Central Institute of Socialism Confucius Academy of Guiyang Shandong University East China Normal University Chung-Ang University of Korea, S. Korea Renmin University of China Southwest University of Political Science and Law Peking University Sichuan University Renmin University of China City University of Hong Kong Guizhou University Guizhou Daily Confucius Academy of Guiyang Hunan University 89 A Confucian Slippery Slope Argument Michael Harrington Abstract: ! e Song and Ming dynasty Confucians make frequent use of what would today be identi" ed as a slippery slope argument. ! e Book of Changes and its early commentaries provide both the language and the rationale for this argument, inasmuch as the Confucians regard these texts as a method for identifying tiny problems that will one day threaten the state. While today the slippery slope argument is often criticized for promoting an unreasoned resistance to change, a close look at its use by Confucians reveals that they largely avoid this criticism, using the argument in a reasoned way to target not change, but excess. Keywords: slippery slope argument, hairsbreadth argument, Mozi, Yang Zhu, Cheng Hao, Buddhists, Wang Yangming, Zhu Xi Diviners have no reason to fear the slippery slope argument. When coins are flipped or yarrow stalks drawn from a pile to identify a hexagram from the Book of Changes [ ], and the diviner uses this hexagram to predict a future state of affairs, the strength of the prediction has little if anything to do with an argument. ! ose philosophers and political leaders who rely on the Book of Changes as a work of political philosophy rather than as a tool for divination have more to fear from the way it shapes their arguments about the future of the state. To use the book's hexagrams in identifying an imbalance of forces in a given state, and to show how this imbalance will step by step lead to catastrophe in the future, is to employ all the components of what is now called a slippery slope argument. The Song (960–1279) and Ming dynasty (1368–1644) Confucians who enthusiastically promoted the Book of Changes as a work of political philosophy did not use the metaphor of the slippery slope, but they occasionally used a comparable image derived from an early commentary: a hairsbreadth mistake in direction that leads one to go a thousand miles o# course. An analysis of this image in the work of Song and Ming dynasty Confucians will reveal a close cousin of the slippery slope argument that is distinctively Confucian, and which I will refer to simply as the hairsbreadth argument. ! ough the components of the argument vary slightly from author to author, it can be shown to have a single recognizable structure, and suggests the in$ uence of the Book of Changes on Confucian argument even outside the commentary tradition. Michael Harrington is Associate Professor of the Philosophy Department at Duquesne University, Pennsylvania, USA. E-mail: harringtonm@duq.edu 90 ! e Hairsbreadth Argument [Refer to page 78 for Chinese. Similarly hereina% er] ! e Book of Rites [ ] is the " rst extant text to employ the claim that a hairsbreadth mistake will result in going a thousand miles off course.1 It does not purport to be the origin of this claim, but attributes it to the Book of Changes. ! e claim does not, however, appear in the Book of Changes itself or in any of the early commentaries known as the ten wings. ! e earliest extant commentary to contain it is the ! orough Examination of the Hexagrams [ ], one of the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) commentaries that became known as the "we% of the Changes" [ ].2 ! e text of this commentary says that "if you make the root straightforward, then the ten thousand things will be principled, but if you err by a hundredth of a hairsbreadth, you will stray by a thousand miles." ! e commentary on the ! orough Examination attributed to Zheng Xuan (127–200) uses slightly di# erent wording to make the claim, as do the many Confucians who employ it over the course of the Song and Ming dynasties, but these variations do nothing to change its meaning, and so I will not address them here. Taken by itself, the expression is patently untrue. Sometimes we can make a small mistake without expecting that it will lead to enormous and terrible consequences. ! at is, we can sometimes err by a hundredth of a hairsbreadth and " nd that we have done exactly a hundredth of a hairsbreadth's worth of damage. ! e ! orough Examination, however, is not discussing any and all mistakes, but only those that concern the "root." ! e speci" c root that concerns the text is the structure of the cosmos that manifests itself over time in the progression of the seasons and the calendar, but the Confucians who borrow the hairsbreadth argument from this text are concerned with causality more generally. ! e metaphor of the root refers to a cause, and not the cause of one thing but of many things, since the single root is the cause of many branches. An error in the root will then be multiplied in all the branches that stem from it. ! ose who deal only with the branches have no reason to fear such broad consequences. The branch is not a cause, but an effect, and so a mistake here will not be passed on to or rami" ed in anything further. Both a mistake in the root and one that is the size of a hairsbreadth are not easy to see, but they gradually produce highly visible consequences: the mistake in the root produces the large and visible mistake in the branches, and the hairsbreadth mistake produces the thousand-mile wandering o# course. When I refer to the hairsbreadth argument in the remainder of this paper, I do not mean that a fully formed argument with clearly identified premises and conclusion is presented in the text I am addressing. ! e slippery slope argument in the West is likewise o% en indicated with stock expressions, and the developing of a complete argument is le% to the reader. Frederick Schauer, for instance, develops a rich variety of sources for the slippery slope argument in legal cases simply by doing a LEXIS search for stock expressions such as "the camel's nose is in the tent," "a foot in the door," and "the thin edge of the wedge."3 ! ere has been some debate in recent years about what is required to develop such a stock expression into a complete slippery slope argument. ! ere is no question that the slippery slope argument is an argument from negative consequences, but it is almost always de" ned by further criteria. ! e argument that "if such-and-such occurs, then something bad will follow from it" is broad and does not illuminate anything speci" c to the slippery slope.4 A 1 Chap. 9 of "Jing jie" [ ], in the Book of Rites. 2 On the Yijing apocrypha, see Richard J. Smith, Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World (Charlottesville and London: University of Virginia Press, 2008), 77–82. 3 Frederick Schauer, "Slippery Slopes," Harvard Law Review 99, no. 2 (1985): 362. 4 Hugh LaFollette di# erentiates the slippery slope from other negative consequentialist arguments, though he notes that Eugene Volokh does not. See Hugh LaFollette, "Living on a Slippery Slope," ! e Journal of Ethics 9, (2005): 477. Eugene Volokh, "! e Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope," Harvard Law Review 116, (2003): 1026–1134. C&'()*+,' A*,-./0 V&1.2, N&.3 (2017) 91 narrower category of argument that is slippery enough to have appeared in explanations of the slippery slope proceeds as follows: "if you do such-and-such for a certain reason, and that reason also justi" es doing something bad, then you should not do such-and-such, even though it does not seem bad on its own." Since this argument does not warn of a gradual worsening, it has been described as a consistency argument rather than a slippery slope.5 If I accept the line of reasoning when it leads to the " rst action, it would be inconsistent of me not to allow the second action as well, based as it is on the same course of reasoning. If I reject the second action, then for consistency's sake I also ought to give up the " rst. ! e consistency argument can be changed into a slippery slope argument by specifying that the first case is unobjectionable, but the second is more objectionable, and a third still more objectionable. ! is is the distinctive feature of the slippery slope as it currently appears in a sampling of recent philosophical books and articles: it involves a series of steps, beginning with a small or seemingly innocuous one. Douglas Walton, for instance, considers the slippery slope to be an argument composed of this feature-the argument from gradualism-combined with the broader argument from consequences.6 Schauer frames the argument in the following way: "a particular act, seemingly innocuous when taken in isolation, may yet lead to a future host of similar but increasingly pernicious events."7 Hugh LaFollette's version is not signi" cantly di# erent: "if we do X, then, through a series of small analogous steps, circumstances Y will probably occur," where X is "prima facie morally permissible" and Y is "immoral."8 In what follows, I will use the term "slippery slope" only to refer to the argument as presented in the work of these authors. ! ough each of them identi" es several variations on the slippery slope argument, I will work only with the general de" nition provided above, since the hairsbreadth argument does not match any of these variations exactly. Needless to say, the hairsbreadth argument is a composite of the argument from consequences and the argument from gradualism, and so it meets Walton's criteria for the slippery slope. As an argument from consequences, it does not treat the hairsbreadth error as a problem in itself. ! e problem is its consequence: the thousand mile straying o# course. As an argument from gradualism, it does not treat the hairsbreadth error as immediately causing the thousand mile straying o# course. ! e error must slowly ramify, causing one " rst to stray a mile o# course, then two miles, and so on. The hairsbreadth argument also shares a less laudable characteristic of the slippery slope: it can be used fallaciously. ! ough the slippery slope argument is sometimes regarded as invariably fallacious, for reasons spelled out below, I will here follow Walton and Schauer in distinguishing a fallacious from a non-fallacious version. As identified by Walton, the fallacious slippery slope argument "is used as a tactic to try to suggest that you will be locked in to a series of consequences with no turning back, once you have made the initial step."9 ! ere are few contexts in which an initial step entirely determines a series of consequences. Archery is one of them-once you release the arrow with just slightly imperfect aim, there is nothing you can do to stop it from moving farther and farther o# course, until it ends 5 Wibren van der Burg concludes that this kind of argument is not a slippery slope ("! e Slippery Slope Argument," Ethics 102, no. 1 (1991): 56). LaFollette di# erentiates the slippery slope from consistency arguments, though he notes that Volokh does not ("Living on a Slippery Slope," 479). 6 Douglas Walton, Slippery Slope Arguments (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 222. 7 Schauer, "Slippery Slopes," 361–362. 8 LaFollette, "Living on a Slippery Slope," 478. 9 Walton, Van der Burg, and LaFollette argue that the slippery slope argument should be avoided altogether (Walton, Slippery Slope Arguments, 29; Van der Burg, "The Slippery Slope Argument," 65; LaFollette, "Living on a Slippery Slope," 476). A C&'()*+,' S1+44.50 S1&4. A56)/.'7 92 up far from the target. But in most contexts, many things can be done to avoid arriving at the later and more disastrous consequences in the series. The navigational context of the hairsbreadth argument is one of these-set a course toward an island on the horizon and, however imperfect your initial judgment is, you can always dip an oar in the water to correct it. Walton argues that non-fallacious slippery slope arguments "have to be just strong enough to shi% a burden of proof in a balanced dialogue."10 For instance, someone making the hairsbreadth argument to warn the navigator could note that the sun is setting, and so it will be di8 cult to make corrections to the course once the boat is in motion. Shifting the burden of proof, then, requires a sensitivity to the context in which the controversial initial step of the series will take place. As Schauer puts it, "a persuasive slippery slope argument depends for its persuasiveness upon temporally and spatially contingent empirical facts rather than (or in addition to) simple logical inference."11 This distinction between empirical facts and logical inference gives us another way to talk about the di# erence between a non-fallacious and a fallacious version of the slippery slope. A fallacious slippery slope argument treats it merely as a matter of logical inference. The problem here is that, since we do not know the future with absolute certainty, we can never be entirely sure that an apparently harmless change will not lead to an undesirable consequence, and so we can use the logical form of the argument in any prediction of a future state of a# airs. Such an approach to the slippery slope argument leads to what Schauer identi" es as "undi# erentiated risk aversion," or "a general plea for caution in the face of an uncertain future."12 This is why Glanville Williams (1911–1997) notes, in a passage cited by LaFollette among others, that it "is the trump card of the traditionalist, because no proposal for reform, however strong the argument in its favor, is immune from the wedge objection."13 Confucians have special reason to be sensitive to this critique, since they have long been caricatured as unreflective traditionalists.14 If the hairsbreadth argument of the Confucians is to avoid the problems mentioned above, it must be attentive not only to its own logical form, but to the "empirical facts," or to the context in which it is employed. Namely, it must address any factors that would prevent the initial step in the series from leading to the negative consequence down the road. I mentioned above that the first extant text to use the hairsbreadth argument is the Book of Rites. In this text, the argument serves just the kind of unre$ ective traditionalism that Williams and LaFollette warn against. ! e relevant passage in the Book of Rites begins by explaining the purpose of various rituals. In James Legge's translation, "the ceremonies at the court audiences of the different seasons were intended to illustrate the righteous relations between subject and minister; those of friendly messages and inquiries, to secure mutual honor and respect between the feudal princes."15 It goes on to mention the rituals of mourning and sacri" ce, social meetings in the country districts, and marriage. A% erward, it explains what will happen should such practices be discontinued. In the case of the rituals I quoted above, "if the ceremonies of friendly messages and court attendances 10 Walton, Slippery Slope Arguments, 14. 11 Schauer, "Slippery Slopes," 381. 12 Ibid., 376. 13 Glanville Williams, "Euthanasia Legislation: A Rejoinder to the Nonreligious Objections," in Euthanasia and the Right to Death, ed. A. B. Downing (London: Peter Owen, 1969), 143. ! is passage appears in Van der Burg, "! e Slippery Slope Argument," 42 and LaFollette, "Living on a Slippery Slope," 489. 14 For the ancient view of Confucians as unreflective traditionalists, see Mozi, "Feiru xia" [ ], 4, translated in Burton Watson, Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), 127–128. For this view in the twentieth century, see Lin Yu-sheng, ! e Crisis of Chinese Consciousness: Radical AntiTraditionalism in the May Fourth Era (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978). 15 Chap. 7 of "Jing jie," in the Book of Rites. Legge's translation may be found in vol. 28 of ! e Sacred Books of the East, ed. F. Max Müller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885), 258. C&'()*+,' A*,-./0 V&1.2, N&.3 (2017) 93 were discontinued, the positions of ruler and subject would fall into disuse, the conduct of the feudal princes would be evil, and the ruin wrought by rebellion, encroachment, and oppression would ensue." Quite a dramatic consequence! ! e text argues against abolishing any of "the old rules of propriety" on the following basis: each prevents disorder, and so removing any of them will lead to disorder. The argument here is an exceptionally tidy example of the formal fallacy known as "denying the antecedent." It assumes that, if the various rituals are the cause of order, then the absence of these rituals will cause disorder, overlooking the fact that there may be causes of order that are not rituals. This chapter, which begins simply as an argument from negative consequences, becomes a hairsbreadth argument in its conclusion. It notes that "the instructive and transforming power of ceremonies is subtle ( ); they stop depravity before it has taken form, causing men to move daily toward what is good." ! e rituals, in other words, act in a way that is too subtle to be visible, but their e# ect gradually becomes visible in the order of the state. The absence of their teaching and transformation will also begin its work in this subtle area, but its e# ect will gradually become visible in the disorder of the state. And so, "a mistake, then, of a hair's breadth, will lead to an error of a thousand li." ! e Book of Rites locates the hairsbreadth argument at the conclusion of its dubious line of reasoning, as a way of capping and reinforcing it. The Song and Ming dynasty Confucians who use the hairsbreadth argument will also locate it toward the end of a conversation or discourse, but as we will see, they are generally more sensitive to the factors that can prevent the hairsbreadth mistake from leading to the thousand mile straying o# course. Versus Mozi and Yang Zhu [81] ! e hairsbreadth argument appears twice in the Posthumous Writings of the Two Chengs [ ], the collection of sayings from Cheng Yi (1033–1107) and his brother Cheng Hao (1032–1085).16 Both appearances are in the section of the Posthumous Writings that can be reliably attributed to Cheng Yi.17 They are, in fact, two versions of the same argument, indicating either that Cheng Yi made this argument regularly, or that two di# erent students recorded their own versions of a single conversation with him. ! e argument concerns the positions of the classical schools of Mozi and Yang Zhu , and constitutes a kind of commentary on passage 3B:9 from the work of the classical Chinese philosopher Mencius. The passage from Mencius is filled with arguments from negative consequences, as he provides evidence for his claim that the world has always alternated between periods of order and disorder. One of his examples from the past is the period succeeding the death of the ancient sage kings Yao and Shun . ! eir lifetimes involved a period of order, but a% er their deaths "the Way of sages became scarce." Speci" cally, the new rulers tore down houses to make ponds and lakes for themselves, "so that the people had nowhere to rest and be content," and they tore up " elds to make gardens and parks, "so that the people could not acquire clothing and food." Perhaps a result of these actions, or at least concomitant with them, was a rise in "crooked words and violent actions," and eventually "the world returned to great disorder." The root problem is that the rulers took the resources of the people, such as the houses that sheltered them and the " elds that provided them with food. When the livelihood of the people was destroyed, they turned to violent actions and were 16 Collected Works o f the Two Chengs [ ] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1981), 171, 231. 17 See A. C. Graham, Two Chinese Philosophers (Lasalle, Illinois: Open Court, 1992), 141. A C&'()*+,' S1+44.50 S1&4. A56)/.'7 94 unable to maintain the land around them, a decay reflected in the extreme numbers of "wild beasts" that arose. As Mencius says elsewhere in his work, the most important cause of stability for the rulers is the approval of the people.18 ! e loss of that approval here brings about disorder. In Mencius's own time, the cause of disorder lies more explicitly in "crooked words," namely, the doctrines of Yang Zhu and Mozi. In Mencius's analysis, the world has divided itself into two factions. One follows Yang and the other follows Mo. Mencius boils down the thinking of each faction into a single doctrine. For the Yangists, the doctrine is "to be for oneself," while for the Moists, the doctrine is "universal love." ! ese doctrines are not matters for the classroom, but have far reaching political consequences, as one may infer a more troubling second doctrine from each of them. From "to be for oneself" one may infer that "there is no ruler," while from "universal love" one may infer that "there is no father." If I acknowledge only myself as the standard of action, then I will not respect the directives of the ruler, while if I love everyone equally, I will not treat my father as deserving special respect. Mencius describes those who fail to acknowledge their ruler and those who fail to acknowledge their fathers as being in the state of "wild beasts." That is, they have not adopted an order to their actions that would result in a prosperous society. ! ose who do not acknowledge a ruler will not help others through the action of government, while those who do not acknowledge their fathers will not take care of their family. As a result, the virtues of duty and humaneness will be impeded, "leading these beasts to eat people up, and people to eat up each other." Mencius concludes this description with an account of the causal sequence that will be signi" cant for Cheng Yi and later Confucians. He says that when these crooked words "arise in the heart, they do harm to one's affairs. When they arise in one's affairs, they do harm to one's government." In other words, the disorder of the times springs from doctrines. Though the negative effect of these doctrines requires several steps-from the primary doctrine to its reasonable inference, to the actions that result from that inference- Mencius does not use the language of the hairsbreadth argument here. He does not suggest that there is little problem with the primary doctrines of Mozi and Yang Zhu considered in themselves, or that their negative consequences occur in an expanding series. ! e case will be di# erent for Cheng Yi and other later Confucians. Cheng Yi's students must have been concerned that he and his uncle Zhang Zai (1020–1077) were too close to the Moists in their thinking, since he several times defends himself and his uncle against this charge. One of Cheng Yi's most famous students, Yang Shi (1053–1135), wrote a letter suggesting that Zhang Zai's Western Inscription [ ] contained Moist elements. Cheng Yi's response is useful to examine, as it clari" es that the problem with the Moists is their characterization of the root of human action. Cheng Yi says that "the Western Inscription sheds light on how there is one principle divided into many particulars, while in the case of the Moists there are two roots and no divisions." He goes on to comment, "taking one's treatment of the old and young and extending it to other people shows that principle is one, while a love without distinction or gradation shows that there are two roots."19 Zhang Zai, in other words, is simply following Mencius's concept of extension: one's love must have a primary focus-namely, the family-but it can be extended to people outside the family until one has some kind of love for all human beings.20 ! e followers of Mozi on the other hand imply that human love has two roots, the love of 18 Mencius, 7B:14. 19 Collected Works of the Two Chengs, 609. 20 Mencius, 1A:7. C&'()*+,' A*,-./0 V&1.2, N&.3 (2017) 95 family and the love of everyone else, neither of which can be dependent on the other. Cheng Yi implicitly acknowledges that the Moists are promoting the unity of principle, but they fail to include in their doctrine the fact that it is divided into many particulars. "! e crime of omitting its divisions," he says, "is that you will have universal love but no duty." Our duty is di# erentiated by context-what we owe to our parents will be di# erent from what we owe to our siblings, or to our fellow citizens. What the Moists need to do is not necessarily to remove the doctrine of universal love, but to add to it the doctrine of duty. Mo and Yang themselves, unlike their followers, come in for remarkably little criticism among the Confucians of the Song dynasty. P. J. Ivanhoe has noted that Mozi's "system was not bad per se" for these Confucians, committed as they were to their own idea of universal love.21 Cheng Yi himself is an advocate for "making no distinction between near and far, between the relation and the stranger."22 One of his students must have noticed the possible affinity between Cheng Yi and Mozi that such a statement suggests, and asked why we should not study Mozi's works. Cheng Yi responds to this student with the hairsbreadth argument, to show how the apparently praiseworthy doctrines of Mo and Yang may nevertheless be associated with the horri" c consequences identi" ed by Mencius. He begins by acknowledging the goodness of both Yang and Mo, saying that "Yang Zhu was at root a student of duty and Mozi was at root a student of humaneness."23 Mencius, in fact, was mistaken if he claimed that, for Mozi, one relates to the son of one's neighbor in the same way that one relates to the son of one's brother. Cheng Yi asks rhetorically, "how could words like this ever be found in the book of Mozi?"24 ! e worst that Cheng Yi says about Yang and Mo in this recorded conversation is that "what they studied was somewhat partial ( )." Cheng Yi does not say what he means by partiality here other than that it causes the doctrines of Yang and Mo to "$ ow" ( ).25 ! e doctrine of universal love, for instance, has a tendency to $ ow into the doctrine of not recognizing one's father. It is essentially "partial," or unbalanced. Mozi himself does not adopt the doctrine of not recognizing one's father because he balances the universal love doctrine with his study of humaneness. The study of humaneness preserves the di# erence in degree in the love shown to other people, while the doctrine of universal love emphasizes that the love shown is the same. It is worth noting that Mencius himself recognized that the harmful effects of the universal love doctrine could be avoided by adding another doctrine to it. He points out that Mozi's student Yi Zhi adds to the doctrine of universal love the additional doctrine that "its application should begin with one's blood relations."26 Like the doctrine of duty, this speci" cation of where the application of one's love should begin corrects the root of action, so that it promotes rather than destroys the social order. ! e universal love doctrine nonetheless retains its tendency to $ ow into the more harmful doctrine. According to Cheng Yi, this is the real reason why Mencius criticizes Yang and Mo, because he "recognized that their $ ow would necessarily 21 Philip J. Ivanhoe, Ethics in the Confucian Tradition: ! e ! ought of Mengzi and Wang Yangming (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2002), 33. See pages 30–33 for an analysis of the attitude of Song dynasty Confucians toward Mozi, as well as a translation of Cheng Yi's hairsbreadth argument against the Moists. 22 Collected Works of the Two Chengs, 742. 23 Ibid., 231. 24 The relevant passage is Mencius, 3A:5, where he attributes this claim not to Mozi but to Yi Zhi, one of Mozi's students. For Cheng Yi's own view, that one should treat one's brother's son the same as one's own, see Collected Works of the Two Chengs, 234, or the translation in Wing-Tsit Chan, Reflections on Things at Hand (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967), 175–177. 25 Cheng Yi also discusses the $ ow of Yang and Mo at Collected Works of the Two Chengs, 157, though without reference to the hairsbreadth argument. 26 Mencius, 3A:5. A C&'()*+,' S1+44.50 S1&4. A56)/.'7 96 reach this point." To reinforce his claim, Cheng Yi presents the hairsbreadth argument: "in the great majority of cases, when intellectuals study the way, 'err by a hundredth of a hairsbreadth and you will stray by a thousand miles.'" Although the wording of the hairsbreadth argument is substantially the same in the Book of Rites and the Posthumous Writings, it means something quite di# erent. Both versions are arguments from gradualism, and so they require something to be minimal at " rst but inclined to grow. In the Book of Rites version, what is minimal is the connection between the rites and the order of the state. Because people do not see this connection, they do not believe that there is any negative consequence to abandoning the rites. ! e Book of Rites, then, is not describing a mistake that is minimal. Rather, it is in overlooking what is minimal that one first makes a mistake. In the Posthumous Writings, on the other hand, what is minimal is the mistake-namely, the mistake made in the learning of Yang and Mo. It is minimal because there is nothing wrong with the doctrines in themselves, so long as one or more doctrines are added to keep them from developing into doctrines that are truly mistaken, such as the doctrine that there is no ruler. Cheng Yi's teacher Zhou Dunyi (1017–1073) considers all doctrines to be minimal, since they occur in the heart where no one can see them, but when Cheng Yi uses the hairsbreadth argument, he refers onl y to the unbalanced but correctable doctrine as minimal.27 Presumably the doctrine that there is no ruler does not belong to this category, since no further doctrine could be added to it so as to keep it from disrupting the order of the state. ! e hairsbreadth argument also requires something to drive the small mistake forward though a series of ever worsening consequences. Cheng Yi's version has two drivers: the partiality of the doctrine, and the increasing reliance on it by "later generations of students" ( ).28 Cheng Yi does not $ esh out the second of these, but in a di# erent conversation he provides a more thorough explanation of the partiality of Mo and Yang. Or, rather, he shows that the problem with the doctrines of Mo and Yang is already found in the partiality of a pair of early Confucians. In Analects 11:15, Confucius says that his student Zizhang (503 BC–?) went too far, and that another student, Zixia (507 BC–?), did not go far enough.29 Cheng Yi explains that Zizhang was a little too generous, while Zixia did not do enough. Both of these students were within the fold of Confucianism, but their respective errors led them toward doctrines outside the school. "Step by step ( )," Cheng Yi says, "generosity will lead to universal love, while not doing enough will lead to being only for oneself." In other words, certain attitudes that do not themselves indicate a departure from Confucianism will lead toward doctrines well outside the boundaries of the school, namely, to the doctrines of Yang and Mo. Cheng Yi notes here, as he did in the passage we studied earlier, that Yang and Mo themselves do not reach the point of disregarding their fathers or rulers, though "their mistakes must necessarily reach this point." ! e problem of excess is that there is something to drive one's action forward, but nothing to limit it, while the problem of de" ciency is that there is something to limit the action, but nothing to drive it forward. In each of these cases one fails to achieve the center. ! ough Cheng Yi did not explicitly tie the hairsbreadth argument to this passage from the Analects, their close connection was not lost on Yin Tun (1071–1142), one of his more accomplished students. Yin wrote a commentary on the Analects that explicitly links 27 See Zhang Dainian, Key Concepts in Chinese Philosophy, trans. Edmund Ryden (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), 209, who notes that, for Zhou Dunyi, "incipience is con" ned to mental activity." 28 Collected Works of the Two Chengs, 231. 29 See Collected Works of the Two Chengs, 176 and 171. ! e former is translated in Wing-Tsit Chan, Re" ections on ! ings at Hand, 280–281. C&'()*+,' A*,-./0 V&1.2, N&.3 (2017) 97 its mention of going too far or not far enough to the hairsbreadth argument. I quote the passage here simply to show the close connection observed in Cheng Yi's circle between the mistakes of Mo and Yang, the problem of going too far or not far enough, and the hairsbreadth argument. Cheng Yi himself establishes the connection between the " rst two; Yin Tun shows the connection between the latter two. Yin says, "'if you err by a hundredth of a hairsbreadth, you will stray by a thousand miles.' ! is is why the teaching of the sage is to restrain what is excessive and extend what does not go far enough, to return to the Way of centrality and that is all." Yin Tun's more famous contemporary Zhu Xi (1130–1200) found this short comment so impressive that he quoted it in his own widely read collection of commentaries on the Analects.30 Versus Buddhists and Daoists [83] Zhu Xi's use of the hairsbreadth argument in his own recorded conversations is sporadic and o% en not well explained. He does use it once in a way that merits some attention, when he has a conversation with a man from Danyang.31 ! e man says that, in his hometown, he can only " nd teachers who will lecture on culture and language, rather than the self-restraint practiced by Confucius's student Yan Hui (521–481 BC). Zhu Xi responds with the hairsbreadth argument, then goes on to explain: "when students these days direct their attention to classical books, their $ ow then takes them on to the commentaries. When they direct their attention to history, their $ ow then takes them on to acquiring pro" t. Otherwise, they immediately enter Buddhism and Daoism. Quite a fearful mistake!" Zhu Xi finds the hairsbreadth argument so helpful here that he repeats it again later in the conversation, to which the man from Danyang responds: "You Panyuan says that Buddhists are both concerned with the investigation of things and in possession of knowledge, but what they see is not essential." Zhu responds that "those who study Buddhism these days produce many interpretations, but they are not as straightforward as what other Buddhists earlier said." Just as Cheng Yi sees a decline from Yang and Mo to their students, so Zhu Xi sees a decline from the earlier to the later Buddhists. ! e primary problem, however, is one of $ ow. Students do not approach learning with doctrines that would allow them to come to rest at the right point. ! ey are unable to stop at the study of classical texts and history, but move on to commentaries and the search for pro" t, or they go in the opposite direction and become Buddhists and Daoists. Perhaps earlier Buddhists had a better doctrine or combination of doctrines that would allow them to study and speak straightforwardly, but most students today lack that combination. As Zhu Xi puts it elsewhere a% er presenting both the hairsbreadth argument and Confucius's distinction between going too far and not going far enough, lo% y students today "go beyond heaven and earth" and "will necessarily enter Buddhism and Daoism," while lowly students "sink into a pit" and "will necessarily enter commercial concerns."32 In these passages, Buddhism and commerce replace Moism and Yangism as representing the problems of going too far and not going far enough. Unlike Cheng Yi, Zhu Xi does not identify a speci" c partial doctrine or suggest an additional doctrine that would prevent contemporary students from $ owing into these damaging positions. For a discussion of the speci" c doctrines that make Buddhists subject to the hairsbreadth argument, we must turn to the Ming dynasty Confucian Luo Qinshun (1465–1547) 30 See the Collected Commentaries on the Analects [ ] on Analects, 11:15. 31 Li Jingde, ed., "Xunmenren er" [ ], in Classi# ed Conversations of Zhu Xi [ ] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1986), 2765. 32 Li Jingde, ed., "Lushi" [ ], in Classi# ed Conversations of Zhu Xi, 2980. A C&'()*+,' S1+44.50 S1&4. A56)/.'7 98 and his more famous contemporary Wang Yangming (1472–1528). Both use the hairsbreadth argument to indicate the severe consequences of adopting mistaken Buddhist doctrines about the nature of the heart. Neither of them regards the Buddhist doctrines as needing the addition of other doctrines to keep them from pushing their students o# course. ! e doctrines are not partial, but wrong, and need to be replaced by others. Luo Qinshun singles out the following Buddhist doctrine for critique: "shed light on your heart and see your nature."33 There is nothing wrong with the wording of this doctrine. In fact, Luo immediately follows it with a Confucian doctrine that uses almost the same language: "exhaust your heart and know your nature." In other words, the problem with the doctrine lies not in its words but in the way that the Buddhists interpret them. According to Luo, what the Buddhists mean by these words is that the nature is no di# erent from the heart. By confusing the two, the Buddhists have "deceived the later generations of the world, so that they reach the point of abandoning human relationships and destroying the heavenly principle." Living in accordance with our nature involves participating in human relationships and bringing about a social order according to the heavenly principle. ! ose who identify the nature with the heart end up with only the heart and not the nature, losing sight of human relationships and the heavenly principle. Note that Luo does not claim the Buddhists of the past have reached this point, but that they have led later generations to it. ! e stimulus to this negative consequence is the mistaken doctrine. "If someone mistakenly regards the heart as the nature," Luo says, "this may accurately be described as a case of 'err by a hundredth of a hairsbreadth and you will stray by a thousand miles.'"34 ! ere is no reason to provide a detailed account here of Wang Yangming's use of the hairsbreadth argument in his criticism of the Buddhists, as it follows the same pattern.35 Like Luo, Wang describes the Buddhists as having made a mistake about the heart. ! ey treat the heart that is active making decisions during the day as di# erent from the heart that is tranquil at night, when in fact there is only one heart that responds di# erently in di# erent circumstances. The doctrine of rejecting activity is based on a mistake about the heart, and should not be combined with an additional doctrine but rejected altogether. What is minimal about the mistake here? Neither Luo nor Wang explain why the Buddhist mistake is minimal, but it seems to be for the same reason as in the Book of Rites version. ! e Book of Rites treats the abandonment of rituals as a minimal mistake because there is no obvious connection between the rituals and the social order that they bring about. In the case of the Buddhists, there is no obvious connection between their reduction of nature to the heart and their abandonment of human relationships. ! e doctrine could be misunderstood as a matter for academic debate with no consequences for the social order. Presumably the Buddhists targeted by Luo and Wang would not disagree that their understanding of the heart has the abandonment of human relationships as its consequence, since many of them openly celebrate and advocate casting off family relationships and entering monastic life. ! e response of such a Buddhist to Luo and Wang would not be to deny the cause-and-e# ect relationship in the hairsbreadth argument, but to argue that its consequence is bene" cial rather than negative. In other words, the Buddhist response would not need to address the hairsbreadth argument at all. In this regard it would differ from the response of the Yangists or Moists, who would not argue that the consequence of their 33 Kun zhi ji [ ] (Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company, 1990), 3. For an English translation, see Lo Ch'in-shun, Knowledge Painfully Acquired, trans. Irene Bloom (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 51. 34 Kun zhi ji, 1, translated in Knowledge Painfully Acquired, 49. 35 See Wang Yangming, Chuan xi lu [ ] (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou Ancient Books Publishing House, 2008), 314–315. For an English translation, see Wing-Tsit Chan, Instructions for Practical Living and other Neo-Confucian Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), 203. C&'()*+,' A*,-./0 V&1.2, N&.3 (2017) 99 doctrines identi" ed by Mencius is good-that is, that it is good for "people to eat up each other"-but that their doctrines do not lead to such a consequence. Versus Zhu Xi [85] As we have seen, Wang does not treat Buddhist doctrines as capable of avoiding negative consequences when properly combined with additional doctrines. He does, however, allow for additional doctrines when he argues against his fellow Confucian Zhu Xi. Even when arguing against Zhu Xi, Wang is more concerned than Cheng Yi to arrive at a single doctrine that serves as an adequate root of human action, such that it needs nothing added to it. Cheng Yi arguably does not explicitly develop such a doctrine. When he says that "there is one principle divided into many particulars," he could be taken to be combining two doctrines: " rst, that principle is one, and second, that it is divided into many particulars. Emphasize one of these over the other, as the Moists and Yangists do, and you make the hairsbreadth mistake that takes you a thousand miles o# course. We see one of Wang's most careful attempts to " nd a single root of human action in a conversation with one of his students about the work of Zhu Xi.36 Wang's student Cai Xiyuan , has asked him about Zhu Xi's new arrangement of the classical text, the Great Learning [ ]. Zhu Xi has put the section on "investigating things so as to extend one's knowledge" in front of the section on "making one's intentions sincere." As Wang understands it, this reordering implies that students should investigate things outside of them before they work on making their intentions sincere. "According to the new arrangement," he says, "one first goes out and exhaustively investigates the principles of a# airs and things." ! e problem with this approach is that the students who adopt it will become thoroughly absorbed in the objects of their investigation, and will lose sight of themselves. As a result, they will investigate thing a% er thing without acquiring any virtue of their own. A second doctrine will have to be added to the "investigate things" doctrine if the students are to make their investigation a virtuous practice. "It is necessary to add the concept of reverence ( )," Wang says, and then the investigation of things will be "directed at one's person and heart." ! at is, students who pay attention to the "how" of their investigation, to how they are investigating things, will cultivate themselves in the course of understanding the world around them. Although this self-cultivation is a good consequence, it is brought about in this case by two di# erent doctrines: " rst, "investigate things," and second, "be reverent." In Wang's view, a multiplicity of doctrines means that "there is no root and origin." Wang is using the term "root" here not as we have seen it used above, to refer to any source of human action, but as the single source of action waiting to exercise its power when subordinate sources stop getting in the way. Like Yang and Mo, Zhu Xi's students are compensating for the subordinate or incomplete character of their primary doctrine by adding others to it, and so none of these doctrines may be considered as primary, or as the true root. Wang has an alternative, which is the basis for his student's question about the Great Learning. Where Zhu Xi puts the section on investigating things before the section on making one's intentions sincere, Wang proposes retaining the older arrangement, in which the section on sincere intentions appears " rst. His point is not philological, but rooted in his attempt to overcome the problems created by Zhu Xi's multiple doctrines. "Make your 36 Wang criticizes Zhu Xi elliptically at Chuan xi lu, 250–251, translated in Instructions for Practical Living, 162. Wang provides the same argument in more detail at Chuan xi lu, 151, translated in Instructions for Practical Living, 86. A C&'()*+,' S1+44.50 S1&4. A56)/.'7 100 intentions sincere" is, in fact, the primary doctrine that needs nothing added to it. "If one regards making the intentions sincere as the master," Wang says, "and then makes an e# ort to investigate things and extend one's knowledge, the e# ort will come to a conclusion." It is not that the investigation of things should not be undertaken, but that it will follow from the prior doctrine of making one's intentions sincere. Students who follow this prior doctrine will investigate things without neglecting themselves, because the root of their enterprise is within them, in the correcting of their own intentions. We could read Cheng Yi's argument against the Moists as following the same pattern. The problem is not the doctrine of "universal love," but regarding that doctrine as the sole root of action. If one begins instead with doing one's duty, then one will still love universally, but as an extension of the love that one initially feels for one's family. Love must begin with what is primary if it is to have good consequences. Likewise, in Wang's argument about learning, if one does not begin one's learning with what is primary, "this is what is referred to as 'err by a hundredth of a hairsbreadth and you will stray by a thousand miles.'" Conclusion [85] If we compare Wang's use of the hairsbreadth argument with the other Song and Ming dynasty versions we have identified, we see that they have a distinctive common thread, despite their minor di# erences. In each case, the speaker is warning a listener that a certain doctrine will lead to a signi" cant negative consequence, not necessarily because the doctrine itself is bad or because it produced this consequence in the life of its author, but because the students of this author will inevitably remove whatever safeguards prevented the doctrine from leading to its consequence. ! e students or, in some cases, the later generations, are the third party in the argument, to be added to the speaker who makes the argument and the listener at risk of adopting the controversial doctrine.37 The unspoken assumption here seems to be that students do not understand the doctrines of their teachers very well. Because they fail to see how the di# erent doctrines " t together, they are content to follow only one or some of them. This imbalance leads them to bring about the negative social consequence implicit in these doctrines. ! e speaker warns the listener about the doctrine, then, not so much for the listener's own sake as for the sake of the future well-being of this lineage of students. Within this broad framework, the Song and Ming dynasty authors who use the hairsbreadth argument vary the character of the mistake and the reason why it is minimal. The mistake could be adopting a doctrine that will lead either to excessive or deficient action, as in the case of Cheng Yi's Moists and Yangists, it could be poorly defining an important term, as in the case of Luo's Buddhists, or it could be adopting the wrong doctrine as the primary root of human action, as in the case of Wang's Zhu Xi. All of these mistakes are minimal, but for di# erent reasons. For Cheng Yi, Mozi's mistake is minimal because he adds to it his study of humaneness, preventing it from having any negative consequence that would allow the observer to identify it as a mistake. The same goes for Zhu Xi in Wang's analysis: his privileging of the investigation of things has no negative consequence because he adds to it the doctrine of reverence. When Luo and Wang criticize the Buddhists, on the other hand, the mistake is minimal not because it has no consequence, but because it appears unconnected with its consequence, a purely intellectual error having nothing to do with eroding the social order. 37 Walton asserts that slippery slope arguments must have three parties: the warner, the respondent, and a third party that leads the respondent to the negative consequence (Slippery Slope Arguments, 222). C&'()*+,' A*,-./0 V&1.2, N&.3 (2017) 101 We earlier identi" ed the fallacious version of the slippery slope argument, following Walton and Schauer, as attempting to convince listeners that they are locked into a given progression once they have taken the " rst step. Since the hairsbreadth argument concerns the doctrines of particular schools or sects, we may say that it becomes fallacious when it insists or implies that members of a particular school or sect can rely only on one particular doctrine. For instance, Cheng Yi could have asserted that the actions of Mozi may proceed only from the doctrine of universal love. If members of a school or sect can rely on only one doctrine, then they are entirely subject to any tendency it has to drive them unexpectedly o# course. ! e versions of the hairsbreadth argument that we have analyzed do not all of them take this fallacious form. ! e arguments against the Buddhists are the weakest. Although Zhu Xi allows that earlier Buddhists held straightforward doctrines, he does not explain what made them straightforward, or why they did not go too far, as the doctrines of their successors do. Luo and Wang at least identify speci" c Buddhist doctrines, and they explain what drives these doctrines on to negative consequences, but they do not suggest that there is any way of avoiding the consequences other than abandoning the doctrines. Of course, since they think of the doctrines as wrong, they would argue that they should be abandoned irrespective of their consequences, but this does not make their use of the hairsbreadth argument any more compelling. In the case of Cheng Yi's argument against Yang and Mo, or Wang Yangming's argument against Zhu Xi, the speakers themselves generally explain how the negative consequences may be avoided by listeners who nonetheless make the hairsbreadth mistake. Zhu Xi, for instance, may add the doctrine of reverence to his doctrine of investigating things. Other doctrines presumably could also be put in place as safeguards to prevent the negative consequence of the mistake. ! e speaker is simply saying that the mistake in the initial doctrine will always exercise a pull over the students who adopt it, and they will have to be attentive and work hard to stay on course, as though trying to drive a car whose wheels are out of alignment. These arguments are not fallacious in the sense described above, and constitute examples of a distinctively Confucian method for predicting the future by analyzing the tendencies of the present. Bibliography of Cited Translations Bloom, Irene, trans. Knowledge Painfully Acquired. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. Chan, Wing-Tsit. Instructions for Practical Living and other Neo-Confucian Writings. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963. ---. Re" ections on ! ings at Hand. New York: Columbia University Press, 1967. Legge, James, trans. vol. 28 of ! e Sacred Books of the East, edited by F. Max Müller. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885. Watson, Burton. Basic Writings of Mo Tzu, Hsün Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963. A C&'()*+,' S1+44.50 S1&4. A56)/.'7 Michael Harrington a Frederick Schauer LEXIS the camel's nose is in the tent a foot in the door the thin edge of the wedge b c d Douglas Walton e f Hugh LaFollette a Richard J. Smith Fathoming the Cosmos and Ordering the World b Slippery Slopes Harvard Law Review c Hugh LaFollette Eugene Volokh Living on a Slippery Slope The Journal of Ethics The Mechanisms of the Slippery Slope d Wibren van der Burg The Slippery Slope Argument Ethics e Slippery Slope Arguments f X Y X Y a b c d e Glanville Williams wedge objection f g a b c d e f Euthanasia Legislation: A Rejoinder to the Nonreligious Objections A. B. Downing Euthanasia and the Right to Death g denying the antecedent a b a b Angus Graham Two Chinese Philosophers: Ch'eng Ming-tao and Cheng Yi-chuan a b Philip Ivanhoe c d e f g a b c Ethics in the Confucian Tradition: The Thought of Mencius and Wang Yangming d e f g a b c d e f a b c d e f a b c d a b c d a a a a 112 Invitation for Manuscript Submission Confucian Academy (Chinese Thought and Culture Review) O8 cially launched in August 2014, the journal Confucian Academy (Chinese ! ought and Culture Review) [ISSN 2095–8536, CN 52–5035/C] is a leading Chinese–English bilingual scholarly journal dedicated to traditional Chinese thought and culture in prompting conversations among world civilizations. Confucian Academy cordially invites the submission of manuscripts for consideration for the next issue. 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