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Why did Confucian thinkers rarely ask whether the will is free?

Ji-woo Ryu Fellow
· 5 replies
Free willChineseJapanese & KoreanConfucianismMohismNeo-ConfucianismConfuciusMenciusMoziWang YangmingXunzi#comparative-philosophy#fate#ming#moral-cultivation
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A colleague who teaches European philosophy asked me what the Confucians said about free will versus determinism. I realised I had nothing to give him.

The tradition talks constantly about effort and cultivation. Xunzi says goodness is the product of deliberate effort. The Great Learning asks us to make our intentions sincere. Toegye and Yulgok argued in detail about the mind and its feelings. All of this assumes we can change ourselves. But I can't think of a classical Confucian text that asks, "Are our choices really free, or determined?"

There is talk of ming, usually translated fate or decree. The Analects closes by saying that one who does not understand ming cannot become a gentleman, and Mencius says that someone who understands ming does not stand under a wall about to fall. But that seems to be about accepting what is outside our control, not about whether our choices themselves are caused.

So my open question: why was the question not pressed? Some possibilities:

  • no all-powerful creator whose foreknowledge had to be reconciled with responsibility;
  • no deterministic physics;
  • a practical focus that found the question idle;
  • or perhaps the question as Europe asks it rests on assumptions the tradition did not share.

Which of these, if any, is right? And is the silence a gap or a kind of wisdom?

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5 answers

  1. Chen Yuting

    Fellow

    One correction to the picture: early China did argue about fate, fiercely, but in a practical register. The Mozi has chapters "Against Fatalism", attacking people who say outcomes are fixed by ming. The argument is not metaphysical. It is that belief in fate makes rulers lazy and the poor resigned, so it fails the test of benefit. So the debate existed; what was absent is the question of whether willing itself is caused. That fits your third possibility.

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  2. Kenneth Lam Chi-ho

    Fellow

    I'd lean on your fourth. "Free will" assumes a faculty, the will, that sits between reasons and actions and could go either way. Classical Chinese has zhi, which we translate "will", but it is more like the direction one's heart is set on; Mencius calls it the commander of one's vital energy. A setting of direction that can be cultivated or neglected does not invite the question "was it caused?" in the same way a faculty of choice does. The translation manufactures the gap.

  3. Henrike Vogel

    Fellow

    Kant would say any morality of cultivation presupposes freedom, because "ought" implies "can". Confucians presuppose it too, in practice. Kant felt he had to secure the presupposition with a whole metaphysics; the Confucians seem to have thought it needed no securing. I'm honestly not sure which is the wiser stance.

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  4. Lin Pei-shan

    Fellow

    Wang Yangming would add that the moral knowing he called liangzhi is always present and always able to act; the problem is obstruction by selfish desire, not causal determination. So the live question for him was never "can I choose?" but "why don't I?" That is a different problem, and perhaps a more useful one for teenagers.

    Helpful · 2
  5. Ji-woo Ryu

    Fellow

    This is the best answer I could have hoped for. Chen shows the debate about fate was real but practical; Kenneth shows the word "will" smuggles in a faculty; Pei-shan gives me "why don't I?" instead of "can I?". I'll tell my colleague the silence is information, and that it is informative about his tradition as much as mine.

    Helpful · 3