Dong Zhongshu’s Theory of moral education from the Perspective of the Gongyang School

Title

Dong Zhongshu’s Theory of moral education from the Perspective of the Gongyang School

Author

Yun-Xiang Li

Page

35-68

DOI

10.6163/TJEAS.202606_23(1).0002

Abstract

Dong Zhongshu’s view of indoctrination as the king’s unilateral imposition of rites and laws on the people is suspected of objectifying the people. However, Putting Gongyang school’s theoretical background into discussion, it can be seen that this theory of indoctrination has it’s context of the chaotic era (亂世), in which the task of the king was to set things right (撥亂反正). According to the Gongyang school, people of the chaotic era lost the ability to distinguish between right and wrong, and were unable to re-establish order on their own, so it was necessary for the king to preside over the moral education of them, and in this context people were passively accepting the rites and righteousness objectively. However, the ultimate goal of rectifying the situation was to reactivate the people’s moral self-consciousness through curing the minor evils and to equip them with the ability of moral autonomy, and the end of the process was the establishment of the people's moral subject. By analysing this aspect of the Gongyang theory of moral education, the Confucian theory of moral education can thus avoid the problem of “when the virtuous ruler passes away, the good governance fades away.”(人亡政息) Moreover, in terms of the relationship between autonomous morality and heteronomous morality, this perspective can also offer a new paradigm for understanding.

Keyword

Dong Zhongshu, Gongyang School, moral education, moral subject, autonomy

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