Inventing Moralpolitik: A sociological interpretation of Confucian ideology, ritual, and politics.

摘要

This dissertation argues that the central aspect of Confucian politics lies in the sacred value it places on the moral rectification of the ruler. Confucians fused morality and politics---a mode of politics that I call Moralpolitik. In contrast to Max Weber's influential interpretation of Confucianism as this-worldly in accommodating to the power of the ruler, this dissertation proposes that Confucian morality clashed with the worldly interests of the ruler, leading to a counter-politics founded on moral principles. Moralpolitik is a politics in which moral revulsion against politics or mundane power takes the form of zeal to subordinate politics to moral imperatives, as distinct from assigning politics to a separate, mundane sphere. Morality becomes a formidable political weapon and the ultimate political goal.; Some forms of Moralpolitik are generally observed in traditional societies where religion is pervasive. The distinctive character of Confucian Moralpolitik is that it emphasizes a this-worldly imperative to rectify the ruler rather than other-worldly prospects of salvation. The deeper the Confucian belief that the virtues of the ruler were crucial for the realization of the Confucian Way, the more sacred became their mission to rectify the ruler's deviations from Confucian moral principles. The frequent instances of political martyrdom in Confucian politics can be understood from this perspective. This religious seriousness also underlies recurrent persecutions of Confucian factions by one another in terms of orthodoxy and heresy.; The myth of the sage king constitutes the ideological core of Confucianism. The image of morally impeccable rule constrained the ruler. The wider the gap between the ideal and real rulership, the stronger became the Confucians' moral-political claims. The Confucian beliefs in the power of ritual to bring true moral order to the world led to a Moralpolitik in which ritual was the primary ideological-political means to constrain the ruler. This dissertation analyzes the means specific to Confucianism by which, in Nietzschean terms, priests dominated warriors. This dissertation interprets the great ritual disputes in Ming China and Choson Korea as expressions of Confucian morality in politics, illustrating their complete fusion. They show how the "this-worldly" character of Confucianism does not, contra Weber, lead to political accommodation and quiescence but, on the contrary, to tensions between religion and politics distinctive to Confucianism.