Zhao Tingyang: “On Possible Life”

Zhao Tingyang: “On Possible Life—A Theory Concerning Happiness and Justice,” Renmin University of China Press, July 2004

I originally bought this book because I was drawn to its title—I happened to be thinking about some questions concerning what ethics is, and “On Possible Life” seemed able to express my own view of ethics, which instantly brightened my eyes. But after reading it, I found that although Zhao Tingyang’s book is indeed a monograph on ethics, his understanding of “possible life” is very different from what I had imagined.

Zhao Tingyang’s book is still quite interesting. I saw that Ji Xianlin and Li Zehou gave it rather high praise, but after leafing through it I felt it was not as brilliant as I had hoped. In fact, the first half of the book struck me as rather impressive: Zhao Tingyang’s exposure of the defects in popular normative ethics and his sketch of what a genuinely ethical theory should be were both fairly profound, but his ethical views did not resonate with me.

Below are some excerpts and my spontaneous reactions:

Page 4
Since there are already politicians to formulate political institutions, priests to guide the path to goodness, lawyers to grasp the scale of law, and teachers to spread sound advice for getting along in the world, what further counsel can ethicists offer? People’s expectations of ethics are intellectual ones: philosophical reflection on action, not repeated explanations of behavioral norms. ////—I mostly agree.

Page 4
If the final judgment of thought is valid, it can only be philosophical; and if the judgment of philosophy is valid, it is so if and only if it is a reflective activity outside ideology, that is, an unpositioned critique—what unpositionedness requires is this: method stands above position. ////—I have reservations. Such a methodology of being “unpositioned” sounds fine, of course, but is it not too idealistic?

Page 5
The work of normative ethics is not meaningless; it is rootless. That is to say, no matter what higher form of exhortation we provide, it still remains weaker than the power of a skeptical attitude. ////—I mostly agree.

Page 7 Ethics has nothing to do with radical emotions such as anger, defiance, isolation, and envy, nor does it have anything to do with gentle emotions such as sympathy, pity, and forgiveness. Acting on feelings may perhaps be a good attitude toward life, but it is a bad theoretical attitude.
////—This is somewhat interesting, but I have reservations.

Page 8
A truly meaningful ethics is realistic when analyzing problems, but idealistic when expressing hope. Existing in reality while caring about the futurity of existence—this is where the significance of ethics lies. ////—I basically agree (with slight reservations).

Page 8
Ethics’s fundamental aim is to ask about the meaning of life; what it cares about is what kind of behavior, life form, and social institution can best create a happy life. The meaning of life / the good life / happiness are the basic ethical problems of a three-in-one unity. ////—I basically agree (with slight reservations about the wording).

Page 9
Society has succeeded and the person has failed. In ethics, this appears as using a social perspective rather than a life perspective when giving the final interpretation of life’s facts. Of course, ethics is by no means meant to oppose norms and society; the point is only that any norm and any social arrangement must be explained from the standpoint of life, and cannot be justified by the procedural rationality of the norms and institutions themselves. Evading or obscuring questions of substantive rationality (content) with procedure and reason (surname) is a feature of modern society; this phenomenon is everywhere in law, administrative systems, educational systems, examination standards / review systems. But. Questions of substantive value can never be sidestepped in the end. ////—I basically agree.

Page 11
Kantian absolutism is another approach in ethics. Its advantage is that its tone has a charming air of nobility, easily enticing sympathy, but theoretically it contains profound errors. (Footnote: It is said that when Kant lectured on ethics back in the day, the audience wept for his sanctity. I am willing to believe this story; when I first read Kant’s ethics in the past, I too was deeply moved by his noble air, and to this day I hold him in reverence. But if his ethics is wrong, then it is wrong.) ////—I mostly agree. Kant, rather than being a philosopher, is more like a saint; I also have serious reservations about Kant’s ethics. What I admire most, in fact, is Kant’s view of religion. Kant brought a religious aura of sanctity into his ethics, so his ethics may seem too ideal and abstract. But I do not think this is an error, merely perhaps not complete enough; Kant’s ethics may be more suitable for “leading in those of the higher roots.” Of course, if Zhao Tingyang views Kant’s ethics through the meaning of “ethics” that he has redefined, then naturally Kant will be wrong.

Page 14
We cannot ask whether life has meaning: if a person is willing to live, then he has already affirmed that life has meaning. ////—This is quite interesting, but I still have reservations. For example, a person may think life is utterly meaningless, or even say life is dreadful beyond measure—a negative meaning—but he thinks suicide is just as dreadful a thing. Between two dreadful things, he is willing to choose life, perhaps because suicide is even worse than such a meaningless life, or simply out of laziness—just stay alive, then, muddle through as a living corpse. Of course, such an explanation of mine is not sufficiently “honest,” but Zhao Tingyang also has to face these dishonest people. Here, imagine that I am a nihilist who believes life has no meaning at all. According to Zhao Tingyang’s way of thinking, one might perhaps persuade me like this: “Since you think life is utterly meaningless, why are you still willing to continue living in this world? Since you chose to live rather than die, doesn’t that mean you think living on is meaningful?” But as a nihilist, I can immediately retort: “I really do think life is meaningless, but I think everything is meaningless. Life has none, death has none; to live is meaningless, and to die is also meaningless. So why would I need to prove that I truly think life is meaningless by choosing another meaningless thing? Such a proof itself, of course, is also meaningless. Whether I choose life or death cannot prove that what I choose is meaningful, and the act of choosing itself is of course utterly meaningless. Ha, of course, even that retort of mine just now is utterly meaningless. Everything is just my happening to do certain things; I am merely yielding to desire and living a living-dead life. Where is there any room for ‘meaning’?”—Clearly, a thoroughgoing nihilist cannot be refuted. Many scholars try to “persuade” nihilists through rational analysis, but I think these efforts are futile. On the contrary, nihilists are more likely to use reason to turn around and “refute” “meaning,” because, in my view, the most fundamental meaning is by no means something reason can demonstrate; it must be some kind of faith. In the face of nihilists, one cannot persuade them in a scientific way, but can only entice them in a religious way.

Page 15
The purpose of life is not some outcome, but that infinitely accommodating meaning that is life itself. ////—I agree with this as a very good attitude toward life, but I do not think it is the only meaningful attitude toward life.

Page 16 If happiness is conflated with interest, then ethical norms also seem to become the theme of ethics, because norms are precisely rules about the distribution of interests. ////—I basically agree.

Page 17
Clearly, the meaning of wealth lies in its ability to be used to realize other values; if it is used only to realize itself, then wealth itself is rendered absurd. ////—Clearly agree. But there is a problem here: we can change the subject of this sentence and ask whether we can say, “The meaning of life lies in its ability to be used to realize other values; if it is used only to realize itself, then life itself is rendered absurd.” Yet Zhao Tingyang clearly and explicitly says that “the meaning and value of life exist only within life itself.” When he says that the meaning of wealth lies outside wealth, he is trying to prove that wealth and the like are not “the things that truly have meaning in the desire for life,” and that the “way of a happy life” is the most fundamental thing. But if I use the same sentence pattern to argue that the meaning of life must lie outside life? You may believe there is nothing else outside life, but I may believe that outside life there also exist things like the other shore or immortality. Then I would also have reason to think that placing the meaning of life within life itself is just as absurd as taking the meaning of wealth to be wealth itself. In that case Zhao Tingyang would not be able to persuade me. In fact, I think living for life itself and living for some other shore are both different attitudes toward life. So long as they are handled properly, both can bring happiness.

Page 18
The theme of ethics is morality rather than ethics; morality is primary, ethics secondary. The theme of morality then raises two questions: (1) For any meaning-bearing individual, what is the way of life that obtains happiness? (2) For any two people, what is the basis of legitimacy for any ethical norm?

Page 19 For example, turning “life should be…” into “life means…”

Page 28
An interesting view of Stevenson (“Ethics and Language,” 1944) is that ethical statements are actually encouraging others to endorse some ethical norm or attitude; for example, “You should be honest” actually means “I approve of being honest, and you should also approve of honesty.”

Page 43 Selfishness is only about doing things, whereas self-respect is about being a person.

Page 61
“What is a good thing” is not originally a question, just as “does the world objectively exist” is not a question; these are all perfectly clear facts. Philosophy is by no means some foolish act of pretending to know nothing and then simply repeating the facts. Many philosophical errors stem from not knowing what philosophy is supposed to do. ////—Somewhat interesting, but I have reservations. Zhao Tingyang’s way of speaking is becoming more and more hard to bear; it is too domineering.

Page 83
Questions such as the essence of the world or the essence of the creator are logically the biggest questions, but they are not theoretically the biggest questions, or more precisely, not the most important theoretical questions—the most common mistake in philosophy is to think that the biggest question is the most important question. ////—Somewhat interesting, but I have reservations. What Zhao Tingyang means is that philosophical thought should have more realism and responsibility, which is very good; but in any case metaphysics is always the “root of the tree” of philosophy. I am willing to admit that those ultimate questions are also among the most important theoretical questions, but not the ones most worth entangling oneself in. And I think philosophy should begin from real problems, and through step-by-step questioning and reflection, may “have to” move closer to those ultimate questions; it should not start from ultimate questions in order to “deduce” real problems, because that often makes philosophy drift into emptiness.

Page 139
Society is the condition of life, life is the purpose of society; these two points cannot be reversed. … Any social viewpoint, that is, a viewpoint that considers problems from the needs of society, is often a viewpoint against life; it mistakenly thinks that ethical problems are social problems, and that all misfortune is caused by bad society and has nothing to do with bad life consciousness. … For example, there used to be debates over which was better, socialism or capitalism; whichever view one took, the issue of life consciousness was ignored. Capitalism was economically more successful because it was based on the worst estimate of human nature, and thus established institutions aimed at “bad people”; whereas socialist institutional arrangements were based on an overly optimistic estimate of human nature, and thus established institutions based on the assumption of good people, which turned out to be overly optimistic. ////—Somewhat interesting; no comment.

Page 140
In many respects, modern society has more perfected mechanisms than ancient society, generally manifested in ubiquitous management systems, more strictly regulated laws, and clearly defined rights, and so on; but modern life has given rise to an inexplicable anxiety that human nature can hardly bear. Ancient life had worries but rarely anxiety; worry has aesthetic beauty, carrying a weighty emotional charge, whether grand or tragic, profound or romantic. The anxiety of modern life is not worry about some particular matter or some ideal; it has no target, no emotion, but is a “metaphysical” anxiety about the meaning of life itself. This abstract anxiety has no object, because the meaning of life has already been dissolved by the various material things, speed, and pleasures that modernity makes impossible to part with. There is nothing that requires emotional investment, nothing that requires self-forgetfulness, and without anything into which one can lose oneself, there will be no meaning in life. ////—Somewhat interesting. Especially the words “self-forgetfulness.”

January 23, 2006

Latest Comments

• avia

  2007-01-30 15:19:30 http://avia.blog.enorth.com.cn/article/3370.shtml
  [Reply]
  Hello. This article was reprinted by “Zhao Tingyang Philosophy Network” in January 2007. Thank you. And I hope you and all friends will continue to follow it. This article can be found in a batch of newly updated web pages this time; the address is as follows: http://avia.blog.enorth.com.cn/article/178918.shtml
  Clicking on the username in this comment also allows direct access to the homepage of Zhao Tingyang Philosophy Network.

  Gu
  2007-01-30
  19:51:57 [Reply]
  Sigh… whatever…

Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.