“Wei ji li ta” is a concept that Wang Haiming loves to talk about, his eureka moment, the core term in Wang Haiming’s ethical system… For some reason, these few words suddenly came to mind, so I might as well write a little about them.
As for Wang Haiming and his philosophy, I certainly have no fondness for them at all; I can’t even bear to read his books, and I don’t want to spend much time evaluating them. But on the other hand, I feel a certain sympathy for him—“new philosophy,” “new ethics,” unifying and integrating the doctrines of all schools, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, and founding an epoch-making philosophical system… weren’t these precisely the grand ambitions I had in high school? Suppose that afterward I had not, as I did now, entered the philosophy department at Peking University, but instead entered an era like the Cultural Revolution, and in anguish and repression taken up my ideals again—what road would I have walked? Perhaps I would have become something like Wang Haiming.
Only by taking into account the intellectual environment of the Cultural Revolution and earlier in China can one understand why Wang Haiming, upon thinking of the four characters “wei ji li ta,” would be so excited and triumphant. That fanatical ideology did not merely suppress the thinking of those who submitted to it; worse still, those who tried to resist it would also become deeply trapped in the patterns of thought distorted by it, taking refuge in idealism in order to oppose materialism, taking refuge in selfishness in order to oppose selflessness. People’s thinking was confined within a very narrow binary opposition; rebels could propose answers that departed from traditional dogma, but the task of philosophy lies in asking questions rather than answering them, and thought that has been ravaged and imprisoned no longer knows how to ask different questions.
Wang Haiming did not switch from “selfless altruism” to “pure egoism,” but instead proposed a “basic good” lying between the two (called the highest good and the lowest good), namely “wei ji li ta.” I did not take the time to examine his argument closely, but from a cursory understanding, this is clearly only a kind of “compromise” and by no means “the mean” (or a dialectic of “thesis–antithesis–synthesis”). In other words, he did not change the one-way pattern of thought; he did not establish a new dimension of thinking, nor did he pose the question anew. Glancing through Wang Haiming’s writings, I am certain that his fundamental problem is not his arrogant self-importance (which is an essential quality of a great philosopher), still less that he is too subversive or radical; rather, his problem is that he is far too confined by commonplace formulas, deeply constrained by an inherited way of thinking, a pattern that is deeply rooted in many Chinese scholars who lived through that era.
My thought of writing something, of course, was not to comment on Wang Haiming. It was only because these four characters are so closely linked to Wang Haiming that I had to mention him. Let us set Wang Haiming aside below and talk about these four characters themselves.
Philosophy, like poetry, ought to be extraordinarily sensitive to the subtle differences among words in one’s native language. Bachelard seems to have said something like this: philosophy does not acknowledge synonyms. I deeply agree. Although in actual writing, in concrete contexts, many words can always be substituted for one another, two completely identical words are unacceptable; any two philosophical terms, no matter how close they are, will always in some contexts be unable to replace one another. Otherwise philosophers (or poets) ought also to uncover and construct their subtle differences.
In “wei ji li ta,” “wei” and “li” are two different words. Why not say “li ji wei ta” or “li ji li ta”? If this concept were merely spoken offhand in the course of writing, perhaps there would be no need to probe deeply; but if it is an important term, then one must examine the distinctions within it.
Literally, “wei ji” means “for oneself,” and “li ta” means “to benefit others.” It should be noted that these are principles on two different levels. If used as a guide for action, the former is a shorthand for “do something for the sake of XX,” while the latter is a shorthand for “do something for the sake of benefiting XX.” In other words, “for…” expresses the most basic orientation, while more specifically, whether it is “for benefiting others” or “for harming others” is a concept on the next level.
That is to say, “li ji/ta” is a shorthand for “acting for the sake of benefiting oneself/others”; rational choice always means acting for some reason or purpose. But “wei ji” is not a shorthand for “acting for the sake of benefiting oneself”—why could it not instead mean “acting for the sake of harming oneself”? If you insist that “wei ji” means “for the sake of benefiting oneself,” then in fact you have already tacitly assumed a utilitarian, egoistic way of thinking—one that takes “benefit” as the core concept of ethics (so ethics becomes axiology), and then takes “benefit” as a matter-of-course end.
Replacing this utilitarian egoism with altruism does not bring any substantive change; the most fundamental ethical question is obscured by the surface dispute of “egoism or altruism” and left dim and indistinct.
What is the most basic question of ethics? The core concept is none other than “good”; in plain language, good (Good) means “good,” or, in the awful terminology of modern ethics, “value”—though this is a concept liable to lead one astray, it is after all tied to “good.”
You can say that “to be beneficial to me/him” means “to be advantageous for me/him.” Then “egoism or altruism” becomes “what is good for oneself or good for others,” but here the “good” can by no means be omitted. Once the word “good” is omitted and it becomes “for oneself or for others,” the level of the question will very likely be confused. For example, when the question is asked, “How should one conduct oneself so as to be good (virtuous)?” some people will answer without hesitation: “Altruism is a good / altruistic actions are doing good deeds.” This answer is actually beside the point. I am not saying that such an answer is wrong and that instead one ought to be egoistic, and so on; rather, I am saying that this answer fundamentally misses the point of the question. If we reduce “altruism” to “for the sake of others’ good,” the crux becomes clear—ask: “What is good (the good)?” Answer: “Good is to be for the good of others”—what kind of answer is that? In the final analysis, what is “good”? That question has not been faced honestly. To interpret “good” through “altruism” is not to answer the question, but to evade it twice over. The first evasion is to conceal the question with an ambiguous concept; the second is to extricate oneself and let others bear the question in one’s stead—that is to say, originally the question was posed to oneself: “For me, what is the good (good)?” But if the answer is “altruism”: “For me, altruism (being good to others) is good,” then the question is shifted to: “Then what is good for others?” Does it mean that anything is fine so long as others think it is a good thing? Or that anything I think is good can just be handed over to others? Or, simply, that regardless of good or bad, as long as I sacrifice myself and dedicate myself to others, that will do?—The first is a blind slave, the second a blind tyrant, and the third is the most absurd and most dangerous mentality. By that logic, those human bombs would be the people of supreme goodness, for not only do they selflessly sacrifice the little self, they also especially benefit others by causing them to be sacrificed together.
Unconditional selflessness verges on thoughtlessness. Of course, so-called selfishness is also another way of evading the question: “Anyway, what I myself say is good is good.” In front of others, everyone does indeed have the right to defend themselves in this way. However, in reality, people who use language like this to defend themselves often do not truly intend to offer some original personal insight into good and bad; rather, they are refusing to explain further or pursue the matter. This too is thoughtlessness. But fairly speaking, for society and culture as a whole, thoughtless selfish people are a bit safer than thoughtless selfless people, because the former merely go their own way without reflection, but have no reason to interfere with others’ freedom; or rather, once he defends himself with “selfishness is justified,” he must also admit that others can defend themselves with the same reason, and as long as he is still being reasonable (that is, at least acknowledging some minimal universal principles: the reasons I can give, others can also give), he will necessarily have to recognize others’ private interests, or at least respect views different from his own. A person who takes selflessness as doctrine is comparatively worse, because if he is also going to carry his reasoning through to the end, then nothing will naturally compel him to recognize others’ difference and independence. When the doctrine of selflessness is greatly exalted, when people all become screws and bolts dedicated to self-sacrifice, what sort of face does society present? The history of New China makes that clear enough. Thus it is understandable that Wang Haiming, having emerged from the era of “fiercely fighting the thought of self-interest for a single instant,” would be so wildly excited upon discovering the “wei ji li ta” beyond “selfless altruism.” The present era seemingly no longer needs to worry too much about a resurgence of the “public-ness” craze, but the ideological shackles on people’s minds have by no means been fully loosened. One part of the guardians of orthodoxy still brandishes stale moral cudgels, while another part of the rebels snorts at all forms of preaching. As can be seen from events such as Fan Paopao and the debates related to them, the concepts of “selfishness” and “freedom” are still being confused and conflated by people…
The distinction between “…si” and “…you” is similar to the difference between “li…” and “wei…”. “Si” and “li” refer to things on the side of the object—self-serving, seeking profit, all refer to outcomes of certain actions being beneficial to someone. “You” and “wei,” on the other hand, are both concepts on the level of reasoning: “doing something because of selfishness,” “altruistically benefiting others for the sake of noble morality,” “harming others because of selfishness,” “harming oneself for the sake of altruism”… From the above examples, one should be able to see that “because-of–for-the-sake-of” and “public/private–benefit/harm” are concepts on two different levels.
“Because of…” and “for the sake of…” state a principle or a reason. So if “wei ji” is not a shorthand for “for the sake of benefiting oneself” (for if so, why not “for the sake of harming oneself”?) then what does it mean? In my view, “wei ji” is a concept close to “freedom”; both are speaking of oneself because of oneself or for oneself, oneself as one’s own reason and purpose.
“Freedom” is the basis of ethics or philosophical reflection—at least as far as classical philosophy is concerned, this is so. “Wei ji” or “freedom” expresses such a principle of principles: all the principles of my conduct must be revised by me personally. If I am to use some principle to defend or guide my actions, then that principle ought to arise from myself. In this sense, I always act because of myself, or for myself; only in this way must I be responsible for my own deeds, and thus arises the question of when and in what manner I need to take responsibility for myself. That question is precisely the topic of so-called ethics. And prior to the issues of ethics, the precondition that makes ethical inquiry possible is freedom, or wei ji. A person who acts not from his own will cannot speak of taking responsibility for himself; if all people were machines without a self, then ethics would not be needed at all, and only jurisprudence would be needed—in other words, regularity study would suffice.
Philosophy is a useless study; if ethics is taken as one domain of philosophy, then ethics is of course useless as well. Before commenting on whether something is useful or useless, philosophy must ask what is meant by usefulness and utility. Before disputing whether something is good or evil, ethics must ask what is meant by good and what is meant by evil. Thus, in this most fundamental inquiry, “self” is the principle of principles, the starting point of everything—if a starting point is indeed needed.
Of course, postmodernism does not need a starting point; abandoning philosophy does not bring any special loss. The problem is that, as Kant said, the impulse toward metaphysics is simply inborn and inextinguishable. Even those who dismiss thinking and questioning with contempt, when they treat and judge others, when they defend and position themselves, often inevitably fall into metaphysics, and without sufficient lucidity it is easy at such times to lose one’s way in the dense forest of abstract concepts. Many so-called “too sensuous” people are in fact overly constrained by the rule of abstract concepts, after all human life always depends deeply on language.
In short, if you engage in ethical questioning out of spontaneous intellectual curiosity, or if you criticize the words and deeds of others in the name of morality out of a sense of justice, then “self” is the basic starting point. No matter what you take good and bad to be, or good and evil to be, you must begin from yourself and use yourself as the standard. Only when you willingly yield what is good for you to others does such conduct count as “ritual propriety,” or you may say it is altruism. If what is unbearable to you or makes you sneer is taken out and divided among others, or if you promote others’ obtaining these things, that obviously does not count as a good deed. For example, because life is good for me, I know that promoting the life of others is a good thing (this is merely a way of speaking by analogy); whereas if a person has no good feeling toward his own life and only thinks about how to sacrifice it, then how can he say that promoting the life of others is a good thing?
Because I’ve been rather lax recently, the writing of this piece was interrupted at least three or five times, and after this last interruption I finally no longer wanted to continue. The rule that the slower an article is written, the worse it is seems not to have changed; I’ve even forgotten what I said and what I wanted to say, so I’ll just leave it here for now~
July 15, 2009
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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