Chinese Statecraft Maxims
LY 4:11
Against Amnesty
(c0479)

The Master said, The gentleman likes virtue; the little man likes partiality. The gentleman likes justice; the little man likes mercy.

As far as we can presently judge, this is a remembered saying of the historical Confucius, not a later formulation. It clearly shows the advance of a "rational" state, by the early 05c, and it identifies Confucius as siding with the rationalizers. The "little people" still cling to the "gift culture" concept represented by traditional amnesties and pardons. The rationalizers, with their larger view of what is best for the survival of the state, like the system of justice to operate systematically.

The "gentleman" (jywndz) is etymologically a member of the early Chinese ruling group, which was military in origin. It is precisely that group which in Confucius's lifetime lost its monopoly of the fringes of power, and maintained itself thereafter, not from hereditary privilege but from salaried service to the state. Confucius here appears willing to support the new modernizing regime initiated under Ai-gung. That support helps to explain his getting a court position in his late years, despite his previously undistinguished career. The jywndz and syau-rvn come to be ethicized in the late 04c Analects as those with and without ethical insight. This is a civilianization of the earlier political position which we here attribute to them. Their social sense also shifts: in LY 12:19 they have come to denote "rulers and ruled."

The Chinese shift from the palace state of the late 06c to the advanced bureaucratic state of the late 04c was not instantaneous; it took almost two centuries to accomplish. The first half of the Analects evolved over that same period, and gives us tiny snapshots of the process.

 

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