Individual Autonomy and Responsibility in Late Imperial China By ...

self” and “without others.” It was without self because nothing in learning is more important than self-mastery (refusing to follow the teacher who imposes rules to others), and without others, because teaching consists only of respecting the personalities of others.³¹ Thus Confucius never taught others to learn from himself, but his followers created the wrong duty of renouncing their way (sheji 舍己) to learn from Confucius. ³² This self-renunciation was against Confucius’s original will, according to Li Zhi. Again we find no-self and no-others in another passage, in which Li argues that the Way is in no-others and no-self (Fu Daozhe wuren wuji 夫道者，無人無己). ³³ In his letter to a friend, he reasserts the importance of “self-mastery” (keji 克己), necessary for “no-self” (kejizhe wuji ye 克己者，無己也).³⁴ His explanation, however, is completely different from the official exegesis that considers the process of repression of selfish desires necessary for self-cultivation. Here Li Zhi does not intend a moral process with mortification of desires but the restoration of natural feelings shared by common people (datong yusu 大同於俗) and corresponding to the restoration of “customs-rites” (fuli 復禮). “Independence from self” is independence from the standard rule that few moralists want to impose to all others. His point is the defence of individual autonomy. Rites and correctness do not come from the orthodox doctrine, the imposition by few moralists, but the needs and desire of common people. His arguments are framed in his support for the innate and natural desires of people and his battle against the hypocritical Dao.

Moreover, it should be taken into consideration that people have different characters, ambitions, ideas, and values. To respect others, we should not interfere with the lifestyles of others, and to do so, we should be free of prejudices, forget our ambition of monopolizing the truth, avoid the imposition of one’s standard to others (yiji zhiren 以己治人); only then we will be able to respect others and be in unison with them.³⁵

A way to strengthen Li’s arguments on personal autonomy is reversing the meaning of some basic terms. This is also the case for “rite” (li 禮). Instead of the traditional normative Confucian rules of behavior, rites