A Response to Eric Hutton’s Review

Abstract

I would first like to thank Eric Hutton for his careful review, and the editors of Dao for offering me this opportunity to respond. As a general strategy, Hutton weighs the persuasiveness of my coherence argument for a constructivist interpretation of Xunzi against a hypothetical coherence argument for a realist interpretation, and he finds the hypothetical argument more convincing. I am not sure I find that very convincing. It is perhaps too much to really expect to convince “someone inclined to a kind of ‘realist’ interpretation of Xunzi” to change his view, especially by providing a coherence argument. If my book did not convince, I can hardly hope this short response to do so. However, I can at least try to provide enough details to explain why I think his critique is off the mark. Hutton writes, “The ‘realist’ view comprises a variety of elements, but the two most important ones for Hagen are apparently the claims that Xunzi believes (1) there is a single correct standard for morality and (2) this standard is not man-made, but rather exists independently of humans” (emphasis added). However, Hutton claims, some of those I have categorized as realist interpreters actually would deny claim (2); they hold that although there is a single correct standard-for-morality (Dao), it is in fact man-made. Specifically, Hutton cites the fact that P. J. Ivanhoe and T. C. Kline “talk of the sages as ‘creating’ the Way or ‘concluding’ the process of its ‘evolution’.” Hutton concludes that “neither Ivanhoe nor Kline think of it as completely independent of human beings.” However, this simply conflates the standard itself with the implementation of that standard. Consider a Platonic way of looking at this. Plato would admit, of course, that people institute government institutions—how could he deny that? However, on Plato’s view, there is an independent, antecedently existing, Form of Justice, to which the institution we “create” ought to conform. Now, Plato, of course, is a realist par excellence. However, Ivanhoe’s interpretation seems to be analogous to Plato’s. The quotation that Hutton supplies confirms rather than undermines this conclusion. Here is the telling part of Ivanhoe’s statement again: “[Xunzi] clearly believed that the sages had brought the process to a successful conclusion and that the Confucian Way provided the unique solution which would be Dao (2007) 6:441–443 DOI 10.1007/s11712-007-9029-6