Practical Moral Consciousness in Rights Claims: Petition Letters on Chinese Village Elections (权利诉求中的实用道义意识——从理解农民选举上访信开始)

Abstract

AbstractThis article discusses the motivations and reasons for peasant resistance in China, with a special focus on the “consciousness” of resisters. The current debate is limited by its purpose of trying to understand how resistance consciousness influences the transition of the Chinese political system, and does not attempt to understand on a deeper level resistance consciousness itself. Drawing on a new collection of petitions on village elections, I trace the complex relationship between the public rights claims made by peasants and the hidden line of thinking that leads them to use this rhetoric to establish the legitimacy of their claims. I find a flourishing rights-based discourse in disputes over elections—yet I also identify a new type of consciousness that underlies it, one which is neither “rights-” nor “rules”-based and which I term “practical moral consciousness.” This type of consciousness combines an understanding of morality (daoyi道义) rooted in a conception of local justice combined with a deep kind of pragmatism. My investigation of practical moral consciousness highlights the moral legitimacy of “rightful resistance” and suggests the possibility of constructing a new theory based on the research on Chinese resistance politics by looking more closely at peasants’ subjective experiences and historical perspectives.(This article is in English.)摘要本文尝试理解中国农民进行抗争的动机和理由，即他们的抗争意识。当前有关争论受制于探究抗争意识对于中国政治体制转型的影响的目标，对抗争意识本身缺乏进一步研究。作者以农民选举上访信中的复杂表达为经验材料，对以权利诉求为主导的各种诉求进行理解，重点放在理解农民使其抗争诉求得以正当化的思考方式。初步理解表明，农民具有争论中的权利意识论和规则意识论都未曾揭示的抗争意识，即“实用道义意识”。它是农民道义意识和实用思维的结合。实用道义意识的研究凸现了今日“依法抗争”行动的道义正当性，蕴含着中国抗争政治研究建立抗争者主体视角和历史视角的可能性。