Both Adam Smith and Mencius could be arguably considered as two of the most thought-provoking philosophical intellectual thinkers within the domains of Anglo-Saxon economic and political civilisation over the course of Industrial Revolution and of classical Chinese economic and political civilisation amid the neolithic Warring-State period. In particular, the former one conceptualised moral sentiments and the potential economic secrets to wealth accumulation in a system of division of labour; the latter one critically and constructivistically inherited ideational legacies from the Confucius Doctrine, historically proposing the ideational disposition of humane government, moral priority, civil superiority over the rulers and state and the benign characteristics of an individual at birth. At first glance, both these two economic and political philosophers from two separate civilisational entities have few conceptual, intellectual, political and economic interrelations or overlapped commonality from their heterogeneous geographical characteristics and variables, grand historical circumstances of far distinctive, heterogeneous means of productions: the emergence of technological revolution from manufacturing to machinery in the embryonic stage in the Smith Era and metallurgical and agricultural advancements, metamorphism and transformation in the Mencius Era, and contrastive social structures and architectures between the Smith-inhabiting British society and Mencius-inhabiting Warring-State society in antique Chinese period. Nevertheless, the chief objective of this research analytical manuscript seeks to, with the frameworks of certain international relations theories and comparative philosophy, conduct profound, comprehensive, dialectical contrastive investigations into their implicit reciprocity and trans-sectional, trans-spatial homogeneity and interplay, especially a series of organic associations of their analytical propositions on the nature, implications and implementations of morality of different forms and fashions with the necessity for recalibrating, reconstructing and even re-modeling a more morality-oriented normative international, inter-civilisational development architecture in the contemporary volatile, unpredictable, competitive and ambiguous world between disorder and integration, between amalgamation and fragmentation, between win-win cooperation and zero-sum confrontation upon a firm theoretical roots of Thucydides Traps. Methodologically, this analytical manuscript has sought to take advantage of constructivistic representative sampling of Chinese pandemic-controlling measures, and China’s uniquely active, autonomous participation into the global economic development paradigm and trajectory, in contradiction with the unanticipated demise of Silicon Valley Bank, which may be comparable to Bears Stearns Moment chiefly owning to the withdrawal of governmental regulations, the dismal fiasco of financial and banking regulations and excessive non-performing loans, and unethical misbehaviours by the financial oligarchs within. Moreover, Russia-Ukraine geopolitical dilemma drains the global economic sluggish movement. As a result of must fairly exhaustive, quantitative and qualitative investigation into representative sampling of failed amoral, non-normative institutions and differently up-coming normative initiatives, it could be initially observed that whilst the conditions and contexts for successfully constructing a morality-oriented normative international, inter-civilisational development system and mechanism are divergent because of diverse political, economic, social, cultural and environmental circumstances, the probability index and necessity for doing so can be circumstantial and verifiable and such kinds of international normative institutions and mechanisms should be enforceable in a more civilisational, international society as it should be. Furthermore, Mencius Doctrine and Smithian Doctrine can uphold a supplementary role to play in achieving that kind of prospect of unconventional collective morality and collective norm, which is not unique to Western context alone, that certain mainstream Western-initiating international relations theoretical findings may have fallen short of quantitatively and qualitatively reconstructing, recalibrating and re-evaluating. China’s examples could be the quintessential example worthy of re-learning and abstract inheritance for others who choose to take lessons at an inter-philosophical, cross-sectional level.
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Jul 22, 2023
Chandan Pradhan + 3
Open Access