From Virtue to Duty: Xunzi’s Gong-Yi 公義 and the Institutionalization of Public Obligation in Early Confucianism

Abstract

This paper challenges the conventional view that pre-Qin Confucianism represents kingly virtue politics that lacks institutional duty. By interpreting Xunzi’s notion of yi 義, particularly gong-yi 公義, as a form of public obligation, I show that Xunzi exposes yi to state institutions to oblige people to serve public ends. While institutional duty is often associated with post-Enlightenment political philosophy, this paper argues that Xunzi’s philosophy offers a comparable framework of public–private exchange. Xunzi’s gong-yi may be a public-servicing sense of duty that combines moral and civic dimensions, compelling individuals to cooperate for the collective good. Unlike social contract theories that trade private rights with public duties, Xunzi’s system relies on moral compulsion and normative reciprocity. This system posits a sensible exchange between individual duties from inner compulsion for the public good. By contrasting gong 公 (the public) with si 私 (the private), Xunzi envisions the public as an entity that is serviced through public duties and a place for human flourishing. Positioning the role of gong-yi in Xunzi’s broader institutional project crystalizes this nascent concept of a “public” and its relationships with civic duties.

1. Introduction

Institutional duty is rarely associated with pre-Qin Confucianism; this paper challenges this view and reinterprets Xunzi’s yi 義, specifically gong-yi 公義 as the pre-Qin Confucian attempt at institutionalizing virtue as a public duty.1 By institutionalization, I mean the externalized principle-based practice of a social norm such that the norm’s existence necessarily depends on a multitude of compelling social factors including but not limited to internal compulsion.2 More specifically, Xunzi’s yi is a duty embedded in social-political structures, in contrast to Kongzi’s and Mengzi’s yi as a virtue. This notably marks a departure from Kong-Meng’s familial-based political philosophy. The claim “從義不從父”, translated as “follow yi and not your father”, appears to show yi as a non-familial obligation overruling filial duties.3 Select comparisons with post-Enlightenment public–private separation and duty–interest exchange will uncover the key similarities and differences that reveal Xunzi’s gong-yi as possessing elements of both moral and civic duty.

The historical context of this shift is the expansion of state authority during the Warring States China (475–221 BCE), where completing public works became a matter of survival for the state.4 Against this backdrop, institutional duty is needed to securely and predictably enable public cooperation. The central thesis of this paper charts yi’s shift from virtue to duty, arguing that it represents a Confucian response to the pressing issue of public works.

Xunzi’s institutionalism represents a genuine innovation that advances virtue politics into institutional politics. Securing public duty from the people requires a sensible framework of exchange. Fulfilling public obligations, such as military duty or bond services, requires personal sacrifices and thus is reasonable to expect compensation. In the social contract theory, natural freedoms are exchanged for civil obligations to secure one’s property, liberty, and life. Under this view, institutional duty depends on the fair and reasonable exchange of private rights and interests with public duties and state-secured rights. Xunzi’s gong-yi partially resembles the structure of this exchange, but crucial differences remain.

It is widely known that Xunzi thought people were naturally chaotic and relied on social institutions to shape orderly behaviour. Scholars have highlighted self-interest as the main psychological handle leveraged to make people orderly (Sung 2015). Through satisfying interests, many contended that Xunzi’s political philosophy possessed utilitarian characteristics (Feng 1931; Mou 1979; Xu 1969). A challenge of the utilitarian reading is how yi as a virtuous inclination stands concerning self-interested inclinations li* 利 (profits). Suppose that people become orderly from acting out of self-interest, how should we understand Xunzi’s claim that people are also motivated by yi, often risking their own interests? Closing this gap, I argue that yi, as feelings of obligation, is the more powerful psychological handle leveraged as an institutional principle to shape public behaviour.

The Classical Chinese discourse places gong 公 (the public) in opposition to si 私 (the private). Placed together with yi-duty, gong-yi may be understood as a public duty. Here, I borrow from David Nivison’s (1996) influential interpretation of yi as an “unfilled sense of duty”. Firstly, I ask how yi’s public function stands concerning profit li*, showing the structure of this institutional exchange. Explaining the structure of yi as duty requires two steps, discussed in two sections: (a) the explication of yi as a psychological characteristic that is “an unfilled sense of duty”; (b) an explanation that joins yi’s psychological structure to the institutional exchange of yi and li*. Next, I propose that gong-yi implies a concept of a “public” serviced by normatively obliged duties and enforced legal measures.

2. Yi 義—Duty as Institutionalized Virtue

For philosophers in antiquity, civic responsibilities were inseparable from moral obligations. Aristotle’s (1981, 1.1-2) ideal city, koinonia politike (political community), requires virtuous citizens to maintain the city-state’s integrity. The Chinese Axial thinker Mengzi thought virtues such as ren 仁 (humaneness) and yi were essential for similar reasons. This section explores the distinction between Xunzi’s institutionalized yi-duty from Mengzi’s yi-virtue. While Aristotle and Mengzi were virtue ethicists (Angle and Slote 2013; Huang 2020; Kim 2019; Tan 2005; Van Norden 2007), this section will demonstrate that Xunzi’s yi is a principle of inner compulsion that generates action through the shameful feeling of an “unfilled duty”.

The term yi does not have a single definition and is usually associated with virtues of “rightness”, “appropriateness”, “integrity”, and “duty”.5 The ancient lexicon Shuowenjiezi (説文解字) suggests an association with rituals and rightness, with the top radical meaning “lamb” and the bottom being the first-person pronoun, likely referring to sacrificial rituals. Sinologist John Knoblock (1988) translates the term as “morality”, focusing on “rightness” as a normative guidance of behaviour. Burton Watson (2003) uses “righteousness”, conveying the inner conviction of being morally right. Eric Hutton (2014) leaves yi untranslated. In these translations, I wish to draw attention to how both Knoblock and Watson highlight yi as an inner compulsion that obliges normative action. This is the way yi can be understood as “duty”—obligatory acts compelled by feelings of shame and guilt ru 辱 if left unfilled. In other words, the inner feeling yi becomes the “handle” social institutions leverage to oblige people to perform duties.6

This should be first contextualized within Xunzi’s theory of moral transformation whereby human nature xing 性 is bad and wei 偽 (deliberate effort) makes people good. Xunzi’s moral transformation is generally understood to involve nurturing yi from impulse into fully fledged morality. Yi is a latent moral capacity (Li 2011), associated with feelings of indebtedness or an impulse to return good for good (Nivison 1996). This moral capacity, requiring reflection through rituals, depends on institutional support (Ivanhoe 1994; Kline 2000). But why are these feelings, which are congenial to good, not strong enough to overcome bad human nature? In insecure conditions, these feelings will be overwhelmed by self-interests li*, necessitating ritual guidance (Wong 2000). Thus, if private self-interests are controlled, yi feelings may then be directed to moral ends.

Xunzi accepting li* as a solvable limitation rather than a moral hazard per se starkly contrasts Mengzi’s position in the “debate between yi and li*” 義利之辯. Mengzi argues that seeking profits will ruin King Hui’s Liang kingdom because self-profit leads to the expansion of greed and ruinous competition between peers.7 In this instance, yi is categorically opposed to li*, closely resembling Aristotle’s concern for virtuous citizens within a koinonia politike. In their views, political integrity and order relied on virtuous individuals. It is worth noting that Xunzi agrees with Mengzi in thinking political leaders should cultivate yi. In Wangba 王霸, he asserts that yi is how one becomes a true king, as seen in the phrase yi-lì-er-wang 義立而王: “if yi is established as your foundation, then you will be a true king.” (Hutton 2014, p. 99), explaining thus

Those men with whom he collaborates in conducting the government are all men of yi. The punishments and laws he sets out for state and clan are all laws in accordance with yi. Those things which the ruler is extremely vigorous in leading his various ministers to turn their heads to are all yi intentions. When it is like this, then those below will look up to those above for being yi.

(Hutton 2014, p. 99)

Xunzi echoes Mengzi’s claim that a leader’s yi influences his subordinates, but expands the concept beyond personal virtues.8 The passage above displays yi as a principle by which laws and punishments are aligned, akin to Aristotle’s view of politics grounded in “justice”.9 Taking note of this expansion from personal virtue to institutional principle, P. J. Ivanhoe (2025) groups yi together with rituals (li 禮), and distinctions (fen 分) and argues that they are all artificial constructs. Ivanhoe writes that yi, li and fen “are products not of natural human inclinations, i.e., spontaneous features of human nature, but the result of human invention and experimentation, the result of what Xunzi calls ‘deliberate efforts’” (Yang 2021, pp. 4–5). Institutional deliberation is crucial because people’s desires (yu 欲) outstrip limited resources.10 To prevent conflict, social institutions ensure people satisfy chaotic desires in an orderly manner.11 This tells us that social institutions are pivotal to morality and order, but how do these social institutions leverage innate human tendencies, and what are their effects on civic orderliness?12

The scope of this question rests outside of ordinary moral transformation. Specifically, it requires us to understand the public institutional framework that commutes with an individual’s yi. Shuo Dongfang (2023) offers a provocative perspective in highlighting the difference between Mengzi’s yi in “the debate between yi and li* 利” and Xunzi’s yi in “establishing yi to become the true king”. For Dongfang, Mengzi’s yi illustrates a “moral understanding of politics” whereas Xunzi’s yi is an “objectivized principle” that views morality through the lens of politics (372). Moreover, Dongfang (404) underscores the significance of this move, Xunzi’s yi shifts from “the individual to the collective”, becoming an externalized and quantifiable factor. This is a partial departure from the autonomous self-regulation of yi as a personal virtue and makes it so that institutions can hold people to the standards of yi through external verification, introducing a commutation between a public authority and private individuals.

This profound transition invites an externalized reading of yi that explains how an individual’s psychology serves public ends. In my explanation, I draw heavily from Nivison’s (1996) definition of Xunzi’s yi as an “unfilled sense of duty”. Nivison argues that yi amounts to a psychological characteristic of feeling obliged to others, describing it as the uncomfortable sense in which “there is something I am not doing that I could do, and I am perhaps painfully, aware of this” (211). Addressing how yi does not contradict Xunzi’s claim that xing is bad, Nivison maintains that yi should not be confused with Mengzi’s yi as a positive sense of duty. He lays out the problem: duty could either mean a positive sense of obligation to help others or a negative fear of being shamed when one is neglecting duty. Mengzi’s yi represents the first version and is rejected because it would contradict Xunzi’s claim that human nature is bad. Therefore, yi is a negative fear driven by feelings such as shame and guilt. Institutions transform this psychological tendency into measurable external action.

Psychologically, yi is rooted in the fear of shame from others, and this feeling obliges people to perform duties. This resonates with Aristotle’s view of the moral education of the city’s citizens (Hutton 2002; Cua 2003; Zhao 2024) in sharing a moral reasoning process based on intrinsic moral values rather than extrinsic social constraints. As an inner sense of compulsion, this process requires a moral recognition of shame (Cua 2003, p. 180), where one experiences emotional uneasiness as a consequence of social misconduct.13 Xunzi possibly goes further than Aristotle by showing that, if leveraged correctly, this internal compulsion can be the basis of consistent performance of civic duty to complete public works. To my knowledge, this is an original, if not controversial interpretation as Confucians often focused on the inner virtuous dimensions of yi.

In defence of this view, we may examine how the text links yi with xing* 行 (conduct), connecting yi to physical actions.14 For instance, Xunzi writes in Dalüe 大略: 義，理也，故行, which can be understood as yi is reasonable and thus should inform your conduct and action. This association is found again in Zhengming 正名: 正利而為謂之事，正義而為謂之行, which means acting on straightened profit li* is called work and straightened yi is called conduct. In Xunzi’s context, “duty” captures yi as a psychological structure of being compelled by obligation and the external acts generated by this inner feeling. This precise sense of consistent act-compulsion is not captured by other English translations such as “morality”, “rightness”, and “appropriateness” because one can possess them as innate virtues or evaluative attitudes without forcefully acting on them.15

In summary, this section presents duty as the definition of Xunzi’s yi. I make this distinction based on the idea that duties are externally measurable on the action end and internally motivated in the psychological structure. However, public duty is only fair if people are compensated for performing them, how does Xunzi address this problem? It is worth noting that the yi presented here also stands in a new relationship with li*, (benefits or profits). Kong-Meng Confucianism despised acts motivated by li* and thought yi and li* were categorically opposed.16 In the following section, we shall examine further how Xunzi’s yi challenges Mengzi’s view that yi and li* are incompatible. Through comparisons to Western theories, I hope a clearer picture of the structure of institutional exchange between interests and duties will emerge.

3. Yi 義 and Li* 利—Reciprocal Not Traded

The previous section explains how yi-duty may be understood as a leveraged psychological principle. This section will demonstrate that Xunzi’s duty–interest exchange parallels (but differs from) the effects of the institutionalization of public duties in social contract theories. Xunzi’s public duty gong-yi may be a sensible normative reciprocity between yi-duties and public interests that benefit all. I shall begin by explaining, with comparisons, the institutionalized structure guiding this reciprocal relationship.

Thomas Hobbes’s (1651) well-known scepticism of human nature has often been likened to Xunzi’s belief that xing is bad and the two are frequently compared (Cua 2003; Dongfang 2011; Kim 2019; Wong 2000). Here, I am using Hobbes’s social contract theory simply to clarify the structure of Xunzi’s yi-li* institution. Unlike Aristotle’s koinonia politike, where duties are natural moral obligations, Hobbes (1640) believed that state authority is derived from natural individual rights. Laws must rest on people’s desire for self-preservation.17 I will not recount Hobbes’s well-known social contract argument but draw attention to three important features of Hobbes’s contract and John Locke’s (1689) challenge to Hobbes to draw comparisons to Xunzi’s yi-li* institution:

• Trade-off: Hobbes argues the social contract benefits all people. Avoiding a vicious all-versus-all state of nature, people can thrive in the structured security of sovereign authority.
• Compulsion: Hobbes grants the sovereign full legal authority to compel people to do their duties.
• Consent: Hobbes argues that people implicitly consent to civil duties in the social contract and thus must accept sovereign coercion.

Duties compelled through political institutions require conformity and justification as to why one should conform. Hobbes justifies conformity to laws through self-interests and appeals to our self-preservation instincts, which he calls “the natural law”.18 The underlying assumption is that people are primarily motivated by self-interests, an assumption challenged by Locke. Locke thinks duties cannot just rest on self-interest because significant duties come at personal costs, such as conscription and heroic sacrifices during battle (PE 127–133). Thus, duties cannot be reduced to self-interested considerations (Crisp 2019, p. 58).

Carefully examining this disagreement, we see that Locke and Hobbes underscore two distinct aspects of duty. Hobbes’s conformity to civic duty originates from the psychological impulse to preserve self-interests and profit. Answering Locke’s challenge, Hobbes may say that people do not have the duty to sacrifice themselves and are justified to escape if threatened with death. Locke’s argument against egoism, on the other hand, underscores the moral requirements of duty. Xunzi’s concepts of yi-duty and li* profit involve both psychological impulses and moral requirements.

Although Xunzi shared a concern for the chaotic state of nature and affirmed the necessity of communal life,19 he does not explicitly frame civic duty as a self-interested trade-off. Like Hobbes, Xunzi recognizes the psychological impulse for profit li*. In tandem with Locke’s critique, Xunzi also thinks that satisfying interests li* does not lead to duty yi. Instead, the relationship of yi and li* may be better understood as normative reciprocity. Yi is a moral requirement, at the same time, li* is an immutable desire that needs to be satisfied. Both to satisfy private interests and fulfil public duties, the public authority and private individuals enter into a form of reciprocal exchange.

The character of yi-li* reciprocity may be understood as an evolution of Confucian yi and synthesis of Mohist 墨家 li* that aimed to preserve some aspects of Confucianism while being receptive to arguments from other schools of thought. Amid a collapse of order during the late Warring States, Xunzi lived in a turbulent era and may have been much more concerned with the art of public statecraft than Kongzi and Mengzi. This was also a period of expansion of state institutions. Faced with an emerging new institutional reality, Xunzi participated in the discourse, initiated by Mohism, on how benefits can be secured for all. The term gong-li* 公利 as (public profit, public interest), central to Mohism, is also found in Xunzi’s chapter Fu.

Carine Defoort (2008) credits the Mohists with moving the needle in accepting li*, profit and interests, as legitimate political concerns. Confucian aristocratic attitudes saw li* discussions at court as petty and crass, typified by Mengzi’s admonishment of King Hui of Liang—a common sentiment in the earlier Spring Autumn period (771–481 BCE.).20 Positive sentiments towards li* emerged later (after 470 BCE.) in debates between the Mohist and Yangist 楊家 schools on how a ruler should profit the state.21 This is the critical context of the phrase in chapter Fu, zhi-ai-gong-li 志愛公利 (literal translation: will to-love-public-profit) and may be an indication of “public interest” entering the Confucian purview. Xunzi praises Sage-king Yao for abdicating because “he cared for his people and wanted them to widely profit” 泛利兼愛, showing that care can entail allowing others to profit.22 For Xunzi, yielding (讓) interests and profit to the common people was an admirable political goal as it showed care for others and promoted public productivity. Partially agreeing with Mohist state utilitarianism, Xunzi writes that “acting on straightened li* is called work”.23 More importantly, however, Xunzi pushed back against the earlier Confucian idea that yi and li* are categorically opposed; yi ranks above li* 利, but an ideal state accommodates both (Zhu 2022). He writes that those who place yi before li* are honourable and the reverse is a disgrace.24 Ideally, li* should be wholly directed at others and never pursued for its own sake.25 Seeking li* is certainly not virtuous in and of itself, but Xunzi understood that the natural desire for self-profit was immutable and thus should be accommodated.26 One may even argue that Xunzi stands closer to the Mohists than past Confucians in believing interests can be directed to the public’s benefit. That is to say that the state should re-direct people’s profit-seeking desires into work that benefits all. In contrast, Mengzi is not open to this possibility and morally repudiates all profit and interest-seeking desires.27

It is important to understand that although li* is accommodated, public duty is not purchased through interests. In this sense, Xunzi’s yi is close to Aristotle’s civic duty. Akin to how the koinonia politike is maintained by virtuous citizens, yi originates from the obligatory impulse of reciprocity, to return good for good. Take the following passage in Fuguo 富國, for instance:

Both superiors and subordinates were enriched, and the commoners all felt affection for their superiors. The fact that people turned to their leaders like water flowing down, loved them with the same kind of delight they had for their own parents, and happily marched out to die for them (為之出死斷亡而愉者) was for no other reason than that the superiors had achieved the ultimate in loyalty, trustworthiness, harmoniousness, and evenhandedness.”

(Hutton 2014, p. 92)

Profit and interest do not motivate self-sacrifice, nor is loyalty a transactional purchase.28 Yi’s reciprocal structure as obliged civic duty may be closer to the affectionate relationship between a parent and child. The ruler yields li* interests to profit others, further creating conditions of reciprocity. On this note, we must also understand that institutional yi is not enforced with legal threats. Instead, this reciprocity hinges on the sense of “returning aid”.29 We do not be naïve about the problematic power asymmetry between a ruler’s affection and the compelled sacrifices of the common people. My point is that the inner obligation that drives people into action is not the compulsion from a contractual trade-off between the desire for profit/interest at the pain of legal punishment. Instead, yi-duties are maintained by the inner obligatory shame and guilt associated with leaving duties unfilled.

Finalizing this comparison, we may distinguish the voluntariness in normative reciprocity from consenting to sovereign authority. In the social contract theory, people consent to public duties because they have given prior consent to sovereign authority. Yi-duty, in contrast, is a volunteer agreement depending on the agent being compelled by an inner sense of moral obligation. No explicit consent is given to the sovereign or the specific terms of public duty. Nevertheless, a person feels a moral responsibility through an inner obligation to act in reciprocal ways vis à vis the state.

This section highlights that Xunzi yi was not arbitrary or unconditional and depended on reciprocity. Mengzi and Xunzi agree that normative reciprocity may naturally emerge from a true king’s yi, but Xunzi may think depending on virtuous rulers makes yi generation unreliable. In lieu, institutionalized duties can be generated from the ruler yielding interests to the common people to show his care and affection. In turn, the common people are obliged to perform yi-duties. As a whole, this institutional arrangement may bring public benefit (gong-li*). Hopefully, this shows a sensible framework that can be partially credited to Mohist state utilitarianism. At this point, the contours of the public emerge: as a beneficiary to yi-duties and as a body that collectively works towards a common purpose. This final section joins yi-duty, li*-interests and gong public to show a nascent conception of early Confucian public philosophy.

4. Gong 公 vs. Si 私—A Public Body

The previous section explains the exchange between duty and interests as normative reciprocity. In the following section, I hope to show that Xunzi’s exchange structure services a collective body, a “public”. The idea of a “public” is commonly associated with the Western political tradition, thus transplanting this concept onto Xunzi’s philosophy will first require justifications as to why we may place aside the difficulties in commensurability. By focusing on two facets of the concept, I hope to show that Xunzi’s gong 公 can be plausibly understood as a form of “public”, insofar as it is a space for moral flourishing and a collective body.

Two specific similarities justify this comparison with Xunzi. Firstly, I discuss the moral pertinence of public participation as a sphere of human flourishing. According to Hannah Arendt (1970), Aristotle thought participation in public political activity led to human flourishing. The family household’s private activities, on the other hand, were despotic because the relationships (master–slave, husband–wife) were not participatory. For Aristotle, the public sphere was where citizens would cultivate virtues such as justice and contribute to the common good. Secondly, I draw attention to the collective body as a concept that imagines the public as a personified singular entity and a moral subject worthy of normative recognition. The “public” in the minds of Enlightenment thinkers was the “embodiment of wills”. Hobbesian sovereign is the embodied will of the collective people, built on the European Medieval legal concept that recognizes “corporate entities” as a persona ficta (Pettit 2008).30 The most striking similarity may be found in the philosophies of Jean-Jacque Rousseau (1755), where the public was a “general will” aimed at a common good that is not the sum of individual goals and interests. Specifically for Hobbes and Rousseau, the distinct concept of a public collective body as more than the sum of individuals, suggests this body is normatively significant. For Rousseau, good governance must reflect the will of this body. Hobbes argues that laws are legitimate because they originate from the impersonated sovereign. This constructed, fictional body is recognized as a subject that requests normative obligations similar to how we owe real people inherent moral obligations, such as respect and relational appropriateness. The clearest example is how modern people personify nations as a “collective body” that demands individuals to recognize it as a normatively worthy entity. For instance, people may believe it is wrong to “insult a nation” much like how it is wrong to “insult a real person”.

The current three prominent English translations do not distinctly show the two faces of gong. Hutton (2014) translates gong as “without prejudice” and “impartiality”. This reading emphasizes the moral attitudes of a junzi 君子, a cultivated person, who holds no prejudices and is impartial in judgment. Hutton explains that his use of “avoidance of prejudice” means both “opposing selfishness and one-sidedness”, and “public-spiritedness” (54). Knoblock (1990) translates gong-yi to “common good” and “public spiritedness”. Watson (2003) translates gong-yi as “public right”. In trying to contextualize gong in the text, English translators differentiated the “public” and “impartial” dimensions without settling on a unified explication.

The moral attitude of impartiality is evident in Xunzi’s gong, but the idea of public-spiritedness has not been fully explained. Crucially, translations have not expanded on the senses in which gong may be a public body. Let us first examine the two passages where Xunzi uses gong-yi and weigh in on the two different ways gong is used. The first passage is found in Xiushen 修身:

The Documents says: “Do not create new likes. Follow the kings’ way. Do not create new dislikes. On the kings’ path stay. This is saying that through gong-yi, gentlemen overcome capricious selfish desires.

(Hutton 2014, p. 15, modified).

The second mention is in Jundao君道:

Make clear people’s allotments, their responsibilities, assign to people proper works, arrange activities, use those having talents, grant office for abilities, so none are not well ordered, nor have improprieties, then gong ways (dao) will enjoy success, and selfish (si) approaches make no progress. Gong-yi will shine bright and clear, and selfish (si) pursuits wholly disappear.

(Hutton 2014, p. 125, modified)

It is clear from these passages that gong opposes si 私 and is associated with promoting talent and following the king’s order as a form of public participation, requiring impartial moral attitudes. Xunzi’s usage of gong-zheng 公正, seen four times, is most related to Hutton’s understanding of “without prejudice”. By being impartial, one moves away from the parochial and selfish perspective and cultivates unprejudiced judgments towards others. Being gong is a part of becoming junzi, a morally transformative process likened to Aristotle’s public participation as a cultivation of virtues. Supporting this reading, Winnie Sung (2015) argues that people reflect and “realize that the self and other are related in virtue of being members of humankind”. By this, Sung suggests moving from a self-interested “default mode of operation” shifts focus from the self to others. In this manner, Sung argues that Xunzi’s gong-yi moves a person from private desires (siyu 私欲) towards other-regarding yi. Being publicly spirited undoubtedly involves other-regarding inner moral attitudes. However, the political sense in which public-spiritedness represents a positive attitude towards the body of the collective falls outside the scope of this explanation.

The discussion of the political gong has garnered significant interest among Sinophone scholars in recent decades. Notably, Zehua Liu (2003, p. 139) argued that the Warring States was a period of “establishing the public and eliminating the private” (立公滅私). In Liu’s view, the period underwent significant shifts in moral attitudes that saw private desires and private wills as problematic because they were partial to factionalism, where powerful families accumulated interests at the expense of public interests. Before the Warring States, si was used in Analects and Mengzi without negative connotations to mean “private matters” in a neutral way.31 In Xunzi, the Legalist 韓非子 Hanfeizi and Mozi, si became closely associated with being partial to forming “private interest groups” to influence state policy (Shun 2005, p. 5). The question here is, however, why are gong considerations morally superior to si considerations? Past Confucians who prioritized private familial-based duties thought common people benefitted from the ruler’s cultivation of private virtues. This alludes to a missing explanation of how gong is a subject worthy of normative obligations that rank above private obligations towards subjects in kinship ties.

Explaining this gap returns to the distinction made at the beginning of this section. Gong in opposition to si, as moral obligations, should be understood as both the motivation to be impartial and a collective body serviced by duties. This more robust concept of gong posits a constructed bodily subject worthy of moral obligations. Gong eliminating si thus should be understood in two senses, as a cultivation of moral attitude through public participation and the re-direction of moral obligations, from private interests to the collective body. The robust version shares important parallels with the public body in social contract theories. Thus, using the Enlightenment public as a comparative tool will hopefully yield important insights into Xunzi’s gong. Although Xunzi, like his Classical contemporary Aristotle, assumed that people were born into a collective, he possibly went further with a more pronounced normative notion of a collective body.

In this vein, gong has indeed been used to describe things as belonging to a “public” or “collective” as early back as the Western Zhou period. The term gong-tian 公田, public fields, was mentioned in both the Book of Poetry Shijing 詩經 (11th–7th century BCE) and by Mengzi in the saying “雨我公田, 遂及我私”, which means “let rain fall on the public fields before my own private ones”.32 The Spring and Autumn Annals (呂氏春秋) used gong as a praise for rulers who are willing to sacrifice for the greater good (Sato 2020, pp. 32–33). Placed together, we may see that gong represents a form of collectivism that is not a loose self-interested association of familial groups coming together for private benefit. In other words, people are obliged to work for a collective rather than working for themselves and kin through collective effort. In the same vein, gong in the term for public threat (gong-huan 公患) is also an instance of politically identifying a problem that concerns this collective body. In Fuguo, Xunzi challenges Mozi’s claim that gong-huan is the shortage of resources, arguing that it is instead it is chaos and strife.33 Similarly, the aforementioned gong-li* implies a distinct morally worthy body that is serviced through individual or private obligations. Minimally, gong must imply some entity that receives and benefits from duty. Maximally, Xunzi implies that this moral entity ranks above private duties and obligations.

The text offers no definitive proof, but I contend that solid evidence suggests a nascent form of a public body in Xunzi’s writings. Fundamentally, Xunzi thought that qun 群 (the collective, group) was the basic human condition, and states thrived when it protected the interests of all (Zhu 2022; R. Wang 2023). We should remember here that qun, described in Wangzhi 王制 and Fuguo refers to the natural inclination of people to form communities. The chapters suggest that governing the collective requires the proper allocation of resources, but the term qun does not have obvious normative qualities. The argument from gong goes further and shows the collective is recognized as a moral subject worthy of individual normative obligations. Given that Xunzi often addressed Mohist and Legalist positions, that contained more vivid illustrations of this concept, I believe this is a plausible assumption.34 To clarify Xunzi’s concept of the gong-body, the social contract public body elucidates its composition and function in the sense that the “constructed” body in Hobbes and Rousseau is like gong, as a collective body serviced by duties. Locke’s protection of private interests against public encroachment is the reverse of the opposition between gong and si. Contra Locke, Xunzi and other Classical Chinese thinkers wanted to protect gong from si. Specifically, we may posit Xunzi’s gong-yi as follows:

• As a collective, Xunzi’s gong is a body serviced by public duties gong-yi. Through gong-yi, the gong-body receives public interest gong-li*. Xunzi’s aim is for the collective to exert effort with unified force and praised rulers who were able to make people “exert force as if one person” 若使一人.35 The “public” here resembles Rousseau’s “general will” in that the common good is not a collection of individual interests. Like Hobbes’s bodily analogy, Xunzi’s gong is a collective body that acts in unity. Gong-body as a constructed person has been incepted.
• As a moral attitude, being gong means participating individuals must be publicly spirited, eliminate selfishness and direct moral obligations towards gong and not si. Gong-yi in this sense is the publicly spirited practice of yi-duties. Xunzi writes that shame compels avoidance of si because it aligns with normative reciprocity.36 For those who have no shame or reciprocity, legal punishments can be used.37 The chapter Yibing議兵 is the clearest example of how Xunzi understood that military service, a public duty involving considerable risk, can only be effectively motivated by yi-duties.38 Echoing Locke, Xunzi thinks that if people are only motivated by rewards and punishments, people would desist any risky public duty. Soldiers would flee at first sight of danger. Through normative reciprocity, however, people are joined in collective action even at considerable personal risk. Gong-yi describes the yi-duties that benefit the collective but present significant private sacrifice. According to Xunzi, great public work is only possible when exceptional kings master the art of leveraging yi, threatening punishments or offering li* should only supplement yi institutions.39

Returning to the historical context, we can see that gong-yi indeed reinforces the strength of this body. The survival of Warring state kingdoms practically depended on a steady supply of conscripts and bonded services in building defensive walls and the failures of these public works led to harm for all. By eliminating selfishness, gong also prevents private interests from interfering with collective interests.

Gong-body as a nascent form of “public” can be further clarified through a final comparison with Mengzi, who demonstrably did not believe the gong-body to be a normative worthy subject. Mengzi’s idea of public–private distinction is much more comparable to Locke’s. For Locke, the public is the collective association of free persons. Locke gives special moral consideration to the family and argues that paternal power is the first political authority. He argues that the “first society was between Man and Wife, which gave beginning to that between Parents and Children.” Mengzi affirms paternal authority and thinks the family unit should be fenced as a protected space. A ruler following daoyi 道義 “the way and yi” gives special protection to this unit (Liu 2023). Ideally, this protected space will be used to nurture virtues, for example, cultivating love for parents into “extendable love” to others. Therefore, growing private virtues come before public-spiritedness. In Mengzi’s view, yi’s pertinence to the benefit of all is its effects on the state’s ruler. People benefit from a ruler who extends his virtues to his people and thus the public benefits from his private virtues. Mengzi did not think virtuous actions in the public sphere trump private virtues.

To summarize my argument so far, the central thesis of this paper shows that Xunzi’s gong-yi is a significant institutional innovation away from virtue ethics. In my reading, two arguments mark this difference. Xunzi’s gong is a collective body and the subject of moral obligation. This body is maintained by institutionalized yi-duties that consistently leverage the psychological structure of shame and guilt into normative obligatoriness. This is a novel argument, and I would like to present two responses to potential disagreements. The radical institutional expansion supported by Legalism and Mohism, which subsumes all private moral space, should be distinguished from Xunzi’s defence of individual moral potential. As a Confucian, Xunzi did not fully commit to institutional legal, utilitarian duties. Here, we should remember that gong-yi is not only a civic duty but also a moral aspiration. The great ru 大儒 is “fully at ease in being public-spirited in their intentions” (Hutton 2014, p. 67) showing that being gong should involve deliberate cultivation. In this sense, I disagree with the view that gong-yi’s civic demands amount to legal institutionalism, where “following duties is simple legalism” (J. Wang 2009, pp. 95–96). From the analysis above, I show that Xunzi clearly understood that punishments and rewards could not motivate self-harming duties and held penal codes as a last measure against those who lack normative reciprocity. Furthermore, while Xunzi’s idea synthesized some Mohist state utilitarianism, I maintain that gong-yi is not utilitarian per se. You-Lan Feng (1931) succinctly draws attention to Xunzi’s uneasiness of being caught between Confucian’s yi, seeking moral rightness even at the cost of harming interests li* and Mohist’s plain focus on collective interests. However, Xunzi affirms that it is inherently good to practice gong-yi, and the great Ru was at ease with being publicly spirited. More precisely, Xunzi thinks that although gong-yi services the collective, it is unlike sterile Legalist duties and is internally, and autonomously morally motivated (Harris 2013, pp. 108–19).40

A fruitful way to understand this apparent uneasiness is to see that Xunzi compromises with the popular trend of expanding public authority during the Warring States. By synthesizing moral autonomy with the demand for public cooperation, Xunzi preserves the core Confucian idea of yi as an autonomous act. The inner virtue is conserved as a psychological structure, an inner sense of obligation. Rather ingeniously, Xunzi’s innovation is to show that this psychological structure, if used correctly, might be the most powerful motivator of public duties. A critique (Mou 1979; Xu 1969) of this move suggests Xunzi’s retreat from virtuous-yi towards gong-yi semantically damages the intrinsic morality of Confucian yi since publicly spiritedness practices may not be necessarily moral. Arguably, if gong-yi pertained only to formal politeness and obeying laws, it does not capture yi’s deeper commitment to virtues and values. My main disagreement with this critique is that this conflates yi’s intrinsic moral necessity with yi as the necessary conditions of morality. Instead, it is useful to understand gong-yi as a morally necessary condition of other virtues. Chenyang Li (2011) explains this problem and gives us the framework of this dilemma. Li argues that the “aversion to disorder, motivated sage kings to set up rules in order to prevent chaos.” (61). This motivation does not itself constitute morality, but the establishment of rituals makes people morally good by instilling orderly behaviour. Li contends that yi is not functional before rituals and that yi is actualized through rituals. Li’s argument illuminates a crucial connection between the conditions of morality and yi’s ritual-institutional activation but remains incomplete. How does yi activate and create social order? My interpretation of gong-yi may show that yi is activated through moral obligation and order is created when yi is directed to gong—institutionalized rules stop conflicts between private interests and yi leverages a psychological sense of obligation to compel people to act in publicly spirited ways. Specifically, yi-duties are institutionally activated when assigned to divided (fen) social roles (Harris 2016), ensuring fluid normative exchanges between bodies and creating reciprocal mutual dependences.41 This institutional reality creates fertile conditions for moral transformation. Unlike the classical virtue ethical paradigm, which asserts that political institutions thrive on the virtue of their participants, Xunzi recognized that an orderly public life enables virtuous pursuits—resonating with post-Enlightenment public institutionalism.

Another profitable reading of Xunzi’s gong-yi is to understand that it situates halfway between Kong-Meng Confucian virtue ethics and Legalist, Mohist state utilitarianism. Xunzi pursues a dual-track approach: rulers should cultivate yi in the common people but if yi’s normative reciprocity fails, rulers should fall back on laws to preserve the public. In two sayings: “the law defeats the private” and “act according to the law, keep one’s will firm and do not let private desires twist what you hear, this is an upright person”,42 Xunzi makes clear that moral transformation, although desirable, cannot be entrusted to a person’s autonomous motivations alone.43 Thus, Xunzi ranked gong above moral autonomy and protected the collective body with legal measures if yi failed. Here, we may see how overcoming private selfishness straddles Xunzi’s ethical and political goals. He insists that a junzi is both morally cultivated and law-conforming: “junzi does not become lazy when at ease, because he is heedful of good order…He is neither excessively harsh when angry nor excessively indulgent when happy, because his adherence to fa 法 (laws, regulations, norms) overcomes any private concerns si.”44 (Hutton 2014, p. 15, modified)

Finally, I wish to place Xunzi’s argument within the historical context and show it is a reasonable response against the perceived destructiveness of private-yi. We should note that the widespread rejection of Mengzi’s “family politics” coincided with the collapse of the historical system of Zhou feudalism. Thinkers of the Warring States period observed that many rulers were nowhere near being true kings and had no virtues. Recognizing this, Xunzi may have thought past Confucian virtue-yi was too unreliable. Private wills were prone to selfishness and normative reciprocity became unstable when private interests were hostile to one another. Xunzi may have concluded that consistent orderly public behaviour is better compelled through the unfilled duty, normative reciprocity built on shame and guilt, with the force of gong—a public body. Hostility to si undoubtedly marks a distancing from the older Confucian tradition of treating familial obligations as a part of a special “closely-knit small unit” and personal virtues as the main source of good behaviour. Rather than privileging family over others, gong also implies treating community members impartially or indifferently as a part of a collective (Li 2023). I close this section with an example of public works recorded in the agricultural chapters of the Spring Autumn Annals (上農) to explain how gong-yi benefits the state and an increasing mistrust of the private. The Annals writes that ancient sage-kings understood cooperative agricultural work is essential for profiting from the land. Further, through cooperation, there would be fewer siyi 私義—private yi, and thus public regulations gong-fa (公法) can be easily established.45 In this vein, the Legalist explicit rejections of private yi can be understood as a forceful repudiation of all private, family-based duties.46 The Legalist text Shangjunshu 商君書 blames political chaos on private yi. Han Feizi reiterates that acting on private yi causes chaos, and acting on gong-yi creates order. Legalism is a frontal challenge to Kong-Meng-type private family special obligations in that it deems private obligations dangerous as it inevitably leads to conflict between opposing private spheres. In the West, Hobbes (1640) has precisely the same concern, and thought diverse private definitions of “justice” would inevitably lead to conflict. Legalism and Hobbes, therefore, subsumes all private obligations under a single public body without consideration of moral autonomy. Xunzi’s compromise on gong-yi stood between the two extremes of Kong-Meng Confucianism and Qin Legalism.

I hope my arguments here offer a substantial framing of Xunzi’s assertion: “從義不從父” follow yi and not your father.47 The assertion may indeed suggest that Xunzi prioritized the public yi of community service above the private yi duties to parents and kinship ties. Gong needs to be protected from competing private families and the “public” is a moral entity worthy of greater obligations than families. Deeply resonating with social contract theories, yi-duty’s normative reciprocity prevents chaos, benefits the public and must be upheld through institutions. However, it would be a mistake to think Xunzi has given up on the maximal Confucian goal of moral flourishing. Instead, gong-yi is also the cultivation of impartiality towards others, a re-orientated internal attitude that motivates actions towards the benefit of all. From this, it is fair to say that Xunzi’s gong-yi represents a significant early Confucian attempt at public philosophy.

5. Conclusions

The main aim of this paper is to show the critical differences in pre-Qin Confucian yi to space apart its Kong-Meng meaning from its development by Xunzi: Kong-Meng yi is a cultivated inner virtue and Xunzi’s yi extends to a normative obligation qua duty. In sections one and two, I contend that yi has clearly defined political and institutional dimensions and explored its implications. In section three, I join my interpretation of Xunzi’s yi with the pervasive interest in gong within the Warring States discourse to show that a nascent concept of a “public” existed—serviced by individual yi-duties. With these arguments, I hope that the discernable existence of institutionalized gong-yi as a public duty is a defensible central thesis.

In the contemporary world, public philosophy is an increasingly salient topic. Xunzi’s theoretical framework helps us understand that living a good public life involves both moral character and institutional regulation. Moving beyond Kong-Meng virtue ethics, Xunzi highlights that overly privileging private duties and familial obligations may conflict with the public interest. Confucian yi is not abandoned, but preserved and nurtured through public activities. Challenging state utilitarianism, Xunzi defends virtuous moral autonomy as crucial to the good life (Harris 2013). The arguments here resonate deeply with today’s problems of public institutional decay in the world’s democracies. Xunzi underscores the importance of institutional arrangements in civic duties. They protect the integrity of a public sphere from malignant or excessive private interests. Furthermore, yi-duties are not perfunctory and involve genuine moral transformation. Thus, the public sphere should not be sterile; an individual’s moral autonomy needs to be protected for the public to be a place for human flourishing.

Confucian public philosophy (儒家公共思想) has garnered significant interest in Mainstream Chinese literature in recent decades and I have hopefully presented a substantive argument supporting this philosophy. The claim that ancient China had a robust conception of the public (Liu and Zhang 2003) may be further reinforced by this interpretation of Xunzi’s seminal Confucian contributions to the Warring States discourse.48 Limited by the scope of my central thesis, I could not fully connect the political gong-yi to Xunzi’s ethical project, offering only a partial explanation in section three. Nevertheless, the central thesis of this paper identifies an institutional-structural layer to Xunzi’s well-known theory of moral transformation that has so far eluded contemporary discussions of yi. Scholars (Dongfang 2011; Feng 1931; Sung 2015) addressing the origin of goodness often attribute the beginning of moral transformation to self-interested, utilitarian considerations, such as how living in a community (qun) offers individuals a better chance at survival. However, if yi is understood as a normative obligation, this utilitarian argument hides a more complicated picture. Xunzi understood that natural self-interested considerations and psychological impulses were both immutable. Therefore, moving towards ethical civility involves institutionally directing self-interested desires and shaping unfilled, obligatory psychological impulses.

In my opinion, Xunzi’s institutional theories represent a remarkable pre-Qin philosophical innovation. Perhaps more attention could be paid to institutional yi as many interesting questions remain. Is yi a reliable source of public duty? What are the harms and benefits of enforcing civic duties through shame and guilt? Could Xunzi be mistaken in waging on the public-spirited psychological quality of yi and would yi instead be more easily filled with harmful, anti-social duties, such as “obligations” to members of gangs?49 Although my thesis may problematize current interpretations, I hope it generates further discussions on the institutional dimensions of early Confucianism.