Page 88 - 2022(1) International Confusion Studies

Int. Confucian Stud. 2022; 1(1): 81–95

Lun Du*
“Legitimate Authority” in the Chinese
Tradition: Ethics-Politics

https://doi.org/10.1515/icos-2022-2010

Abstract: Max Weber proposed three types of legitimate authority: charismatic,
traditional and rational-legal. Roughly at the same time, the Chinese scholar Liang
Qichao, fully aware of the strong link between ethics and politics in ancient China,
put forward the concept of “ethics-politics”, which launched a major debate. None
of Weber’s three types of legitimate authority is applicable to the ancient Chinese
model of “ethics-politics”, and “ethics-politics” should be considered and
explored as a fourth type of legitimate authority. This article gives an outline of the
historical origins of “ethics-politics” as well as the principles that gave rise to
the concept. Then it cites pre-Qin Confucianism, particularly the thoughts of
Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, to exemplify the legitimate authority of “ethics-
politics” from five aspects: (1) inwardly being a sage and outwardly being a king;
(2) rule of the man of virtue, viz. “to govern by virtue” and “rule by rites” or “rule of
rites”; (3) benevolence as the core value; (4) everyone should become good as the
goal of government; (5) Heaven/Tian as the supreme divinity.
Keywords: political thinking of the Confucians in the pre-Qin period, types of
legitimate authority, ethics-politics, political legitimacy

1 Introduction

Over 100 years ago, Max Weber (1864–1920) proposed three types of “legitimate
authority” (drei Arten der legitimen Herrschaft): charismatic (charismatische
Herrschaft), traditional (traditionelle Herrschaft), and rational-legal (legale/ratio-
nale Herrschaft) (Weber, 1980, pp. 122–124). Interestingly, he classified the ruling
order in ancient China as charismatic (Weber, 1980, pp. 140–141), in stark contrast

Article note: This is an abridged version of the article which was first published in Chinese in Issue
2, Volume 1 of International Studies on Confucianism (《国际儒学》) in 2021. The English version
was translated by Yunping Niu, with some corrections made by Lun Du.

*Corresponding author: Lun Du, Institute of East Asian Studies and Institute of Political Science of
Social Sciences, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany, E-mail: lun.du@uni-due.de

Open Access. © 2022 the author(s), published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.