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Ethics-Politics 83

mandate of Tian.” Furthermore, Weber’s charismatic authority was built on the
worship of a ruler by his followers and could transcend certain values. Traditional
Chinese “virtue,” is inseparable from values, and is a requirement for any ruler
(Barnwell, 2013, pp. 77–78).
In the following part, we will examine why Weber did not regard the ruling
order in ancient Chinese as “traditional authority” from the aspects of the “types of
legitimacy belief” and “the relationship between the monarch and his adminis-
tration.” On the former, Weber argued that the legitimacy of the traditional au-
thority was based on the traditional order, the power of the master, and belief in the
sanctity of that power. The master was chosen according to rules that were handed
down (Weber, 1980, p. 130). Apparently this seems true of ancient China. For
instance, succession to the crown and the imperial throne were either according to
the system of lineal primogeniture, or granted by the reigning monarch. However,
this procedure for power transfer did not touch upon the nature of legitimacy, as
the so-called “traditional ruling order” (政统) could not be the reason for legiti-
1
macy or reflect the “principle of legitimacy.” (Weber, 1980, pp. 549–550), viz. “to
govern by humanity” (Du, 2021, pp. 64–66), approved of by Confucianism. For
Confucians, a person assuming the throne did not become a legitimate ruler unless
he demonstrated that he had met their standards known as “Confucian ortho-
doxy.” Perhaps it is for this reason that Deng Yong believes that ancient Chinese
tended to favor “the legitimacy of governance of a political power” rather than “the
legitimacy of the source of political power” (Deng, 2011, pp. 47–75).
Indeed, from the Western Zhou Dynasty onwards, three elements constituted
the political legitimacy in Chinese political thought: the mandate of Tian, the virtue
of the ruler, and the will of the people. Tian as the source of legitimacy was the
formal element, while the ruler’s virtue and the will of the people were essential
reasons for legitimacy. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (汉武帝), Confu-
cianism became the resource of national ideology and the political legitimacy.
Confucianism neither denied the traditional ruling order featured by “the son of
Tian ruling the people,” nor gave much consideration to the issue of legitimacy of
power acquisition. Instead, it focused on the monarch’s level of moral develop-
ment and his attitude toward the people according to the tradition of “Tian nur-
tures the people and appoints a king for their benefit,” as was declared in “13th

1 The “principle of legitimacy” is derived from Weber’s question: “What are the ultimate princi-
ples on which the validity (approval) of a state’s authority rests?” In line with his three forms of
legitimate authority, he offered three “reasons for the state’s validity,” or reasons for its people’s
obedience: (1) legal rules reached by agreement or accepted by compulsion (legal-rational au-
thority); (2) sanctity originated from tradition (traditional authority); and (3) dedication to the
exceptional character of an individual person (charismatic authority).From the point of view of the
ruler, these are actually three “principles of legitimacy” to be followed.