Reason and Li Xing A Chinese Solution to Habermas’ Problem of Moral Motivation

This chapter suggests that reading elements of Chinese rationalism as interpreted by Liang Shuming into Jurger Habermas' idea of communicative reason may provide a solution to this problem without yielding too much to pre-modern traditions, as some critics have suspected him of doing with his recent turn to religions. Liang Shuming argued for the crucial importance of the idea of ‘reason', or li xing, throughout his life. From ‘reason' understood in Liang's sense, it should not be too difficult to derive a ‘fundamental argument against murder'. Crucially, then, for Liang, reason can function in moral motivation as well as in moral argumentation only when it is part of one's heart as well as one's mind. Like Liang, Li Dazhao tried to appropriate the cultural tradition of li xing in developing a Chinese version of deliberative democracy.