Dao DOI 10.1007/s11712-016-9536-4

The Water Margin, Moral Criticism, and Cultural Confrontation William Sin 1

# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016

Abstract The Water Margin (Shuihu Zhuan 水滸傳) is one of the four great classical novels of China. It describes how people from different walks of life were driven to become outlaws as a result of poor governance and widespread corruption. These outlaws have been regarded by some commentators as heroes, despite the fact that they perform wanton killing, over retribution, and cannibalism. LIU Zaifu 劉再復 argues that the novel has contributed to the moral downfall of the Chinese people. In this essay, I put forward various arguments in objection to Liu. I think Liu’s argument is unsound, partly because he fails to address the nature of the cultural confrontation between modern readers and The Water Margin. By conducting an evaluation of Liu, I also consider a range of issues concerning how we may understand The Water Margin, and how the novel may morally relate to us in modern society. Keywords Cultural confrontation . Moral relativism . LIU Zaifu 劉再復 . The Water Margin . Literary criticism “No need to fear when we talk of the gallant fraternity.” WU Song 武松, Chapter 28 of The Water Margin (Shapiro 1999: 831)

1 Introduction LIU Zaifu 劉再復, a prominent contemporary literary critic and writer, argues that the circulation of The Water Margin (Shuihu Zhuan 水滸傳) and Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Yanyi 三國演義) led to the moral downfall of the Chinese people (Liu 2010a, 2010b). In Liu’s words, these novels are “poisonous” (Liu 2010a: 4, 203) and are * William Sin [email protected]

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Department of International Education and Lifelong Learning, The Education University of Hong Kong, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong

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the Chinese people’s “doors to Hell” (Liu 2010a: 5–6) He argues that we should criticize the values inherent in The Water Margin, and treat the novel as the “trash (zaopo 糟粕) of Chinese culture” (Liu 2010b: 16). This approach of Liu to The Water Margin is fundamentally different from that of C. T. Hsia. In Hsia’s description, the actions of the Liangshan 梁山 bandits express a kind of “gang morality,” which explains why they commit barbarities upon their enemies as well as innocent people (Hsia 1996: 87, 93). Hsia’s approach to The Water Margin is more detached than Liu’s. Hsia analyzes the novel as an anthropologist would the practices of a different culture, whereas Liu criticizes the moral attitude expressed in The Water Margin directly, as a moralist would the behavior of their fellows. How should we understand the morality of The Water Margin? How does the outlaws’ behavior relate to contemporary readers in modern society? Should we consider the novel the remains of a distant historical culture, or should we treat it as a living novel, a part of the contemporary literary circle? The aim of this essay is not merely to clarify an issue of literary criticism with regard to a classic Chinese novel. Through analyzing the limits of Liu’s criticisms of The Water Margin, I shall also address important philosophical issues regarding the moral relation between great classical artworks and contemporary readers. The first issue relates to the causal thesis implied by Liu’s criticism, that readers’ moral characters are causally linked to the attitude expressed in the novels they read. How far can a novel affect the moral quality of its readers through different centuries of its circulation? Would the dark depictions of human nature in the novel enhance people’s self-understanding in society and, thus, subtly deepen their moral quality? I shall respond to these questions in Sections 4 and 5 of the essay. The second philosophical issue, which I address in Section 6, is the cultural distance between the morality of The Water Margin and that of modern society. I shall stress that the nature of our encounter with The Water Margin is not, in Williams’s terms, a case of real confrontation (Williams 1981: 132–143; 1985: 156–173). As a result, there are limits to how far we can apply the language of moral appraisal of a liberal society to the scenes of an ancient Chinese novel. I think it is inappropriate for Liu to accuse the Liangshan outlaws of violation of human rights; it is reasonable to assume that the outlaws do not have such a moral understanding. Although we may consider their actions morally unacceptable, it is inappropriate to regard the agents as blameworthy. My view is that the justifiability of blame is relative to the content of moral understanding attributable to an agent. It would be unfair to criticize the Liangshan outlaws for violating human rights if they could not possibly entertain the meaning of the terms of rights in their society.

2 Water Margin as a Controversial Novel The Water Margin is also translated as the Outlaws of the Marsh (Shapiro 1999).1 Though the novel was finally written down during the Ming 明 period, the skeleton of 1 There are other translations of the novel’s title, such as John Dent-Young and Alex Dent-Young’s version The Marshes of Mount Liang. The Dent-Young translation consists of five separate volumes, each with a different title. For example, the first volume is called The Broken Seals: Part One of The Marshes of Mount Liang (J. Dent-Young and A. Dent-Young 1994). In this paper, I will use “The Water Margin” to refer to this novel.

The Water Margin, Moral Criticism, and Cultural Confrontation

its various storylines originated from as early as the Song 宋 period. 2 The author of The Water Margin is generally believed to be SHI Naian 施耐庵 (1296–1372) (Y. Hu 1985: 451). 3 As one of the four great classic novels of China, The Water Margin describes how people from different walks of life were driven to become bandits as a result of poor governance and widespread corruption.4 These bandits were later pardoned by the emperor, and turned into generals and warriors; many of them died fighting battles for the imperial court.5 Since the publication of the novel, The Water Margin has been banned from circulation by the ruling class at different points in history. The ruling authorities worried that the circulation of the novel could cause chaos and anarchy in society (Zhu and Liu 2002: 448–450; L. Wang 1979.6 However, these restrictive policies did not prevent the novel from gaining popularity among the masses. For centuries, commentators have generally regarded the characters as “heroes and heroines” (haohan 7 好漢), as they are depicted in the novel. This is so despite the fact that these heroes perform wanton killing, excessive retribution, and various forms of cannibalism.8 Two important commentators in the Ming period, JIN Shengtan and LI Zhi 李贄, also presented different views regarding the moral character of SONG Jiang 宋江, the Liangshan outlaw’s leader. Jin thinks Song treacherous and hypocritical, whereas Li—in the preface written in his name to the novel—praises Song highly as a greatly righteous man (Jin 2007; Z. Li 1998).9 (At the same time, however, the comments which Li provides inside the novel tell a different story. Li famously calls SONG Jiang a fake ethicist from the outside and a real bandit at heart) (Z. Li 1998: 825; Jin 2007: 727, 743). In fact, we should note that special historical circumstances may have played a role in the formation of certain opinions by the commentators. For example, the outlaws’ faithfulness was usually highlighted and admired among late-Ming intellectuals as people were changing allegiance when the Ming dynasty was collapsing; in the 1950s to 1970s, when Maoism and Communism dominated intellectual discourse in Mainland China, the Liangshan outlaws were generally considered as the rightful 2

Earlier versions of the stories of some characters can be found in Some Stories of Song during the Xuanhe Years (Da Song Xuanhe Yishi 大宋宣和遺事), a work compiled in the Song period (Li 1939). 3 There are other views. Some hold that LUO Guanzhong 羅貫中 (1330–1400), writer of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, co-authored the novel (Gao 2005; Lang 1995). For a discussion, see Chen 2006: 240–265; Plaks 1987: 280–293, 296–302. 4 There are 108 bandits altogether, 36 of them central, each with a different personality and mannerisms. 5 This part is characteristically deleted by JIN Shengtan 金聖嘆 (1608–1661) in his abridged edition of The Water Margin, which only contains the first 70 chapters of the original work (Jin 2007). 6 There were restrictive policies in the 15th year of the reign of Emperor Chongzhen 崇禎 of the Ming (1642), in the 19th year of the reign of Emperor Qianlong 乾隆 of the Qing (1754), and in the 1st year of the reign of Emperor Xianfeng 咸豐 of the Qing (1850) (see Zhu and Liu 2002: 449–450; L. Wang 1979: 16–18, 43–45, 76–77, 204–210. 7 For example, LI Zhi 李贄 (1527–1602), JIN Shengtan 金聖嘆, WANG Wangru 王望如 (early Qing period), Yannan Shangsheng 燕南尚生 (late Qing period), and GUO Yingde 郭英德 (Z. Li 1998; Jin 2007; W. Wang 1654; Yannan Shangsheng 2002; Guo 1985). 8 I will be using the term “heroes” instead of the more cumbersome “heroes and heroines” in the remainder of this essay. I do so to follow the conventional terms of reference; there are also female members among the Liangshan outlaws. 9 There are controversies regarding the real identity of the author who commented in the name of LI Zhi. Some critics argue that the real author is YE Zhou 葉晝 (e.g., Qian 2002: 135; Ye 1982: 289); others believe the comments were written by LI Zhi himself (e.g., Rong 1957: 114; Zhang and Liu 1995); still others maintain that the comments were written by neither YE Zhou nor LI Zhi (Lu 2005: 150; S. Hu 1998: 351).

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representatives of peasants and the proletariat, leading a revolution against the ruling class. It is worth asking, in the context of modern liberal society, whether critics are in a better position than before to provide objective assessment of the outlaws’ moral performance, an assessment not subject to any political agenda.

3 Liu: The Doors to Hell10 Liu’s criticisms of The Water Margin may be divided into two parts. The first part involves a general criticism of the moral status of the novel. The second part launches a specific criticism of WU Song’s 武松 actions at the Duck and Drake Bower. On the part of general criticism, Liu states that The Water Margin is a novel which glorifies violence and, therefore, contains “spiritual contaminants.” Liu holds that since the novel has been very influential in the last few centuries, generation after generation of Chinese people have been poisoned by its values in their hearts and minds (Liu 2010a: 4–5, 204). Moreover, Liu stresses that the harm caused by The Water Margin is partly a result of the novel’s great artistic value. If the novel was poorly written, even if it glorified violence and other problematic values, it would not have caused much damage to a culture and its people. However, according to Liu’s view, The Water Margin is written with extraordinary artistic skill. Because of its great artistic achievement, the novel has affected its readers, and contributed to the degeneration of the Chinese people’s national character (minzu xingge 民族性格). 11 Liu states that this novel—together with Romance of the Three Kingdoms—has produced “the greatest possible damage to the hearts and minds of the Chinese people” (Liu 2010a: 3). Liu concludes that these two novels have been the Chinese people’s “doors to Hell” (Liu 2010a: 5). I shall discuss Liu’s view in Section 5 in greater detail. It is, however, important to note that his general criticism is different from the view of ethicism. Proponents of ethicism argue that “the ethical assessment of attitudes manifested by works of art is a legitimate aspect of the aesthetic evaluation of those works” (Levinson 1998: 14; see also Gaut 1998). In other words, if an artwork expresses an ethically reprehensible attitude, the ethicists will take it as an instance of its aesthetic demerit. Obviously, despite the harsh judgment he imposes on The Water Margin, Liu still believes that the aesthetic and ethical aspects of the novel fall under separate domains, and that its artistic achievement has helped to spread its reprehensible ethical attitude among the masses. As for Liu’s specific criticism of WU Song’s actions at the Duck and Drake Bower, let me first provide some context in regard to WU Song’s life. To cut a long story short, Jiang the “Gate Guard Giant” (JIANG Menshen 蔣門神) beat SHI En 施恩 in their struggle for control of a gambling venue. Since SHI En was a good friend of WU Song, Wu became involved, defeated Jiang, and helped Shi regain the place. Jiang then went to General Zhang 張都監 and Commandant Zhang 張團練. Together, they 10

Some ideas of this section may also be found in Sin 2016: 53–54. Booth quotes Paul Moses’s remark on Huckleberry Finn: “That book is just bad education, and the fact that it’s so cleverly written makes it even more troublesome to me” (Booth 1988: 3).

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took revenge by setting a trap for Wu. General Zhang even sent assassins to take WU Song’s life. However, Wu escaped from the murderers, and found out that General Zhang was in the Duck and Drake Bower, together with Commandant Zhang and Jiang. In his fury, Wu took the lives of the three culprits, and those of fifteen other people on the premises; victims included family members of General Zhang, and the maids of his family. With regard to this incident, Liu says: We treat WU Song as a great hero today. However, if we learn from his behavior unreservedly, there will be a big problem. Considering the massacre he performed in the Duck and Drake Bower, he might have reason to kill General Zhang, Commandant Zhang, and Jiang the Gate Guard Giant. Taken together, he kills eighteen people, and fifteen of them are innocent. The maids, the groom, and the wives of the general are innocent. What is more, he acts as if he is acting righteously, and paints on the wall: “The tiger-killer, WU Song, did this.” For this kind of action, the actor is so proud of his killings. This novel should be treated as the trash of the Chinese culture. (Liu 2010b: 17; my translation) In the above passage, two points are worth noting. First, Liu maintains that the problem of Wu’s action comprises the taking of innocent lives. The idea of innocence here distinguishes the individuals who are directly responsible for an action from those who are not responsible. Second, Liu believes that WU Song should be morally reprimanded for painting his name on the wall after the massacre. Liu thinks that Wu’s action indicates that he is proud of the massacre he carried out. There is a matter of literary interpretation: it is questionable whether Wu's act of painting his name on the wall after the massacre indicates that he was proud of the massacre, or whether some other features of Wu's emotions are involved. It could be, for example, a ritual which Wu performed to signify the completion of an angry revenge in his life.12 Besides, it is also possible to argue that fictional characters cannot be responsible for their actions. Rickword, for example, maintains that a character is an “illusion” or “symbol” for it is “merely the term by which the reader alludes to the pseudo-objective images he composes of his responses to an author’s verbal arrangements” (Rickword 1959: 282).13 Fictional characters do not belong to the actual world. They are “servants to the artistic purpose of an author” and therefore “lack the necessary condition of personhood” (Palmer 1992: 83). As a result, fictional characters could not take responsibility for their actions, and it would be “profoundly mistaken to blame them or approve of them for what they do” (Palmer 1992: 83). However, I will only mention this response here. I will not pursue the point further because I believe that it is legitimate for us to subject fictional characters to moral criticism. It would be awkward if readers and audiences of films and novels were expected to suspend their moral appraisal of fictional characters and actions.

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For a different appraisal of WU Song’s action, see Sin 2016: 60–62. Similarly, Leavis also says: “A novel, like a poem, is made of words; there is nothing else one can point to. We talk of a novelist as ‘creating characters’ but the process of ‘creation’ is one of putting words together” (Leavis 1967: 228).

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A more plausible response comes with regard to the anachronistic nature of Liu’s choice of moral language. The language of innocence, which is expressed in relation to the ideas of human rights, represents views which originate from the moral philosophy of the enlightenment period.14 We may question the appropriateness for Liu to apply this mode of evaluation to the characters of a Chinese novel written four centuries ago. Because of the influence of Legalism and Confucianism, traditional Chinese writers may place more emphasis on collective rather than individual responsibility. 15 It may be rash for Liu to base the grounds of his moral criticism on modern ethical standards. I shall return to this point in Section 6.

4 Fiction, Imitation, and Moral Education In Liu’s view, The Water Margin is a novel written with great artistic skill, and yet, because of its glorification of violence, the novel contaminates the Chinese people’s moral character. If the reading of a great novel would normally contribute to readers’ moral development, how should we understand the negative impact which is said to be associated with The Water Margin? In this section, I shall put aside the discussion concerning the specific impact of The Water Margin, and shall explain the general relation between fiction and moral education. Great fiction may contribute to readers’ moral development in a number of ways. First, it may cultivate readers’ sensibilities and nourish their moral feelings (Aristotle 1999; Arnold 1912: 271; Nussbaum 1986). Readers will be enabled to feel pleasure and pain “in the right way” (Cain 2005: 173), thus, in the words of Irwin, fulfilling a precondition for “genuine virtue” (Aristotle 1999: 324). Second, traditional stories, legends, and myths may contain descriptions regarding the complex nature of human relations and roles in society. Young children will learn about the social expectations of how people should live as they become familiar with the stories (Bruner 1986; Gilligan 1982; MacIntyre 1981).16 More specifically, the activity of reading fiction may strengthen readers’ moral understanding of life in many ways. Readers may practice the moral emotion of care and compassion toward the needy in fictional scenarios (Blum 1993: 50; Bruner 1986: 69; MacIntyre 1981: 216). In the course of reading, they also expose themselves to suggestions of different evaluative views of life (Cain 2005: 175; Kerfoot 1916: 83). No

According to Griffin, the term “natural rights” was replaced by “human rights” in the 18th century, after the establishment of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in France (Griffin 2008: 9–11). For the development of the concept of “human rights” during the enlightenment period, see Pufendorf 1934: 201; Locke 1975: [II] xxi, 55. See also Griffin 2008: 11–14; Simmons 1993: 61–64. On the presumption of innocence, see the Declaration of the Rights of Man (1789), Article 7; Masferrer 2010: 25. 15 Legalism may play a stronger role than Confucianism in contributing to the emphasis of collective responsibility in Chinese culture. For example, the idea of collective punishment (lianzuo 連坐) was introduced in SHANG Yang’s 商鞅 legal reform during the Qin 秦 dynasty. Confucianism may pay more attention to ideas of collective identity and collective activities than collective responsibility. Mencius 1B5 states that under a true royal governance (wangzheng 王政), criminals’ wives and children should not be involved in their guilt. (Lau 1970: 21) I owe this clarification to TANG Siu-fu. 16 Rousseau, however, has a low opinion of the educational value of the old fables. He thinks that they offer children no useful lesson; their language is arcane, and they distort reality (Rousseau 1979: 113–115; Lines 2009: 51–52). 14

The Water Margin, Moral Criticism, and Cultural Confrontation

matter whether these readers end up endorsing or criticizing the respective views in their reactions, fiction still provide readers with a special space of reflection (Murdoch 1997). If great fiction may deepen readers’ moral understanding or broaden their perspectives of life, morally problematic fiction may also reinforce readers’ biases and mislead them into “condoning anti-social or anti-relational conduct” (Thompson 1997: 33). As a result, Plato, for example, prefers full control of poetic materials so that they may not inculcate problematic behavior into young soldiers. Plato’s worry is that young people may acquire from poetry bad habits, coarse language, and become unable to respond appropriately to crises in society (Pappas 1995: 68; Plato 1991: 395a–398). This approach of Plato with regard to the control of poetry is reminiscent of Confucius’ edition of Shi Jing 詩經 (Book of Poetry); according to Shi Ji 史記 (Records of the Grand Historian), Confucius edits and cuts the Book of Poetry such that the poems contain only pure thoughts (siwuxie 思無邪), and can facilitate people’s performance of rites and righteous actions (ke shi zhu liyi 可施諸禮義) (Sima 2011; Analects 2.2, 17 In contemporary discussion, writers have paid attention to the psychological impact as readers simulate the characters’ situations and the contents of their subjective experience (Davies and Stone 1994). Certainly, simulating a character’s experience is distinct from expressing sympathy for a character; however, as readers habitually represent a certain problematic character’s evaluative viewpoint in their reading, over an extended period of time, their imagination may “spill over” into belief about the acceptability of the problematic worldview (Currie 1995: 258).18 From the above discussion, it is not clear that we can directly affirm or reject Liu’s claim that The Water Margin has a contaminating effect on its readers. To the extent that The Water Margin was written with great artistic skill, it refines readers’ sense of aesthetic appreciation, and deepens their understanding of Chinese culture and values. To the extent that The Water Margin delivers a debased view of human beings, glorifying violence and torture, it may undermine readers’ conviction in the value of the dignity of persons. The ambivalent nature of this reflection may reflect the depth of Liu’s claim, and why it is important for us to come up with a response to it; I will provide objections to Liu from three different angles in the next section. Then, in Section 6, I launch an additional objection from the standpoint of cultural relativism of blameworthiness. In what follows, I will consider Hurley’s view on the restriction of violent fiction, which might give additional support to Liu. To begin with, Hurley’s position may be represented in terms of a three-premise argument (Hurley 2004, 2005, 2006). First, outlining the relevant data of social psychological research, she states that readers’ exposure to media violence may cause them to behave aggressively (Berkowitz 1993: 207–208). Second, highlighting the findings of cognitive science, most notably that of the mirror neurons, Hurley states that human beings have a strong tendency to unconsciously imitate other people’s actions. 17

I am grateful that the referee points out the relevance of Confuicus’ edition of the Book of Poetry here. However, I shall note that it has been controversial whether Confucius really edited and cut the Book of Poetry. Since the Tang 唐 dynasty, many critics have thrown doubt on the truth of this event (see, e.g., Xu and Ma 2014: 82–83). 18 In the case of young readers, they are especially vulnerable to the potential impact of imagination (Johnson and Harris 1994; Woolley and Phelps 1994). In other cases, however, adult readers may resist imagining the situation of morally outrageous fiction. The issue of imaginative resistance has received wide attention in the literature (see, e.g., Gendler 2000; Stock 2005; Walton 2006).

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Third, combining these two premises, she holds that the viewers who consume violent entertainment may perform aggressive behavior unconsciously. Finally, she concludes that traditional considerations from autonomy (Mill 1859/1978) will not lend support to viewers’ engagement with violent entertainment. Quoting Scanlon (1979: 547), Hurley says: “Audiences have an interest in avoiding manipulative changes, as in subliminal advertising, which bypass their deliberative control and operate independently of reasons” (Hurley 2004: 196). In her view, moral theorists would prefer a different form of speech freedom if they had access to the range of factors which cause people to imitate patterns of behavior automatically and unconsciously. I shall here add a few words on the implication concerning the discovery of mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are brain cells which fire when an individual sees others making the same type of movement as the one he makes (Gallese 2001; Iacoboni 2009; Kohler et al. 2002). This may lead us to think that people do not understand one another by drawing hypothesis about the meaning of other persons’ actions or facial expressions (such as smiling or frowning); rather, people may simply acquire the feeling in association with those actions or expressions, or they may unconsciously imitate what others are doing. According to Hurley, scientists believe that mirror neurons could be “part of the mechanism” which underlies empathy and other forms of intersubjective identification (Hurley 2004: 174). There are, however, limits and concerns in regard to Hurley’s view. 19 First, although research in mirror neurons show us how humans may unconsciously imitate the behavior of one another, this information is not about the imitation of aggressive behavior as such. The claim in regard to the unconscious imitation of aggressive behavior between humans is Hurley’s own addition in the third premise of her argument (de Bruin 2008: 496). In fact, the actions being observed by scientists in the studies of mirror neurons belong to the type of actions whose imitation will have a clear condition of satisfaction, such as rubbing of feet (Bargh, Chen, and Burrows 1996), bringing food to mouth with hand, or showing of facial gestures (Meltzoff 1996, 2004). As such, if we really are to provide evidence to support Hurley’s third premise, we may have to measure how an individual has unconsciously performed violent behavior toward others after he is exposed to violent media; we need to provide a parameter of actions in accordance with varying degrees, durations, and types of aggressive actions which are performed. Second, considering the argument in relation to the concept of mirror neurons, there is a restriction on the condition under which a copying action is said to be performed. It would not necessarily be an act of imitation if a viewer watched a violent film and then proceeded to shoot people in the street. We need evidence showing that the viewer did it nonautonomously or in some unconscious way. In addition, the viewers must perform the same type of action as done in the media (de Bruin 2008: 501). Suppose that in a movie scene, a man punches another in the stomach; if a moviegoer subsequently sets fire to someone’s house, punches a doll, or threatens to murder his friends, these may not be regarded as imitative actions.

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I mention these concerns because they are pertinent to the context of our discussion in this essay. They do not constitute a representation of the major argument concerning the promotion of the listener’s (or viewer’s) autonomy in Hurley’s view or in de Bruin’s responses (see de Bruin 2008: 498–503).

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5 The Causal Thesis, Time, and the Great Evil Fiction I shall put forward three objections to Liu in this section. The first is a causal thesis which Liu presupposes in his discussion of the degenerating effect of The Water Margin. Liu holds that people’s reading of The Water Margin is causally responsible for their subsequent moral degeneration. However, Liu has given us no evidence showing how this connection is established. We have not seen, for instance, the use of concrete operational measures for aggressive variables, outlining the ways in which Chinese people may have acted aggressively after they read the novel. Or, if Liu is to use the argument in association with the mirror neurons to support his causal thesis, he must show us that the reader performed aggressive behavior in some unconscious way after they read the novel, and we would expect to discover an identity in the type of actions performed in the world as they are in the novel. In reply, Liu may argue that his claims are not based on findings in empirical observation. Rather, his claims might be read as cultural criticisms, denoting the tendencies which The Water Margin has had in shaping the outlook of Chinese culture in the last few centuries. On this point, one may wonder, what is the nature of Chinese culture? How could the existence of a single novel have such a destructive impact on the culture? 20 As we attribute so much molding power to the working of a novel, would not the people and the respective societies be partly responsible for having this proclivity as well? My view is that if a certain individual’s character is readily converted by his reading of a certain novel, there is more reason for us to be concerned about the pre-existing psychological condition of this individual, than to the narrative of the novel itself. Or, if a certain society is readily incited by the message of a literary work, we will have more reason to be concerned about its social constitution, its arrangement of civil society, and the type of education it provides to the people, than about the debasing ethical attitude expressed in the literary work (Booth 1988: 69). There is a second objection to Liu. In essence, his criticism omits a temporal dimension. It is possible to ask: over a period of four hundred years since the earliest version of the novel appeared, which group of readers does Liu have in mind when he mentions the powerful and degrading influence of The Water Margin? 21 The constitution of the novel’s readership at present is very different from that of the time in ancient China. Written in vernacular Chinese, The Water Margin used to be read by members of the general public as a popular pastime. The novel itself was not perceived to be decent material to be consumed under formal circumstances. However, it has now risen to the status of a classic novel. Whereas the plots of the novel may now be reproduced in numerous soap operas, video games, and comic books, members of the general public no longer receive this novel with the attitude or enthusiasm as those in the old days.22 Of course, we cannot rule out the possibility 20 Liu’s claim is reminiscent of LIANG Qichao’s 梁啟超 criticism of novels (Liang 1902). However, as Liang argues that the novel which people read can gradually alter their disposition and character, the tone of Liu’s criticism is the graver one. Liu’s remarks on The Water Margin and Romance of the Three Kingdoms may be translated as: “Not only in the past, but in the present, the two classics are stilling influencing and destructing the Chinese people’s hearts and minds” (Liu 2010a: 4–5). 21 The earliest complete printed edition of The Water Margin dates back to the late 16th century in 1589 (Wilkinson 2012: 413). 22 “The Odyssey can’t mean exactly the same things to us that it meant to a reader in first-century Alexandria, or to one in seventeenth-century France. But it continues to mean, to irradiate the mind of the willing and receptive reader with the vast light of imaginative possibility” (Hughes 1993: 96). See also Walton 2008: 23– 25.

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that some readers still read the novel as it was read hundreds of years ago, but we shall note that a more significant group of readers has emerged. That is, The Water Margin has now become an object of study for scholars, cultural critics, and students of Chinese literature. For this group of readers, they read the novel not for general entertainment; they instead treat it as an object of academic exploration. The potential of The Water Margin on this group of readers will be different from that of the public in the past. There is a third objection to Liu’s remarks regarding the degrading impact of The Water Margin. Even if we accept Liu’s view that the social effects of a literary work will constitute its substantial value, or its all-things-considered quality (Gaut 1998: 183), we have reason to believe that the depiction of morally problematic actions in great literary works may enhance people’s understanding of the meaning of their existence. Devereaux analyzes the problems arising from Riefenstahl’s notorious documentary Triumph of the Will, which glorifies Hitler and the establishment of National Socialism. In her view, through studying the film, human society may be enriched. In her words, “we may learn something about a way of seeing the world we reject,” and by confronting the film’s vision of National Socialism, we “understand more fully ourselves as human beings,” and come closer to comprehending “both the real and potential tendencies that have come to define human evil” (Devereaux 1998: 251). Putting aside cultural differences, we may also make similar remarks with reference to the contribution of The Water Margin to Chinese culture. 23

6 Cultural Confrontation, Projection Error, and the Relativism of Blame Judging from Liu’s criticism of the outlaws’ actions in The Water Margin, it seems that Liu considers his confrontation with the scenes of the novel as a real one. He says: The heroes (who later become Chinese people’s idols) in the two classic novels lack an understanding. They do not know that each human life, no matter how trivial, has a right to life and a value of existence. Their big knives and axes should not point to these innocent lives. … There are numerous types of human beings; each one of them is worth respecting, and has the right to live. (Liu 2010a: 204; my translation) There are reasons for us to query the appropriateness of Liu’s remarks. First, The Water Margin depicts events in fiction, rather than in reality; second, the novel tells the stories from a cultural environment four hundred years ago, rather than from that of the present. Let me first address the concerns regarding the obvious differences between readers’ encounters of stories in a literary work, and those in reality. This difference is important because, whereas readers’ encounter of events in real life is direct and practical, their experience in literary appreciation is meditative in nature. I think, in Liu’s criticism of “There are many different conceptions of the human condition, the nature of morality and the rightness, goodness or otherwise of many kinds of actions, attitudes and character traits. One of the things art is particularly good at is enabling us to engage with and understand different ways of conceiving of such matters. Thus immoral works can afford us knowledge” (Kieran 2003: 62). See also Carroll 2002: 14–15.

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The Water Margin, he does not consider seriously the special realm of space which may exist between the novel and its readers. However, in Murdoch’s words, “a great work of art gives one a sense of space, as if one had been invited into some large hall of reflection” (Murdoch 1997: 28). She also remarks that we “read great novels with all our knowledge of life engaged, the experience is cognitive and moral in the highest degree” (Murdoch 1992: 97). Readers’ confrontation with the narratives in great novels is different from their encounter with ordinary events in reality. The difference in these two types of encounter will also affect the substance of the moral language which a critic may use in his criticism, which we may explain by drawing reference to Williams’s analysis of two types of cultural confrontation, namely, real and notional confrontations. As agents confront real-life situations, their role is largely passive, and there may be no space for them to suspend moral judgments regarding what they come across. Under these circumstances, agents will give moral appraisals as a mirror shows its image. If these agents were not to do so, they would not be true believers of their moral system.24 This is a case of real confrontation, which is different from that of notional confrontation; in notional confrontation, an agent may confront a culture in the past which is distant from him. Since this culture has a different system of beliefs (S), the agent will not be able to go over to live in the other culture and to uphold their beliefs, without losing his grip on reality or engaging in extensive self-deception (Williams 1985: 160– 161). Williams explains the characteristics of notional confrontation in this way: For some types of S, however, the life of the vocabulary is largely confined to cases of real confrontation, and the more remote a given S is from being a real option for us, the less substantial seems the question of whether it is “true,” “right,” etc. While the vocabulary can no doubt be applied without linguistic impropriety, there is so little to this use, so little of what gives content to the appraisals in the context of real confrontation, that we can say that for a reflective person the question of appraisal does not genuinely arise for such a type of S when it is standing in purely notional confrontation. (Williams 1981: 141) It seems to me that, in his criticism of the heroes’ actions in The Water Margin, Liu has treated the notional nature of the confrontation which we share with The Water Margin as if it was real; in fact, the way of life depicted in the novel does not present a life in which modern people can seriously participate in anyway. In relation to the idea of notional confrontation, I shall now address the matter of the cultural differences between the code of ethics in the world of The Water Margin, and that in the modern world. In The Water Margin, people (including the outlaws and soldiers of the imperial court) mete out cruel and excessive punishment to offenders and their families. The acts of cannibalism are often expressed in a causal tone; the outlaws sometimes consume human flesh as a way of living, or as a part of a ritual in acts of revenge. Take the examples of SONG Jiang’s treatment of HUANG Wenbing 黃文 “And ‘acceptance of the right rule’ incorporates not just the disposition to comply with these rules. Acceptance of rules also involves the disposition to encourage others to comply with them, dispositions to form favourable attitudes towards others who comply with them, dispositions to feel guilt or shame when one breaks them and to condemn and resent others’ breaking them, all of which dispositions and attitudes being supported by a belief that they are justified” (Hooker 2000: 76).

24

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炳 in Chapter 41 (see Z. Li 1998: 601) and LU Junyi’s 盧俊義 treatment of LI Gu 李固 and Madam Jia 賈 in Chapter 67 (see Z. Li 1998: 988). In both cases, while these heroes

are punishing the wrongdoers, their colleagues gather and drink to congratulate them. In their celebrations, the outlaws share their enemies’ flesh piece by piece, an action combining cannibalism with lingchi 凌遲.25 In all cases, the offenders’ entire families— from the eldest to the youngest (yimen laoxiao 一門老小)—are wiped out.26 In addition, it is almost a standard practice that the outlaws perform cruel punishments on unchaste women; in those cases, the victims’ bellies are opened, and their guts pulled out. If we consider The Water Margin from this perspective, we may not be greatly surprised by WU Song’s massacre at the Duck and Drake Bower. However, with regard to LIU Zaifu’s criticism, the grounds he provides in support of his view are not particularly responsive to the cultural circumstance in which the stories are presented.27 Liu argues that Wu violates human rights, and disregards the fact that the family members of General Zhang are innocent. Here, the point is not that we modern readers have no right to criticize the practice in the novel; but two points are particularly worth mentioning. The first point regards the relativism of blame, which has a more restricted scope of application than that of the relativism of wrongness (Fricker 2010; Talbert 2012). With reference to the violent actions which are performed by the outlaws in The Water Margin, we may believe that they are wrong anyway. Whether the agents are blameworthy may involve a separate issue: it may not be reasonable for moral critics to expect that WU Song, or the author of The Water Margin, has the moral knowledge regarding the idea of human rights or that of presumed innocence. The idea of the relativism of blame is applicable in this context because whether an act is blameworthy will be relative to the reasonable expectation that we may have regarding the scope of the agent’s moral knowledge.28 Another point we should mention is the problem of the description of actions. Admittedly, with reference to WU Song’s act of massacre, LI Zhi also expresses negative comments, but the description he makes is much thinner in evaluative presumption than that of Liu’s criticism. Along the sidelines of the relevant passages in the novel, Li adds the comment “loathsome” (e 惡) more than once. He states Lingchi was a torturous punishment in ancient China. It was also known as “death by a thousand cuts,” in which the offender was slowly sliced by the executioner. The more serious the offence, the smaller the knife used by the executioner (Brook, Bourgon, and Blue 2008). 26 It is worth mentioning the tragedy of FANG Xiaoru 方孝孺 in the Ming period. Because he refused to recognize the authority of the new administration, the Emperor Ming Chengzu 明成祖 killed almost all his relatives, friends and students before putting him to death (Zhang 1984, chaps. 140–141). 27 Liu’s position would be stronger if the arguments were formulated with reference to traditional Chinese moral views. For example, Mencius expresses some ideas of the right and that of innocence: “None would have performed one act that was not right or killed one innocent person in order to obtain the throne” (Mencius 2A2; Lau 1970: 35; Bloom 2009: 32, with my modification). See also Mencius 1B5. 28 Putting forward this form of relativism, together with the distinction between notional and real confrontation, my position can be distinguished from that of radical moral relativism, that is, the view that we cannot morally criticize a moral system if followers of that system do not accept our moral standard (Harman 1975). According to my position, we can argue that Hitler’s and his followers’ actions were morally unacceptable even if they did not accept our moral standards. This argument does not conflict with my view that we cannot blame WU Song for the violent actions which he performs in his revenge, for we only confront Wu’s actions in a fictional context. Even if Wu’s actions appear to violate human rights, we may not attribute the knowledge and conceptions concerning such rights to Wu at all (see Williams 1981: 132–143; Fricker 2010; Talbert 2012). 25

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explicitly in Chapter 31 that apart from the three culprits who framed WU Song— General Zhang, Commander Zhang, and Jiang the Gate Guard Giant—the others were “killed unnecessarily” (duosha 多殺) (Z. Li 1998: 440–441). Paradoxically, although Liu is a few hundred years closer to us than Li, it seems that LI Zhi’s rather detached comments may transcend the distance of time and culture, but LIU Zaifu’s comments may not. In Liu’s remark regarding the violation of human rights and presumed innocence, it seems that he has projected the political value of modern liberal society on WU Song’s scenario. Here, the question is whether this projection will constitute a fair representation of what takes place in the novel, or whether Liu has committed what anthropologists call “a projection error” (Evans-Pritchard 1965: 24, 43; Cook 1999: 70, 89; Lukes 2008: 63–69). When we express ethical appraisals in regard to other people’s actions amidst a cultural confrontation, we may have assumed that those actions fall under the same type of actions which we have been censuring in our society. This may be problematic because we may have mistakenly identified the nature of the actions in the foreign culture which we observed. For example, Williams says, “it is certainly true and important that marriage to two persons in a polygamous society is not the same state or action as bigamy in a monogamous society, nor is human sacrifice the same action as murder in the course of armed robbery” (Williams 1981: 136). It is a fact that the meanings of actions may be inextricably tied with the cultural background under which they are performed. Certain aspects of an action may have special significance in one culture, but not in another. For example, violation of privacy is regarded as sensitive in the context of a modern society, but not in a traditional one (Scanlon 1998: 340); usury, the act of lending money for interest, was condemned in medieval times, but not so when it is done in modern society where commerce and investment are generally practiced (Lukes 2008: 62). Sometimes, cultural critics may not find the right description for the actions they witness because they have been hasty in projecting their own scheme of concepts onto the situation of a distant culture. This is what Cook calls “the projection error” (Cook 1999), which Lukes describes in this way: This occurs when we misunderstand the beliefs and motives of another people because we are “prone to project onto them assumptions derived from our own culture.” The error often consists in mistakenly believing that “the conduct which is condemned in our culture is the same conduct that is condoned in some other.” (Lukes 2008: 63)29 It is possible to respond to this challenge by adopting the position of moral absolutism. Defenders of Liu may argue that, insofar as the agents in the novel have performed acts of deliberate killing, it is “enough for our ethically hostile sentiments to extend” to them (Williams 1985: 158). However, I think the crux of the matter does not lie here. The novel of The Water Margin does not come from nowhere. Rather, it comes before us, and has been a constitutive part of Chinese culture. I think there are truths in LIU Zaifu’s comments that we should treat the novel seriously. To do so, rather than engaging in a direct moral criticism of their performance, we have reason to look into the intricate structure of its morality, and to obtain an appreciative understanding of its content. We 29

The two quotations in Lukes’s passage are taken from Cook 1999: 70, 89.

William Sin

will then be in a position to answer questions concerning what The Water Margin is, and how we should stand in relation to its values. Acknowledgments I would like to thank TANG Siu-fu and the anonymous reviewers for their comments. Robert Gurval has read and commented on an earlier draft of this paper. Luke Mulhall, WONG Sun-tik, Christopher Au Yeung, and Cindy Ngai have given me substantial assistance in editing the paper.

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