Morality in politics: Zhao Tingyang’s political philosophy

Abstract

Introduction. The article aims at presenting the system proposed by the modern Chinese philoso- pher Zhao Tingyang towards political realities. Scientific novelty. Due to the lack of translations of Zhao’s works into Russian, Russian science has extremely limited understanding of his theory and the modern Chinese philosophy in general. The article is one of the first attempts to present Zhao’s main thoughts on political philosophy in Russian on the basis of original texts. Results. Following the ancient Chinese theorists, Zhao regards the need to cooperate as the reason of the beginning of politics and suggests studying the world based on a broader scale “Tianxia” (‘All under Heaven’). Zhao’s theory of the initial form of politics called the “Xunzi-Hobbes Hypothesis” combines Hobbes’ idea about individual conflicts and the principle of coexistence which is typical for Eastern philosophy. According to Zhao, “Tianxia” as an ideal political regime is also set as the starting point of the political templation (Tianxia > State > Family > Individual). While criticising Confucianism for its impracticality in solving political issues, Zhao suggests that the only regime where its members prefer morality is when it is a prerequisite for ob- taining greater benefits. Conclusions. Zhao’s political philosophy offers a pragmatic approach to deal with the ethical issues in politics. We concluded that in the ideal regime proposed by Zhao, morality functions rather as a tool to achieve more benefits and ceases to be a universal law. A comparative analysis led to the conclusion that his approach to morality in politics is comparable to that of N. Machiavelli, for whom the practical significance of any means can domi- nate abstract values.