In recent years, Confucian philosophers have vigorously explored the ideal of human dignity by reinterpreting key classical Confucian texts, giving rise to two contending accounts of human dignity: egalitarian dignity versus meritocratic dignity. Meritocratic dignity understands human dignity as an achievement, the outcome of a long process of moral self-cultivation, while egalitarian dignity, inspired by Mencius who believes that human nature is good, disagrees with the strong virtue-ethical account of human dignity and shift attention to universal moral potentiality. After showing that each Confucian account underpins a distinctive political system – Confucian constitutional democracy and Confucian political meritocracy, respectively – this chapter attempts to reinforce the egalitarian account of Confucian dignity from the standpoint of Xunzian Confucianism predicated on the assumption that human nature is bad. The chapter argues that, whereas meritocratc dignity is limited in justifying the independent judiciary and protecting citizens’ rights, egalitarian dignity can coherently undergird the principle of the separation of power and the right to political participation.

This chapter studies voices that were skeptical or even inimical towards the supposed utility of historical knowledge for the construction and functioning of a proper political order. In particular, I focus the discussion on the Guodian Laozi and the Mengzi, as representative examples of, respectively, the cosmogonic and bioethical literatures of the late Warring States period that were part of this broader antihistorical current. In the Laozi, we see the delineation of a cosmogonic history, a type of deep history that was mobilized to question and undermine the meaningfulness and relevance of all other historical narratives. In the Mengzi, we see a purposeful distancing from and subjugation of historical knowledge as an authoritative source towards the proper cultivation of one’s ethical potential. The cultivated skepticism or even hostility towards the authority of the past in these two different texts points to the contentiousness of the field of the past in the latter half of the Warring States period.