ABSTRACT
How does Mencius give rational justifications for his normative claim that one ought to practice “virtue politics” (dezheng) or “benevolent politics” (renzheng)? This is the question that I want to address in this paper. 2 This is part of a larger project on the style and structure of practical philosophy in early China. 3 In this paper I will be able to articulate only one aspect of the complex structure of Men-cius's practical philosophy, which has multiple levels and components. I focus on what I call the “level of normative authority.” More specifically, I focus on only one of the ways in which Mencius justifies the normative authority of his normative claims. To narrow down my focus even further, I deal with only one (among many) mode of justification in Mencius — namely, his rational justification of certain specific normative claims. 4
