ABSTRACT
In politics, there has never been anything particularly extraordinary about accusations concerning morality. The question of morality within political argument deserves a major investigation of where the morality actually lies, how exactly the transition from politics to morality works and, finally, why a statesman makes use of such a method of argumentation. This chapter selects a typical example from the Chinese Song dynasty. The transition to morality is implied by the fact that Sima Guang sets up a relationship between political reality and himself. Of course ordinary people can also make and, at least today, they often do a transition from politics to morality, but their morality works slightly differently from the described form of state moralism, and is characterized by somewhat different contents or conceptions.
