ABSTRACT
One of the most striking features of traditional Chinese thought is what Thomas Metzger refers to as its “epistemological optimism.” In contrast to the generally recognized pessimism of the Western philosophical mainstream—from Plato and Aristotle through Hobbes, Locke, Mill, and others into twentieth-century liberalism—Confucian thinkers in China believed that government was fundamentally a matter of morality, and that there was already “enough absolute moral knowledge available to evaluate everyone perfectly and totally reform the political order.” The practicability of this vision was obvious in Confucian eyes. Why? Because the great sages of the ancient past
had obtained absolute moral-political wisdom which had been transmitted down to the present, even though in a partly unclear way; because the sages' perfect rule in the distant past demonstrated its practicability; because the cosmos existed as an inspiring moral presence, whether in the form of outer order or inner feeling; because the individual lacked an original sin and so could fully grasp and act on that cosmic presence; and because the very nature of the polity was such that any moral person heading it would almost immediately have an enormous transformative effect on the whole society, dissolving immorality throughout China if not the whole world. 1
