Abstract

This chapter analyzes how the main ideas of Mencius’s political thought were interpreted, reconstructed, and appropriated by the three members of New Confucianism “xin rujia 新儒家” in the twentieth-century China, namely Xu Fuguan 徐復觀 (1904–1982), Tang Junyi 唐君毅 (1909–1978), and Mou Zongsan 牟宗三 (1909–1995). It presents the core textual analysis by the three thinkers in their interpretation of Mencius’s ideas, discusses these interpretations, and argues that Mencius was portrayed as pro-democracy and anti-monarchy in their writings. The chapter then concludes that the arguments that support the former image are doomed, and those that support the latter image are more convincing. Next, the chapter considers the set of Mencius-inspired arguments the thinkers hold in favour of democratic political participation. The thinkers attempted to conclude that democracy, which entails political subjectivity, is a more viable means to achieve the Confucian ends than a traditional monarchical system. The last part of this chapter argues that the thinkers’ arguments justify only a political account of individual subjectivity for democratic participation, which cannot explain why individuals as moral agents should take part in politics. A Mencian line of argument for an ethical account of political participation is therefore developed on the thinkers’ behalf.