Li

Li. A Chinese word which ‘on the most concrete level refers to all those “objective” prescriptions of behavior, whether involving rite, ceremony, manners, or general deportment, that bind human beings and the spirits together in networks of interacting roles within the family, within human society, and with the numinous realm beyond’ ( B. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China, 1985).

Li was first developed as a moral and religious concept by Confucius and his followers, for whom li consists of a pattern of behaviour which, when performed correctly, of itself effects and expresses harmony among the various hierarchically ordered elements of family, society, and the cosmos.

Mo Tzu, in contrast, attacked the Confucian understanding of li. It has nothing to do with the training of people or the ‘regulation of their likes and dislikes’. It has a certain limited value as an expression of gratitude to the spirits (belief in which Mo Tzu views as performing an essential social-moral function), but if performed extravagantly it wastes precious resources and distracts people from the more pressing tasks of ordering society. Taoists saw li as a prime example of the sort of contrived practice (wei) characteristic of the fall from primordial simplicity.

Despite these attacks, the concept of li remained central to the Confucian tradition in China down to recent times.