Discuss the Concept of Doubting Intuitionism

Graham’s Zhuangzi then addressed this Mencian response in a passage that extends the Hume-like skepticism about any identifiable “inner self”. That should be what guides the naturally occurring emotive reactions that are necessary for a wǒI:me that chooses. It seems, he says, there must be one, but we find no evidence of it. We approve of behaviors and place our trust in its reactions but find no sign of what is authorizing or making them.

Hundreds of parts, nine openings and six viscera included and completed (成 chéngfixed) in place in us, with which should I feel most akin? Should I be pleased with them all? Is there a wǒI:me among them?  Among them, should we deem some as rulers and as servants? Are the rulers and servants incapable of governing each other? Are they not capable of taking turns as ruler and servants? Is there a genuine ruler among them?  It’s as if trying and failing to grasp its real character has no bearing on whether it is genuine. (Ibid., HY 4/2/16–18)

Mozi had worried that it would be circular to appeal to intuitions about the word use in a social dào to authorize that very practice, for example Confucian ritual. Being a product of ritual training. acquired intuitions could not be a sufficiently neutral way of justifying our choosing ritual as our social guide. Nor could one trained practitioner have authority over another in resolving interpretive disputes about how to execute the ritual, e.g., about how to apply the terms found in ritual texts to concrete real-time behaviors. He insisted we need a neutral, non-cultural or natural basis for such meta-choices of social practices of choosing and interpreting practices.

The narrative history of Classical thought found near the end of the Zhuangzi (Ibid., HY 90/33/1) takes off from this dispute between Confucians and Mohists. It welcomes Mozi’s implicit search for neutrality, universality, and greater objectivity. However, the school viewed the familiar debate between a utilitarian and traditional morality as interminable because Mozi’s dàoguide, like Confucius’s, starts from different standard…..