Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No.1, 2018

 

Human Rights by Virtue of Ancestry: A Principle of Ontological Construction Originating from Consanguineous Rationality

(Abstract)

 

Xu Yong

 

Rationality is the consciousness produced in people’s life practice activities. The Chinese have produced Chinese rationality over the course of their long-term historical practice. The country has undergone countless changes; the only thing that remains unchanged is the endless centuries of blood relationships passed down through the generations. As a result, the Chinese call themselves “descendants of Yan-Huang,” in a consanguineous rationality peculiar to China. Ancestry, as a symbol of consanguineous relationships, is the source of human life, whence comes the ontological principle of consanguineous rationality—“ancestral human rights,” i.e., the rationality and grounds bestowed on the existence and behavior of people with the same bloodline by their ancestors. The first law of consanguineous rationality is that the starting point of people’s lives, property and rules should be equivalent; the second law is that of gradations in age, gender and status; and the third law is the reciprocal relationship of position, power and responsibility. The three laws constitute a complete interrelated chain. Unlike the binary opposition between society and state inherent in “natural rights,” what ancestral human rights foster in an endogenous way is a symbiotic relationship of mutual enhancement between society and nation, and what they shape is an awareness of the community of common destiny. With the progress of the times, consanguineous rationality needs to be transformed and upgraded, but as an important element of the Chinese nation’s historical genes, its intrinsic value deserves to be retained in the course of sublation.