Effortless Action: Wu-wei As Conceptual Metaphor and Spiritual Ideal in Early China

This study argues that the concept of 'wu-wei' or 'effortless action' serves as a spiritual ideal for a group of five early Chinese thinkers - Confucius, Laozi, Mencius, Shuangzi, and Xunzi - who share what might be called the 'mainstream' Chinese worldview, which is characterised by the belief that there is a normative order to the cosmos (the "Way"), within which humans have a proper place and mode of behaviour. Humans once existed in a state of accord with this order, but have since fallen out of this harmonious state. Wu-wei, Slingerland contends, serves as a soteriological goal that can only be understood within this worldview. It represents a re-establishment of this original ideal state, and a person who has regained this state will acquire a type of charismatic virtue or inner power. In its most basic form, the paradox is that wu-wei is a state of effortless action that must be regained through a process of self-cultivation: it is hard to see how one can try not to try. The most revealing way to understand the five thinkers under consideration, Slingerland believes, is to see them as responding in various ways both to the paradox of wu-wei and to previous thinkers' proposed solutions.