Natural law and normativity in the Huangdi Sijing

Abstract

This thesis explores the nature of normative constraints in the Huangdi Sijing (a Huang-Lao document discovered at Mawangdui in 1973). Some commentators suggest that because the crucial concept of fa/a??lawa?? is constrained by the cycles of the cosmos, the text espouses a natural law theory. A careful scrutiny of the text reveals that it lacks a notion of law as understood in the West, and that though morality is often a consideration for its injunctions, as a whole, it tends towards moral ambivalence, making the label of natural law inappropriate. Nonetheless, normative constraints may still be discerned in the form of a narrative, whose participant becomes constrained by the dictates of a moral Tian/Heaven, as well as a hidden discourse that prescribes behavior proper of a quasi-Yellow Emperor. Since doctrines of the Huang-Lao School in general cannot be justifiably discerned via a single text, my findings should only be read in a localized context.