With a big assist from our guest, Stephen C. Walker, we discuss a highly unusual philosophical dialogue in classical Chinese literature, the “Robber Zhi Dialogue” (from the Miscellaneous Chapters of the Zhuangzi). This shocking story shows Confucius attempting to convince the story’s anti-hero (Robber Zhi) to give up his robber lifestyle. By the end of the story, Confucius emerges as the more naive and inauthentic of the two characters, and moral exemplars in general are called into question. Are purveyors of morality also robbers themselves?

Stephen C. Walker’s research page

Key passages

Section 1: Confucius Talks with Robber Zhi’s Brother

。。。心如涌泉，意如飄風。。。

…his mind gushes like a fountain and his thoughts are like gusts of wind…

(Zhuangzi, chapter 29, “Robber Zhi,” Brook Ziporyn’s translation)

Section 2: Confucius Meets Robber Zhi

夫可規以利而可諫以言者，皆愚陋恆民之謂耳。。。。今丘告我以大城眾民，是欲規我以利而恆民畜我也，安可久長也？今長大美好，人見而悅之者，此吾父母之遺德也。丘雖不吾譽，吾獨不自知邪？

Anyone who can be regulated with promises of profit and admonished with slick words is what I would call a stupid, ignorant, ordinary sort of person….When you tell me all about the great territory and multitude of subjects I will have, you are trying to regulate me with promises of profit and make me tame like an ordinary person. How could any of that last?

(Zhuangzi, chapter 29, “Robber Zhi,” Brook Ziporyn’s translation)

Section 3: Robber Zhi Describes the Golden Age or State of Nature

且吾聞之：古者禽獸多而人少，於是民皆巢居以避之，晝拾橡栗，暮栖木上，故命之曰有巢氏之民。古者民不知衣服，夏多積薪，冬則煬之，故命之曰知生之民。神農之世，臥則居居，起則于于，民知其母，不知其父，與麋鹿共處，耕而食，織而衣，無有相害之心，此至德之隆也。然而黃帝不能致德，與蚩尤戰於涿鹿之野，流血百里。堯、舜作，立群臣，湯放其主，武王殺紂。自是之後，以強陵弱，以眾暴寡。湯、武以來，皆亂人之徒也。

I’ve also heard that in ancient times animals were many but humans were few, so the people had to stay clear of them by living in nests up in the trees. In the daytime they gathered chestnuts and at night they roosted up in their nests. That’s what got them the name “Nesters.” In ancient times the people knew noth­ing about clothing; in the summer they gathered much firewood, which was used in the winter to keep them warm. That’s what got them the name “Survival-savants.” In the time of Shennong, people fell asleep on the spot without ceremony and woke to where they were all wide-eyed. They knew who their mothers were but not who their fathers were. They commingled with the bucks and does, plowing for their food, weaving for their clothes, with no thought of harming or being harmed. This is the full flourishing of utmost human excellence, of our utmost intrinsic virtuosity. But then the Yellow Emperor, unable to realize this virtuosity to the utmost, instead went to war with Chi You in the wilds of Zhuolu, until blood was flowing for a hundred miles around. Then Yao and Shun arose, setting up their throng of ministers. Thereafter Tang banished his own lord, and King Wu murdered Zhou. From that point onward, the strong have oppressed the weak and the many have violently imposed themselves on the few. Everyone from Tang and Wu onward has been just another disrupter of the people.

(Zhuangzi, chapter 29, “Robber Zhi,” Brook Ziporyn’s translation)

Section 4: Robber Zhi on the Decline 

。。。盜莫大於子。。。

…No one could more of a robber than you!…

丘之所以說我者，若告我以鬼事，則我不能知也；若告我以人事者，不過此矣，皆吾所聞知也。

…Qiu [Confucius], if you were trying to lecture me with some tales of ghosts and demons, that would be something beyond what I can know. But if you are trying to persuade me using the history of human affairs, that is something I do know something about.

(Zhuangzi, chapter 29, “Robber Zhi,” Brook Ziporyn’s translation)

Section 5: Robber Zhi Does Philosophy

今吾告子以人之情：目欲視色，耳欲聽聲，口欲察味，志氣欲盈。人上壽百歲，中壽八十，下壽六十，除病瘦、死喪、憂患，其中開口而笑者，一月之中不過四五日而已矣。天與地無窮，人死者有時，操有時之具而託於無窮之間，忽然無異騏驥之馳過隙也。不能說其志意，養其壽命者，皆非通道者也。丘之所言，皆吾之所棄也，亟去走歸，無復言之！子之道，狂狂汲汲，詐巧虛偽事也，非可以全真也，奚足論哉？

Now let me tell you the truth about the innate dispositions of human beings. Our eyes want to see colors, our ears want to hear sounds, our mouths want to discern flavors, the energies of our aspirations want to wax to their fullness. The greatest longevity humans can hope for is a hundred years; medium longevity is eighty years, lesser longevity is sixty years. If you subtract all the time lost on sickness, pain, bereavement, mourning, worry, and trouble, the time left when a man can open his mouth and laugh is no more than four or five days out of a month. Heaven and earth are inexhaustible, but death ends each human life at a definite time. If you take all of this limited time and prop it up in the midst of the inexhaustible time of heaven and earth, it’s just a brief sudden flash, no different from a qilin-unicorn galloping past a crack in the wall. Anyone who is unable to gratify their ambitions and desires and consume what serves their physical survival has failed to comprehend the Dao 道 [Course, Way]. I reject everything you say! Get out of here, you! Scram! Don’t say any more about it! Your Dao is an insane fixation, a mass of deceitful, crafty, vain, hypocritical hooey! It cannot be used to keep the Genuine in us complete! Even talking about it is not worth my time!

(Zhuangzi, chapter 29, “Robber Zhi,” slightly modified from Brook Ziporyn’s translation)

Section 6: Confucius Retreats

。。。丘所謂無病而自灸也。

…I [Confucius] am what they call someone gets himself cauterized when he has no wound.

疾走料虎頭，編虎須，幾不免虎口哉！

I ran rashly over to pat the tiger’s head and braid the tiger’s whiskers—and narrowly escaped falling prey to that tiger mouth of his!

(Zhuangzi, chapter 29, “Robber Zhi,” Brook Ziporyn’s translation)

Sources and phrases mentioned

• Stephen C. Walker, “How Not to Be a Feckless Moral Hustler”

• “Robber Zhi” (Dao Zhi 盜跖 — a legendary warlord, robber baron, or anti-hero in ancient Chinese history)

• Liuxia Ji 柳下季 (Robber Zhi’s older brother)
• Zilu 子路 (Zhong You 仲由, traditional dates 542–480 BCE, one of Confucius’s self-sacrificial disciples)
• “YOLO” (acronym for “You Only Live Once”)
• Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals (also translated as On the Genealogy of Morality)
• A.C. Graham, The Disputers of the Tao (reads the Robber Zhi dialogue as a Yangist work, recommending a back-to-nature view)
• Hans-Georg Moeller and Paul J. D’Ambrosio, Genuine Pretending: On the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi
• “carnivalesque” (Moeller’s and D’Ambrosio’s term for the humorous figures featured in “Robber Zhi” and similar chapters)
• Episode 4: Daoist Persuasion (the episode in which we discuss the dialogue between Confucius and Yan Hui)
• Xunzi 荀子 (“Master Xun,” 3^rd century BCE)
• Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of the Good