Rectification of names

The rectification of names () is originally a doctrine of feudal Confucian designations and relationships, behaving accordingly to ensure social harmony. Without such accordance society would essentially crumble and "undertakings would not be completed." Mencius extended the doctrine to include questions of political legitimacy. When Confucius was asked what he would do if he was a governor, he said he would "rectify the names" to make words correspond to reality. Because the rectification of names in the Analects of Confucius appears to have been written later, it arguably originates in Mozi (470–391 BC). The scholarship of Herrlee G. Creel argued for its further development through "Legalist" Shen Buhai (400–337 BC) before the Confucian usage for the same reasons. However, professor Zhenbin Sun considers Mozi's rectification consonant with the Confucian usage; Mozi considered it an important factor in the resolution of sociopolitical issues, and not simply legal affairs. The Mohist and "Legalistic" version of the rectification of names emphasizes the use of hermeneutics to find "objective models" ("fa", 法) for ethics and politics, as well as in practical fields of work, to order or govern society. Mozi advocated language standards appropriate for use by ordinary people. With minimal training, anyone could use these "objective, particularly operational or measurement-like standards" to fix the referents of names, in particular giving identical names to equivalent social relationships and functions so as to apply identical standards of "correct" behavior in analogous situations. For Guan Zhong (who seemingly originated the Fa concept) as for the Mohists, Fa provided a system of objective, reliable, publicly accessible standards or models that individuals could use for themselves to decide their own actions, in contrast to what Sinologist Chad Hansen terms the "cultivated intuition of self-admiration societies" whereby scholars steeped in old texts maintained a monopoly on moral decision-making.