A Revisit to the Debate between Zhu Xi and Chen Liang

To some modern scholars,the debate between Zhu Xi and Chen Liang means that utilitarian Confucianism challenges orthodox Confucianism.This paper argues that it is not right to perceive Chen's position as any kind of utilitarianism.The difference between Zhu and Chen does not simply lie in their positions on utility but in their understandings of history and politics.The debate provides us with a significant case of how the ancients understood history and politics.