Tianming

The Zhou justified displacing the Shang by arguing that heaven's mandate had passed to them, and the doctrine then bound the Zhou in turn. It supplies a mechanism for legitimate rebellion that most dynastic theories lack, at the cost of being decidable only in retrospect.

In practice

• A chief executive whose strategy succeeds is called visionary and the identical strategy failing is called reckless, by the same board.
• An account that explains every outcome after the event has told you nothing you could have used before it.

Possible explanations

The explanation is legitimation after the fact: a successful challenger claims the mandate has passed, and the doctrine then binds the new ruler in turn, which gives rebellion a language and rulers an incentive to govern acceptably.

In its favour

It supplied a mechanism for legitimate dynastic change in a system that had no other, and the conditional framing did constrain rulers, who cited famine and revolt as warnings against their own conduct.

Against it

As stated it cannot be tested, since success is read as evidence of the mandate and failure as its withdrawal, so no outcome can count against it.

Standing

As stated it cannot be tested: success is read as evidence of the mandate and failure as its withdrawal, so no outcome can count against it.

Subject

Law & Politics

Essay

Competing accounts of how power works