A concept known as perdurantism can help clear up a lot of translation-driven disputes about how to characterize the Chinese legal system. As highlighted by Deborah Chow in her work on Chinese translation, many Western writers describing the Chinese legal system tend to dismiss the idea that legal terms should be used to apply to the elements of the Chinese legal system, because they contend that China lacks genuine rule of law. Rather, they see it as a kind of sham system for dispensing justice. For instance, contrary to the principles of perdurantism, some writers recommend that judges in China should not be referred to as “judges,” believing that they serve no genuine legal role because they take orders from higher authorities, which is why many translations of judicial opinions from China refer to judges as “referees” instead.
Recently, I worked with a translator who suggested that the Chinese “social credit” system should not use the word “credit,” following my belief that legal translation should name things according to what they actually are, and not simply use word-for-word translations. This translator, a native of China holding a law degree, is very familiar with both Western credit rating agencies and the Chinese “social credit” system. When I asked why, he responded quite plainly that the system has nothing to do with credit at all, therefore, it should not be called a credit system. Fascinatingly, this view is echoed by Western observers, such as Jeremy Daum at Yale, who also independently concluded that the system is not a credit system. However, I disagree with this translation approach and would even consider it potentially misleading. Even if the system lacks any credit-related characteristics, it should still be translated as a “credit system.” This analysis relies on a concept that has been tacitly applied in legal systems for centuries, that being perdurantism.
Introducing Perdurantism
The name Perdurantism comes from the Latin word “perdurare,” which means “to persist.” This concept was first proposed by David Lewis in the 1970s. He argued that any object which exists in time can be broken down into different temporal parts, or slices of its existence. Additionally, he asserted that these temporal parts are distinct from the object itself and that they do not exist independently of one another. This view is in contrast to the more widely accepted view of endurantism, which states that objects exist in the present, without any temporal parts.
You have probably seen a lot of perdurantism and possible worlds theory when watching television and movies. If you enjoy movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe or have seen Everything, Everywhere All at Once, both of these multiverse concepts are heavily rooted in David Lewis’s philosophy, which describes many co-existing possible worlds that branch off from each possibility. Perdurantism is part of the bigger idea, and a good overview of the theory is found in the TV show Loki, where many different versions of Loki from different timelines are being pruned by the Time Variance Authority, which exists at the end of time. The Avengers’ “Time Heist” also sees the infinity stones in line with Lewis’s perdurantism, that is, existing through their own discrete timeline, and thus can be borrowed temporarily. Loki stealing the Tesseract creates a branch into a new possible world.
Proponents of perdurantism argue that temporal parts are necessary to explain how an object can change over time. For example, if a tree grows taller over time, this change can only be explained if the tree is made up of different temporal parts. Proponents of the concept assert that the temporal parts interact with one another in order to form a single, unified object. Notice my use of the word “explain ” above; this is core to the work of legal translation. Since legal language involves descriptions of things that extend over periods of time, translation of those things will inherently involve considering perdurantism.
The implications of perdurantism are far-reaching and wide-ranging. If perdurantism is true, it would have implications for our understanding of time, identity, and existence. For instance, it would mean that our identity is not constant but changes over time.
I am not advocating a more extreme version of perdurantism, that is four dimensionalism, though that would be of some interest when thinking about legal translation. Four dimensionalism is a related philosophical theory that proposes that objects exist in four dimensions: length, width, height, and time. This theory was proposed by philosopher Ted Sider and is closely related to perdurantism. Proponents of four dimensionalism argue that objects exist in four dimensions and that temporal parts are also necessary to explain how an object can change over time.
Closely related to the perdurantism topic is the ancient Ship of Theseus paradox. Also known as Theseus’s paradox, the Ship of Theseus is an ancient thought experiment attributed to the Greek philosopher Plutarch. The paradox is as follows: if a ship has all of its components replaced over time, is it still the same ship? The paradox can also be applied to other objects, such as a person, and questions whether an object that has had all of its components replaced is still the same object.
The Ship of Theseus paradox has been debated for centuries and there is no single answer to this question. Some argue that the ship is still the same, as it still has the same purpose and the same form. Others argue that the ship is not the same, as all of its components have been replaced and it is now made of entirely different parts. It’s a classic example of the problem of identity, a thought experiment that challenges people to think about the nature of identity. The paradox has also been applied to a variety of other objects and phenomena, such as paintings and computer programs. Since translators are concerned with assigning names to things that change over time, the concepts of perdurantism and the Ship of Theseus paradox are essential for analyzing and making good logical choices about how to complete translations.
The Western legal system gives close consideration to the Ship of Theseus paradox and applies a proto-perdurantism perspective on the nature of things that exist in property law. For example, imagine you are the owner of a boat and you hire a shop to upgrade each part, such that the ship is entirely new. You then decide not to pay the shop. The Certificate of Title registry for the boat will consider the boat’s ownership interest to be 100% the original ship owner’s, i.e., you. How does the property system resolve the payment owed to the shop? It will grant a mechanic’s lien, which is a security interest (like a mortgage) in the boat, that will coerce the owner of the boat to make the payment. If payment is not made, the shop can then enforce its lien to take possession of the boat to be sold and take its payment from the proceeds since it supplied all of the individual parts that were changed. The same perdurantism concepts also apply to individual laws. For example, the Law of Contracts has been evolving over hundreds of years, and we are up to the Third Restatement of Contracts. Despite the immense changes, it’s still considered the same law.
Chinese Legal Concepts Over Time
When applying the concepts of perdurantism and thinking about the Ship of Theseus example, we can see that the Chinese social credit system, like the examples I gave above, is something that persists over time and, at least in the view of legal reasoning, exists over time. Currently, most observers would agree that the Chinese social credit system is not a credit system at all.
Jeremy Daum, an expert on the Chinese legal system, defines social credit as “a system of rewards and punishments for individuals and businesses in China based on their economic and social behavior.” In essence, social credit is a system that allows the Chinese government to collect, store and analyze data from individuals and businesses in order to provide rewards and punishments based on their behavior. This system is designed to incentivize positive behavior, such as paying taxes on time and abiding by the law, while punishing individuals and businesses for negative behavior, such as tax avoidance and failing to pay debts. In addition to its use as a form of social control, the Chinese government also uses social credit to promote economic growth. For example, those who demonstrate good financial behavior may receive incentives such as lower loan interest rates, while businesses that demonstrate good behavior may receive access to government funding or contracts. Additionally, those who violate the law may be blocked from obtaining loans or other services, or even be placed on a blacklist. Reading Daum, one gets the impression he sees the system as a kind of Potemkin village, which looks impressive at first glance but lacks real substance.
Given that writers such as Daum have convincingly shown this system is not a credit system, why do I then think it should nonetheless be called and thought of as a credit system? If we apply perdurantism, we’re able to think about the legal system as existing over long periods of time, rather than something that exists only in the here and now. Even if the system currently lacks any kind of credit tracking, there is a clear intent and mandate that the system be developed and built up into something that adequately compiles data to generate credit scores. Moreover, such a prediction is totally reasonable. If you watch the hit TV show Black Mirror at Season 3, Episode 1, produced in 2016, just a year after social credit began developing in China, you will find that the show producers were able to imagine a world in which a social credit system dominates people’s lives, something critics noted.
I urge that we should name things in the Chinese legal system based on their entire history over time, including future times. We can determine generally what the future of a concept will be by looking at the intention announced for the legal concept. For example, judges are indeed supposed to judge. While they may have been totally incompetent lackeys to politicians in the 1980s, modern-day Shanghai judges are commended by lawyers for writing opinions that follow the letter of the law. Social credit today does not function according to its mandate that it be a credit system that assesses how socially trustworthy someone will be to behave themselves. Nevertheless, the mandate to make it function that way clearly indicates a probable future where the system fulfills the mandate, and we should name it according to how the thing exists over the past, present, and future as a unified concept, instead of giving Chinese legal concepts potentially misleading labels simply to highlight the system’s defects.
