Classical Confucian philosopher Mengzi 孟子 offers resources that can help shed light on the metaphysical status of moral qualities and answer the question of how we come to perceive them. I argue that Mengzi puts forward an account of virtue as sensitivity similar to that offered by John McDowell. Both thinkers endorse a particular kind of motivationally internalist naturalistic moral realism, and both explain virtue as analogous to perception of secondary qualities. I offer an original contribution to existing literature by (...) further arguing that Mengzi’s view includes an understanding of moral perception as including perception of uniquely human roles and the moral obligations they generate. This essay thus offers a novel textual interpretation of the _Mengzi_. Based on this interpretation, it then puts forth the argument that Mengzi’s version of virtue as sensitivity allows the Confucian thinker to avoid criticisms of McDowell’s “Sensitivity Account” of virtue. In particular, I argue that Mengzi’s account of sensitivity—as one that includes sensitivity to human roles and relationships—is better able to explain variation in perceived moral qualities both over time and across cultures. This is because Mengzi’s view recognizes that what is called for morally shifts with the agent’s social roles. Thus, a Mengzian-influenced Sensitivity Account of virtue can better account for differences in moral judgment by emphasizing that moral facts are a feature of human relationships, which likewise vary between cultures and individuals and change over time. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that in Mengzi 2A2 Mengzi 孟子 proposes his method for cultivating righteousness by showing that on the way of achieving yi, such topics as the unperturbed hearts, cultivating courage, Gaozi’s 告子 maxim, and the flood-like qi 氣 ultimately converge. Toward this aim, first, I argue that Mengzi’s short remark “bi you shi yan er wu zheng, xin wu wang, wu zhu zhang 必有事焉而勿正, 心勿忘, 勿助長” can be read as his maxim for achieving yi that structurally (...) parallels with the preceding maxim of Gaozi that Mengzi quoted. It tells us that neither our blind obedience to the words nor our impetuous boost of qi is helpful for achieving yi; instead we should concentrate on the heart’s moral sentiments and perform righteous actions. Second, I argue that Mengzi believes that qi is crucial in one’s proper self-cultivation. The centrality of moral sentiment in his teaching redirects our attention to qi’s positive aspects—exemplified by the flood-like qi—though qi’s impulsivity often makes it appear negative. If the four sprouts are to accompany the spontaneous movement of qi, it can be said that properly expressed qi signals the moral health of one’s heart. Moreover, I show that strong positive qi not only constitutes moral sentiment that serves as a fair standard for self-examination but also leads the will to perform moral actions without delay. (shrink)

This paper defends both an interpretation of Mencius' moral theory and that theory itself against alternative interpretive defences. I argue that the 'virtue ethics' reading of Mencius wrongly sees him as denying the distinction between moral philosophy and moral psychology. Virtue ethics is flawed, because it makes such a denial. But Mencius' moral theory, in spite of Mencius' obvious interest in moral psychology, does not have that flaw. However, I argue that Mencius is no rationalist. Instead, I show that he (...) upholds a coherentist moral theory, in which reason and psychology both have a role. The final third of the paper compares my interpretation with the work of various important Mencius scholars. I point out that the issue of the difference between moral philosophy and moral psychology is quite important in contemporary Western moral theory. (shrink)

The harmony thesis about a virtuous person, widely held by neo-Aristotelians, supposes that someone highly vulnerable to temptation is not virtuous at all. However, is that the only plausible picture of a virtuous person’s psychology? This essay aims to offer an alternative picture by discussing the account of virtue in the thought of Mengzi 孟子 and his conception of moral exemplars. First, I analyze the Mengzian moral exemplar as depicted in _Mengzi_ 1A7—specifically, the susceptibility of the nobleman (_junzi_ 君子) to (...) compassion and the relevant temptation. Then, I explain how this differs from neo-Aristotelian virtue ethical theories. This passage shows that there is a certain price to being virtuous in Mengzi’s virtue theory. By examining various ways of addressing this challenge, I explore Mengzi’s solution to it, which will shed light on Mengzi’s own way of specifying virtue and its significant advantage as a potential alternative to certain other approaches. (shrink)

Roger T. Ames's A Sourcebook in Classical Confucian Philosophy is a companion volume to his Conceptual Lexicon for Classical Confucian Philosophy. It includes texts in the original classical Chinese along with their translations, allowing experts and novices alike to make whatever comparisons they choose. In applying a method of comparative cultural hermeneutics, Ames has tried to let the tradition speak on its own terms. The goal is to encourage readers to move between the translated text and commentary, the philosophical introduction (...) that attempts to sensitize them to the interpretative context, and the companion Lexicon of key philosophical terms, with the expectation that in the fullness of time they will be able to appropriate the original Chinese terminologies themselves. Armed with their own increasingly robust insight into these philosophical terms, readers will be able to carry this nuanced understanding over into their critical reading of other available translations. Ultimately, for students who would understand Chinese philosophy, tian 天 must be understood as tian 天, and dao 道 must be dao 道. (shrink)

Among the many striking features of the philosophy of the Zhuāngzǐ is that it advocates a life unperturbed by emotions, including even pleasurable, positive emotions such as joy or delight. Many of us see emotions as an ineluctable part of life, and some would argue they are a crucial component of a well-developed moral sensitivity and a good life. The Zhuangist approach to emotion challenges such commonsense views so radically that it amounts to a test case for the fundamental plausibility (...) of the Daoist ethical orientation: If the Zhuangist stance on emotion is untenable, then other aspects of Daoist ethics may founder as well. In this essay, I explore what I call a Zhuangist ‘Virtuoso View’ of emotion and its connections with human agency, attempting to show that at least one version of a Zhuangist approach to emotion passes the ‘basic plausibility’ test. I begin by describing the Virtuoso View and sketching its theoretical foundation, which involves claims about human agency, the self, psychophysical hygiene, the good life, epistemology, and metaphysics. Next, I defend the Virtuoso View against three objections, namely that it abandons intentionality, that it interferes with a good life, and that it yields a schizophrenic conception of agency. I argue for three major theses. First, the Virtuoso View is easily intelligible and largely defensible. Second, it reflects a crucial insight into a fundamental dichotomy at the core of human agency: the unavoidable conflict within a self-aware human agent between an internal, engaged perspective and an external, detached one. Third, I suggest that certain problems or conflicts arising from the Virtuoso View actually reflect inherent features of the human predicament and thus are not mere conceptual defects. Hence even if we do not find the Virtuoso View wholly convincing, we can nevertheless gain much insight from it. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to explore early Buddhist ethics in comparison with classical Confucianist ethics and to show similarities. The study suggests that the popular belief that the two ethical systems are radically different from each other needs to be reconsidered. When a focus is given to the development, transformation, and realization of the self, a similar framework is revealed in the two ethical systems. Furthermore, this study intends to reject the popular thesis: early Buddhism is only self-liberation-concerned (...) soteriology and classical Confucianism is only society-concerned thought requiring self-effacement. ;My understanding of the core virtue of self-transformation is as compassion in early Buddhism and benevolence in classical Confucianism. So this study is focused on the analysis of compassion and benevolence by examining their metaphysical grounds, their functional mechanisms, their applications, and their meta-ethical nature. ;The metaphysical groundworks of morals are explained in terms of the rebirth and kamma theory, and the theory of Mandate of Heaven. For a person to develop and achieve these core virtues, this study shows the significant role of self-restraining or self-overcoming, the principle of extension from near to far, self-oriented motivation for the core virtue, both-regarding position , and the important role of both sympathetic feeling and reason. In the domain of social interaction, compassion and benevolence appear in the area of education and politics as tools for achieving happiness for both oneself and others. In politics, the paradigmatic model is adopted: a ruler as an embodiment of the virtue rules a country by being a moral example to the people. ;The analysis of the core virtues in terms of moral objective shows the inseparability of factual knowledge from moral practice, the universal acceptability of the virtue, and the possibility of maintaining objectivity by taking both-regarding action. (shrink)

This essay accounts for Mengzi’s 孟子 failure in persuading King Xuan of Qi (Qi Xuan Wang 齊宣王) to act morally. We argue that the distinction between internal and external reasons in contemporary philosophy helps to highlight the nature of the failure. The problem of nontransmission of the compassionate impulse within a person despite moral persuasion, which Mencians need to address in order to enhance the success of moral conversion, is now explained as a result of misdirecting the advisee to the (...) lofty ideal of sagehood. We conclude by proposing a proleptic understanding of external reasons within a pragmatic model of giving moral advice. (shrink)

The Scottish sentimentalist Francis Hutcheson and the Chinese Confucianist Mencius give benevolence (ren) a key place in their respective moral theories, as the first and foundational virtue. Leaving aside differences in style and method, my purpose in this essay is to underline this similarity by focusing on four common features: first, benevolence springs from compassion, an innate and universal feeling shared by all human beings; second, its objects are not only human beings but also animals; third, it is sensitive to (...) proximity; and finally, it has to be constantly cultivated in order to become a character trait. I will conclude with some brief remarks as to how this understanding of benevolence as rooted in feeling rather than reason, and in personal rather than impersonal relationships, helps to illuminate part of the discussion in moral philosophy today. (shrink)

There is an increasing awareness that we are living in a global village, which demands a global ethics. In this article, I shall explore what contributions Confucianism, particularly its conception of love, can make. It has often been claimed that Confucian love is love with distinction, as a natural feeling, and as merely human love and so it is inferior to the Christian love, which is universal, commanded, and based on divine love. Drawing on the resources of the Cheng brothers' (...) neo-Confucianism, I shall explore how Confucianism can make creative responses to such criticisms and thus make a unique Confucian contribution to the emerging global ethics. (shrink)

In one of his most recent articles, “Stingy King Meets Savvy Sage: Rethinking the Dialog between King Xuan of Qi and Mengzi,” Howard Curzer criticizes the traditional interpretations of 1A7 of the _Mengzi_ 孟子 for misinterpreting the passage as delineating how Mengzi guides King Xuan of Qi (Qi Xuan Wang 齊宣王) to extend his compassion from an ox to his subjects. According to Curzer, the passage will not make sense unless we accept that King Xuan only pretends to have felt (...) compassion toward the ox, and his pretension is exploited by Mengzi to establish a psychological ground for his character formation out of nothing (Curzer 2020 ). This essay reexamines 1A7 in the light of Curzer’s view and clarifies certain interpretative issues that will affect our understanding of Mengzi’s theory of moral cultivation. The essay argues that an adequate interpretation of 1A7 cannot be developed along Curzer’s line of thought. Nevertheless, Curzer’s sensitivity about Mengzi’s savviness in offering moral guidance is that which an adequate interpretation ought to reflect. (shrink)

This paper articulates the relationship between knowledge and qing 情 in the Zhuangzi. I argue that Zhuangzi has a twofold view of qing, which is structurally similar to his view of knowledge. I sta...

This article explores Mencius’ extension of moral feelings and its potential to address a key challenge in cosmopolitan education: how to motivate students to expand their existing affection and obligations towards their family and community to the rest of the world. Rather than strong universalism, a Mencian orientation is aligned with rooted cosmopolitanism that takes into account localised and cultural contexts that underpin, determine and give value to social practices. Mencius’ approach, as argued in this essay, highlights the spontaneous human (...) reactions to ethical situations, innate human goodness, analogical reasoning, moral character and agency. A Confucian form of cosmopolitan education gives emphasis not only to the students’ moral imagination but also their instinctual responses, self-reflection and rationality. Such an education seeks to integrate emotions and reasoning through the utilisation of paradigm scenarios that identify and reinforce the natural compassionate feelings in the learner. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to introduce scholars to recent discussions of early Confucian ethics that intersect with contemporary moral psychology. Given the early Confucian tradition's intense focus on the cultivation of virtue, there are a number of ways in which early Confucian thinkers – as represented in the texts of the Analects, the Mencius, and the Xunzi – fruitfully engaged in a range of topics that are closely connected to live issues in moral psychology. Not only did they (...) anticipate some contemporary debates but explored them from a distinctively Confucian normative worldview, attending especially to the role of the family and ritual practice. This essay seeks to demonstrate that early Confucianism, by integrating a normative vision with empirically grounded observations of human behavior, offers resources for constructively exploring a number of ongoing questions in moral psychology. (shrink)

Metaphors of adorning, crafting, water flowing downward, and growing sprouts appear in the Analects , the Mencius , and the Xunzi 荀子. They express and guide thinking about what there is in human nature to cultivate and how it is to be cultivated. The craft metaphor seems to imply that our nature is of the sort that must be disciplined and reshaped to achieve goodness, while the adorning, water, and sprout metaphors imply that human nature has an inbuilt directionality toward (...) the ethical that should be protected or nurtured. I argue that all the metaphors capture different aspects of human nature and how one must work with these aspects. There is much in contemporary psychology and neuroscience to suggest that the early Confucians were on the right track. It is also argued that they point to a fruitful conception of ethical development that is relational and holistic. (shrink)

How is the Confucian moral agent motivated to do what he or she judges to be right or good? In western philosophy, the answer to a question such as this depends on whether one is an internalist or externalist concerning moral motivation. In this article, I will first interpret Confucian ethics as role-based ethics and then argue that we can attribute to Confucianism a position on moral motivation that is neither internalist nor externalist but somewhere in between. I will then (...) illustrate my claim with my reading of Mencius 6A4, showing that it is superior to readings found in the literature, which typically assume that Mencius is an internalist. (shrink)

Comparative philosophy has been interested in issues such as whether the familiar Western concepts of the soul and self can be applied in understanding Chinese philosophy about human selfhood and whether there are alternative Chinese modes of thinking about these concepts. I will outline a comparison of the main concerns of the Greeks and Chinese philosophers in their discussion about the soul and self, and examine some of the major comparative theories that are recently developed. The comparative discussion is significant (...) in helping us understand each tradition's views of soul and self in its own terms, and in identifying alternatives to familiar modes of thinking. However, we should avoid looking for simplified uniformity in each tradition and overgeneralizing the contrasts between China and Greece. (shrink)

It is well known that the Neo-Confucian thinker Zhu Xi particularly emphasizes the role of emotions in human life. This paper shows that the four ‘moral emotions’ are central to Zhu's thinking, insofar as only their genuine actualization enables the individual to achieve spiritual freedom. Moreover, I discuss the crucial notions of ‘awareness’/‘perception’ and ‘knowledge’/‘wisdom’, in order to reveal the complex dynamic that moral emotions are said to create in the moral agent. I also analyse two important passages from the (...) Mencius and examine how Zhu Xi, in his exegetical glosses, defines the conditions of virtuous agency as based on the moral emotions. Finally, I explain the reasons why Neo-Confucians like Zhu Xi have sometimes been described as Kantian thinkers avant la lettre. (shrink)

David Nivison has argued that Mèngzǐ 孟子 postulates only one source of moral motivation, whereas Mèngzǐ’s rival thinkers such as Gàozǐ 告子 or the Mohist Yí Zhī 夷之 additionally postulate “maxims” or “doctrines” that are produced by some sort of moral reasoning. In this essay I critically examine this interpretation of Nivison’s, and alternatively argue that moral emotions in Mèngzǐ, basically understood as concern-based construals, are often an insufficient source of moral action, and an additional source of moral motivation, specifically (...) a conviction or judgment of what is the right thing to do in a certain situation in question, is often necessary for one to complete a moral action. This implies that Mèngzǐ should be interpreted to postulate two sources of moral motivation just as his rival thinkers do, namely moral emotion on one hand and judgment and practical reasoning on the other. (shrink)

The concept of the cheng xin in the Zhuangzi claims that the cognitive function of the heart-mind is not over and above its affective states and in charge of them in developing and controlling virtue, as assumed by the Confucians and others. This joint cognitive and affective nature of the heart-mind denies ethical and epistemic certainty. Individual perspectives are limited given habits of thought, attitudes, personal orientations and particular cognitive/affective experiences. Nevertheless, the heart-mind has a vast imaginative capacity that allows (...) the open-endedness and broadening of perspectives. (shrink)

_Ren, the Confucian virtue par excellence, is often explained on two different accounts: on the one hand, filiality, a uniquely Confucian social-relational virtue; on the other hand, commiseration innate in human nature. Accordingly there are two competing positions in interpreting ren: one that is utterly positive about the realization of universal love by the graduated extension of filial love, and the other that sees the inevitable tension between the particularism of filial love and the universalism of compassionate love and champions (...) the latter in that filial love appears to create a serious obstacle to modernizing Confucianism. Nevertheless, both interpretations agree that compassion, given its universal and humanist implications, can be unquestionably conducive to the modern project of 'Confucian democracy'. This paper counters this shared view by arguing that in order to make Confucian democracy culturally meaningful and politically viable, it must accommodate uniquely Confucian relational virtues, particularly filiality_. (shrink)

As a 4th century BCE Confucian text, Mencius provides a rich reflection on moral emotions, such as empathy and compassion, and moral cultivation, which has drawn attention from scholars around the world. This two-part discussion dwells on the idea of natural moral motivation expressed through the analogy of the four sprouts—particularly the sprout of ceyin zhixin (the heart of feelings others' distress)—as the starting point, the focus, and the drive of moral cultivation. In Part 1, I presented an integrated view (...) of the sprouts as including cognitive, affective, and motivational aspects. In Part 2, I discuss the cultivation and application of natural moral motivation. I illustrate how the sprouts inform moral deliberation and drive moral cultivation, while also being its subject. I also demonstrate how emotional responses are managed and regulated according to the sprouts and discuss why moral cultivation is sometimes unsuccessful. (shrink)

Previous scholars seem to assume that Mengzi’s 孟子 four sprouts are more or less homogeneous in nature, and the four sprouts are often viewed as some sort of desires for or instinctive inclinations toward virtues or virtuous acts. For example, Angus Graham interprets sìduān 四端 as “incipient moral impulses” to do what is morally good or right, or “spontaneous inclinations” toward virtues or moral good. However, this view is incompatible with the recently proposed more sound views that regard Mengzi’s four (...) sprouts as a particular type of emotions or feelings having some “cognitive” or “rational” aspects. In this essay I develop this new approach to Mengzi’s four sprouts, and specifically argue that respect in Mengzi should be considered neither as a moral desire nor as a behavioral tendency to do deferential acts but as some sort of ethical sensibility that is responsive to the relevant features of a worthy person. (shrink)