The virtue of righteousness in mencius

Confucian Ethics: A Comparative Study of Self, Autonomy, and Community

Volumn , Issue , 2004, Pages 148-182

  Van Norden, Bryan W ^a  

^a VASSAR COLLEGE   (United States)

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EID: 40449121177     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511606960.008     Document Type: Chapter

References (112)

1. Mencius is the Latinization of the Chinese name “Mengzi.” Mengzi was a fourth-century b.c.e. Confucian philosopher. He is known today largely through a book known simply as the Mengzi. Although courage (yong) is not a cardinal virtue for Mencius, he does offer an intriguing discussion of it.
2. See Bryan W. Van Norden, “Mencius on Courage” in Peter A. French et al. eds., Midwest Studies in Philosophy: Volume 21: The Philosophy of Religion (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997), pp. 237-56.
3. MacIntyre, After Virtue, 2nd ed. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984), p. 52.
4. n. 6 in this chapter and my discussion of Nussbaum in Section III.B.
5. Donald Munro stresses that this commitment is characteristic of Confucianism in his seminal The Concept of Man in Early China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1969).
6. On the translation of duan as “sprout,” see D. C. Lau, “Theories of Human Nature in Mencius and Shyuntzyy,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 15, no. 3 (1953), p. 547, n. 1
7. A. C. Graham, Two Chinese Philosophers, reprint (Chicago: Open Court Press, 1992; original printing 1958), pp. 53-4
8. Sarah Allan, The Way of Water and Sprouts of Virtue (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997), pp. 113-14.
9. Like Plato, Mencius does not usually stick to a narrow technical vocabulary. He uses several terms meaning “sprout,” including “duan” (2A6), “miao” (2A2.16), “nie” (6A8), and “meng” (6A8, 6A9). Likewise, his terms for “extension” (see later in this section) include “tui,” “ji” (1A7.12), “da” (7A15, 7B31), and “kuo er chong” (2A6)
10. Citations of passages from the Mengzi follow the sectioning and “verses” in James Legge’s translation (The Works of Mencius [New York: Dover Publications, 1970; original printing 1895]).
11. For a review of various translations of the Mengzi, see David S. Nivison, “On Translating Mencius” in The Ways of Confucianism (Chicago: Open Court Press, 1996), pp. 175-201.
12. References to other early Chinese texts are to the sectioning in the Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series. All translations from the Chinese are from Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan W. Van Norden eds., Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2000), unless otherwise noted.
13. Here there seems to be an interesting difference between the Aristotelian and Mencian conceptions of the virtues. According to Aristotle, in order to act virtuously, one must act out of a “firm and unchanging state” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Terence Irwin, trans. [Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1985], Book 2, Chapter 4, p. 40)
14. Mencius’s use of a “sprout” metaphor makes clear that our innate reactions are not fully developed virtues. However, he seems to allow that these reactions are already virtuous and not merely “virtuous.” (For example, in what is apparently a reference to our innate but incipient reactions in 6A6, he identifies a “feeling of compassion” with benevolence.) For a further contrast, see Nivison, pp. 116-18.
15. For a general discussion of the intriguing similarities and differences between Mencian and Aristotelian ethics, see Lee H. Yearley, Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990).
16. Compare King Xuan in Mengzi, 1A7.
17. Compare Mencius’ examples in 7B31 and 6A10, discussed in Section II in this chapter.
18. The understanding of Mencian ethics outlined here is derived from the work of David S. Nivison. See especially his “Two Roots or One?” pp. 133-48, and “Motivation and Moral Action in Mencius,” pp. 91-120, both in The Ways of Confucianism, Other important studies of Mencian extension include Kwong-loi Shun
19. “Moral Reasons in Confucian Ethics,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 16, no. 3/4 (September/December 1989), pp. 317-43
20. Bryan W. Van Norden, “Kwong-loi Shun on Moral Reasons in Mencius,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 18, no. 4 (December 1991), pp. 353-70
21. David Wong, “Is There a Distinction between Reason and Emotion in Mencius?” Philosophy East and West, vol. 41, no. 1 (January 1991), pp. 31-44
22. Philip J. Ivanhoe, “Confucian Self-Cultivation and Mengzai’s Notion of Extension,” in Essays on the Moral Philosophy of Mengai, Philip J. Ivanhoe and Xiusheng Liu, eds. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002), pp.221-41.
23. In my judgment, many interpretations of Mencius, even today, are overly influenced by the metaphysical assumptions of the neo-Confucian commentarial tradition. For an example of how Mencius was misread by one of his leading neo-Confucian exponents, see Philip J. Ivanhoe, Ethics in the Confucian Tradition: The Thought of Mencius and Wang Yang-ming (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990).
24. Translation mine; not in Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy
25. See A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao (Chicago: Open Court Press, 1989)
26. A. C. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1978), pp. 44-52
27. Philip J. Ivanhoe, “Mohist Philosophy” in The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 6 (London: Routledge Press, 1998), pp. 451-5.
28. I argue later (Sections III.B and IV.A) that there is some reason for believing that this is true.
29. Literally: “If people can fill out the heart that will not bore through or jump over [a wall, in order to steal from someone else]” (Mengzi, 3B3).
30. The use of “shi” here and in Mengzi, 4A27, suggests that it is a technical terms for Mencius, referring to the paradigmatic reactions of the sprouts. Hence, I render it, “core reaction.”
31. Compare Analects, 15:8. Normally, bu keyi has the sense of “should not,” and keyi has the sense of “can” or “may.” So one might translate this sentence, “If one may speak, but does not speak.” However, sometimes (as here) keyi seems to require the stronger sense of “should” or “ought to.” (the use in Xunzi, 85/22/60.)
32. The comment of the Song Dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi (c.e. 1130-1200) on this passage seems quite correct: “Humans all have the hearts of compassion and xui wu. Hence, no one does not have things that he will not bear and will not do. These are the sprouts of benevolence and righteousness” (Sishu jizhu, 7B31.1).Onxiu wu as the emotional attitudes characteristic of righteousness, see Section III.A.
33. Legge,; Lionel Giles, trans., The Book of Mencius (Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1993; 1942)
34. W. A. C. H. Dobson, Mencius (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963), p. 132
35. D. C. Lau, Mencius (New York: Penguin Books, 1970)
36. David Hinton, Mencius (Washington, DC: Counterpoint Press, 1998).
37. See, for example, Jean-Paul Sartre, The Emotions: Outline of a Theory (original printing 1948) inWade Baskin ed., Essays in Existentialism (New York: Citadel Press, 1993)
38. Robert Solomon, The Passions: Emotions and the Meaning of Life (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1993)
39. revised edition of The Passions: The Myth and Nature of Human Emotions (1976)
40. and Ronald de Sousa, The Rationality of Emotion (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987).
41. As I am using the term, one cannot recognize that X is Y unless X really is Y.
42. Bernard Williams, Shame and Necessity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 92-3 (emphasis in original).
43. On both this and the previous way of distinguishing guilt and shame, compare John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 445
44. Allan Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), p. 139.
45. Classical Greek has a variety of terms related to shame, including aidos, aischune, and aischros. Unfortunately, these terms are not used consistently to distinguish between “shame,” “shamefulness,” and “a sense of shame.”
46. Irwin, p. 114.
47. The bracketed phrase is supplied by Irwin. 115. The bracketed phrases are supplied by Irwin.
48. Patricia Greenspan, “Guilt and Virtue,” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 91, no. 2 (February 1994), p. 62.
49. Richard McKeon ed., The Basic Works of Aristotle (New York: Random House, 1941), p. 1392.
50. Richard McKeon ed., p. 1392. (Emphasis in original.) 1393. Cf. Mengzi, 7B31, discussed here in Section II.
51. Richard McKeon ed., p. 1393.
52. Richard McKeon ed., p. 1394.
53. Rawls uses the terms “self-respect” and “self-esteem” interchangeably (p. 440).
54. The two are distinguished by Gabriele Taylor (see her Pride, Shame, and Guilt [New York: Oxford University Press, 1985], pp. 77-9). Taylor also attempts to distinguish shame from embarrassment and humiliation. For more on Taylor, see n. 84 in this chapter.
55. The phrase “Aristotelian Principle” is misleading. Nussbaum’s account of shame (see n. 37 in this chapter) is much more Aristotelian than Rawls’s.
56. For more on the principle of rational choice, see §63. For more on deliberative rationality, see 64.
57. Martha Nussbaum, “Shame, Separateness, and Political Unity: Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato,” in A. O. Rorty ed., Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 398-9.
58. Nussbaum advises me (in correspondence) that the view of shame in this article has been superseded by the detailed account of shame in her Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), Chapters 4 and 9-16.
59. Nussbaum, “Shame,” p. 401.
60. Rawls does not raise this example in connection with the issue of shame and self-respect, but I take it that the application of it to that issue is unproblematic.
61. Nussbaum does not follow Rawls in giving “self-respect” a narrow technical definition, though (p. 403).
62. John Deigh, “Shame and Self-Esteem: A Critque,” in John Deigh ed., Ethics and Personality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 139.
63. For this and other examples, pp. 139-44.
64. Arnold Isenberg, “Natural Pride and Natural Shame” (original printing 1949), reprinted in A. O. Rorty ed., Explaining Emotions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p. 366. I find it interesting that Isenberg’s account of shame, which is one of the best I have seen, was originally written over 50 years ago.
65. Emphasis in original.
66. Emphasis in original.
67. Isenberg makes an effort to address this objection (p. 370), but I find his solution obscure.
68. John Kekes, “Shame and Moral Progress,” in Peter French et al. eds., Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume XIII: Ethical Theory, Character and Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988), p. 283.
69. Kekes also identifies “propriety-shame,” in which the standards are simply ones of appearance (regardless of whether the appearances reflect anything about what one is really like as a person). Nonetheless, Kekes also draws a distinction between honor-shame and worth-shame in terms of whether appearances are relevant. I worry that this leads Kekes to conflate the following distinctions: (1) shame that does, and shame that does not, focus on how one appears to others, and (2) shame that does not, and shame that does, distinguish one’s own standard of shame from the public standard. For example, one could have purely individual standards that deem one’s appearances to others crucial to shame, or there could be public standards that regard appearances as irrelevant to shame.
70. This is a conclusion to which I appeal again in Section IV.A. 60. I was influenced here by the discussion of moral shame in Kwong-loi Shun’s “Virtue, Mind and Morality: A Study in Mencian Ethics” (Ph.D. dissertation, Stanford University, 1986), §2.1.
71. There is an exception to this. If others persistently look down upon me on the basis of some standard that I do not share (say, because of my ethnic heritage), I may come to feel shame nonetheless. This is one of the reasons racism is so insidious.
72. As we shall see later in this section, it is really more precise to say that the opinions of others are not as directly relevant to ethical shame as they are to conventional shame.
73. That Mencius sees a connection between conventional standards and ethical shame is suggested by the intimate relationship he sees between the virtue of righteousness and the virtue of propriety. On this point, see Bryan W. Van Norden, “Yearley on Mencius,” Journal of Religious Ethics, vol. 21, no. 2 (Fall 1993), pp. 369-76.
74. Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings, Cottingham, Murdoch, and Stoothoff, trans. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 25. 65.
75. Indeed, Williams criticizes what he calls “ethical Cartesianism” (Williams, p. 99), and my position here is, I think, very close to his own.
76. Sishu jizhu, 2A6.4.
77. Kwong-loi Shun, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 60.
78. “Xiu” occurs once in the Analects (13:22).
79. Notice, incidentally, that this passage shows that Mencius believed women have the sprout of righteousness as well as men.
80. For examples, see the entries for “chi” (4-10585), “ru” (10-38686), and “xiu” (9-28471) in Morohashi Tetsuji, Daikanwajiten, rev. ed. (Tokyo: Taishukan shoten, 1984). There are some grammatical differences among the three terms. Wu xiu zhi and Wu chi zhi could both mean either “I am ashamed of it” or “I bring shame upon it.” Wu ru zhi, however, could only mean “I bring shame upon it.” Chi is, I think, the only one of the three that can refer to a sense of shame. (Note that in 2A6 and 6A6 Mencius is using “xiu” not to refer to the sense of shame, but to the attitude characteristic of that sense.)
81. Translation mine; not in Ivanhoe and Von Norden, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy
82. This use of “wu” shows that sometimes the term is used to describe an attitude distinct from that of regarding something as shameful. See also the discussion later in this subsection. 74.
83. Presumably, Songzi thought that regarding suffering an insult as a disgrace was one source of violence, not the only one.
84. However, Xunzi uncharitably took Songzi to be making the stronger claim.
85. Translation mine; see Xunzi, Zheng lun, 69/18/105-9.
86. Shun concludes that xiu and chi are attitudes of disdain toward things that fall below certain standards, and that these standards can be either “social standards” (Shun, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought, p. 60)
87. or “ethical standards” (p. 62). This seems in line with my own conclusion.
88. Note that the last three citations are paraphrases, and not direct quotations. None of the quoted passages are in Ivanhoe and Van Norden, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, except for 7B37, which I translate slightly differently here
89. Shun, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought, p. 60.
90. Beyond this minor disagreement, the analyses of xiu, wu, and related terms that Shun and I present share many similarities. However, in his Mencius and Early Chinese Thought, Shun does not link these terms specifically to Western accounts of shame in the way that I do. I originally did the work presented in this essay prior to the publication of Shun’s book
91. However, I had read, and benefited greatly from, Shun’s doctoral dissertation, “Virtue, Mind and Morality,”, which does make passing reference to Western accounts of shame.
92. for example, 2B13, and Philip J. Ivanhoe, “A Question of Faith: A New Interpretation of Mencius 2B.13,” Early China, vol. 13 (1988), pp. 153-65.
93. On this point, see Nivison, “Philosophical Voluntarism in Fourth-Century China,” TheWays of Confucianism, p. 130
94. and Mozi, “Chapter Sixteen: Impartial Caring” in Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy
95. Williams, In addition to advancing a number of original theses, Williams develops some of Gabriele Taylor’s ideas in ways that, I think, make them considerably more perspicuous. Consequently, I have not included a separate discussion of Taylor’s work.
96. Williams argues against the claim that being motivated by shame is, in any simple way, superficial, heteronomous, or egoistic (chapter 4, passim). 86.
97. Nonetheless, Williams thinks there is some point to the distinction: their emotional reactions “were not simply guilt if they were not separately recognised as such; just as shame is not the same when it does not have guilt as a contrast” (p. 91).
98. Note also that, in contrast, benevolence is not mentioned as a virtue by either Plato or Aristotle.
99. Mengzi, 2B13, raises interesting and complicated issues on this point. For a discussion, see Ivanhoe, “A Question of Faith,”.
100. The remaining translations in this section are mine; they are not in Ivanhoe and Van Norden, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy
101. See, for example, Henry Rosemont, A Chinese Mirror (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1991), Chapter 3.
102. On this point, see the review of A Chinese Mirror by Melissa Macauley, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 53, no. 1 (February 1994), pp. 175-7.
103. Translation mine; not in Ivanhoe and Van Norden, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy
104. Mozi, “Chapter Thirty-five: A Condemnation of Fatalism” in Ivanhoe and Van Norden, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, See Mozi, Fei ming 56/35/6-7.
105. See, for example, Martha C. Nussbaum, “The Discernment of Perception: An Aristotelian Conception of Private and Public Rationality,” in her Love’s Knowledge (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 54-105
106. David Wiggins, “Deliberation and Practical Reason” in A. O. Rorty ed., Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 221-40
107. and Charles Taylor, “The Diversity of Goods” in S. G. Clarke and E. Simpson eds Anti-Theory in Ethics and Moral Conservatism (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989), pp. 223-40.
108. Mengzi, 4B29.5, 4B31.3.
109. The last two translations are mine; they are not in Ivanhoe and Van Norden, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy
110. MacIntyre’s comments on virtues as what sustains “practices,” and on the need for a background of previous practice and wisdom in order for there to be genuine innovation (After Virtue, pp. 181-203).
111. Other stimulating recent efforts to show the contemporary philosophical relevance of Confucianism include Philip J. Ivanhoe, “Confucianism and Contemporary Western Ethics” in Lee Hyun-jae ed., The Universal and Particular Natures of Confucianism (Seoul: Yong Jin-sa, 1994), pp. 165-83
112. Joel J. Kupperman, Learning from Asian Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).