Abstract
Under the entry “Mencius” in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, we can find the following information:
Mencius (4th century BC) Confucian thinker in China probably best known for his view that human nature is good.… He defended the ethical and political ideal of Confucius against challenges from rival schools of thought … According to him, all human beings share certain ethical predispositions such as an affective concern for others, a sense of shame, love for parents, and respect for elders. The Confucian ideal is a full realization of such predispositions, and self-cultivation involves nurturing them to make possible their full development.
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Notes
- 1.
Nevertheless, philosophically sophisticated discussions on xing tend to take a more cautious route: the very validity of translating or understanding xing solely in terms of “human nature” needs critical scrutiny. For example, Ames (1991) discusses the question whether xing should be translated as “human nature.” Ames adopts a “non-essentialist” approach in his examination of xing. His article has been discussed in Bloom (2002a, b).
- 2.
- 3.
Cf. Hanfling (2003, 25–26): “Knowing the difference between right and wrong, between virtue and vice, is nothing other than knowing what acts are describable as ‘right,’ ‘wrong,’ ‘virtuous,’ etc.: it is a matter of being able to apply these words correctly.” See also Hanfling (2000, 15–25; 2008), and Glock (1996, 107–111).
- 4.
This is why a focus on the surface grammar of expressions can produce philosophical confusion. A further complication arises here: Wittgenstein comments that in a certain context the attribution of a term or a character to a person may involve an understanding of what the person does in relevant contexts. See Wittgenstein (1966, 1–36).
- 5.
I have modified the translation by replacing “essence” with “nature.”
- 6.
See also Brenner (1999, 139–56).
- 7.
- 8.
The fact that there is an ambiguity concerning the nature of notions such as xing (性) and xin (心) can often be felt in the philosophical literature. On the one hand, there is a tendency to interpret such notions as biological or quasi-biological (as Bloom does). On the other hand, the intimate relationship between xing and what it means to be ethical or human suggests an important social and cultural dimension. The tension between these two interpretations can be felt in the following passage: “While Mencius’s discussion of the four sprouts suggests something like moral sentiments or emotions innate to the heart-mind (xin) of all humans, the manner in which they are properly developed—education, the cultivation of the appropriate, preeminently familial, relationships, and the mastery of ritual propriety (li)—all shift the focus away from a narrowly conceived individual psychology to the familial, social, and cultural setting necessary for its development and flourishing. It is worth noting in this regard how much of the Mencius is devoted to political questions and the maintenance of morally healthy social relations. While the passages specifically devoted to human nature (renxing) tend to emphasize what we as individuals must attend to in order to develop the greater part of ourselves, the broader context stresses the social and political conditions necessary for our doing so. Consistent with classical Confucian thought, Mencius outlines what is needed for the flourishing relationships, which themselves define individual success” (Arjo 2011, 461). My strategy in this article is to argue that the social or cultural context constitutes and conditions what human beings see as moral sentiments or innate dispositions. In other words, the attempt to identify moral sentiments or innate dispositions in isolation from their social or cultural context is misguided. For, without the mediation of culture, the very notion of what counts as appropriate (or inappropriate) development of human potentials would become vacuous. I return to this issue in Section “Reinterpreting Mencius: A Preliminary Sketch” below.
- 9.
For an alternative approach to xing that does not focus on its function, see Tang (1989, 19–50).
- 10.
I would like to thank Yu Kam-por for drawing my attention to these issues.
- 11.
Prichard seems to assume that there is a legitimate distinction between “moral thinking” and non-moral thinking (he calls the latter “arguments”). Moral thinking, according to Prichard, refers to considerations that allow one to grasp and respond to one’s moral obligation according to some particular circumstances. Prichard argues that the attempt to use non-moral thinking to justify morality by moral philosophers fails because the demand to justify or “prove” the point of morality from without is illegitimate. Much of the strength of Prichard’s argument depends on the intelligibility of making this distinction. To see whether this distinction holds, we may consider the nature of what Prichard does with his own article “Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?” If Prichard’s argument, which concludes that moral philosophy (as he conceives it) fails to offer justification of morality on moral grounds, is valid, then we may ask this question: Is Prichard’s argument itself based on moral thinking or non-moral thinking? If his argument is based on non-moral thinking (i.e. philosophical arguments), then it seems mysterious how arguments of a non-moral nature can shed light on the very nature of morality and moral obligations. So, it seems likely that non-moral thinking alone cannot help us to come to an understanding of morality when it is detached from moral thinking. The alternative is to take Prichard’s position as being one based on his own moral thinking. If this is the case, then it is not clear how the conclusion can follow. For Prichard’s own argument does not appear to be a product of unreflective moral thinking. Instead, he seems to be making a philosophical claim concerning the nature of morality. Prichard’s discussion of the “Theory of Knowledge” (Prichard 1912, 18–19), which is presented as an analogy to the case of morality, is a clear indication that his view on the nature of morality is philosophical in nature.
- 12.
See Lyas (1997, 1–16). Note that Lyas refers to what I call “philosophy of art” as “philosophical aesthetics.”
- 13.
Some would maintain that there is a fundamental distinction between the aesthetic and the artistic. As the aesthetic has more to do with purely perceptual qualities such as beauty and balance, it seems reasonable to accept the view that the aesthetic can easily permeate into the everyday life of most human beings.
- 14.
If this view is correct, Prichard’s position anticipates Anscombe (1958) where she argues that utilitarianism is a corrupt form of moral thinking.
- 15.
A commentator on this article has pointed out to me that Mencius might have the chance to resort to some “metaphysical” entity to justify morality from without. This possible strategy seems similar to the position expressed at the beginning of The Doctrine of the Mean 中庸 (Zhongyong): “What is decreed by Heaven is called human nature. To follow human nature is called the Way” (my translation; see Wang 1995). While this move may seem acceptable to commentators who interpret Confucianism from a religious or quasi-religious perspective, it needs to find a way out of the dilemma posed by Socrates in the Euthyphro: Is an act moral because God (or Heaven) wills it so? Or is it the case that God (or Heaven) endorses the morality of an act because it is moral? The main thesis of this paper, if substantiated, should lend support to the view that a “metaphysical” justification of morality from without is inadequate.
- 16.
Compare 4A26: “Mencius said, ‘There are three ways of being a bad son. The most serious is to have no heir. Shun married without telling his father for fear of not having an heir. To the gentleman, this was as good as having told his father.’” Both 5A3 and 4A26 can be seen as an illustration of how a lucid moral stance emerges once there is an adequate understanding of the particular situation. This seems to correspond to Prichard’s view: “The sense of obligation to do, or of the right of, an action of a particular kind is absolutely underivative or immediate” (Prichard 1912, 12). He continues: “The plausibility of the view that obligations are not self-evident but need proof lies in the fact that an act which is referred to as an obligation may be incompletely stated, what I have called the preliminaries to appreciating the obligation being incomplete. If, e.g., we refer to the act of repaying X by a present merely as giving X a present, it appears, and indeed is, necessary to give a reason. In other words, wherever a moral act is regarded in this incomplete way the question ‘Why should I do it?’ is perfectly legitimate. This fact suggests, but suggests wrongly, that even if the nature of the act is completely stated, it is still necessary to give a reason, or, in other words, to supply a proof” (Prichard 1912, 13).
- 17.
Cf. Gaita (2004, 264): “Much moral thinking is not thinking what to do, and even when it is it is also an attempt to understand the meaning of what we do, which is rarely thinking about the empirical consequences of what we do, or about how our principles stand in relation to those consequences and to one another. It is, most often, an attempt to achieve a deepened understanding of the meaning of our action. … Moral philosophy has paid little attention to this and has mostly assumed that any deepening will be the result of theory, either directly in moral philosophy, or indirectly elsewhere—most likely in psychology or social theory.”
- 18.
Cf. Gaita (2004, 281): “Ethical understanding is often coming to see sense where we had not seen it before, or coming to see depth where we had not seen it before. It is seldom learning something completely new (there are no Nobel Prize-winning discoveries in ethics) and it is seldom seeing that there is, after all, a valid argument to support positions we had previously judged to be dubious. It is often seeing what someone has made of something that we had often heard before. But seeing ‘what he made of it’ is not seeing to what practical purpose he put it in his life. It is seeing what he made of himself through it, or rather, the two—his making something of himself and his making something of it—are interdependent. The ethical and the individuality of what I have been speaking mutually determine each another.”
- 19.
In 3B6, Mencius seems to suggest that acquiring a mature moral outlook is comparable to mastering a natural language. The view of W. D. Ross is comparable here: “That an act, qua fulfilling a promise, or qua effecting a just distribution of good, or qua returning services rendered, or qua promoting the good of others, or qua promoting the virtue or insight of the agent, is prima facie right, is self-evident; not in the sense that it is evident from the beginning of our lives, or as soon as we attend to the proposition for the first time, but in the sense that when we have reached sufficient mental maturity and have given sufficient attention to the proposition it is evident without any need of proof, or of evidence beyond itself” (Ross 2002, 29).
- 20.
Cf. 4B11: 孟子曰: “大人者, 言不必信, 行不必果,惟义所在。”
- 21.
On the role of example in ethics, see the discussion on the works of Peter Winch in Lyas (1999, 101–127).
- 22.
Examples include 1A4, 1B6, 2B4 and 4B33.
- 23.
If the argument here is acceptable, my interpretation of the Mencius can create the impression that ethical values are ultimately relative. The impression that Mencius wants to maintain that ethical values are not merely the product of a particular time and culture is itself due to the emphasis placed on the functions of xing and xin, both of which are meant to be universal. I want to point out that the fact that there are some relativist tendencies within the Confucian tradition should not be overlooked. For example, consider Confucius’ response to an ethical dilemma in Analects 13.18. I would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for his or her comments on this issue of relativism.
- 24.
I would like to thank Yu Kam-por for his comments on my claims here. The discussion at this juncture touches on the issue concerning the importance of the particular in ethical thinking. On this issue, see Winch (1972), Gaita (2000, 2003, 2004). For the philosophical position in ethics known as particularism, see McNaughton (1988, 190–205) and Lance and Little (2005).
- 25.
An anonymous reviewer of this article has helpfully drawn my attention to Chaturvedi’s article. I would like to thank him/her here.
- 26.
In addition to the approach focusing on the concrete particulars presented here, there seem to be other possibilities. For example, see the alternative interpretation of the Mencius made with reference to the role of metaphors by Slingerland (2011). (I would like to thank Gary Wong [Wong Chun Man] for drawing my attention to Slingerland’s article.) As an example of how the employment of the concept of metaphor can shed light on the interpretation of the Mencius, consider the following. In 6A2, Mencius, by employing a strategy similar to that used in 6A1, points out the narrowness of the metaphor employed by Gaozi:
Gaozi said, “Human nature is like whirling water. Give it an outlet in the east and it will flow east; give it an outlet in the west and it will flow west. Human nature does not show any preference for either good or bad just as water does not show any preference for either east or west.”
“It certainly is the case,” said Mencius, “that water does not show any preference for either east or west, but does it show the same indifference to high and low? Human nature is good just as water seeks low ground. There is no man who is not good; there is no water that does not flow downwards.”
“Now in the case of water, by splashing it one can make it shoot up higher than one’s forehead, and by forcing it one can make it stay on a hill. How can that be the nature of water? It is the circumstances being what they are. That man can be made bad shows that his nature is no different from that of water in this respect.” (Lau 1970, 160)
We can imagine a third perspective that casts doubt on the very idea of using inanimate objects as metaphors to understand human nature:
For if something is by nature [in one condition], habituation cannot bring it into another condition. A stone, e.g., by nature moves downwards, and habituation could not make it move upwards, not even if you threw it up ten thousand times to habituate it; nor could habituation make fire move downwards, or bring anything that is by nature in one condition into another condition. Thus the virtues arise in us neither by nature nor against nature. Rather, we are by nature able to acquire them, and reach our complete perfection through habit. Further, if something arises in us by nature, we first have the capacity for it, and later display the activity. This is clear in the case of the senses; for we did not acquire them by frequent seeing or hearing, but already had them when we exercised them, and did not get them by exercising them. Virtues, by contrast, we acquire, just as we acquire crafts, by having previously activated them. For we learn a craft [tekhnē] by producing the same product that we must produce when we have learned it, becoming builders, e.g., by building and harpists by play the harp; so also, then, we become just by doing just actions, temperate by doing temperate actions, brave by doing brave actions. (Nicomachean Ethics, Book II, 1103a19–b2) [Terrence Irwin’s translation].
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Yan, H.K.T. (2017). Beyond a Theory of Human Nature: Towards an Alternative Interpretation of Mencius’ Ethics. In: Yao, X. (eds) Reconceptualizing Confucian Philosophy in the 21st Century. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-4000-9_6
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