How does Fingerlette explain the Confucian notion of the individual?
How does Fingerlette explain the Confucian notion of the individual? How is it tied to li or ritual? How might our “Western” notion of individuality effect our attitude regarding death?
For Mencius, what is the true sign of one’s humanity? What does this mean to you, and furthermore, what does this tell us about how we react to the death/suffering of others?
Mencius (371-289 BCE) systematically elaborated upon
Confucian teachings, explaining, interpreting, and filling in gaps, answering
questions Confucius did not, and deepening the discussion of certain themes
Confucius raised.Born in the state of Tsou (south of Confucius’s Lu) during the
Warring States Era, Mencius’s last name was Meng, and Mencius is the Latinized
form of Meng Zi (the respected sage Meng).
Here we take another look at Mencius’s discussion of human
nature in association with his definition of ren/jen, and get at a better
understanding of the Mencian approach to the human being.
1. Ren/jen (human heartedness/humaneness) as innate human
nature
One of Mencius’s greatest contributions is clarifying the
concept of ren/jen (humaneness; Fung interpreted it as human-heartedness). Like a modern psychologist, Mencius
pinpoints the origin of humaneness to the human sentiment of
empathy/commiseration (famous example: empathy at seeing a child falling into a
well). Mencius went on to elaborate on
what he perceived to be the basic four human sentiments: feeling of
commiseration; feeling of shame and dislike; feeling of yielding and modesty,
and sense of right and wrong. These four
were not just human feelings, but were the essential elements of human nature,
constituting the basis of a human being.
Human morality, to Mencius, proceeded from these four sets
of feelings:
•Empathy/commiseration–humaneness (human heartedness)
•feeling of shame and dislike–righteousness
•feeling of yielding and modesty–propriety
•sense of right and wrong–wisdom
In other words, human morality was the application of
natural, innate human feelings in daily life.
Even though humans possess the ability of virtuous behavior, there is a
gap between moral sentiments and actual moral behavior which might never be
bridged because humans were easily corruptible by the external
environment. The purpose of education
was to help people develop these feelings into proper moral behavior.
Mencius’s definition of human nature (xing) differed from
that of the Greek philosophers, such as Aristotle and Plato. Plato believed
that human nature was rooted in the tripartite existence of three souls: the
rational soul (thinking soul), the spirited soul (will/courage), and the
appetitive soul (emotion/desire). The rational soul came from the outside, and
was forever traveling from one body to another. It was often at odds with the
appetitive soul, which belonged to the human body. A harmonious balance and
cooperation of the three souls lead to justice and fairness of their owner. The
contrast between the thinking versus the appetitive souls that is seen in Plato
did not exist in the writings of Mencius. Instead of trivializing the human
body as in Plato, Mencius built an immediate connection between human
“biological” traits and moral virtues. It was through a cultivation
of the biology that one would achieve moral perfection. Inklings of human moral
sentiments were definitely to be cultivated, and sufficient food and clothing
to satisfy basic human needs would help to maintain a “constant
mind.” (online reading, Bloom, p.25) Also, for Mencius, a material life
force called qi complemented the development of human sentiments and helped
humans reach moral perfection. Bloom brings up a contrast between Mencius and
Gaozi, a contemporary of Mencius who disagreed with the latter over the
significance of physical energy/qi in human moral cultivation. Gaozi also held
on to a material perception of human nature, but his was a naturalistic
perception (Bloom, p.26).
In contrast, Mencius’s approach to human nature included not
only human biological needs but also human sentiments, including intellectual
enjoyments, such as enjoyment of rightness. The “faculty of the moral mind
or heart is just as natural among humans as their physical drives.”
(Bloom, p.27) Because unlike in Plato, there is no contrast between the eternal
soul and the temporary body, the human mind was not seen in conflict with the
body in Mencius–they coexisted and Heaven gave humans the ability to think and
coordinate their thinking with physical action. (Bloom, p.29) In other words,
according to Bloom, the contemporaneity of the mind and the body in
Confucian/Mencian thinking made it easy to make an argument of a harmonious
rather than confrontational relationship between the two, and to treat (at
least certain) mental activities, such as sentiments, as biological activities.
The gentleman, to Mencius, would consciously develop those loftier sentiments,
make them constant, and develop them into moral habits. It is also interesting
to note that traditionally, human sentiments were considered to originate from
the heart in China. Arguably, it makes it easier to argue that sentiments, or
even thoughts, were a part of human biology, even though it might be a
different part of human biology from the more base needs for food and shelter.
2. Mencius as defender of Confucius against Mo Zi/ Mo Tzu
and the Taoists/Daoists
Mencius’s emphasis on the innate human moral nature was a
rebuttal against the writings of Mo Tzu and early Taoists who did not think
human intentions/motives mattered. It
was also a rebuttal to the Taoists/Daoists, who did not think worldly matters
were worthy of human consideration. One
example of a Taoist (a subject we will deal with in next session) response was
that of Yang Zhu (Fung, chap.6), who expressed an indifference to human
relationships. Mencius was also against
Mo Zi (Mohists)’s idea of universal love: which he interpreted as an indifference
to the gradations of human sentiments.
3. Gradations of human relationships and the extension of
humaneness from family to society
Like Confucius, Mencius was for set patterns of social
relationships. Government was based on a
gradation of social relationships. As
natural as a son obeyed his father, so subjects would respect their
rulers. More than Confucius, Mencius
emphasized rulers must extend their humaneness to the people. His attention to different gradations of
human sentiments exercised in different places also led him to differentiate
between humaneness and love. Love could
be the exercise of humaneness, or it could be exercised alone. While it was exercised alone, it would be of
a lower quality than when it was an exercise of humaneness.
Like Confucius, Mencius believed in enlightened
self-interest. People would love other
people’s parents or children because they loved their own. So the love of others was an extension of
love for one’s own family. It was this
extension of love that would eventually enable sages and rulers to love the
whole world and treat it as their own family members.
Questions for thought: how did Confucius and Mencius differ
in their discussion of humaneness? How did the two differ in their definitions
of rulership? What would be the social impact of implementing Confucian/Mencian
teachings versus the teachings of Mo Zi?
4. Mencius the idealist
Fung calls Mencius
the idealist because Mencius focused on human sentiments as the basis of human
moral behavior and treated human morality as the nature of the universe. By Western definition, indeed, Mencius’s
focus on human sentiments would easily classify him in the camp of idealists,
though for him, these sentiments were part of human biology and were tangible
physical properties. In contrast to Confucius, Mencius did not pay much
attention to rituals, but more attention to the observance of human
relationships and the exercise of moral sentiments. For him, the universe was a moral one,
infused with a force called chi/qi (air, life force). A gentleman/superior man would be aligned
with this universal life force and humaneness is the essence of this life
force. Any man who achieved this level
of development could be called a sage (even though Mencius was quite democratic
about sagehood, historically very few people have been regarded as sages in
China).
Question: Did Confucius and Mencius differ in their views
toward the universe and human self-cultivation? why or why not?
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How does Fingerlette explain the Confucian notion of the individual? was first posted on August 28, 2019 at 11:58 am.
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