Bryan Van Norden's new translation of the _Mengzi _ is accurate, philosophically nuanced, and fluent. Accompanied by selected passages from the classic commentary of Zhu Xi--one of the most influential and insightful interpreters of Confucianism--this edition provides readers with a parallel to the Chinese practice of reading a classic text alongside traditional commentaries. Also included are an Introduction that situates Mengzi and Zhu Xi in their intellectual and social contexts; a glossary of names, places and important terms; a selected (...) bibliography; and an index. (shrink)

_The Essential Mengzi_ offers a representative selection from Bryan Van Norden's acclaimed translation of the full work, including the most frequently studied passages and covering all of the work's major themes. An appendix of selections from the classic commentary of Zhu Xi--one of the most influential and insightful interpreters of Confucianism--keyed to relevant passages, provides access to the text and to its reception and interpretation. Also included are a general Introduction, timeline, glossary, and selected bibliography.

Mengzi states that our human nature consists of our ability to feel compassion, disdain, respect, and (dis-)approval: all human beings have them. But he also states that we lose these four emotional capacities if we don’t reflect on or attend to them. There is an apparent contradiction in saying that all humans have them, but some have lost them. This essay offers a close reading of Mengzi’s phrase “to lose it” that helps explain away this appearance of contradiction. (...) In doing so, Mengzi is interpreted to be offering an ethics of attention about how we should attend to ourselves and others selectively to have a functional social life. (shrink)

The classical Chinese philosopher Mengzi shares the idea with David Hume that virtue and vice are dispositions of character that arise from original qualities of the mind. Mengzi is guardedly optimistic that these original qualities can be extended to become fully formed virtues, while Hume is guardedly skeptical about this same enterprise. Yet these two thinkers have something to share with each other. In this essay I will use illustrations from Mengzi to sketch out an interpretation of (...) extending original moral qualities into the virtue of benevolence. I will chart two developmental stages on the pathway to fully developed benevolence, and I will attempt to superimpose Hume’s account of the passions and his double.. (shrink)

The role dilemma raises a problem for role ethic interpretations of Confucianism. The dilemma arises from the conflict between the demands and obligations of Humaneness and the demands and obligations of roles one occupies. Favoring the demands of Humaneness undermines a role ethic because roles and role-obligations no longer ground the ethic. However, favoring social role-obligations permits immoral and unjust role-obligations and allows for uncharitable readings of Confucianism.This paper examines how Mengzi resolves the dilemma. I argue that Mengzi’s (...) account of human nature privileges the demands of Humaneness; social roles are central but defeasible in light of Humaneness. I briefly discuss a prominent articulation of Confucian role ethics as well as the role dilemma. Then, after considering the technical resources within the Mengzi, I argue that Mengzi espouses an externalism about roles. Finally, I explore the relationship between Mengzi’s externalism and role e.. (shrink)

This article reconstructs grounds for Mengzi's view that moral self-cultivation, or the process of "nourishing the heart" (yangxin 養心), depends largely on minimizing the desires of the senses. I argue that these desires are detrimental for the growth of the heart in two different ways: directly, by distorting or desensitizing the heart's moral perception, and indirectly, by depriving it of its nutrients, that is, of the exercise of moral actions.

Mengzi (372–289 BCE), or Mencius, an early Confucian whose thinking is represented in the eponymous Mengzi, argues that human nature is good and that all human beings possess four senses—the feelings of compassion, shame, respect, and the ability to approve and disapprove—which he variously calls “hearts” or “sprouts.” Each sprout may be cultivated into its corresponding virtue of ren, li, yi, or zhi. -/- Here we explore why Mengzi thinks we possess these four hearts and their relation (...) to the cultivated virtues. (shrink)

本书是一部专门写给社会大众特别是青年朋友的书。本书打破惯例,将孟子思想结晶为国家应该如何治理、 人们应该如何生活、道德应该如何完善三个问题,深入浅出地介绍了孟学的菁华及其对中国文化的深刻影响。.

本书介绍曾子的身世背景、曾子的生平、曾子的著作、曾子的思想、曾子与《孝经》的关系、《孝经》的思想内容、《孝经》的影响、历代对曾子的推崇。.

We explore the central analogy behind Mengzi’s view of ethical cultivation. -/- Philosophers sometimes ask what makes a person’s life worthwhile or what conditions make for a good life. Mengzi’s answer involves cultivating our innate moral senses into fully ripened virtues of ren (humaneness), yi (rightness), li (propriety), and zhi (wisdom). This cultivation neither is individualistic nor can it happen in isolation: it requires a lifetime of meaningful interactions with other people. In short, one’s ethical cultivation is interdependent (...) with other people, one’s social environment, and whether (and how well) one reflects on the stirrings of their sprouts and extends their previous moral behavior to the current situation. (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)

I want first to present an overview of what I take to be Mengzi's own systematic ethics, which I shall approach as a version of "virtue ethics," and second to examine some of the standard arguments against Mengzi's position. -/- .

: This essay introduces a way of reading the Mengzi (Mencius) that complicates how we understand what Mengzi is recorded as saying. A pragmatic-strategic reading of the Mengzi is developed here, according to which Mengzi attends to and operates under important pragmatic constraints on speech. Based on a close reading of key passages, it is argued that truth-telling and descriptive accuracy are less important to Mengzi than guiding people along the Confucian path. This reading has (...) implications for our understanding of Mengzi’s philosophical positions and his methods of argumentation, as well as for our understanding of philosophical activity in general. (shrink)

The nuggets of wisdom uttered by the old men of the various ancient schools of thought have been compiled into this series. Explanatory notes and English translation are added for the benefit of both Chinese and overseas readers fond of traditional Chinese culture.

Many anglophone scholars take the early Confucians to be virtue ethicists of one kind or another. A common virtue ethical reading of one of the most influential early Confucians, namely Mengzi, ascribes to him the view that moral actions are partly (or entirely) moral because of the state from which they are performed, be it the agent’s motives, emotions, or their character traits. I consider whether such a reading of the Mengzi is justified and I argue that it (...) is not. I argue that there is no reason to believe that Mengzi distinguishes the moral value of actions that are performed from virtuous and non-virtuous states. Given this, virtue (as a feature of agents) is normatively posterior to virtuous actions. I conclude, first, that this poses a challenge to a wide range of common interpretations of the Mengzi, be they virtue ethical or otherwise, and second, that there might be conceptual space for an account of virtue ethics that rejects the normative priority of virtue over virtuous actions. (shrink)

This essay investigates the structure and meaning of the Mengzi’s 孟子 analogical inferences in Mengzi 6A7. In this chapter, he argues that just as the perceptual masters allowed the discovery of our senses’ uniform preferences, the sages enabled us to recognize our hearts’ universal preferences for “order and righteousness.” Regarding an unresolved question of how the sages help us understand our hearts’ preferred objects as such, I propose a spectator-based moral artisanship reading as an alternative to an evaluator-focused (...) moral connoisseurship view: the sages are moral artisans who refine their moral achievements, and people’s uniform approval of their achievements—firmly associated with “order and righteousness”—demonstrates our hearts’ same natural preferences for them. Furthermore, I argue that this chapter’s conclusion—we and the sages are of the same kind with natural moral preferences—implies the necessity of our transition from passive spectators to active moral performers for moral self-cultivation. (shrink)

本书讲述了一群试图解释中国哲学及其艺术词语问题的比较哲学家之长达20年之久的事情。包括“孟子人性理论的背景”、“孟子的人性论”等。.

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 (...) class='Hi'>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)

《孟子仁义思想研究》一书由万光军博士在学位论文的基础上修改而成. 该书以孟子的仁义思想为重点, 对孟子的思想作了较为系统的研究. 作者首先将孟子放在儒学发展的历史过程中加以考察, 追溯了孟子仁义思想的历史源头, 并从先秦思想的演化过程中, 对孟子仁义思想作历史的定位.--.

In this paper I will argue for a plausible account for moral luck in the Ruist tradition. In part one I will offer a preliminary framework for moral luck to establish an intersection between Ruist virtue ethics and its counterparts outside of Ruism. I will situate the term moral luck in a Ruist context. Although the term moral luck does not appear in The Mengzi the concept was known to Master Meng and is useful for comparison with its foreign (...) counterparts. In part two, guided by Thomas Nagle’s four categories for moral luck, I show where Ruist moral luck can be found in The Mengzi. I conclude by highlighting the contributions that Ruism offers to the broader moral luck discussion. (shrink)

“The Archimedean point for moral life” discussed in this article refers to the starting point of one's moral reasoning and what ultimately makes moral life possible. The article intends to show that Mengzi's doctrine of the Four Beginnings may throw some light on our search for such an Archimedean point. More specifically, it argues for the following: Mengzi's doctrine of the Four Beginnings actually takes moral sentiments as the Archimedean point for moral life; Mengzi's view of the (...) starting point of moral reasoning and the ultimate ground for moral life not only can be empirically supported to a great extent, but also logically plausible. (shrink)

In Mengzi 6A4, Gaozi states that “yì 義 (propriety, rightness) is external, not internal.” In 6A5, Meng Jizi says of yì that “...it is on the external, not from the internal.” Their defenses are met with Mengzi’s resistance. What does he perceive and resist in these statements? Focusing on several key passages, I compare six promising interpretations. 6A4 and a relevant part of 2A2 can be rendered comparably sensible under each of the six. However, what Gaozi says in (...) 6A1 clearly is evidence to Mengzi that, of the six views, Gaozi holds three although he does not convey them in his statement. As for Meng Jiz’s defense of his statement, Meng Jizi cites a special occasion where one is required to act one way even though one would feel a different way. Mengzi’s response has been traditionally interpreted as boiling down to a dissenting opinion about empirical psychology, that the agent on that special occasion would in fact feel the same way as they ought to act. But on a more charitable reading, the point Mengzi makes is conceptual: Though the satisfaction of yì may not require that the feeling and the act align perfectly in this case, cases where the alignment obtains are conceptually prior. This not only refutes Meng Jizi’s statement but also enables a more elegant explanation of why the Mengzi rightly has no record of Mengzi affirming that yì is internal. I conclude that 6A5 itself uniquely favors one interpretation, as far as Meng Jizi’s position is concerned: How one feels is irrelevant to whether one satisfies yì. (shrink)