Abstract
This article focuses on a psychological phenomenon discussed by the early Confucian: yuan 怨, which is often translated as “resentment”, “grievance”, “lament”, or “complaint”. I attempt to use the early Confucian discussions of yuan to shed light on an aspect of human psychology, namely, when one laments about certain conditions that obtain in such a way that she sees as beyond her control and negatively affects her. This is an unusual reactive attitude because one who has yuan takes the “passive stance.” This paper has four main sections: the first section makes textual observations of “yuan” in the early Confucian texts; the second section proposes a Confucian-inspired account of yuan and highlights the psychological state in which one who has yuan sees oneself as object; the third section discusses the problematic dimensions of yuan; the final section discusses the negative implications of the passive stance with respect to contemporary concerns: vulnerability, moral repair, and self-respect.
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Notes
See Kwong-loi Shun, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), pp. 16-18.
For a helpful etymological discussion of yuan, see Michael D. K. Ing, The Vulnerability of Integrity in Early Confucian Thought. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2017), p. 113.
Confucian Analects, trans. James Legge (Auckland: Floating Press, 1872), 4.12, 4.18, 5.23, 5.25, 12.2, 14.1, 14.9, 14.10, 14.35, 15.15, 17.9, 17.15, 17.25, 18.10, 20.2.
The Confucian texts on which I mainly rely as textual bases in this paper are the Analects, the Mencius, the Xunzi, and the Liji.
See Analects 4.18, 14.10, 20.2; Mencius, trans. D. C. Lau (London: Penguin Books, 2003), 1B:12, 1B: 18, 5A:1, 7B:4; Liji, Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism Part IV The Li Ki, XI-XLVI, trans. James Legge (Oxford: Clarendon Press: 1885), Book 27.
Analects 14.9.
Analects 7.15.
I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.
Mencius 2A:9. Note that Mencius also praises Liu Xia Hui in 5B:1, 6B:6, and 7B:15.
Analects 17.9. It is also said that the Odes can stimulate the mind, make one more observant, and help one become more sociable.
Mencius 6B:3. The author is thought to be either King Zhou You’s son Yi Jiu or Yin Jifu’s son Bo Qi. Both have been badly treated by their fathers.
Mencius 5A:1.
Xunzi, A Concordance to Hsun Tzu (Beijing: Yenching University Press, 1950), 27/37.
Analects 14.1.
Analects 12.2. The other three are: “When abroad behave as though you were receiving an important guest. When employing the services of the common people behave as though you were officiating at an important sacrifice. Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.” (trans., Lau)
Analects 7.15.
Mencius 5A:3.
Analects 5.25.
Analects 5.23.
Xunzi 4/21, 30/2, 30/12.
Mencius 2A:7, 7A:12.
Analects 14.35; Mencius 2B:13, 6B:3; Xunzi 4/21, 17/5, 30/12.
Kwong-loi Shun, “Resentment and Forgiveness in Confucian Thought,” Journal of East-West Thought, Vol. 4, No. 4 (2014):17. There is one special instance in the Mencius 5A:6 where the phrase “self-yuan (zi yuan自怨)” occurs, but it is unclear if it means one has yuan towards oneself. Given the way “zi” is used in reflexive binomials, “self-yuan” in this context can mean that one comes to realize that the circumstances are such that she should have yuan. The object of yuan can still be some circumstances, not herself as the object of yuan.
Analects 18.10.
Analects 4.18; Mencius 5A:1; Liji “Nei Ze”, “Ji Yi”.
Liji “Yue Ji”; Xunzi 18/27.
Mencius 6B:3.
It should also be noted that the proposed account of yuan is only concerned with yuan of an individual, not the yuan of a group. As mentioned earlier, there are textual references to the yuan between groups. Instances like this will not fall under present consideration, though it leaves open the possibility that the proposed account is also applicable to collective yuan.
I am grateful to an anonymous referee for the wording of these three sentences.
Mencius 7A:12.
Contemporary scholars note that yuan is associated with feelings of anger and frustration. See Ing 2017, op. cit., p. 113.
Other negative reactive attitudes that resemble or are associated with yuan but are conceptually different from yuan include blame (you 尤), envy, jealousy (du ji 妒嫉) and grief (min 憫).
For example, it is said in the Xunzi that one can have yuan without nu (Xunzi 27/37). In the Liji, it is said that parents could have nu but not yuan towards their disobedient children (Liji “Nei Ze”). These two terms are not used interchangeably in the early texts and their use of these terms shows their sensitivity to the kind of circumstances that trigger these different kinds of negative reactive attitudes or feelings.
P. F. Strawson, “Freedom and Resentment,” Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays (Methuen & Co. Ltd. 1-28, 2008), p. 11.
Ibid., p. 10.
Ibid., p. 9.
See Ing 2017, op. cit., pp. 79-111 for a detailed discussions of scenarios wherein Confucius expresses regret and sorrow associated with regret. My point here does not affect Ing’s characterization and analysis of the sentiments. If the sentiments expressed in some of the scenarios do not meet the necessary conditions (1) to (3), then they are not yuan. But this does not preclude them from being some other reactive sentiments that are akin to regret.
See Michael D. K. Ing, “Born of Resentment: Yuan 怨 in Early Confucian Thought,” Dao Vol. 15, No. 19 (2016) and Ing 2017, op. cit.
See Jeffrie G. Murphy, “Forgiveness and Resentment,” in Jeffrie G. Murphy & Jean Hampton, eds., Forgiveness and Mercy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 17.
See Ing 2016, op. cit., pp. 26-27.
See Eric S. Nelson “Recognition and Resentment in the Confucian Analects,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. 40, No. 2 (2013):291–292; See also Shun 2014, op. cit., pp. 16–7.
Mencius 2A:7 (trans. Lau, modified).
I am indebted to Kwong-loi Shun for helping me think through this point.
Xunzi 4/21.
Ibid.
This does not mean that those who know ming believe that things are predetermined. See Shun 1997, op. cit., pp. 19-20 and Michael Puett, “Following the Commands of Heave: The Notion of Ming in Early China,” in Christopher Lupke, ed., The Magnitude of Ming: Command, Allotment, and Fate in Chinese Culture (Honolulu: University of Hawi’i Press, 2005) for discussions of different interpretations of ming in early Confucian texts. Scholars disagree on the usages of ming in the early texts. The main issue has to do with whether ming is used in a descriptive sense to refer to what is not within human control or in a normative sense to refer to moral obligations. And as Puett points out, the ming of Heaven could even be destructive in the sense that it frustrates or destroys humans’ ethical projects.
See, for example, Martha Nussbaum, “Objectification,” Philosophy and Public Affairs Vol. 24, No. 4, (1995) for a list of seven ways of treating someone as an object.
That one who has yuan sees oneself as object helps explains the fifth observation mentioned earlier that yuan tends to be directed to those superior to oneself, such as one’s parents, ruler, or tian. Those who have yuan believe that it is not up to themselves to decide certain conditions of their life but up to their parents, for example, to determine the chores to do at home, up to their ruler to determine the recognition and promotion they can get, up to tian to decide their prosperity and well-being at large. Although it is usual in a hierarchical relationship that the side in the inferior position will assume a passive role and see certain domains of their life as being in the hands of the superior, it is one seeing oneself as powerless that matters. So, it is possible for parents to have yuan towards their children if they see there is nothing much they can do to improve the situation when, for example, an outcome lies entirely in the hands of the children (Liji, “Nei Ze”). On this reading, it is possible for one to have yuan towards oneself as long as one sees that her current state is one that is affected by her earlier agency.
See Nicholas Bommarito, “Modesty as a Virtue of Attention,” Philosophical Review, Vol. 122, No. 1, (2013).
Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations after Wrongdoing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 6.
Since one’s focus in yuan might not even be on the wrong, the question of forgiveness does not even arise in some cases. She might not be in any standing to forgive or she might not see that there is any offense that needs to be forgiven.
Shun 2014, op. cit., p. 31.
See, for example, Murphy, op. cit., Joel Feinberg, Harm to Self (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), Jean Hampton, “Forgiveness, Resentment, and Hatred,” in Jeffrie G. Murphy & Jean Hampton, eds., op. cit. See also Shun op. cit., 2014, pp. 27-28 for a helpful discussion of contemporary philosophers’ views on the connection between resentment and self-respect.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Start-up Grant under No. M4081492.100 from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. I would like to express my deep gratitude to an anonymous referee for this journal whose detailed comments and suggestions have helped make this paper much clearer than it was. Earlier versions of the paper were presented at the 2015 ISCP Conference, Ancient Worlds Group at Yale-NUS, 2016 Rutgers Workshop in Chinese Philosophy, and 2017 NTU-ANU Joint Symposium. I thank the participants for their questions and comments. I am especially grateful to Andrew Forcehimes, Kwong-loi Shun, May Sim, and Jay Wallace for their very helpful comments on earlier drafts.
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Sung, W. The Early Confucian Worry about Yuan (Resentment). J Value Inquiry 54, 257–271 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-019-09694-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-019-09694-5