Abstract
This paper argues that Mencius is a eudaimonist, and that his eudaimonism plays an architectonic role in his thought. Mencius maintains that the most satisfying life for a human being is the life of benevolence, rightness, wisdom, and ritual propriety, and that such a life fulfills essential desires and capacities of the human heart. He also repeatedly appeals both to these and to morally neutral desires in his efforts to persuade others to develop and exercise the virtues. Classical Greek eudaimonists similarly regarded the life of virtue as both objectively good and subjectively desirable, and appealed to the desire for eudaimonia or happiness to motivate a commitment to the virtues. Mencius offers a carefully crafted, teleological account of human nature that appears designed in part to support his eudaimonism. In contrast with proposals by other scholars, I argue that Mencius’ notion of happiness, analogous to the Greek eudaimonia, is expressed by the construction jìn xìng 盡性, “fulfilling human nature” or the nearly equivalent jìn xīn 盡心, “fulfilling one’s heart.”
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Annas, Julia. 1993. The Morality of Happiness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
______. 1998. “Virtue and Eudaimonism.” Social Philosophy and Policy 15: 37–55.
Aristotle. 1999. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. by T. Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
Chan, Joseph. 2013. Confucian Perfectionism: A Political Philosophy for Modern Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Foot, Philippa. 2001. Natural Goodness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Graham, A. C. 1989. Disputers of the Dao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. Peru, IL: Open Court.
______. 1990. “The Background of Mencius’ Theory of Human Nature.” In Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature. Albany: SUNY Press.
Huang, Yong. 2010. “Confucius and Mencius on the Motivation to be Moral.” Philosophy East and West 60.1: 65–87.
Huff, Benjamin. 2013. “The Target of Life in Aristotle and Wang Yangming.” In Virtue Ethics and Confucianism, edited by Stephen Angle and Michael Slote. New York: Routledge.
Hursthouse, Rosalind. 1999. On Virtue Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ivanhoe, Philip J. 2002. Ethics in the Confucian Tradition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
______. 2007. “Heaven as a Source for Ethical Warrant in Early Confucianism.” Dao 6.3: 211–220.
______. 2010. “The Values of Spontaneity.” In Taking Confucian Ethics Seriously, edited by Yu Kam-por, Julia Tao, and Philip J. Ivanhoe. Albany: SUNY Press.
______. 2013a. “Happiness in Early Chinese Thought.” In Oxford Handbook of Happiness, edited by Susan A. David, Ilona Boniwell, and Amanda Conley Ayers. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
______. 2013b. “Virtue Ethics and the Chinese Confucian Tradition.” In Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics, edited by Daniel C. Russell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 1981. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James W. Ellington. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
Kraut, Richard. 2007. What is Good and Why. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lau, D. C. 2000. “Theories of Human Nature in Mencius and Xunzi.” In Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi, edited by T. C. Kline and P. J. Ivanhoe. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
______, trans. 2003. Mencius. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.
Leys, Simon, trans. 1997. The Analects of Confucius. New York: W. W. Norton.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1984. After Virtue. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
______. 1999. Dependent Rational Animals. Peru, IL: Open Court.
McDowell, John. 1980. “The Role of Eudaimonia in Aristotle’s Ethics.” In Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, edited by Amélie Oksenberg Rorty. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Mill, John Stuart. 2002. Utilitarianism. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
O’Connor, David K. 2010. “Xenophon and the Enviable Life of Socrates.” In The Cambridge Companion to Socrates, edited by Donald R. Morrison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Plato. 1987. Gorgias. Trans. by David J. Zeyl. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
______. 1989. Symposium. Trans. by Alexander Nehemas and Paul Woodruff. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
______. 1993. Euthydemus. Trans. by Rosamond Kent Sprague. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
Russell, Daniel C. 2013. “Virtue Ethics, Happiness, and the Good Life.” In Cambridge Companion to Virtue Ethics, edited by Daniel C. Russell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sim, May. 2007. Remastering Morals with Aristotle and Confucius. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Slingerland, Edward, trans. 2003. Analects. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
Slote, Michael. 2009. “Comments on Bryan Van Norden’s Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy.” Dao 8.3: 289–295.
______. 2011. The Impossibility of Perfection. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stalnaker, Aaron. 2006. Overcoming Our Evil. Albany: SUNY Press.
Swanton, Christine. 2005. Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Van Norden, Bryan. 2007. Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
______, trans. 2008. Mengzi, With Selections from Traditional Commentaries. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
______. 2009. “Response to Angle and Slote.” Dao 8.3: 305–309.
______. 2013. “Toward a Synthesis of Confucianism and Aristotelianism.” In Virtue Ethics and Confucianism, edited by Stephen C. Angle and Michael Slote. New York: Routledge.
Waley, Arthur. 1939. Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China. London: Allen and Unwin.
Walker, Matthew. 2013. “Structured Inclusivism about Human Flourishing: A Mengzian Formulation.” In Virtue Ethics and Confucianism, edited by Stephen C. Angle and Michael Slote. New York: Routledge.
Watson, Burton, trans. 2003. Xunzi: Basic Writings. New York: Columbia University Press.
Yearley, Lee. 1990. Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage. Albany: SUNY Press.
Yu, Jiyuan. 2007. The Ethics of Confucius and Aristotle: Mirrors of Virtue. New York: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Huff, B.I. Eudaimonism in the Mencius: Fulfilling the Heart. Dao 14, 403–431 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-015-9444-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11712-015-9444-z