Abstract
The emotions were a central and constant feature of early ethical debates from antiquity onwards. Early Chinese thinkers diverged greatly in their attitudes toward the emotions, and in how they imagined their place in moral life. While for Confucius (Kongzi 孔子, 551–479 BCE) the morally cultivated person was one whose virtue was completed by joy and pleasure, likes and dislikes, and the fulfillment of his own desires, the Daodejing 道德經 called for the eradication of these very emotions and desires as a prerequisite to the achievement of oneness with the Way. While Mencius (Mengzi 孟子, 372–289 BCE) reasoned that certain innate feelings constituted the natural beginnings, or “sprouts” (duan 端) of virtue and moral action, Mozi 墨子(c. 480–390 BCE) regarded spontaneous feelings as inherently partial and thus the cause of injustice, corruption and extravagance on the part of rulers. Underlying such radically diverging perspectives on the role of emotions in moral and political were, more fundamentally, competing visions of what it meant to be human and how to fully realize our moral potential: do we achieve our proper human state through stillness, oneness, and solitude, or through movement, change, and engagement in the world of people and things? Can we rely on our "natural" and spontaneous feelings to lead us to right action or must we constrain and order these feelings through our intelligence and the use of institutions and cultural forms?
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Notes
- 1.
The question of whether early Chinese thinkers themselves saw thinking and feeling (or reason and emotion) as distinct has been an issue of deep controversy. See, e.g., the debate over the cognitive content of Mencius’ view of emotions in Wong 1991 and Ihara 1991. Recently, Liu Qingping has challenged the traditional enterprise of analyzing the history of Chinese philosophy in terms of the presence or non-presence of “rational principles” by proposing that Chinese thought is rooted in “emotional principles” (see Liu 2011).
- 2.
For positions on this debate over early meanings of qing, see, among others, Graham 1990: 59; Hansen 1995: 194–203; Allan 1997: 85; and Puett 2004: 37–43. Christoph Harbsmeier has written about the wide semantic range of the term qing, differentiating among seven basic groups of meanings. See Harbsmeier 2004. Eifring 2004 offers the most focused and historically comprehensive survey of qing and its evolving conceptions from antiquity through imperial times.
- 3.
For an extensive discussion of how this correspondence plays out in traditional Chinese thinking about literature, see Owen 1985. Among later thinkers who opposed this merging of self and world (as conceived in terms of the pairing, qing 情 and jing 景) and stressed the importance of recognizing the subjective and objective as distinct realms, was Wang Fuzhi, who believed that their confounding resulted in a failure to see things in their true aspect. On this subject see Wong Siu-kit 1978.
- 4.
Like many early texts, there is a messy textual history behind the Analects and we cannot, properly speaking assume that the received text represents the collected sayings of a historical figure Kong Qiu of Lu. I will refer to the Master’s voice in the text as “Confucius” out of a convenience justified by its general unity of perspective.
- 5.
- 6.
Shun Kwong-loi has thus argued for a broadened conception of ren as a “cluster of emotional dispositions and attitudes” that are embodied in li. In this context, Shun notes, li should likewise be considered more broadly as various norms that govern human conduct,” rather than as “ritual propriety,” which is the conventional translation. Shun 2002: 67.
- 7.
Herbert Fingarette has likewise argued for an understanding of Confucian ritual in a way that emphasizes the aspect of commitment – focusing, however, on the way in which ritual enables individuals to actualize their virtue and create a sense of the sacred through the forging of community. In this way, ritual enables one’s moral convictions to become outwardly visible, transmuting moral identity into socially-embedded conduct (Fingarette 1998: 1–17).
- 8.
See Yuri Pines’ important study of the intellectual and historical background to the emergence of Confucian thought (Pines 2002).
- 9.
The “we” here needs to be qualified, for Confucius does not necessarily assume a universal “we.” It is, after all, only those who have embarked upon an arduous path of self-cultivation who are able to “fully realize their desires without crossing the line.” Moreover, as Erica Brindley has shown, the very possibility of this self-cultivation is strictly delimited by class and gender (Brindley 2009).
- 10.
This increasing emphasis on realms of human life that are within human control can be seen in the evolving history of core concepts that would become central to Confucius’ ethical vision: tian 天 (Heaven), de 德 (virtue), ming 命 (mandate) ren 仁 (humaneness, etc). See Pines 2002: 164–204.
- 11.
Herbert Fingarette has noted the “absence of an elaborated doctrine of an ‘inner psychic life’” in the Analects, arguing, however, that the vision of self found in this text is distinctive in Asian philosophical traditions in its assertion of the self and its aspirations as both positive and meaningful. Based on his examination of vocabulary connected to self and to willing (ji 己, shen 身, yü 欲, and zhi 志), Fingarette concludes, “Confucius is affirmative, rather than negative, about the role of personal will and of the self it expresses. Specifically, Confucius appeals to us to activate our will – something only we as individuals can do – as a prime means of realizing the ideal life” (Fingarette 1979: 134).
- 12.
- 13.
For a comprehensive discussion of the moral and conceptual background of the issues discussed here, see Shun 1997.
- 14.
Mencius 4A15; ICS Mengzi 7.15/38/14–15. “Mencius said, ‘There is in man nothing more ingenuous than the pupils of his eyes. They cannot conceal his wickedness. When he is upright within his breast, a man’s pupils are clear and bright; when he is not, they are clouded and murky. How can a man conceal his true character if you listen to his words and observe the pupils of his eyes?” Translations from the Mencius are adapted from Lau 1970. Original passage citations follow the format of Lau, Wah and Ching (1995b), which is given as ICS Mengzi. I have also consulted Van Norden’s 2008 translation and commentary.
- 15.
I follow James Behuniak (who in turn follows Dobson, Legge, and Chan) in reading xin 心 as “feeling” rather than “mind” or “heart-mind” here since it is clear that that Mencius is referring to specific feelings and not a particular physical faculty or organ. There are, however, passages in which Mencius has in mind a particular faculty and not simply the operations of this faculty, as in Mencius 6A15, discussed below. For a discussion of the problem of translating xin, see Behuniak 2005: 26.
- 16.
Both Lau 1970: 163 and Shun: 214–215 follow this line of reading qing and translate the term as “what is genuine.”
- 17.
Van Norden points out this key distinction between 2A6 and 6A6, and proposes taking si as “reflection” in the following sense: “‘Reflection’” is focusing one’s attention upon and thinking about one’s feelings and the situations that elicit them. It is an activity that involves feelings, thoughts, and perception. (Van Norden 2008: 149).
- 18.
In 7B35 Mencius also emphasizes the importance of reducing desires, which also suggests that what is problematic is not desire per se, but misdirected and immoderate desire.
- 19.
- 20.
Indeed, a major re-evaluation of early Chinese thought has been underway since the Guodian findings, and scholars like Tang Yijie have suggested that one major impact that the discovery of these texts has had on our understanding of Warring States philosophy is that it makes clear the central role of emotions in early thought. These findings have likewise prompted scholars to speculate that there existed a “Si-Meng” school (Si Meng Xue Pai) of thought that included Mencius, the author of the Guodian texts, and authors of critically significant chapters of the Li Ji, including the Yue Ji and the Zhong Yong. See Li Xueqin 1999: 75–79, Liao Mingchun 1999: 36–74, and Behuniak 2005: xviii-xx. On the Guodian materials and their intellectual content and contexts, see esp. Allan 2000, Ding 2000, GCBM 1999, SGCBM 1999, and PISGCBM.
- 21.
the term xin assumes a more cognitive dimension in this text and its meanings cannot be effectively rendered as “heart,” as in the case of Mencius.
- 22.
- 23.
- 24.
Johanna Liu theorizes about the larger philosophical meaning of qing in her assertion that, in the Xing Zi Ming Chu, qing is “understood as the beginning of openness to the other in terms of ‘all things’ and ‘yi [propriety]’ as the ending, the final fulfillment towards which human feeling tends.” Liu 2008: 71.
- 25.
As Michael Puett has argued, the ethical significance of qing in this text lies in its invocation as an explanation and justification of cultural institutions. Puett 2004: 43–50.
- 26.
In English the only complete translation of Xunzi’s writings is Knoblock 1988–1994. Notable partial translations include Watson 1963 and Hutton 2001. I have actively consulted and borrowed from Knoblock’s translation in his renderings of certain passages. The passage numbering follows Knoblock and original source citations follow the format in Lau, Wah and Ching (1996), which will be given as ICS Xunzi.
- 27.
Following Knoblock in translating bu mei 不美.
- 28.
- 29.
On Xunzi’s account of self-cultivation as a process of shaping and habituation new dispositions and desires, see Kline 2006.
- 30.
Borrowing Knoblock’s phrasing for fen 分.
- 31.
Compare with similar statements in Guanzi 49, “Neiye,” 16.3a and Zhuangzi 20, 7.9a.
- 32.
This passage has been significantly altered from Knoblock, who reads it as “His eye comes to love the five colors” etc., which is implausible given that Xunzi regards sensual pleasure as part of the inborn nature. It is much more likely that Xunzi is referring here to the new-found appreciation for learning in those who have fulfilled their human potential through self-cultivation. Michael Nylan elaborates at length upon Xunzi’s emphasis on pleasure as an end-product of self-cultivation. She notes how this concern was part of a larger discourse in Warring States/early Han thought in which the most prominent thinkers focused on the achievement of pleasure as “one of the best possible tools of persuasion to induce members of the ruling class to right action” as they conceived of it (Nylan 2001b: 73).
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Virág, C. (2014). Early Confucian Perspectives on Emotions. In: Shen, V. (eds) Dao Companion to Classical Confucian Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2936-2_9
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