Abstract
What has Mencius, a philosopher of the 4th century B.C. in ancient China, to offer to a contemporary discussion on altruism? The answer lies in his reply to moral scepticism, a perennial feature of both ordinary and intellectual thought. According to Mencius, there are certain ethical predispositions which manifest themselves spontaneously in appropriate circumstances. These predispositions constitute a direct moral concern which is to be distinguished from motivated desires. Such concern may either be particularistic, i.e. directed toward those in a personal relation with ourselves, or non-particularistic, i.e. directed toward those who have no personal relation with ourselves. Both types of concern are not mutually exclusive.
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Notes
See Burton Watson tr., Mo Tzu: Basic Writings (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963. The discussion below is based on the chapter on “Universal Love”, pp. 39–49 of Watson.
“Universal love” is the term used by Watson, ibid.. Kwong-loi Shun, Mencius and Early Chinese Thought (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), uses “indiscriminate concern”, while A.C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company, 1989), has “concern for everyone”.
A possibility broached by David Wong though not intentionally, when he discusses the tenets of Western impersonal morality as against particularism before going on to discuss Confucianism versus Mohism in his paper, “Universalism Versus Love With Distinctions: An Ancient Debate Revived” in Journal of Chinese Philosophy 16 (1989), p. 252. Wong notes the universalistic element in Confucian ethics, but states that “It should warn us against associating universalism too closely with Western, impersonal morality, or with political liberalism or social individualism. The presence of Mo Tzu as a challenger to the Confucian position reinforces this point.” See Wong, p.253.
ibid., p.44.
Ibid., p.42.
Ibid., pp.46–47
Mencius 7A26. See D.C. Lau tr., Mencius (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1984), Volumes I and II.
ibid., p.53.
ibid., p.59.
Burton Watson tr., The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), pp.310–311.
See the discussion between Ch’in Ku-li and Meng Sun-yang in the “Yang Chu” chapter of the Liezi (Lieh-tzu) as quoted in ibid., pp.60–61. Meng Sun-yang says: “That one hair matters less than skin, and skin less than a limb, is plain enough. However, go on adding to the one hair and it amounts to as much as skin, go on adding more skin and it amounts to as much as one limb. A single hair is certainly one thing among the myriad parts of the body, how can one treat it lightly?”
Ibid. pp.330–331.
Ibid., pp.349–350.
In this section, I make use of ideas which I have presented in another paper, “Mengzi and Gaozi on Nei and Wai” in Alan Chan ed., Mencius: Contexts and Interpretations (Honolulu: Hawaii University Press, 2002).
See David Wong, “Universalism Versus Love With Distinctions”, Journal of Chinese Philosophy 16 (1989) 251–272 for a discussion about this development of love and concern.
From the “Giving Away a Throne” chapter in the Zhuangzi. See page 309 of Watson, tr. I have quoted from ibid. p. 59. Watson’s translation is slightly different: “The empire is a thing of supreme importance, yet he would not allow it to harm his life. How much less, then, any other thing! Only he who has no use for the empire is fit to be entrusted with it.” This is even closer to Mencius’ “casting aside the Empire as no more than discarding a worn shoe.”
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Chong, KC. (2002). Mencius And The Possibility of Altruism In Early Chinese Philosophy. In: Kapur, B.K., Chong, KC. (eds) Altruistic Reveries. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0809-0_3
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