Keywords

1 Introduction

In November 1801, Dasan Jeong Yagyong (1762–1836), a promising Confucian scholar-official, was sent into exile in Gangjin, along Korea’s southwestern coast. He did not return to his home near Seoul until August 1818. For those seventeen years, Dasan was away from both his family and any official administrative duties and therefore had a lot of free time on his hands. He used that free time to read and write on a wide range of subjects, including but not limited to commentaries on the Confucian Classics. If we look in the most recent compilations of his complete works, we can find ten volumes on the Analects, nine volumes on Mencius, nine volumes on the Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean), four volumes on the Daxue (Great Learning), and one volume on the Xinjing (Classic of the Heart-mind). That’s in addition to the thousands of pages he wrote on the Book of Odes, the Book of History, the Book of Changes, and ancient ritual texts. (Jeong 2012, I, 16: 12a–13a [3, 268–69]) Since he wrote so many commentaries on Confucian texts, it is not surprising that he had a lot to say on the subject of emotions.

Dasan did not confine his discussion of emotions to the usual list of seven emotions: desire, dislike, love, fear, sorrow, anger, and joy, first enumerated in the Book of Rites. (Legge 1967: I, 379) He discussed those important emotions, but he also discussed many more. He even wrote a short essay on the subject of the emotion of resentment, wonwon/yuanyuan (原怨). That essay is rarely discussed, even though it sheds a lot of light on Dasan’s attitude toward emotions. A translation of that essay would be a good way to start exploring how Dasan conceived of emotions and what role they played in his moral philosophy.

If a father does not show that he cares for his son, would it be acceptable for that the son to resent (won/yuan 怨) the way his father was treating him? Of course not! However, if that son has displayed filial devotion to the fullest and yet his father still does not show any affection for him, such as the way Go Sou treated Shun (ChinaKnowledge 2020), then he has a right to resent the way he is treated. If a ruler does not show any concern for an official’s wellbeing, would it be acceptable for that official to resent the way his ruler was treating him? Of course not! However, if that official had been completely devoted to serving that ruler, and yet that ruler does not show any concern for his well-being, such as the way King Huai treated Qu Yuan (c. 340–278 BCE), then he has a right to resent the way he is treated. (Hawkes 1959: 11–15)

[Wan Zhang asked Mencius,] “though his parents did not like him, he worked hard to please them and was not resentful. Was it not acceptable for Shun to resent the way they treated him?” (Mencius 5A: 1; Van Norden 2008: 116) In both this Wan Zhang chapter and in the Gongsun Chou chapters [in Mencius], there are some puzzling passages. Zou Yan (305–240 BCE) has already pointed this out. Though Go Sou tried to kill Shun, Shun did not appear to be upset or depressed about that at all. Instead, he said, “I will put all I have into working the fields, showing that I respect my obligations as a son. I do not know what I have done to make my parents not love me.” Shun did not let his emotions get the better of him in public. He did not treat his parents poorly. However, [when he was alone], “he would look up toward Heaven and weep” (Mencius 5A: 1–2; Van Norden 2008: 116). He both resented the way they treated them and longed for their affection. That is a natural reaction!

Bao Si, the secondary queen of King You of Zhou (r. 781–771 BCE), tried to get rid of the crown prince Yijiu. Yijiu did not appear to be upset or depressed about that at all. Instead, he said, “I cannot think of anything I have done wrong. I do not know what I have done to make my parents not love me.” Yijiu did not let his emotions get the better of him in public. He did not treat his parents poorly. However, [when he was alone] he cried out, “this isn’t like the person who had some person from Yue he did not know shoot an arrow at him.” (Mencius 6B:3; Van Norden 2008: 161) That is a natural reaction.

King Huai of Chu (r.328–299 BCE) was tricked by his wily concubine into expelling Qu Yuan from his court. Qu Yuan did not appear to be upset or depressed about that at all. Instead, he said, “I have nothing to be ashamed of. All I did was respectfully fulfill my duties as an official. Is it my fault that my sovereign is not aware of that?” Qu Yuan did not let his emotions get the better of him in public. He did not act badly toward his sovereign. Then he saw that Chu was going to disappear, like a piece on a chess board. Worried and not sure what he should do, he expressed his concern for Chu in three poems: “the Lament,” “Nine Songs,” and “Far-off Journey” (Hawkes 1959: 21–44, 81–87). He could not keep from writing those poems. That is a natural reaction.

Confucius pointed out that “poetry can help you express resentment” (won/yuan 怨) (Analects 17: 9; Slingerland 2003: 204). The sages knew that there were times when they should feel resentment but were unable to do so openly. Worried about this, they turned to poetry, knowing that it provided a way to express resentment indirectly. Sima Qian (145–86 BCE) [in the Records of the Grand Historian] noted, “the Minor Odes in the Book of Odes are full of anger and censure but never of insubordination” (Watson 1971. I: 500).

Mencius said, “if you fail to resent it when your family members have slighted you, then you do not feel as close to them as you should and will become estranged” (Mencius 6B: 3: Van Norden 2008: 161). A situation that causes legitimate resentment is something a sage can handle, but for a conscientious official or a devoted son such a situation arouses deep emotions. If you want to talk about how such a situation should be dealt with, you should start by reading the Odes. If you want to know when it is appropriate to resent mistreatment, then you should start by talking about the emotions of those who are conscientious officials and devoted sons. [However, there are some who criticize those they should not criticize.] In doing that, they are like a husband who cares more about money than he cares about his family, and who favors his concubine over his wife and even mocks his wife in the boudoir. A person who lacks ability and virtue in this way will pollute what should be a beautiful world and causes all kinds of disorder and upheavals. We should not bother discussing legitimate resentment with such people. (Jeong 2012, I, 10: 4a–b [2, 205–6])

2 The Ambiguity of Emotions

Dasan in this short essay is grappling with a problem that scholars who sought to follow the Confucian path to sagehood have wrestled with for centuries: the ambiguity of emotions (jeong/qing 情). Human beings, as human beings, all have emotions. Human beings, as human beings, also all have an innate ability to be perfectly moral, to be sages (or so Confucian tradition taught). Yet the emotions which are an inescapable part of the human condition all too often place obstacles along that path to sagehood by stimulating us to act in a self-centered manner, in other words, to interact with our fellow human beings inappropriately. A question that bedeviled those who tried to heed the advice provided by Confucian moral philosophy was how much could emotions be trusted and, if they could be trusted sometimes, how can we be sure when to let them guide our actions and when not to do so. A related question was how we could tell the difference between helpful emotions and harmful emotions, and, moreover, if there were emotions that could, depending on the circumstances, stimulate more appropriate interactions or instead cause us to engage in more self-centered and therefore inappropriate interactions.

For Dasan, this was not just an abstract philosophical question. He was dedicated to cultivating a moral character, yet he also felt some strong emotions. One such strong emotion Dasan was concerned about was resentment (won/yuan 怨). After all, he thought he had been a loyal and conscientious official, yet he had been expelled from court and sent into exile for almost two decades. He had good reason to resent the way he had been treated by his government. However, he made sure his resentment did not turn him into a disloyal subject. He accepted feelings of resentment at unfair treatment as natural (the word he uses for a “natural reaction” is “cheolli/ tianli 天理,” the patterns defining appropriate behavior which he believed Heaven instilled in every human being at birth). However, he also believed such natural reactions to mistreatment must be contained so that they do not lead to inappropriate interactions with others. He insisted that we must deal with mistreatment the way Shun, Yijiu, and Qu Yuan did, expressing our emotion privately rather than lashing out at those who have mistreated us. After all, as a Confucian, Dasan believed that human beings become the human being they should become by playing the roles they should play in society, and by interacting with others the way they should interact with them in order to promote the common good. Emotions, no matter how justifiable, should not be allowed to push us into inappropriate interactions. That would be contrary to the Confucian preference for cooperation over conflict, and would interfere with the promotion of the social harmony that is a prime Confucian goal.

Resentment was not the only emotion that concerned Dasan. He had been brought up in the Toegye approach to Neo-Confucianism, which emphasized the need to carefully distinguish those feelings which were manifestations of i/li (理; the patterns defining and directing appropriate interactions) from those emotions which were generated by our gi/qi (氣; psychophysical constitution). Dasan was, therefore, particularly interested in moral psychology. This is clear in his commentaries on such classic Confucian texts as the Zhongyong, in which Dasan addresses the traditional Confucian concern for the connection between emotions and morality but did so in original and creative ways. He did that by arguing that it was not emotions per se that were the problem. As human beings, we could not avoid experiencing emotions, including potentially harmful emotions such as resentment. In fact, we would not be truly human if we did not experience such emotions. After all, even the sage Shun felt such emotions. The problem lay in how we dealt with our emotions, whether we controlled our emotions or let our emotions control us, as in the case of the misbehaving husband mentioned in Dasan’s short essay on resentment. The solution to that question of how to relate emotions to the cultivation of a moral character, Dasan insisted, lay in using some emotions to control other emotions.

The traditional Neo-Confucian notion is that the heart-mind (sim/xin 心) controls and integrates human nature and the emotions (simtong seongjeong/ xintong xingqing 心統性情). But in Dasan’s view, that formula is incomplete because it does not tell us how we can ensure our heart-mind can do that. To understand why Dasan was dissatisfied with the mainstream Neo-Confucian approach to explaining the connection between emotions and proper behavior, we first have to look at how emotions were generally understood in his Confucian tradition. Then we can identify the original elements in Dasan’s thinking about what emotions were, and what roles they could and should play.

Having spent his whole life on the Korean peninsula, Dasan can be considered a thinker working within an “Eastern tradition.” Generalizations about differences between “Eastern” and “Western” ways of thinking are inevitably over-generalizations, since they rely on essentialized stereotypes and overlook the complexity and contradictions inherent to any major worldview, in addition to ignoring overlapping beliefs and assumptions among the world’s many great philosophies and religions.

Nevertheless, generalization can contain a germ of truth. For example, it is an overgeneralization to say that philosophers in Europe and the America have tended, especially in traditional times, to think of philosophy as a search for a better way to understand the world. However, it would not be unfair to say in the West philosophers have often been guided by the assumption that reason is the best tool to use in such a search, though sometimes, especially in medieval times, reason was accompanied by divine revelation. In East Asia, on the other hand, philosophy has commonly been conceived of as a search for a way to become a better person. Reason has been an important tool in East Asian philosophy, of course, but at least as important has been reliance on perceived models of appropriate behavior (such as Shun, Jiyiu, and Qu Yuan provided) and on personal experience with attempts at following the examples those models are believed to have provided. We could say that Western philosophy can usually be characterized as rational philosophy while East Asian philosophy can be characterized as moral philosophy, though in do so we risk overgeneralizing.

A concrete example of how that difference is manifest would be the frequent emphasis in mainstream European and North American thought on the mind, conceived of as separate from the body and its emotions. In East Asian thought, on the other hand, particularly with Confucian and Buddhist thinkers, the emphasis has been on the heart-mind (sim/xin). The heart-mind, as its name tells us, unites the reasoning mind with emotions generated by the heart and the body.

The heart-mind has two important moral functions: cognition and volition. It is the heart-mind that recognizes the specific i (理) that tell us how to act appropriately in any given situation, and it is the heart-mind that generates the emotions which stimulate us to act in accordance with those i. Both cognition and volition are essential activities for the i that we are endowed with as human beings to be actualized. However, cognition was less problematic for Confucians, since they assumed that human beings have an innate ability to recognize i when they are determined to do so, and they focus with a calm and clear mind on achieving that cognitive goal (Ivanhoe 2019, 30–31; Zhuzi yulei 1986, 12: 200).

Emotions, however, merited greater concern, since emotions can motivate us to act appropriately or stimulate us to act inappropriately. Given the importance of these functions of the heart-mind, it is therefore not surprising that much more philosophical cogitation has been devoted to the heart-mind and its emotions by Confucian philosophers than we see in mainstream philosophy in the West.

Western philosophers have instead paid more attention to how the mind operates, particularly on how we know, and how we can determine if what we know is accurate or not. Epistemology is an important part of Western philosophy. Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese have usually been less concerned with how we know than with how we can translate our knowledge of the right way to behave into actually acting appropriately. As a result, they dove more deeply into moral psychology, into the role of emotions in directing behavior, and into identifying which emotions should be cultivated and which should be curtailed, rather than devoting a lot of time to issues of epistemology and logic. A philosophy of reason can lean toward the analytical, toward analyzing things, events, and processes, into their various individual components so that they can be more easily understood rationally. A moral philosophy, however, is less interested in analyzing individual components than it is in understanding how various things, events and processes interact so that better understanding can promote appropriate interactions and minimize inappropriate interactions. Since emotions are crucial motivating components of interactions, determining what emotions are and what role they play in human behavior is crucial to understanding the interactions we, as human beings, cannot avoid engaging in.

In trying to grasp the role of emotions as understood in traditional Korean thought, we have to keep in mind the ambiguity of the term “emotion.” In a narrow sense, emotions have the potential to lead us astray, as in the case of the classic list of “Seven Emotions” (chiljeong/ qiqing 七情; pleasure, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hatred, and desire). That is the way they were understood in Korea’s famous Four–Seven debate about the relationship between the Four Beginnings (sadan/siduan; four selfless instincts) contrasted with the Seven Emotions (seven self-centered emotions), on the one hand, and principle (defining and directing normative patterns; i) contrasted with vital energy (the animating stuff which those patterns should define and direct; gi 氣), on the other.

However, in a broader sense, it can refer to all the emotions human beings can feel, including such positive emotions as love for our parents, compassion for those who deserve our compassion, disdain for the immoral, and so on. This double reference to the term “emotions” can cause confusion. When Mencius said, “For cultivating the heart-mind (sim/xin), nothing is better than having fewer desires” (Mencius 7B: 32; Van Norden 2008: 193), he appears to treat desires and emotions in a somewhat negative light, since he does not add “except, of course, for the desires that your parents live a long and healthy life, that all the people in your community live together harmoniously, and so on.” And when Zhu Xi wrote that Yan Hui, a favorite disciple of Confucius, “took it as his imperative to restrain his feelings so that they accord with that which is within, and to exclusively overcome his self-centeredness,” (Ivanhoe 2019: 46; Zhuzi yulei, 30: 776), he appears to imply that “feelings” by their very nature are self-centered.

However, Mencius also talked about our four selfless instincts as emotions (Mencius 2A:6; Van Norden: 46–47). He refers to our “heart-minds” of compassion, disdain, deference, and approval and disapproval, but he clearly means here the emotions such heart-minds generate.” And in the first introductions of Neo-Confucian psychology to Korea, we see graphic evidence that emotions can be seen as both good and bad.

For example, just before the emergence of the Joseon dynasty, Gwon Geun (1352–1409), in his introduction to Neo-Confucianism, Ipak doseol [Diagrammatic Explanations for Beginning Learners], provided a chart explaining how human beings can become the moral actors they should be but can also fail to fulfil that potential and instead become not much different from amoral animals. He drew that chart to resemble a human being, with a head, a heart-mind, and two legs. In the heart-mind, he placed human nature along with five fundamental virtues of righteousness, benevolence, propriety, fidelity, and wisdom as well as the Seven Emotions. In the right leg, under the heading “emotions” he has the emotions (jeong/qing) manifesting as the four selfless instincts. In the left leg, instead of “emotions” he has “desires,” which he shows leading to the degradation of our full moral potential as human beings (Kalton 1985: 109). Here emotions have a positive rather than a negative connotation.

Almost two centuries later, when Neo-Confucianism had been fully absorbed by Koreans, Toegye Yi Hwang (1501–1570) drew a much more complex chart, one that makes clearer the ambiguity of the term “emotion” (jeong/qing). In the sixth chart of the ten charts in his Seonghak sipdo [Ten diagrams on sage learning], Toegye explains what is meant by the axiom “the heart-mind controls and integrates human nature and the emotions.” In the first part of that tripartite chart, he puts the heading “emotions” above the five fundamental virtues and their associated four selfless instincts. However, in the second part of that chart, he has the Seven Emotions joining the Four Beginnings of virtue (the four selfless instincts) under the same “emotions” heading, going on to explain in the third part of that chart that the difference between those two groups lies in whether they are manifestations of the universalizing patterns of appropriate interactions (i) or are manifestations of the individualizing material stuff that forms and animates our bodies (gi) (Kalton 1988: 120–23).

3 Addressing the Dual Nature of Emotions

To understand this ambiguity, and to understand why it bothered Dasan, we need to unpack what the phrase “the heart-mind controls and integrates human nature and the emotions” means, in mainstream Neo-Confucianism. Originally coined by Zhang Zai (張載 1020–1077), in the hands of Zhu Xi this became a core teaching of his more metaphysical version of Confucianism (de Bary and Bloom 1999: I, 689). Human nature, as Zhu Xi and his followers understood it, refers to the human potential to respond appropriately to people, things, and situations around us so that we interact with them selflessly and harmoniously. One way Zhu Xi expressed this notion of human nature as moral potential was to say that human nature was i. In other words, human nature was composed of the dynamic patterns defining and directing appropriate interactions. The emotions, on the other hand, are the actualizations of human nature. That is why the four selfless instincts, such as compassion, are called literally “the Four Beginnings [sprouts] of virtue.” They are the budding sprouts of our innate moral tendencies to act, and interact, appropriately. However, and this is where the ambiguity of the term “emotion” become apparent, those emotions can only be expressed through our bodies and minds. Since our bodies are composed of gi, and gi is what coagulates into separate and distinct entities, making harmonious cooperation more difficult, those emotions can veer off into an anti-social selfish direction. That is when the heart-mind needs to play its role of controlling and integrating human nature and the emotions. The heart-mind is therefore the integrated physical, mental, and moral entity through which human nature is actualized as emotions and therefore it is the heart-mind which is responsible for ensuring that our emotions are faithful actualizations of our innate moral nature rather being distorted by the individualizing influence of gi (Ivanhoe 2019: 42–46; Lee 2020).

Dasan found Zhu Xi’s concepts of human nature, the heart-mind, and emotions, and the relationships among them, to be oversimplified (he believed they implied that misguided emotions were merely distorted versions of moral emotions). Dasan also believed that Zhu Xi failed to clearly distinguish between inclinations and emotions. Moreover, Dasan found Zhu Xi too optimistic. In his opinion, Zhu Xi made consistently acting appropriately appear easier than it actually was by suggesting that human beings were naturally virtuous because human nature itself was i (Jeong 2012, II, 5: 59a–b [7, 145]). Not only did Dasan conclude that Zhu Xi’s explanation of the relationship between human nature and emotions was oversimplified and overly optimistic, he also deemed it detrimental to achieving the prime goal of Confucianism. The purpose of Confucian philosophy was to show human beings how to live the moral lives they were supposed to live. Unfortunately, Dasan argued that Zhu Xi’s mistakes made it more difficult to achieve that goal.

In Dasan’s opinion, Zhu Xi’s harmful ideas were not limited to his moral psychology. The entire foundation of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism was faulty and caused those who wished to live moral lives to misdirect their efforts to do so. Dasan argued that there are three reasons humans in his day are unable to live up to their full moral potential and become the sages Confucians aspired to become.

First of all, they mistakenly assumed that Heaven (cheon, 天) was i/li. Second, they thought being fully human (in, 仁) was the i/li, the core defining and directing principle (pattern), of all living things. Third, they thought that yong [庸] [the second syllable in the title of the Zhongyong, The Doctrine of the Mean] meant ordinary. [In other words, they thought that virtuous behavior was normal rather than result of strenuous effort]. They did not realize that they needed to show respect for Heaven by keeping a close watch on their every thought and action, needed to pursue becoming fully human through a very strong sense of empathy, and needed to do this consistently without ceasing. That is how they could have become sages. (Jeong 2012, II, 2: 40a [6, 220])

Dasan shared Zhu Xi’s assumption that human beings have an innate capacity to act appropriately. However, he disagreed that virtue itself was innate. He understood virtue as more of a way of acting than as a way of being. He argued that it would be fair to say that we were born with the ability to become virtuous. However, we cannot say we were born virtuous. Instead, we have to cultivate the ability to consistently act in accordance with that innate moral potential. Only after we have done so to the extent that we actually act appropriately on a consistent basis can we be called virtuous. (Jeong 2012, II, 5: 22a–b [7, 68–69]) This includes the virtue of acting in a fully human manner. Rather than serving as a defining pattern of all living things, Dasan argued that being fully human is not something we are from birth. Rather, we can only be said to be fully human when we regularly appropriately interact with our fellow human beings in a fully human manner (Jeong 2012, II, 7: 9b–10b [8, 34–35]).

To justify his rejection of the notion that acting consistently in a virtuous manner is normal and of its associated notion that being fully human is the core defining principle of human beings, Dasan proposed a new understanding of what makes human beings human beings. In mainstream Neo-Confucianism, human beings are a combination of gi, the vital energy (animating stuff) that forms their psychophysical constitution, and i, the immaterial patterns defining and directing appropriate interactions. Dasan proposed thinking of human beings instead as formed through a joining of material force/energy (gi) with the immaterial. However, for Dasan, the immaterial component of human beings is not i. He wrote, “Human beings are formed through a mysterious union of spirit and physical form. What the ancient classics call the self is nothing other than consciousness (heolyeong jigak/ xuling zhijue 虛靈知覺…to which later generations gave the names heart-mind and spirit” (Jeong 2012, II, 2: 25a–b [6, 195]).

What does Dasan mean by consciousness? He means the ability to evaluate situations we find ourselves in so that we can determine how we should act (Baek 2016). But that is not sufficient for us to live moral lives. Once we determine how we should act, we have to be motivated to act accordingly. Principle cannot provide that motivation. After all, i is not a conscious entity. It feels no emotions itself, so how could it inspire the emotions needed to motivate us to act the way we know we should act? (Jeong 2012, II, 6: 38a–b [7, 227–228]).

Human nature, that which enables us to live moral lives, therefore cannot be i. Human nature must provide the motive power that stimulates us to act. Dasan decided that, in order to do that, human nature must consist of inclinations (嗜好 giho/shihao) (Jeong 2012, II, 2: 25b-26b [6, 196–98]). It is important to note here that inclinations are not the same thing as emotions. Inclinations are what draw us toward something. Emotions, on the other hand, are our responses to something (Shun 2010: 179). Dasan noted that there are two types of inclinations. There is an inclination toward something pleasurable, “like a pheasant being drawn toward a hill, a deer drawn toward a field, or an orangutan being draw toward some wine.” And there is an inclination toward something needed for the realization of something’s full potential, “like millet needing a dry field or rice sprouts needing water” (Jeong 2012, II, 2: 26a [6, 196–97]).

Every human being has both types of inclinations, an inclination toward what feels good, and an inclination toward what is good. Lessor human beings let their inclination for pleasure and personal benefit influence their actions and end up acting inappropriately. However, those who allow their inclination for the moral good direct their interactions with others end up living a righteous life. It is impossible to eliminate all inclinations and still live as a human being should. After all, the inclination for the moral good, a desire to act appropriately, is still an inclination.

Dasan adds that the line in Mencius telling us, “For cultivating the heart, nothing is better than having fewer desires” (Mencius 7B: 35; Van Norden:193) is asking us to reduce our desires for personal benefit, not to suppress all our desires and inclinations (Jeong 2012, II, 2: 170 [6, 219–220]). Dasan says he once heard of a very simple-minded man who had no desires (無欲 muyok/wuyu) at all. He was unable to act morally. And he was unable to act immorally. He was unable to write anything decent. And he was unable to earn a living. So, he was of no use to anyone. How can a human being have no desires or inclinations at all and still be a true human being?

Just as human beings cannot eliminate all their desires and inclinations, they cannot eliminate their emotions, either. Inclinations direct us toward something. Emotions are our response to what we find when we get there. Dasan, in order to overcome the ambiguity in the Confucian notion of emotions, an ambiguity which he believed made it more difficult to cultivate the ability to consistently act appropriately, drew a clear line between inclinations (which he said constituted human nature) and emotions (which he said can be generated by either the mind or the body).

Emotions, when discussed in a Neo-Confucian context, should not be thought of as discrete mental or physiological states only. Instead, they should be viewed as both ways of responding to the world around us as well as stimuli to interacting with that world. They are verbs, not nouns. They are functions and processes, not things. “Hate” is actually “hating.” “Enjoy” is actually “enjoying.” Moreover, in Neo-Confucian psychology, emotions are emotions only when they are activated. Before that, they are only potential (unaroused; mibal/wiefa 未發) emotions. Therefore, compared to inclinations, in Dasan’s view, emotions can be more easily controlled. When they are still inchoate processes, they can be managed so that they operate properly rather than improperly. Our heart-mind is capable of ensuring that our emotions function in such a fashion as to stimulate us to act in appropriate rather than inappropriate ways. How can our heart-mind do that? Dasan argued that the heart-mind can successfully control emotions only if it used one type of emotions, those pushing us to act appropriately (jeong/zheng 正), to control another type of emotions, those which can led us to act selfishly (sa/si 私).

Dasan points out that emotions (here he names four of them: feeling happy, feeling angry, feeling afraid, and feeling worried) are not bad in themselves but are only bad if they are generated by selfish thoughts of financial rewards, sensual pleasure, avoiding misfortune or obtaining good fortune. If they are instead generated by the conscience heaven has endowed us with, which tells us we should work with our fellow human beings to promote the common good, then they are selfless emotions and are no danger to the actor or to anyone else (Jeong 2012, II, 2: 30a [6, 118]).

Not only can our emotions stimulate us to either become better human beings or lead us astray, they can also be generated by our heart-minds as well as by our bodies. Dasan argued that the possibility that our heart-minds can also generate dangerous emotions is downplayed by the mainstream Neo-Confucian emphasis on the distinction between the physical (gi)–body and the principle (i)–heart-mind. After all, when the heart-mind is conceived of as i, it is difficult to conceive of it leading us astray. However, when we realize that we are not composed of i and gi and are instead a combination of immaterial and material components, then we can more easily notice that it is not just our bodies that can lead us astray. Dasan decries the common tendency among Confucians to blame all our faults on our bodies and the physical urges for food, sex, and comfort they generate. He points out that our immaterial minds are not completely blameless. His evidence is the time he spent working at the Board of Punishments. He looked over a lot of files and discovered that there were many crimes which occurred because of anger or injured pride, which originate in the heart-mind, not the body. We cannot blame our bodies when we get angry because someone has criticized our scholarship or our writing skills. It is our pride originating in our heart-mind, he insists, that causes us to get angry in such a situation (Jeong 2012, II, 2: 27b [6, 199]).

Moreover, if all evil comes from things material, then, he asks, how can we explain the existence of troublesome and even malevolent spirits? Dasan notes that ghosts and spirits do not have bodies, but they, too, can behave in inappropriate ways, proving that not all our moral mistakes are caused by fact that our heart-minds are encased in a physical shell (Jeong 2012, II, 2: 27b-28a [6, 199]).

Even though emotions as emotions are not intrinsically morally dangerous, because emotions involve both the psychological and the physiological sides of our human nature, they can be difficult to control. Because they are rooted in desires which are an inescapable part of the human condition, and they are a natural reaction to the frustration or realization of those desires, they often complicate our attempt to live a moral life. They can push us toward the easier pursuit of personal benefit rather than toward the more difficult path of selfless dedication to the common good. This is why, Dasan says, the Neo-Confucian assumption that human people are naturally moral is far too optimistic.

Mencius had said that, “human nature being good is like water flowing downward” (Mencius 6A: 2; Van Norden: 144). Dasan saw it differently. He wrote that doing the right thing, putting moral considerations ahead of personal benefit, was as hard as climbing a steep hill. Pursuing personal advantage without considering the common good, on the other hand, is as easy as tumbling down that same hill (Jeong 2012, II, 2: 28a [6, 199]).

4 Emotions in The Pursuit of Sagehood

The reason it is so difficult to live the moral life Confucians demanded of its adherents is that human beings have inclinations for both the moral good and the personal good, and there are more emotions pushing us toward the pursuit of the personal good than there are emotions supporting the pursuit of the moral good. Dasan argued that there are many more emotions than the seven named in the classic list from the Book of Rites (Legge 1967: I, 379). He did not go as far as the Western philosopher P.M. S. Hacker has done in providing a long list of problematic emotions: “fear, anger, gratitude, resentment, hatred, indignation, envy, jealousy, pity, compassion, grief, hope, excitement, pride, shame, humiliation, regret, remorse, and guilt” (Hacker 2018: 22). Nevertheless, Dasan insisted that there were plenty of emotions to worry about.

We talk of seven emotions because the “Evolution of Propriety” [Liyun] chapter of the Book of Rites mentions seven specific emotions. However, that is not a number set in stone. There are emotions that do not appear in that list of seven. For example, shame (goe/kui 愧) is not on that list. Neither is regret (hoe/hui 悔). And both envy (gi/zhi 忮) and frustration (han/hen 恨) are left off that list. These are all different from the seven emotions listed in the Book of Rites and can’t be subsumed under them. It’s clear, therefore, that the list of seven emotions listed in the Book of Rites is not an exhaustive list. (Jeong 2012, I, 8: 27b [2, 72]) … How could Heaven have set the number of emotions at only seven? There are also other various emotions such as remorse (goehoe/kuihui 媿悔), resentment (wonhan/yuanhen 怨恨), arrogance (gigi/jizhi 懻忮), and fastidiousness (gangman/keman 恪慢) that are not on that list of seven. How can we say there are only seven emotions? (Jeong 2012, II, 4: 9b [6, 296])

Among that multitude of emotions, some are helpful rather than harmful. Love (one of the Seven Emotions) for parents, respect for elders, and compassion (the first of the Four Beginnings) for fellow human beings are just some of the emotions human beings should welcome and even cultivate. Moreover, there were two emotions in particular which Dasan believed which we should not be wary of but should nurture instead. They are the emotions of feeling cautious and feeling apprehensive.

As already noted, Dasan felt that, because individual human beings had competing sets of inclinations, with the inclination toward the moral good wrestling with the inclination toward personal gain for control over what those human beings did, it was more difficult to follow the moral path than mainstream Neo-Confucianism, with its confidence in innate virtue, assumed. It was therefore necessary, Dasan believed, to find a way to motivate human beings to choose the more difficult course of morality. If the right emotions were cultivated, then human beings would be strongly motivated by those emotions to control the selfish side of their nature and choose to act in accord with the selfless side instead. He decided the most effective emotions for motivating us to act appropriately no matter what situations we found ourselves in were feeling cautious and feeling apprehensive. Here is how Dasan justified that decision:

There is no human being born on this earth without base desires (yok/yu 慾). What keeps us from following those desires and doing whatever we feel like doing? It is the fear that our misbehavior will be noticed. Noticed by whom? Whose gaze keeps us in a state of constant caution and apprehension? We are cautious (gyesin/jieshen 戒愼) and apprehensive (gonggu/kongju 恐懼) (Zhongyong I: 2) because we know there are enforcement officers responsible for making sure rules are followed. We are cautious and apprehensive because we know our sovereign can punish us if we behave improperly. If we did not think there was someone watching us, would we not simply abandon all sense of moral responsibility and just do whatever we felt like doing? … But what makes us behave properly even in the privacy of our own room and make sure that even our thoughts are appropriate thoughts? The only reason why a moral person is watchful over his thoughts and behavior even in the privacy of his own room is that he knows that the Lord on High [Sangje/Shangdi 上帝] is watching him. If we think that the term Lord on High is nothing by a metaphor for i, then we wouldn’t be cautious and apprehensive. Principle (i), after all, is not a conscious entity. It is unable to inspire caution and apprehension. (Jeong 2012. II: 3, 4b-5a: [6, 232–33.])

Dasan’s insight is that a heart-mind governed by an attitude of apprehension needs an object for it to be apprehensive about. A cautious and apprehensive heart-mind cannot be cautious and apprehensive of nothing. What should they be cautious and apprehensive about? Dasan argued that they should always keep in mind that the Lord on High (Sangje) is aware of everything they think, say, or do. Rejecting impersonal i as the absolute because of its emotional impotence, Dasan insisted that there was an actual supernatural personality above who oversaw everything down below. He did not say that the Lord on High would condemn us to eternal damnation if we misbehaved, or reward us with eternal glory if we acted appropriately. Fear of the disapproving gaze of the Lord on High was enough, Dasan argued, to motivate us to resist our selfish impulses.

5 Conclusion

With his injection into Neo-Confucianism of an ever-watchful supernatural personality, Dasan went a step beyond Zhu Xi. Zhu Xi agreed that there were good emotions and that such emotions were necessary for a moral life. But he did not explain how those emotions did that. Therein lies Dasan’s contribution to Confucian moral psychology. Dasan identified two specific emotions, feeling cautious and feeling apprehensive, that can help our mind-heart moderate and control our emotions to ensure our moral potential, our potential to interact appropriately, is manifest in our behavior instead of our potential for selfishness. And he provided an object for those emotions, the Lord on High.

This brings us back to the Neo-Confucian axiom that the heart-mind controls and integrates human nature and the emotions. Dasan accepted that axiom, with the caveat that human nature, because it consists of competing desires, can manifest either as appropriate behavior or as inappropriate behavior. Which type of behavior dominates is shaped by the emotions that motivate that behavior. Human beings will be pulled this way and that by a variety of selfish and selfless emotions but the behavioral chaos that can produce can be avoided by reminding ourselves that the Lord on High is watching us. Aware that we are being watched by a superior power, we will be cautious and apprehensive of failing to think and act the way we are supposed to act and think. Motivated by the powerful emotion of concern for how we will be perceived by the Lord on High, we will exert the necessary effort to overcome our selfish impulses and become the sages, the human beings dedicated to the common good, Confucianism told us we are meant to be.