Abstract
Three ideas are implicit in the title of this essay. To begin with, it is constructive to view Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529), widely acknowledged as the most influential Confucian thinker of the Ming dynasty, as a virtue ethicist. Second, because Wang has much in common with many other Neo-Confucian philosophers, the Neo-Confucian approach to ethics quite generally can be fruitfully understood as a type of virtue ethics. If this is true, then a third idea also follows, namely that Western virtue ethicists should pay attention to Wang and to Neo-Confucian philosophy, because here is a new (to the Western philosophers) source of thinking about ethics from which they may well have things to learn.
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- 1.
For a significant discussion in Chinese of early Confucianism and virtue ethics, see Chen (2002).
- 2.
This is not to imply that virtue ethics has nothing to say about “right action.” Considerable effort has been spent by recent Western virtue ethicists to show that virtue ethics can help to guide action. The focus of the theories is not on action, however, but on the character of the agent.
- 3.
- 4.
My characterization of virtue ethics here is influenced by Swanton (2003: 19, 26).
- 5.
For most virtue ethicists, there is still room for reasoning about what to do. Some (following Aristotle) give reason a central place in their theories. Others (following Hume) do not, yet this does not mean that moral reactions are simply brute feelings, immune to discussion of which factors are (and are not) relevant to a proper reaction. For one discussion of these matters, see Hutton (2001).
- 6.
- 7.
See also the discussion of this theme in Huang and Wei (2007: 101).
- 8.
- 9.
By “single principle,” I have in mind something like the consequentialist maxim “Do that which maximizes good consequences.” That is, a “principle” is something that can be stated and applied to cases. This is certainly the most common understanding of “principle” in contemporary English-language philosophy, which is one reason why the old-fashioned translation of li as principle is so misleading.
- 10.
Wang recognizes that it is possible to believe mistakenly that one’s feelings and thoughts (yi 意) are liangzhi 良知, though in response he simply instructs his students to apply more effort to introspecting the difference (Wang 1972: 114).
- 11.
Mencius 2A.6 and 7B.31 respectively (Mencius 1970: 82 and 200).
- 12.
Contrast Wang (1983: 319 [§254]), in which Wang discusses cases in which we “bear” things that we should not, and thus “harm coherence.”
- 13.
- 14.
A reference to Mencius 2A.6.
- 15.
Also from Mencius 2A.6, and see also Mencius 1A.7, where King Xuan exhibits similar feelings on seeing an ox being led to ritual slaughter. In addition, Mencius 7A.45 bears comparison with Wang: “A gentleman is sparing (ai 愛) with things but shows no benevolence toward them; he shows benevolence towards the people but not filial affection (qin 親)” (Mencius 1970: 192 slightly mod.). The chief difference with Wang is that the underlying sense of continuity emphasized by Wang—since all the feelings he identifies are aspects of “humaneness”—is very attenuated in Mencius.
- 16.
Significant parts of this section draw on Angle (2005), though I have made changes to the presentation of the argument throughout.
- 17.
Contrast Chan’s translation, which effaces zhi 志 completely (Wang 1983: 43).
- 18.
See Chapter 5 of Ivanhoe (2002). Also see Ivanhoe (2000). Ivanhoe describes Zhu Xi’s approach to self-cultivation as “recovery.” Van Norden (2007) has argued that Zhu Xi combines a “discovery” model with elements from “development” and “reformation” models. These both contrast with the pure “discovery” model they see at work in Wang Yangming. I am suggesting here that Wang, too, must be seen as more of a mixed case.
- 19.
On “congealing of the sage-essence,” see Wang (1983: 58). The terms “beautiful person” etc., come from Mencius 7B.25.
- 20.
Chen Lai’s major Chinese-language study of Wang Yangming also puts some emphasis on what one could call a positive side to the process of self-cultivation, especially in the context of Wang’s doctrine of “extending liangzhi 至 良知”; see Chen (1991: 178–185).
- 21.
- 22.
- 23.
Nussbaum herself is not committed to the category of “virtue ethics,” and indeed her sources of philosophical inspiration are diverse. Nonetheless, much of her work is closely cognate with that of scholars who do identify as virtue ethicists. For other important sources of contemporary thinking about moral perception, see Murdoch (1970); Wiggins (1980); McDowell (1979); Sherman (1989); Blum (1991).
- 24.
For an early discussion of this story, see Mencius 5A.2.
- 25.
Wang expressed a similar idea when he explained that it is wrong to be attached to the idea that weeds are always bad, or flowers always good; one needs to follow universal coherence (as it applies to a given, particular situation) rather than following an inflexible rule (Wang 1983: §101).
- 26.
Martha Nussbaum’s discussion of the similarities between creative response, in much the sense I am describing, and improvisational rather than score- or script-based performance, is helpful here. “The salient difference between acting from a script and improvising is that one has to be not less but far more keenly attentive to what is given by the other actors in a situation.” “[She] must suit her choice to the evolving story, which has its own form and continuity.” As in jazz improvisation, Nussbaum continues, “The perceiver who improvises morally is doubly responsible: responsible to the history of commitment and to the ongoing structures that go to constitute her context; and especially responsible to these, in that her commitments are forged freshly on each occasion, in an active and intelligent confrontation between her own history and the requirements of the occasion” (Nussbaum 1990: 94).
- 27.
In light of my discussion of sorrow earlier in this essay, note that Tim’s reflection on how far his society needs to improve will be tinged with sorrow or grief; this does not alter the ease with which Tim-the-sage responds to the situation.
- 28.
Michael Slote (2010) has highlighted Wang as an early anticipator of later Western sentimentalist virtue ethics, insofar as his idea of the feeling of forming one body with all things suggests the modern idea of empathy.
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Angle, S.C. (2010). Wang Yangming as a Virtue Ethicist. In: Makeham, J. (eds) Dao Companion to Neo-Confucian Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2930-0_15
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