This essay aims to delineate Mengzi’s view of emotion by analyzing his first ethical sprout, often referred to by the Chinese term cèyǐn zhī xīn 惻隱之心.Previous scholars usually translate this term as “compassion,” “sympathy,” or “commiseration,” in the sense of the painful feeling one feels at the misfortune of others. My goal in this article is to clarify the nature of this painful feeling, and specifically I argue that (1) cèyǐn zhī xīn is primarily construing another being’s misfortune with sympathetic (...) concern, and that (2) the painfulness of cèyǐn zhī xīn comes from this concern-based construal of the object of one’s compassion. My interpretation of cèyǐn zhī xīn as a concern-based construal is an attempt to construct an important alternative to the inclinational view of Mengzian emotions, and it could be also considered as making a crucial step toward a new interpretation of the Mengzian theory of emotional cultivation. (shrink)

David Nivison has argued that Mèngzǐ 孟子 postulates only one source of moral motivation, whereas Mèngzǐ’s rival thinkers such as Gàozǐ 告子 or the Mohist Yí Zhī 夷之 additionally postulate “maxims” or “doctrines” that are produced by some sort of moral reasoning. In this essay I critically examine this interpretation of Nivison’s, and alternatively argue that moral emotions in Mèngzǐ, basically understood as concern-based construals, are often an insufficient source of moral action, and an additional source of moral motivation, specifically (...) a conviction or judgment of what is the right thing to do in a certain situation in question, is often necessary for one to complete a moral action. This implies that Mèngzǐ should be interpreted to postulate two sources of moral motivation just as his rival thinkers do, namely moral emotion on one hand and judgment and practical reasoning on the other. (shrink)

Mèngzǐ’s 孟子 advice to King Xuān 宣 to take up his feeling of compassion for an ox and apply it to his people (_Mèngzǐ_ 1A7) is equivocal, and can be understood in two markedly different ways: on one hand, to take immediate care of the people’s needs by performing a kind of (mental) act of applying compassion; on the other hand, to engage in a long-term project of cultivating compassion for them. These views, moreover, when combined with the assumption that (...) emotion is the sole motivator of moral action, give us a perplexing picture of Mèngzǐ as urging the king to do exactly what he cannot—namely, acting out of compassion for his people that he falls short of feeling enough of. This essay explicates the Mengzian model of moral extension (_tuī_ 推) through a solution to this puzzle, specifically by explaining how one’s immediate performance of moral actions are conducive to cultivating related moral emotions. (shrink)

Previous scholars seem to assume that Mengzi’s 孟子 four sprouts are more or less homogeneous in nature, and the four sprouts are often viewed as some sort of desires for or instinctive inclinations toward virtues or virtuous acts. For example, Angus Graham interprets sìduān 四端 as “incipient moral impulses” to do what is morally good or right, or “spontaneous inclinations” toward virtues or moral good. However, this view is incompatible with the recently proposed more sound views that regard Mengzi’s four (...) sprouts as a particular type of emotions or feelings having some “cognitive” or “rational” aspects. In this essay I develop this new approach to Mengzi’s four sprouts, and specifically argue that respect in Mengzi should be considered neither as a moral desire nor as a behavioral tendency to do deferential acts but as some sort of ethical sensibility that is responsive to the relevant features of a worthy person. (shrink)

In this chapter I discuss several important issues in Mencius’s moral psychology. I begin with some methodological thoughts about how to study emotions in Mencius and ancient China in general, and then move on to a discussion of Mencius’s conception of four sprouts (siduan 四端). Specifically, I argue that moral emotions in Mencius are best interpreted as a kind of “concern-based construals,” and show how they are conceptually distinguished from both desire and behavioral dispositions. Next, I delineate the unique character (...) of shifei zhi xin 是非之心, one of the four sprouts, as moral judgment, and I discuss how the other three sprouts as moral emotions are related with shifei zhi xin under the rubric of the relationship between reason and emotion in the Mencius. Finally, I examine previous interpretations of the Mencian notion of emotional extension (tui 推) and conclude the chapter with some ideas and brief suggestions about how to cultivate ethical emotions in the context of the Mencius. (shrink)

Based on the observation that ancient Chinese thinkers formulated their conception of logic and agency mainly around the concept of biàn 辯 (discrimination), Chris Fraser argues that (1) ancient Chinese thinkers had no concept of sentence or proposition, (2) they did not engage in logical argumentation in its proper sense, and (3) reason or rationality was not highly valued in ancient China for normative evaluation of actions. However, the text of the Mòzǐ 墨子 contains strong pieces of evidence against these (...) claims, and I argue that the opposite is clearly the case in Mòzǐ. Then, I move on to apply the metaethical idea of judgment internalism—the idea that there is an “internal” or conceptual connection between moral judgment and motivation—to some passages from the Mòzǐ and argue that Mòzǐ is best interpreted as a flexible internalist who is willing to incorporate an externalist idea into his system of thought. (shrink)

In my dissertation, I investigate the development of the ethical theory of emotions in two ancient Chinese Confucian texts, Lúnyǔ (the Analects of Confucius) and Mèngzǐ (Mencius). Departing from much of the previous scholarship on ancient Chinese emotion, which has exclusively focused on the single Chinese term ‘qíng’ 情 (“emotion”), I closely analyze a number of Chinese terms for particular emotions in the textual and historical contexts of Lúnyǔ and Mèngzǐ. The leading question of my dissertation is what role emotions (...) (especially good emotions such as compassion) play in moral judgment, moral motivation, and moral cultivation for Confucius (551–479 B.C.E.) and Mencius (390–305 B.C.E.), and against the dominant theoretical positions in recent work on Chinese philosophy I argue that in the Mencius, 1) moral emotions provide an important but only partial basis for all-things-considered ethical judgment; 2) not only is the virtuous person in full control of his own desires, but his moral autonomy is not compromised even by his moral emotions; and 3) Mencius’ theory of emotional cultivation is significantly based on the inculcation of social values which are not originally embodied in moral emotions. (shrink)

According to Mencius, human nature is good because human beings are endowed with four sprouts of virtues, namely benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom, and humans can become fully virtuous by growing these four ethical sprouts. Mencius believed that these four sprouts exist in the human mind mainly in the form of emotion or emotional sensibility, and they are sometimes translated in English as compassion, sense of honor, respect, and feeling of approval and disapproval. What I want to do in this (...) paper is to delineate Mencius’s view of emotion by analyzing his first sprout, which is often referred to by the Chinese term “cèyǐn zhī xīn” 惻隱之心. Previous scholars usually translate “cèyǐn zhī xīn” as “compassion,” “sympathy,” or “commiseration,” in the sense of thepainful feeling one feels at the misfortune of others. My goal in this paper is to clarify the nature of this painful feeling, and specifically I will show that 1) cèyǐn zhī xīn is primarily construing another being’s misfortune with sympathetic concern, and that 2) the painfulness of cèyǐn zhī xīn comes from this concern-based construal of the object of one’s compassion. Toward the end of my paper, I will also show the connection between Mencius’s view of cèyǐn zhī xīn and thecontemporary ethical discourse on emotions, by arguing that in Mencius emotions like compassion provide an important but only partial basis for all-things-considered ethical judgment. (shrink)

The present study develops an artificial agent that plays the iterative chicken game based on a computational model that describes human behavior in competitive social interactions in terms of fairness. The computational model we adopted in this study, named as the self-concept fairness model, decides the agent’s action according to the evaluation of fairness of both opponent and self. We implemented the artificial agent in a computer program with a set of parameters adjustable by researchers. These parameters allow researchers to (...) determine the extent to which the agent behaves aggressively or cooperatively. To demonstrate the use of the proposed method for the investigation of human behavior, we performed an experiment in which human participants played the iterative chicken game against the artificial agent. Participants were divided into two groups, each being informed to play with either a person or the computer. The behavioral analysis results showed that the proposed method can induce changes in the behavioral pattern of human players by changing the agent’s behavioral pattern. Also, we found that participants tended to be more sensitive to fairness when they played with a human opponent than with a computer opponent. These results support that the artificial agent developed in this study will be useful to investigate human behavior in competitive social interactions. (shrink)

As documented by Darwin 150 years ago, emotion expressed in human faces readily draws our attention and promotes sympathetic emotional reactions. How do such reactions to the expression of emotion affect our goal-directed actions? Despite the substantial advance made in the neural mechanisms of both cognitive control and emotional processing, it is not yet known well how these two systems interact. Here, we studied how emotion expressed in human faces influences cognitive control of conflict processing, spatial selective attention and inhibitory (...) control in particular, using the Eriksen flanker paradigm. In this task, participants viewed displays of a central target face flanked by peripheral faces and were asked to judge the gender of the target face; task-irrelevant emotion expressions were embedded in the target face, the flanking faces, or both. We also monitored how emotion expression affects gender judgment performance while varying the relative timing between the target and flanker faces. As previously reported, we found robust gender congruency effects, namely slower responses to the target faces whose gender was incongruent with that of the flanker faces, when the flankers preceded the target by 0.1 s. When the flankers further advanced the target by 0.3 s, however, the congruency effect vanished in most of the viewing conditions, except for when emotion was expressed only in the flanking faces or when congruent emotion was expressed in the target and flanking faces. These results suggest that emotional saliency can prolong a substantial degree of conflict by diverting bottom-up attention away from the target, and that inhibitory control on task-irrelevant information from flanking stimuli is deterred by the emotional congruency between target and flanking stimuli. (shrink)

With the growing amount of clinical research, regulations and research ethics are becoming more stringent. This trend introduces a need for quality assurance measures for ensuring adherence to research ethics and human research protection beyond Institutional Review Board approval. Audits, one of the most effective tools for assessing quality assurance, are measures used to evaluate Good Clinical Practice and protocol compliance in clinical research. However, they are laborious, time consuming, and require expertise. Therefore, we developed a simple auditing process and (...) evaluated its feasibility and effectiveness. The screening audit was developed using a routine audit checklist based on the Severance Hospital’s Human Research Protection Program policies and procedures. The measure includes 20 questions, and results are summarized in five categories of audit findings. We analyzed 462 studies that were reviewed by the Severance Hospital Human Research Protection Center between 2013 and 2017. We retrospectively analyzed research characteristics, reply rate, audit findings, associated factors and post-screening audit compliance, etc. Investigator reply rates gradually increased, except for the first year. The studies were graded as “critical,” “major,” “minor,” and “not a finding”, based on findings and number of deficiencies. The auditors’ decisions showed fair agreement with weighted kappa values of 0.316, 0.339, and 0.373. Low-risk level studies, single center studies, and non-phase clinical research showed more prevalent frequencies of being “major” or “critical”. Inappropriateness of documents, failure to obtain informed consent, inappropriateness of informed consent process, and failure to protect participants’ personal information were associated with higher audit grade. We were able to observe critical GCP violations in the routine internal audit results of post-screening audit compliance checks in “non-responding” and “critical” studies upon applying the screening audit. Our screening audit is a simple and effective way to assess overall GCP compliance by institutions and to ensure medical ethics. The tool also provides useful selection criteria for conducting routine audits. (shrink)

This study aims to decode the hemodynamic responses evoked by multiple sound-categories using functional near-infrared spectroscopy. The six different sounds were given as stimuli. The oxy-hemoglobin concentration changes are measured in both hemispheres of the auditory cortex while 18 healthy subjects listen to 10-s blocks of six sound-categories. Long short-term memory networks were used as a classifier. The classification accuracy was 20.38 ± 4.63% with six class classification. Though LSTM networks’ performance was a little higher than chance levels, it is (...) noteworthy that we could classify the data subject-wise without feature selections. (shrink)

Modern schooling in Korea, which was officially established by law in 1949, is well known for its function as an engine of economic success in modern Korea. Although this fact seems to be world-wid...

What does it mean to read Ham Seok-heon in the 21st century? Furthermore, what does it mean to read the ‘East-Asian Classics’ through him? In this article, I would like to raise a few issues that existing discussions on the relationship between Ham Seok-heon and the East-Asian Classics have not paid attention to, in order to point out the points that we should give more weight to in the hermeneutics of Ham Seok-heon’s ‘Chewing on Old Classics’. First, (...) Ham’s should be read as an independent text in its own right, not as a commentary on the ‘Oriental Classics’. Second, his SSi-al’ Readings of Old Classics should be read in the context of life and place in contemporary Korea, rather than the Laozi and the Zhuangzi relationships it addresses. Third, the meanings and values in SSi-al’ Readings of Old Classics do not lie in its original interpretation of traditional commentaries, but rather in the “common sense” that guided the perceptions and practices of Ssi-al in the democratization process of twentieth-century Korea. To emphasize this aspect, I contrast it with the interpretation of the Zhuangzi in China during the same period. I want to argue that if Chinese intellectuals in the twentieth century anticipated their own destiny through the interpretation and discussion of the Zhuangzi, Ham Seok-heon’s reading of the Zhuangzi was expressed as the voice of Ssi-al, which changed the subject of interpretation and at the same time called for the values of modern freedom and equality and preached the ideology of democracy and self-government to realize them. In reading Ham Seok-heon in this way, I believe that we can properly evaluate the historical and philosophical meaning and value of SSi-al’ Readings of Old Classics. (shrink)

The sanctity of life becomes an ambiguous and illusive notion by the advance of embryology and genetics, particularly human embryonic stem cell research. Major themes generated in North American theological and ethical discussions on this important hermeneutical theme for this century, in overall, do not seem toovercome fully their Western legacies of substantialism, individualism, anthropocentricism (dignity, person, and respect as individual entity). From an East Asian Christian perspective, the sanctity of life rather implies the imperative for a life to realize (...) itself to the fullest end of what it ought to be. This involves the diligentpractice of sanctification and self-cultivation in respect (or mindfulness 敬). A researcher in a laboratory is also a human person who needs to engage in this rigorous practice of mindfulness. This may be the prerequisite to exercise one’s freedom to help other forms of life accomplish their imperative for self-realization Finally, the sanctity of life from an East Asian Christian perspective means a fulfillment and embodiment of the proleptic Tao, in its own freedom of life (wu-wei 無爲). After all, both science and religion are taos for life, the great openness for cosmic vitality (saeng-myeong 生命). (shrink)

This essay examines the structural position of Mengzi’s 孟子 heart of compassion within his theoretical goal of teaching moral self-cultivation. I first investigate Kim Myeong-seok’s account that views ceyin zhi xin as a higher cognitive emotion with a concern-based construal. I argue that Kim’s conclusion is not sufficiently supported by the text of the Mengzi, but is also tarnished by the possibility of constructing a noncognitivist counter-theory of ceyin zhi xin. Instead, I suggest that David Hume’s causation-based approach (...) to sentiment provides an alternative route to reach the theoretical core of Mengzi’s ceyin zhi xin. People’s uniform moral sentiment as the effect of mental causation implies that there is a natural cause universally engraved in the human heart. As Mengzi’s practical teaching of moral self-cultivation begins with recognizing this heart of compassion, his focus is placed not upon the characteristics of the expressed emotion, but upon the universal presence of its natural cause in the human heart which demonstrates our moral potential to care for others. (shrink)

This book, based on Jaegwon Kim's 1996 Townsend Lectures, presents the philosopher's current views on a variety of issues in the metaphysics of the mind...

The oriental culture has generally been known to bloom in China in regional framework, and established the form of a country in ancient times, and continuously develop as Yu (虞) / Xia (夏) / Yin (殷) [Shang=商] / Zhou (周) in periodical framework. There are several documents to discover the origin along with archaeological and cultural configuration related to prehistory tales or the history of tribal settlement in ancient times. Unfortunately, however, there were few outputs that unveiled the original source (...) in cultural or theoretical angles. Generally, a certain race and a local culture can be a good resource to be considered, the base of ideology, and further, the root of philosophy in a country. It can be found that, in comparison with pre-history legends and archaeological research results, the source of Chinese philosophy is mainly composed of exterior cultures from foreign settlers rather than its own one. In short, it is possible to setup the preposition or hypothesis that the source of Chinese philosophy and thoughts was not from Han (漢) race, but from old Dongyi (東夷) race. Thus, it is necessary to study deeply on that point as a key clue, linking the characteristics of Zhouyi (周易) philosophy' which is the origin of Chinese philosophy to Dongyi culture. As mentioned in the passages above, it was demonstrated that the fundamental issue of Yi philosophy lies in the principle of time operation in Tiantao (天道), and the formulation of Yi philosophy, and through the analysis of fourteen saints in the process of review of Shengtong, (聖統) the stream of old saints by the principle of Lishu (曆數) more than half of saints were from Dongyi family. In addition, the historical fact that the Dongyi tribe had raised the Yin (Shang) culturewhich mainly formed the base of Chinese cultures as a ancient dynasty shows the deep relation between Zhouyi and the Dongyi culture, and further, it seems that the relation was from the tribe's realization of the principle of time operation of Heaven which had been accumulated for a long time as the culture of agricultural settlement, the conceptual characteristics in the Dongyi culture, and it can be found that the cultural characteristics are in connection with Yi philosophy which considers the principle of time operation in Tiantao as the fundamental ground. It also can be detected that they have connection with the original meaning ofseveral concepts in Yixue (易學) and the culture which emphasize the bottom line of the nature of time. This study focused on questioning issues of these findings as a preliminary research in order to prepare for the formal works which will scrutinize the details of circumstances. In brief, the fact that the fundamental issue of Yi philosophy which is the source of Chinese philosophy lies in the nature of time in the operation of Tiantao should be demonstrated, and the matter that the root was from the Dongyi family who had lived in the north-eastern area in the ancient period and had raised the culture which stressed the principle of time operation as the agricultural settlement culture, and moved to the central area of old China should be unveiled through the trace, which, in the future, might be able to enlighten roots of thoughts in Chinese philosophy in the right course, and make them realize that the work process which is being operated in the north-eastern part would be of no use in the after all. (shrink)

The oriental culture has generally been known to bloom in China in regional framework, and established the form of a country in ancient times, and continuously develop as Yu (虞) / Xia (夏) / Yin (殷) [Shang=商] / Zhou (周) in periodical framework. There are several documents to discover the origin along with archaeological and cultural configuration related to prehistory tales or the history of tribal settlement in ancient times. Unfortunately, however, there were few outputs that unveiled the original source (...) in cultural or theoretical angles. Generally, a certain race and a local culture can be a good resource to be considered, the base of ideology, and further, the root of philosophy in a country. It can be found that, in comparison with pre-history legends and archaeological research results, the source of Chinese philosophy is mainly composed of exterior cultures from foreign settlers rather than its own one. In short, it is possible to setup the preposition or hypothesis that the source of Chinese philosophy and thoughts was not from Han (漢) race, but from old Dongyi (東夷) race. Thus, it is necessary to study deeply on that point as a key clue, linking the characteristics of Zhouyi (周易) philosophy' which is the origin of Chinese philosophy to Dongyi culture. As mentioned in the passages above, it was demonstrated that the fundamental issue of Yi philosophy lies in the principle of time operation in Tiantao (天道), and the formulation of Yi philosophy, and through the analysis of fourteen saints in the process of review of Shengtong, (聖統) the stream of old saints by the principle of Lishu (曆數) more than half of saints were from Dongyi family. In addition, the historical fact that the Dongyi tribe had raised the Yin (Shang) culturewhich mainly formed the base of Chinese cultures as a ancient dynasty shows the deep relation between Zhouyi and the Dongyi culture, and further, it seems that the relation was from the tribe's realization of the principle of time operation of Heaven which had been accumulated for a long time as the culture of agricultural settlement, the conceptual characteristics in the Dongyi culture, and it can be found that the cultural characteristics are in connection with Yi philosophy which considers the principle of time operation in Tiantao as the fundamental ground. It also can be detected that they have connection with the original meaning ofseveral concepts in Yixue (易學) and the culture which emphasize the bottom line of the nature of time. This study focused on questioning issues of these findings as a preliminary research in order to prepare for the formal works which will scrutinize the details of circumstances. In brief, the fact that the fundamental issue of Yi philosophy which is the source of Chinese philosophy lies in the nature of time in the operation of Tiantao should be demonstrated, and the matter that the root was from the Dongyi family who had lived in the north-eastern area in the ancient period and had raised the culture which stressed the principle of time operation as the agricultural settlement culture, and moved to the central area of old China should be unveiled through the trace, which, in the future, might be able to enlighten roots of thoughts in Chinese philosophy in the right course, and make them realize that the work process which is being operated in the north-eastern part would be of no use in the after all. (shrink)

In this article, we apply the notion of interval neutrosophic sets to ideal theory in BCK/BCI-algebras.

In the ultimate meeting of the sublime with the ridiculous" (London Evening Standard) My Beautiful Despair blends the existential philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard with the superficial musings of Kim Kardashian West, based on the popular Twitter feed @KimKierkegaard. The love child of Søren Kierkegaard and Kim Kardashian, the @KimKierkegaard Twitter account has been admired, praised, and adored in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Financial Times, The Economist, New York, Buzzfeed, and more, and has amassed nearly (...) a quarter of a million Twitter followers, including J.K. Rowling and Anna Kendrick. A mash-up of Kim's tweets and observations with Kierkegaard's philosophy, Kim Kierkegaardashian shares their musings on fashion, beauty, brunch, and the relentless waves of existential dread that wash over us day after day. Now in a humorous, illustrated gift book, perfectly suited for our existential times, Kierkegaardashian's philosophical insights are juxtaposed for the first time with Dash Shaw's brilliant black-and-white illustrations. A sample of the revelations included in My Beautiful Despair include: - I have majorly fallen off my workout-eating plan! AND it's summer. But to despair over sin is to sink deeper into it. - Obsessed with protecting your skin, lips, hair & face from the sun? Close the cover of the coffin tight, really tight, and be at peace. - I like my men like I like my coffee: a momentary comfort in the midst of all my suffering. - What is the operation by which a self relates itself to its own self, transparently? Selfie. - What if everything in life were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears? Scared LOL!! - Glamour, menswear, top hat. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer a novel account of entrapment. This account suggests that the wrongness of pursuing punishment in cases of entrapment consists of two distinct components, one concerning the culpability of the entrapped defendant and the other concerning the legitimacy of the entrapping state to prosecute crimes that it has effectively created. Distinguishing these two components of entrapment, I explain, helps to clarify the moral issues at stake and to resolve some confusions and debates in existing legal analyses (...) of entrapment. (shrink)