Abstract
If self-determination enables one to know truths and rule oneself, then it’s central to metaphysics and ethics because metaphysics concerns truths, and ethics grasps good actions requiring self-rule. Aristotle and Mencius agree about the relation between metaphysics and ethics. Nevertheless, closer examination shows differences in their conceptions of the self, how it knows truths, the nature of truth, and the effectiveness of the wise/virtuous on the world. Given the significance of self-determination to theory and practice, comparing Mencius’s and Aristotle’s views illuminates it and the challenges for each author’s view.
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Notes
- 1.
It is important to note that the phronimos (the practically wise person) for Aristotle not only knows what is good for his or her particular situation but also what is good for human beings in general. As Aristotle puts it, “It seems proper to a prudent person to be able to deliberate finely about things that are good and beneficial for himself, not about some restricted area, … but about what sorts of things promote living well in general” (Nicomachean Ethics 1140a 26–28, all quotes from the Nicomachean Ethics (NE hereafter) are taken from T. Irwin’s 1985 translation). As such, I disagree with Yu Jiyuan’s interpretation of phronêsis that restricts the phronimos’s wisdom to the “beliefs of the community” (Yu 2001: 244). For Yu, the phronimos cannot “go beyond the existing value scheme, and formulate an independent conception of what is good” (Yu 2001: 244). Contrary to Yu, because phronêsis is an intellectual virtue for Aristotle, the phronimos knows both universals and particulars, and thus must have knowledge of what is universally good for all human beings.
- 2.
Unless otherwise stated, all translations of Mencius are from The Essential Mengzi, translated by Bryan W. Van Norden (Van Norden 2009).
- 3.
Chan 1963: 54, Mencius continues, “If man does evil, it is not the fault of his natural endowment” (6A6). Since Mencius asserts, “The feeling of compassion is benevolent. The feeling of disdain is righteousness …” (6A6), he identifies these feelings or sprouts of virtue with the virtues. Thus, Mencius maintains that human beings are good by nature even though they may or may not fully realize these virtues. Accordingly, I disagree with Jiyuan Yu who wishes to reduce the goodness of the four sprouts to their full actualization, saying, “the four seeds are good because their actualization makes a human being a fully actualized human being” (Yu 2001: 240). On Yu’s account, Mencius’s view of goodness is precisely like Aristotle’s in that both authors maintain that goodness exists only when fully actualized. In contrast, I interpret Mencius’s view as saying that the four sprouts of virtue already have a degree of goodness, making our human nature good to a certain degree even prior to the full actualization of these virtues. Thus, I disagree with Yu that Aristotle’s and Mencius’s goodness are, without further qualification, the same in requiring full actualization.
- 4.
See NE II.3, and when he says, “virtue is about pleasures and pains” (NE 1104b16).
- 5.
See NE II.51105b30-1106a7.
- 6.
As Franklin Perkins puts it, “it would be a mistake to say that xin sometimes means ‘heart’ and sometimes means ‘mind’. Rather, Mencius does not make this distinction; he attributes both emotion and reason to the same faculty” (Perkins 2002: 207).
- 7.
For how the majority of us are not like the sage, see 6A15 and 7B32. See Sim (2018: 190-205, especially 194-195) for discussions of the differences between Mencius’s sage and the ordinary people. (Sim, May. 2018. The Phronimos and the Sage in <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Oxford Handbook of Virtue. NY: Oxford University Press.
- 8.
In answering the question regarding ‘what is the difference between the sage and the rest of human beings?’, I think that saying because the sage never loses the virtues that are endowed in all human beings is better than saying that the sage was the first to discover the virtues that please us. This is because the assertion that the sages are the first to know what pleases the human heart although all human beings have been endowed with the same heart, as provided by Yong Huang still begs the question, ‘how are the sages the first to know’? (Huang 2010: 73)
- 9.
See Franklin Perkins’s remark that the sage must “actively teach and seek pupils,” to help someone like the king to develop his virtues and see the experiences that would increase his wisdom (Perkins 2002: 222).
- 10.
More than choosing an act for its own sake, Yang Xiao points to the significance of the agent’s being motivated by “his deep dispositions of empathy and compassion” for his action to be moral for Mencius (Xiao 2009: 637). Even though Aristotle too insists on having the right feelings in performing virtuous actions, e.g., in taking pleasure and feeling pain and shame about certain objects of virtue and vice, respectively (NE II 1104b30–35), he is different from Mencius who insists that the virtuous person must act from empathy and compassion toward the one who benefits from his action. For Aristotle, the key is taking pleasure in an action because it is fine and avoiding actions that are shameful, painful and harmful according to the good man.
- 11.
See 6A10 where Mencius says, “there are things [righteousness/appropriateness yi 義] one desires more than life, and there are also things [unrighteousness] one hates more than death. It is not the case that only the worthy person has this heart. All humans have it. The worthy person simply never loses it.” See also 3B2 where Mencius distinguishes between the great man and someone who merely adheres to ritual propriety. Whereas obedience is key for the latter, the former emphasizes practicing “the great Way of the world” regardless of undesirable consequences to oneself.
- 12.
For the significance of taking pleasure in moral actions in Confucianism, see Yong Huang (Huang 2010: 69–73).
- 13.
See 2A9 for Mencius’s analysis of Bo Yi who was too constrained and Liuxia Hui who was too laxed about serving a corrupt leader, whereas a gentleman would be “neither too constrained nor lacking in dignity” in such circumstances. See 2B3 for Mencius’s analysis of the different situations that are relevant in determining when accepting a grant from someone is appropriate or inappropriate.
- 14.
Aristotle: Politics, (Politics, hereafter) translated by H. Rackham (Rackham 1932).
- 15.
Politics IV, 4–5. See also the discussion in my Remastering Morals with Aristotle and Confucius (Sim 2007: 183).
- 16.
Politics IV, 11–12, especially 1296 b10–13. See Sim 2007: 177, 184.
- 17.
“If a ruler is benevolent, no one will fail to be benevolent. If a ruler is righteous, no one will fail to be righteous” (4B5). For more on how the ruler would provide for the economic and cultural needs of the people, see Sim 2018 (cited in note 7): 195–196.
- 18.
See Aristotle: Metaphysics, hereafter, Met. (Tredennick 1933: 1028a31 & 1029a28).
- 19.
God doesn’t depend on anything because his activity is to think of His own thinking (Tredennick 1935: 1074b35).
- 20.
See Ivanhoe 2007.
- 21.
I think that Jiyuan Yu misses this point in 6A6 when he says that Heaven does not have a “predetermined blueprint for human beings to follow” (Yu 2001: 249), and he goes on to separate the “moral self” from the “perfect self” and relates them by saying that the moral self is one stage in one’s goal of achieving the perfect self, which is “being one with Heaven” (Yu 2001: 251). In brief, Yu maintains that the concern for others exemplified in the moral self is “not the end for being a perfect self” (Yu 2001: 252), and he denies that the sage “must be more moral than ordinary individuals” (Yu 2001: 252). Yu’s separation of the perfect self from the moral self goes against Mencius’s identification of sincerity as Heaven’s way and how reflection upon sincerity is the human way (4A12), as I discussed earlier. If sincerity is always bound up with virtue and inspiring others to virtue, and assisting Heaven in completing the 10,000 things (7A4), then it’s impossible to separate morality from one’s perfection for Mencius.
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Sim, M. (2023). Self-Determination and the Metaphysics of Human Nature in Aristotle and Mencius. In: Xiao, Y., Chong, Kc. (eds) Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Mencius. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27620-0_31
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