Eudaimonism in the Mencius: Fulfilling the Heart

Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 14 (3):403-431 (2015)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper argues that Mencius is a eudaimonist, and that his eudaimonism plays an architectonic role in his thought. Mencius maintains that the most satisfying life for a human being is the life of benevolence, rightness, wisdom, and ritual propriety, and that such a life fulfills essential desires and capacities of the human heart. He also repeatedly appeals both to these and to morally neutral desires in his efforts to persuade others to develop and exercise the virtues. Classical Greek eudaimonists similarly regarded the life of virtue as both objectively good and subjectively desirable, and appealed to the desire for eudaimonia or happiness to motivate a commitment to the virtues. Mencius offers a carefully crafted, teleological account of human nature that appears designed in part to support his eudaimonism. In contrast with proposals by other scholars, I argue that Mencius’ notion of happiness, analogous to the Greek eudaimonia, is expressed by the construction jìn xìng 盡性, “fulfilling human nature” or the nearly equivalent jìn xīn 盡心, “fulfilling one’s heart.”

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Is mencius' doctrine of 'commiseration' tenable?Qingping Liu - 2001 - Asian Philosophy 11 (2):73 – 84.
The Role of Welfare in Eudaimonism.Anne Baril - 2013 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 51 (4):511-535.
Assessment of Li 利 in the Mencius and the Mozi.Wai Wai Chiu - 2014 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 13 (2):199-214.
Is mencius' doctrine of 'extending affection' tenable?Qingping Liu - 2004 - Asian Philosophy 14 (1):79 – 90.
What’s Ignored in Itō Jinsai’s Interpretation of Mencius?Chun-Chieh Huang - 2013 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 12 (1):1-10.
Mencius' Art of Living.Yang Jih-ch'U. - 1978 - Contemporary Chinese Thought 9 (3):156-168.
The Thought about the Manifestation of Wisdom in Practice.Hsiao-Huei Pan - 2002 - Philosophy and Culture 29 (10):891-903.
The Works of Mencius.James Legge - 2011 - Courier Corporation.

Analytics

Added to PP
2015-07-11

Downloads
74 (#203,030)

6 months
17 (#107,161)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Benjamin Huff
Randolph-Macon College

References found in this work

Nicomachean ethics.H. Aristotle & Rackham - 1998 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Michael Pakaluk.
On Virtue Ethics.Rosalind Hursthouse - 1999 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Utilitarianism.J. S. Mill - 1861 - Oxford University Press UK. Edited by Roger Crisp.
After Virtue.A. MacIntyre - 1981 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 46 (1):169-171.
Natural goodness.Philippa Foot - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 41 references / Add more references