Confucius and Mencius on the Motivation to Be Moral

Author(s): Yong Huang

Source: Philosophy East and West, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Jan., 2010), pp. 65-87
Published by: University of Hawai'i Press
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CONFUCIUS AND MENCIUS ON THE MOTIVATION TO

BE MORAL

Yong Huang
Department of Philosophy, Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Introduction

If someone asks "Why should I (or ought I to) do x?" - where can be any partic
action that may require some self-sacrifice in the interests of others - we norm

think that this person asks a reasonable question that deserves a serious answer
One such answer can be: "it is moral to do x," meaning that to do is somethi

good or right; in other words, it is something that one should or ought to do. H
ever, if the person further asks: "Why should I (or ought I to) be moral?" we
think that this person is starting to become unreasonable or even irrational. On
one hand, to be moral is to do (or to be) what one should or ought to do (or be). S

ask "Why should I be moral?" is equivalent to asking "Why should I be (or do) w
I should be (or do)?"- which is a tautology. On the other hand, to be moral is p

sumably to be concerned with the interests and welfare of others, and it seems t
the person who asks the question is looking for a self-interested reason to be m
So to ask "Why should I be moral?" is equivalent to asking "What self-interest
reasons are there for me to be not self-interested?" - which is a contradiction.

However, as I shall argue below, if we think this way we may have missed

point of the question. If the person is satisfied with our initial answer to his or
question "Why should I do x?" it is clear that this person is already motivated to
moral. The only reason he or she asks the question is to be sure that is a mo

thing to do. However, if the person is not satisfied with our initial answer and furth

asks the question "Why should I be moral?" it is clear that the person perh

already knows, even before asking the question, that is a moral thing to do
lacks the motivation to be moral. In other words, the person who asks the quest

is not in search of a theoretical answer that explains the nature of the action (to do x

but is interested in a practical answer that can motivate him or her to do x. In

sense, I think that the question is clearly a legitimate one. What is not so clear
whether there is any legitimate answer to this question. Since the person who a

the question, if I am right, lacks the motivation to be moral, this person mus
an egoist. Here, I do not think that it is necessarily contradictory to provide ego
reasons to motivate the egoist to be not egoistic (actually this is what we often
from some discussions in business ethics. For example, we are often told that to
fair to customers is the best way to make money, particularly in the long run).

problem is that when we provide such egoistic reasons to motivate a person to

moral, even if we do succeed, we are afraid that we are providing the wrong rea
for being moral.

Philosophy East & West Volume 60, Number 1 January 201 0 65-87 65
2010 by University of Hawai'i Press

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In this article, I attempt to examine a Confucian answer,1 largely collected from

the Analects and the Mencius, that can both take the question seriously and avoid
the risk of providing the wrong reasons (this, of course, does not necessarily mean
that Confucius and Mencius clearly had the egoistic question in mind in the passages that I am going to explore). I shall argue that, for Confucians, one should be
moral because it is a joyful thing to be moral. In Plato's terms, it pays (not in the ma-

terial and external sense but in the sentimental and inner sense) to be moral. This
answer invites a further question. While everyone seeks joy, and so to ask why one

should seek joy is indeed unreasonable, one can also seek joy in doing non-moral or
even immoral things as well as in doing moral things. So there remains a reasonable
question: why should I seek joy in doing moral things rather than in doing non-moral
and/or immoral things? The Confucian answer to this question is surprisingly simple:
to be moral is a distinctive mark of being human. In other words, if one seeks joy in
doing immoral things, one is no longer distinguishable from beasts. Of course, if the
person is still not motivated to be moral and prefers being a beast to being a human,

then Confucianism indeed does not have any further answer, except to say, as
Mencius indeed does, that this person must be stupid. The question "Why be
moral," as a question about moral motivation, is essentially a question raised by
egoists who lack the motivation to be moral. The Confucian answer to this question,
at least in appearance, is also an egoistic one: it "pays" to be moral. So I will conclude this essay with a brief note on what I call virtuous egoism.

The Question of "Why Be Moral" and Its Legitimacy

In Plato's Republic, Glaucon asks the question "Why should I be just?" and sharpens
it with the famous Gyges' ring, which makes a person visible or invisible at will. Suppose that there are two such rings, one for a just person and one for an unjust person.

On the one hand, the unjust person uses the ring to make himself invisible when
doing unjust things and visible when doing just things or at least not doing unjust
things. In Glaucon's example, the unjust person is not someone who consistently
does unjust things or does nothing but unjust things. Rather,
the unjust man must act as clever craftsmen do

tice rightly must be supposed to escape detection if he is to be

must regard the man who is caught as a bungler. For the height o
without being so. To the perfectly unjust man, then, we must a

ting the greatest wrongs, to have secured for himself the greate
and if he does happen to trip, we must concede to him the powe

by his ability to speak persuasively if any of his misdeeds com

361 a-b)
On the other hand, the just person may use the ring to turn himself/herself invisible

when doing just things and visible when not doing just things:

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If he [the just man] is going to be thought just he will have honors and gifts because of
that esteem. We cannot be sure in that case whether he is just for justice's sake or for the
sake of the gifts and the honors. So we must strip him bare of everything but injustice and

make his state the opposite of his imagined counterpart. Though doing no wrong he must
have the repute of the greatest injustice, so that he may be put to the test as regards justice

through not softening because of ill repute and the consequences thereof. But let him

hold on his course unchangeable even unto death, seeming all his life to be unjust
though being just. (Plato 1963, 361c)

In short, if an unjust person can have the appearance of being just or at least no appearance of being unjust, and a just person may have the appearance of being unjust
or at least no appearance of being just, it may be asked: why should I be just? Here,
as Glaucon's brother Adimantus points out, it seems that injustice pays much better

than justice: "the consequences of my being just are, unless I likewise seem so, not
assets, they say, but liabilities, labor, and total loss, but if I am unjust and have
procured myself a reputation for justice, a godlike life is promised" (Plato 1963,
365b).
This is perhaps the origin of the question "Why be moral?" that has troubled

moral philosophers ever since. The question is puzzling, because it does not ask
"Why should we be moral?" which it is relatively easy to answer: if we are not moral
to each other, we will be living in Thomas Hobbes' state of nature, in which every-

one is at war against everyone else, which benefits no one and hurts everyone. The

question rather asks "Why should / be moral?" Put more blatantly, it asks "Why
should I be moral to others, if my not being moral to them will not cause others to
be equally not moral to me?" Obviously, this is a question raised by an egoist who is
first of all concerned with his/her self-interest.2 To such a question, we might be
tempted to answer: if everyone else acts immorally to others, thinking that his/her
acting immorally will not cause others to be equally immoral to him/her, then every-

one will act immorally to you; so you should be moral to others. However, such an
answer is obviously not convincing to the person who poses the question: even if
this were the case, since at least my being moral to others cannot guarantee that
others will be moral to me, why should I be moral to them? It would certainly be
much worse to me if I am moral to others while they are not moral to me.3
Understood this way, the question "Why be moral" has often been regarded as
absurd, something we can simply ignore. Stephen Toulmin, for example, thinks that

this question reaches "the limits of ethical reasoning - that is, the kind of occasion

on which questions and considerations of an ethical kind can no longer arise"

(Toulmin 1964, p. 160). In his view, "ethical reasoning may be able to show why
we ought to do this action as opposed to that, or advocate this social practice as
opposed to that," but "there is no room within ethics for" the question "Why ought
one to do what is right?" - to be moral is to do what I should do, and to ask "Why
should I be moral" is to ask "Why should I do what I should do," and this question,
therefore, is "on a level with the question, 'Why are all scarlet things red?'" (p. 1 62).
In other words, for Toulmin, the question "Why should I be moral?"- just like the

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question "Why are all scarlet things red - is a tautological question, answer it,
we can only ask a rhetorical question, "What else 'ought' one to do?" (p. 162), just
as in answer to the question "Why are scarlet things red?" we can only ask a rhetorical question, "What else can scarlet things be?"4
While Toulmin regards this question as illegitimate because it is tautological,
F. H. Bradley considers it unreasonable because it is self-contradictory: morality
asks us not to be self-interested, but the person who asks the question "Why should
I be moral?" is apparently looking for some self-interested reasons for being not self-

interested. In his view, when we ask and attempt to answer the question of why we
should be moral, we are regarding morality as a means to some further end, but
morality is the end of itself, and so the question is unreasonable. He argues:
to take virtue as a mere means to an ulterior end is in direct antagonism to the voice of

the moral consciousness. That consciousness, when unwarped by selfishness and not
blinded by sophistry, is convinced that to ask for the Why? is simply immorality; to do
good for its own sake is virtue, to do it for some ulterior end or object, not itself good, is
never virtue; and never to act but for the sake of an end, other than doing well and right,

is the mark of vice. (Bradley 1935, pp. 61 -62)5

Is then the question "Why should I be moral?" indeed as unreasonable as

Toulmin and Bradley, among others, think? A moral principle tells one what he or

she should do. When we ask people to follow moral principles, we are essentially
saying that "you should follow moral principles"; in other words, we are saying

that "you should do what you should do." So when someone asks the question
"Why should I be moral?" or "Why should I follow moral principles?" the person
is indeed asking "Why should I do what I should do?" However, this is not a tautological question. Kai Nielsen makes an important distinction between the moral and

non-moral uses of the word "should." In the question "Why should I do what I
should do?" while the second "should" is indeed used in the moral sense, the first
is used in a non-moral sense. Thus, Nielsen points out:
When I ask, "Why should I be moral?" I am not asking . . . "What moral reason or reasons have I for being moral?" That indeed is like asking "Why are all scarlet things red?"
Rather I am asking, can I, everything considered, give a reason sufficiently strong - a nonmoral reason clearly - for my always giving an overriding weight to moral considerations,

when they conflict with other considerations, such that I could be shown to be acting
irrationally, or at least less rationally than I otherwise would be acting, if I did not give
such pride of place to moral considerations. (Nielsen 1989, pp. 286-287)

In other words, the question "Why should I be moral?" asks "whether it is rational for me to be moral," assuming it is good for me to be moral. However, if this is
the case, does this mean that the question "Why should I be moral?" becomes a self-

contradictory question? In appearance it is. Bill Shaw and John Corvino agree with
Nielsen's distinction between moral and non-moral uses of the word "should." In
their view,

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when people ask, "Why should I be moral?" they are not asking "Why (morally) ought
I to do what I (morally) ought to do?" Such a question clearly would be circular. Rather,
they are asking, "Why is it in my interest to do what I (morally) ought to do?", "What
(non-moral) reasons are there for acting morally?" or "Why should moral claims have
any purchase on me in the first place?" ("should" is used here in a non-moral sense).
Put in these ways, the question is quite intelligible. (Shaw and Jorvino 996, p. 374)

According to Shaw and Corvino, the first "should'' asks what self-interested reasons
I have to do what I ought to do. Since what I ought to do is something not selfinterested, the question "Why should I be moral?" - that is, "what self-interested
reasons do I have to be not self-interested?" - becomes a self-contradictory question.
David Copp, however, disagrees. In his view, to ask "what self-interested reasons do
I have to be moral (to be not self-interested)" is to ask "does morality override selfinterest? Or does self-interest override morality?" Here, Copp assumes that "there are

possible cases in which the overall verdicts of morality and self-interest conflict" and
claims:
the conflict between morality and self-interest in conflict cases is therefore a normative
conflict; it is conflict between the overall verdicts of different normative conflicts. I take
it that the question of whether morality overrides self-interest is the question of whether
the verdicts of morality are normatively more important than the verdict of self-interest.

(Copp 1997, p. 86)

I agree with Nielsen and Copp that the question "Why should I be moral?" is
neither tautological nor self-contradictory. It is a legitimate question. Given the
simple fact that whoever asks the question does not have the inclination to be moral,
it is crucial to make a distinction between moral justification and moral motivation.
In its extended form, "Why should I do what I should do (follow a moral principle)?"
the first "should" is not intended to provide a justification for the second "should"

(the moral principle). Otherwise, the moral principle would become something
merely instrumental. Instead, the question "Why should I be moral?" or the first
"should" in its extended form, "Why should I do what I should do?" really concerns
the issue of moral motivation. The person who asks the question is not a moral skeptic.

He or she knows clearly that he or she should be moral but lacks the motivation to be

so. A person who is motivated to be moral will never ask the question "Why should I
be moral?" Understood this way, the question really asks "What motivation(s) do or

can I have to be moral?" and this seems to me a perfectly legitimate question.

Taking Delight in Being Moral

Can Confucianism provide a legitimate answer to this question? Confucianism is a

learning of moral self-cultivation. However, the highest goal of such self-cultivation
is joy (le tf). In several crucial passages in the Analects, Confucius expresses this
idea most unequivocally. First, he states that "to know it (zhi zhi #n;) is not as
good as to like it (hao zhi #p); and to like it is not as good as to find joy in it

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(te zhi %_)" (Analects 6.20). It is not entirely clear what this "it" (zhi), the object of

the three verbs in the passage, refers to. However, even though its Neo-Confucian
interpretation as Dao or Principle (//' 3) is somewhat controversial, since Confucian
learning is primarily learning about moral cultivation, we can be relatively certain
that this "it" must be somewhat related to morality. So what Confucius says here is
that to know what is moral is not as good as to like what is moral, and to like what
is moral is not as good as to take delight in being moral. Even though the NeoConfucian interpretation of the distinction between "like it" (regarding "it" as something external to oneself that one likes) and "take delight in it" (regarding "it" as
something one gets from oneself) (see Cheng and Cheng 2004, Waishu 2, p. 361)
may be excessively creative, it is clear that Confucius regards taking delight in being
moral as the highest stage.
Second, Confucius states that moral cultivation "is to be stimulated (xing J&)
by poetry, established (// al) by rules of propriety, and accomplished (cheng g) by
music" (Analects 8.8). As is common in classical (as well as modern) Chinese, there
is no subject for the three verbs xing, 'i, and cheng. However, there is a relative consensus among scholars that what Confucius has in mind is the process of moral cultivation. So in the translation above I assume that what Confucius tries to say is that,

in this process, one's moral cultivation starts from reading the Poetry, from which
one's moral sentiments can be stimulated; yet such moral sentiments are unstable

unless they are regulated by rules of propriety: when one's action is regulated by
rules of propriety, one will have a sense of external force, and so one's moral cultivation can be accomplished only by music, by which one becomes natural in performing moral actions. This interpretation is, of course, also controversial, but what
is not controversial is that Confucius regards "music" as something by which one's
moral cultivation is accomplished. To understand this, it is important to point out
that not only do music (yue) and joy (le) share the same Chinese character fg, but

their meanings are also closely related. This is made particularly clear by Mencius:
"the essence of music (yue $Q is to take delight (te $Q in the two [humanity (ren fr)
and Tightness (yi j|)], naturally resulting in joy (te S). As soon as the joy arises, it
cannot be stopped; as it cannot be stopped, one cannot help but dance with feet
and wave with hands even without realizing it" (Mencius 4a27). Thus, when one's
moral cultivation is accomplished by music, one performs moral actions in the same
way as one dances to the music: everything is natural and spontaneous, and one
does not feel the slightest bit of force or hesitation.

Third, there is the famous passage in which Confucius describes the milestones
of the process of his own moral development: "at fifteen I set my mind on learning;
at thirty I took my stand; at forty I came to be free from doubts; at fifty I understood

the decree of Heaven; at sixty my ears were attuned; and at seventy I followed my
heart's desire without overstepping the line" (Analects 2.4). The meanings of these
stages are not entirely clear, but what is most important is the last stage, at which
Confucius can act according to his heart's desire without violating any moral principles. While the word "joy" (le) is not present here, it is a perfect description of what
joy means: to act according to one's own desire. This is regarded as the highest stage

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of moral cultivation because at this stage one does not need to worry about any external rules of morality.

But this does not mean that at this stage one has acquired a privileged freedom
from the constraints of such rules; it means that such rules are no longer needed, as
whatever one does, without any consideration of such rules, is precisely what these

rules would require one to do. To use Mencius' terms, at this stage one no longer
practices humanity and Tightness (xing ren yi ffC) but practices from humanity
and Tightness (you ren yi xing CHt) (Mencius 4b19). In the former, humanity
and Tightness are still seen as something external that one practices; in the latter,
however, they are clearly recognized as something internal to oneself. When they
are realized as internal to oneself, Confucius claims that one can "love virtue as
one loves [beautiful] colors'' {Analects 9.18 and 1 5.1 3) and, as added in the Great
Learning, "hate evil as one hates bad odors" {Great Learning 6). This is a great analogy. One does not need to be told to make a calculated deliberation, or to make any
forced effort, to love beautiful colors, and hate bad odors. As soon as one sees beautiful colors, one will love them, and as soon as one smells bad odors, one will hate

them. As a matter of fact, one cannot recognize any colors as beautiful until one
loves them and cannot regard any odors as bad until one hates them. It is in this
sense that Confucius claims that, at this highest stage of moral cultivation, one will
"seek to do good as if there is no time left, and avoid doing evil as avoiding touching
boiling water" (Analects 1 6.1 1 ).

To understand this Confucian idea of joy, it will be helpful to examine what has

been regarded as the joy of Confucius and Yanzi (kong yan zhi le ^'M^M) in the
Confucian tradition. This is related to two passages in the Analects. In the first one,
Confucius praises his student Yan Hui fgUI: "How virtuous is Yan Hui! With a single
bamboo dish of food, a single gourd cup of unboiled water, and living on a shabby
lane, while all others cannot endure the hardship, only he does not allow his joy to
be affected. Yan Hui, how virtuous he is indeed!" (Analects 6.1 1). To live a poor life
on a shabby lane is normally considered something painful. Why does Yanzi feel joy
in it? and why does Confucius praise Yanzi for his joy? Yanzi is no different from

anyone else, as, just as with anyone else, poverty cannot make him joyful. Obviously Yanzi is joyful and Confucius praises him for some other reason, which is not
overridden by the harshness of his life. Then exactly what is the reason? This is made

clear in the second Analects passage in which Confucius talks about his own joy:
"with coarse grain to eat, with unboiled water to drink, and with my bended arm
as pillow - my joy lies right in them. Riches and honors acquired not in a right way
seem to me a floating cloud" (7.1 6). While Confucius praises Yan Hui for not allowing his joy to be affected (bu gai qi le ^gfc^gg) by poverty, he says that he can find
joy right in poverty (le zai qi zhong ). Although some later Confucian commentators think that there is some qualitative difference between Yan Hui's bu gai
qi le and Confucius' le zai qi zhong, mainly in order to show that Confucius is on a
yet higher level than Yan Hui, I believe that they are largely describing the same
phenomenon.
The reason that Yan Hui's joy is not affected by poverty and that Confucius can

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find joy in poverty is explained in the last sentence of the Analects passage above:
"riches and honors acquired not in a right way seem to me a floating cloud/' Confucius feels joy in poverty and Yan Hui's joy is not affected by poverty because, by
not avoiding it, they can abide by moral principles. Although Confucius says that
their joy lies in or is not affected by eating coarse grain, drinking unboiled water,
and living on a shabby lane, et cetera, this does not mean that coarse grain, unboiled
water, and a shabby lane are themselves good things. The real source of one's joy
comes from one's being in accord with moral principles, which would be violated
should one try to avoid poverty in these particular cases. This is made clear by a related Analects passage: "Riches and honor are what every person desires. However,
if they are obtained in violation of moral principles, they cannot be kept. Poverty and

humble stations are what every person dislikes. However, if they can be avoided
only in violation of moral principles, they should not be avoided" (Analects 4.5).
Talking about this kong yan zhi le, Mencius makes a similar point:
Fish is what I want; bear's palm is also what I want. If I cannot have both, I would rather
take bear's palm than fish. Life is what I want; Tightness is also what I want. If I cannot
have both, I would rather take rightness than life. Life is what I want, but there is something that I want more than life. That is why I do not cling to life at all costs. Death is what

I hate, but there is something I hate more than death. That is why I do not avoid calamities at all cost. {Mencius 6a10)

So it is not a morally bad thing to seek richness and life, just as it is not a morally
good thing to avoid poverty and death. Richness and life should not be sought and
poverty and death should not be avoided only if to do so one has to violate a moral
principle. As long as one is in accord with moral principles, one can find joy in anything, whether in poverty or in riches, whether in seeking life or sacrificing one's life.

The description of the kong yan zhi le in the context of poverty in the two Analects

passages, however, is particularly effective, as one can see more clearly what this
Confucian joy consists of, since poverty is obviously not something that by itself
can bring joy to anyone.
In the Confucian tradition, in addition to the kong yan zhi le, there is also a
joy in cheng f$, than which Mencius claims there is no greater joy {le mo da yan
^kM^MY "Ten thousand things are all here in me. There is no greater joy than finding that I have realized myself through self-reflection {fan shen er cheng g|iK)"
(Mencius 7a4). Here I translate the Chinese word cheng M as "realization," in its
double meaning in English. On the one hand, through self-examination, one realizes
(knows) oneself or, rather, the nature (xing 14) or Dao within oneself; on the other
hand, one realizes (fulfils or completes) one's self-nature by being moral. It is in this
sense that Mencius says that there is no joy greater than the realization of oneself.
If one feels joy for anything that is beneficial to oneself, then certainly there cannot

be any joy that is greater than the joy in realizing oneself in the above-mentioned

double sense, since one certainly cannot do anything more beneficial to oneself
than to realize (know and fulfill) one's own nature. Yet this realization, cheng, brings
one the greatest joy for a related reason: "superior persons follow their nature, that

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is, humanity, Tightness, propriety, and wisdom, which are rooted in their heart/mind.

Its sleek appearance is inevitably manifested in their faces, backs, and extended to
their four limbs, rendering itself understood without words being used" (7a21). The
nature one realizes in oneself is nothing but the four cardinal virtues, and as soon as
these virtues are fully realized, one will naturally, spontaneously, and joyfully practice from these virtues. So cheng is not only self-regarding but also other-regarding. It

is in this sense that the Doctrine of Mean combines the two meanings of cheng, selfrealization and realization of others: "cheng is not only the realization of oneself but
also the realization of others. Realization of the self means humanity. The realization

of other things means wisdom. These are the characters of the nature, and they are
the Dao in which the internal and the external are united" {Doctrine of the Mean 25).
It might be thought that only sages can find joy in performing moral actions.
Mencius, however, argues that the ability to feel joy in being moral is present in
everyone. In the same passage quoted above, immediately after the claim that there
are things one desires more than life and that there are things one hates more than
death, Mencius argues that "not only worthy people have such a heart/mind; common people all have it. The worthy people simply make sure that it does not get lost"
(Mencius 6a1 0). In this respect, Mencius makes two related arguments. The first aims
to argue that sages and the rest of us are of the same kind: "Things of the same kind
are all alike. How can there be an exception when it comes to humans? Sages and
I are of the same kind. Thus Longzi said that 'when someone makes a shoe for a foot
he has not seen, I am sure that he will not produce a basket/ All shoes are alike
because all feet are alike" (6a7). Since sages and the rest of us are alike, if sages
can find joy in being moral, then everyone can. The reason is that everyone has a
heart/mind, which a common thing must exist to please. This is what Mencius tries
to argue for in the second argument:
All palates have the same preference in taste, all ears have the same preference in sound,

and all eyes have the same preferences in beauty. How can heart/mind alone be different? In what are all hearts/minds the same? It is principle and rightness. Sages are the first

to discover the common thing that pleases our hearts/minds. The principle and rightness

pleases (yue fft) my heart/mind just as meat pleases my palate. {Mencius 6a7)

So the difference between sages and the rest of us is not that while the former can
find joy in performing moral actions the rest of us cannot; the difference is only that
sages were the first to find the common thing that pleases all our hearts/minds, just as

Yiya (the legendary cook) was the first to find the common thing that pleases all our
palates, and Shikuang was the first to find the common thing that pleases all our ears

(ibid.).

Being Moral as Being Distinctively Human

From our discussion in the previous section, we can see that the Confucian answer
to the question "Why be moral?" is that it is a joy to be moral; in other words, being
moral is what pleases everyone's heart/mind. Since one is motivated to do things

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that please him or her, one should have the motivation to be moral. This answer may

seem a little simplistic: if so, the question "Why be moral?" which is really concerned about the motivation for morality, would not be raised in the first place, as
everyone would already be motivated to be moral. However, the reason that the
question is raised and that there are still people who are not motivated to be moral
is at least partially explained in our discussion of the Confucian answer in the previous section.

Although the "joy of Confucius and Yanzi" (kong yan zhi le) is typically
described as a joy one can still feel in poverty, Confucianism does not advocate
asceticism and therefore does not oppose seeking joy in non-moral things. As we
have seen, Confucius says that "riches and honor are what every person desires"
(Analects 4.5). Mencius also states that everyone desires life and hates death. In the
Analects, there is also a famous passage in which Confucius asks his students about

their ambitions. After some have expressed their ambition - to administer a large
invaded state, endowing its people with courage and correct principle; to rule a
small state, making its people sufficient in their livelihood; to be a junior assistant,
serving at an ancestral temple and conferences of feudal lords - Zeng Dian ^I,
playing the zither, expresses his ideal: "in the late Spring, wearing Spring dress, I
would go with five or six grownups and six or seven children to bathe in the Yi River,
enjoying the breeze from the Rain Dance Altar, and then return home singing." After

listening to them all, Confucius says, somewhat surprisingly, "I agree with Zeng

Dian" (wu yu dian ye ^Mf^) (Analects 11.26). Later Confucians have all taken
delight in talking about Confucius' "wu yu dian ye/'

The problem occurs only when one's seeking joy in non-moral things leads to

the violation of moral principles, or when one's seeking joy in being moral frustrates
one's desires for non-moral things. As we have seen, in such situations, Confucius

clearly prizes the joy in being moral over the joy in non-moral things (Analects
4.5). In Mencius' view, even when one seeks non-moral joys in eating and drinking,
one should regard this as providing a condition for one to seek moral joys; after all,
one cannot do moral things when one lacks the physical strength to do so. Thus
Mencius claims, "A person who cares only for food and drink is despised by others
because the person takes care of the parts of less importance to the detriment of the
parts of greater importance. However, if one can care about food and drink without
neglecting any other part of his or her person, then his or her mouth and belly are
more than just a foot or an inch of his or her skin" (Mencius 6a14). As a matter of

fact, as we have seen, Mencius claims that one should love morality more than life
and hate immorality more than death. Confucius himself makes it clear that to perform moral action often requires one to endure certain physical pains and even to
sacrifice one's life: "People of knowledge and humanity may accept death in order
to realize humanity but will not seek life at the price of humanity" (Analects 15.9).
To live in poverty and sacrifice one's life of course causes pain. However, in the

Confucian view, it causes one more pain to avoid pain and death by violating moral
principles. To be rich and have a long life of course brings one joy; however, in the
Confucian view, it brings one greater joy to be moral even if this excludes one from

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being rich and living a long life.6 It is in this sense that Confucius makes a distinction

between beneficial and harmful joys: "Joy in being in accord with propriety and
music, joy in praising the goodness of others, and joy in having good people as
friends are beneficial joys. Joy in showing off, joy in living a dissolute life, and joy
in being licentious are harmful joys" (Analects 6.5). In a similar vein, Mencius also
talks about the three joys of superior persons: "The first joy is that parents are alive
and brothers are well; the second joy is not being ashamed in the face of heaven

above and of other people under heaven; and the third joy is to have the most
talented students in the empire" (Mencius 7a20). What is important here is not the
actual items that Confucius and Mencius, respectively, regard as beneficial joys and
the joys of superior persons but the fact that they both consider that the joy brought

about by being moral is genuine joy, which should trump joys brought about by
non-moral and even immoral actions.

With this Confucian answer, the egoist who seeks joy and yet lacks the motiva-

tion for being moral, instead of asking "Why should I be moral?" may ask "Why
should I seek moral joy rather than immoral joy?" After all, even though Confucius
and Mencius give moral joy more weight than immoral joy, the egoist certainly has a
different assessment of the respective values of these two kinds of joy. To such an
egoist, the Confucian answer is surprisingly simple: to be moral is characteristic of
being human. This is related to the discussion of what is called "the distinction between humans and beasts" (ren qin zhi bian '^^_%), which continues throughout

the history of Chinese philosophy. In Mencius' view, "the distinction between

humans and beasts is very slight. The inferior people (shu min J^) abandon it,
while superior people preserve it" (Mencius 4b19). What is the slight thing that distinguishes not only between humans (that have it) and beasts (that do not have it) but
also between superior persons (who preserve it) and inferior persons (who abandon
it)? In one place, Mencius claims that it is the heart/mind of humanity and propriety:

"superior persons are different from other people because they preserve their heart/
mind. They preserve their heart/mind with humanity and propriety. A person of hu-

manity loves others, and a person of propriety respects others" (4b28); on the other
hand, if one person treats another person of humanity and propriety, who has done
his best for the first person, in an outrageous way, then "such a person does not
know what he or she is doing. Such a person is no different from beast, and one

cannot expect such a person to know any better" (4b28).

Thus, in Mencius' view, while it is important that people are well fed, warmly
clothed, and comfortably lodged, sages realize that "without education, they will
become almost no different from animals"; and for this reason sages make sure that
people are "taught about human relationships: love between father and son, rightness between ruler and minister, distinction between husband and wife, proper order
between older and younger brothers, and faithfulness between friends" (Mencius
3a4). To further explain this type of education, Mencius quotes the Sage-King Yao:
"Encourage them, lead them on, rectify them, straighten them, help them, and aid
them, so that they can get it [their moral nature] themselves (zi de g#)" (3a4). So
the purpose of education is not to impose external morality upon people; it is rather

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to help people to recover their inborn moral nature. This is because, according to
Mencius, "everyone has the heart that cannot bear to see the suffering of others

For this reason, whoever is devoid of the heart of compa

is devoid of the heart of shame is not human, whoever is d

tesy and modesty is not human, and whoever is devoid

wrong is not human" (2a6).
Ultimately, the Confucian answer to the question "W
this: because you are a human being. Everyone has the m
that joy can be sought either by following or violating
since the distinctive mark of being human is a moral h
essentially moral beings, one should seek joy in being m
joy.7 I think this is a convincing answer, even to the eg

Of course, even if this is the case, it is very likely that the

to be moral. However, from the Confucian point of view, th

the egoist, which contradicts what the egoist appears to

egoist normally appears to be, and indeed thinks that h

others. He or she may laugh at people who perform m

they are stupid, particularly if they do not even try to
know that they are performing such moral actions; he o
herself much more by performing immoral actions, par
smart enough to make himself or herself invisible when

actions.

From the Confucian point of view, however, it is the egoist who is stupid or near-

sighted, to say the least. In this respect, Mencius offers a series of important analogical arguments, mostly in part 1 of book 6. In one argument, Mencius describes the
stupidity of the immoral person as that of someone who abandons a comfortable

home and proper road: "Humanity (ren) is the comfortable home and Tightness is
the proper road. How lamentable it is to abandon the comfortable home and divert

from the proper road!" (Mencius 4a10). Since humanity and rightness are one's
heart/mind, Mencius regards the immoral person as one who has lost his or her
heart/mind and does not care to look for it. In close connection with this, Mencius
ridicules the stupidity of such an immoral person by saying that such a person certainly cares to look for his or her chickens or dogs when lost but not for his or her
own lost heart/mind:
humanity is one's heart/mind and rightness is one's road. It is sad to abandon one's road
instead of following it and let one's heart/mind go astray without trying to get it back.
When one's chickens and dogs go astray, one cares to get them back; and yet when one's
heart/mind goes astray, one does not care to get it back. The sole concern of learning is
thus to get the strayed heart/mind back. (Mencius 6a1 1)

In this connection, Mencius also compares the immoral person to someone who
knows that trees need to be taken care of but not that his or her own person needs
to be taken care of: "even with a tong or zhi tree one or two spans thick, anyone
who wishes it to be alive knows that it needs to be taken care of. However, when it

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comes to one's own person, one does not know that it also needs to be taken care of.
Does the person love his own person less than trees? This is unthinking to the highest

degree!" (Mencius 6a 13).

Mencius also discloses the stupidity of the immoral person by describing him or
her as someone who cares about his or her finger more than his or her heart/mind:
Now if one's third finger is bent and cannot stretch straight, although this does not cause
any pain nor hinder one's use of it, if there is someone who can straighten it, one will not

care about the distance [to seek the cure]. This is because one's finger is not as good as
the finger of others. When one's finger is not as good as others', one knows to dislike it;

however, when one's heart/mind is not as good as others, one does not know to hate it.
{Mencius 6a12)

This is essentially the same argument as the one Mencius makes in the more frequently quoted passage in which Mencius pictures the immoral person as one who
cannot recognize the hierarchical values of the parts of the body of greater and lesser

importance:
How can there be any other way to see whether a person is good or not than to see what
choice the person makes! Different parts of one's person (ti ft) differ in value and importance. One should never harm the part of greater value and importance for the sake of the

part of less value and importance. The person who nurtures the part of great value and
importance is a great person, while the person who nurtures the part of less value and
importance is a small person. A gardener who tends the common trees while neglecting
the valuable ones is a bad gardener. A person who takes care of his or her finger to the
detriment of his or her shoulder and back without realizing the mistake is a deluded,

muddled person. {Mencius 6a14)

Because of such stupidity, immoral persons do not know that, when seeking joy
in doing immoral things, they are actually causing great harm to themselves, just like

persons who take good care of their tree but neglect to attend to the disease of their
own body, or who take care of their finger to the detriment of their shoulder and
back, or who go to look for their lost chickens and dogs but do not care for their
own lost heart/mind. For this reason, an immoral person, again because of his or

her stupidity, "dwells happily among dangers, looks upon disaster as profitable and
delights in what will lead them to perdition" (Mencius 4a8). An immoral person likes
to have joy but causes the greatest harm to himself or herself as a human being with-

out realizing it. It is in this sense that Mencius says that the immoral person who
"hates death and yet takes delight in being inhumane (bu ren ^t) is like one who
hates drunkenness and yet drinks excessively" (4a3).
In the preceding, I have presented a Confucian answer to the question "Why be
moral?" The answer, simply put, is that to be moral is a joyful thing (and to ask why
one should do a joyful thing is irrational). While one may also find joy in doing nonmoral and/or immoral things, to be moral is a distinguishing mark of being human.
So to be moral is a precondition for being human. This is a most unique feature of
the Confucian tradition and is in sharp contrast to the conception of the human as
rational that is dominant in the Western philosophical tradition.8 At the same time,

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while Confucians acknowledge that different human beings may be endowed with
different intellectual and other non-moral abilities, they are all equally endowed
with moral ability.9 So while it is impossible for everyone to become an Einstein, it
is possible for everyone to become a sage, the paradigmatic human being in the
Confucian tradition. In order to become a sage, Mencius claims,
all you need to do is to make the effort. The problem is not that people do not have sufficient strength, but that they refuse to make the effort. To walk slowly behind one's elders

is considered as brotherly love, while to walk quickly ahead of one's elders is considered
as the lack of such love. Now is it beyond one's ability to walk slowly? One simply
refuses to make the effort. The Dao of Yao and Shun is simply that of filial piety and
brotherly love

that people do not look for it. {Mencius 6b2)

Thus, Mencius makes a famous distinction between

"unwilling" (buwei ^%). Anyone who is immoral is i

she is unable to be moral but because the person is unw

there are things that humans are unable to do, such as
with Mount Tai under one's arm" (Mencius 1a7), to be m
say that one cannot do moral things is like saying that one

cannot see a cartload of firewood, as he explains to Kin

son is that, for Mencius, everyone is born with the four sp

one is born with the four limbs: the heart/mind of commi

shame, the heart/mind of courtesy and modesty, and t

wrong. In Mencius' view,

with these four inborn sprouts of morality, anyone who sa

be moral] is one who cripples himself or herself

one cares to develop them, it will be like a fire starting up or a s

When one fully develops them, one can take under one's own p

realm within the four seas; but when one fails to develop them,
one's own parents. (Mencius 2a6)

Concluding Remarks: Altruistic Egoism / Egoistic Altruism

The question "Why should I be moral?" is raised in the contex

tioned at the beginning of this article, if we take this question se

providing a wrong reason (an egoistic reason of self-interest)

altruistic). Does the Confucian answer examined here run the

ance, it does, as essentially it also tells us that it is in one's own in

be moral. We have seen that, for Mencius, immoral persons a

fail to realize that to be moral best serves their self-interest. As

golden age, Confucius seems also to be an egoist when he lam

of the ancient are for the sake of themselves (weiji ^3), while
are for the sake of others (weiren ;%A)" (Analects 14.24).

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However, it is important to understand what Confucius means by "for the sake

of oneself " and "for the sake of others/' When Confucius praises "the learners of the

past" for their being for themselves, he means to say that they learn in order to cultivate themselves; while Confucius looks down upon the "learners of today" for their
being for others, he means to say that they learn only in order to decorate themselves

with fine scholarship to impress others. To cultivate oneself (to be for the sake of
oneself), in this Confucian tradition, means to become fully human by developing
one's inborn tendencies to be concerned with others' interests. Therefore, the more
one is for the sake of oneself, the more one is for the sake of others. In contrast, to
show off one's scholarship in front of others (to be for the sake of others) is to be
concerned with one's own interest (with fame). So the more one is for the sake of
others in this sense, the more one is for the sake of oneself.10

In this context, it would be interesting to bring into our discussion a famous

passage in Analects 6.30: "one who wishes to establish oneself establishes others,
and one who wishes to be noble lets others be noble." This passage is normally understood as the Confucian version of the Golden Rule in its positive expression (in
contrast to its negative expression in Analects 12.2: "Do not do unto others what
one does not wish others to do unto oneself"). However, Qing scholar Mao Qiling
3^, in his Corrected Four Books (ra#5Jg) (Cheng Shude 1990), interprets it to
mean that one cannot establish oneself without establishing others, and one cannot
make oneself noble without letting others be noble. In other words, to establish
others is inherently part of establishing oneself, and to let others be noble is inherently part of making oneself noble. In Mencius' terms, the self that one is to be concerned with is the part of one's person that is of greater importance, the heart/mind
with the four inborn virtues: humanity, Tightness, propriety, and wisdom. For this
reason, Mao Qiling relates this passage not only to the idea of "realizing oneself"
{chengji ) and "realizing others" (cheng wu f%$)) in the Doctrine of the Mean,
which we have already discussed, but also to "manifesting one's clear character"
(ming mingde WM'iM) and "loving people" (qin min fg) at the very beginning of
the Great Learning; to "making oneself alone perfect" (du shan qi shen 3S#S#)

and "making the whole Empire perfect" (jian shan tian xia ff#^T) in Mencius
7a9; and to "cultivating oneself" (xiu ji flf 3) and "bringing security to people"
(an ren ) in Analects 14.42 (see Cheng Shude 1990, p. 429). In this understanding, the two items in each of these pairs are inseparable: one cannot realize oneself
without realizing others, manifest one's clear character without loving people, make
oneself perfect without making the world perfect, and cultivate oneself without
bringing peace to people, and vice versa.
From this we can see that if the Confucian answer is an egoist answer, it is obviously different from the types of egoism that we are familiar with: psychological ego-

ism, rational egoism, and ethical egoism. However different they are, these three
types of egoism are all in contradiction to altruism in their corresponding senses. In
the Confucian answer, however, this contradiction has disappeared. In order to be

egoistic, one has to be altruistic, and in order to be altruistic, one has to be egoistic.
The reason, as we have seen, is that while it is in one's self-interest to be moral, this

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self-interest is not something extraneous to one's moral action, as is the case in much

of the contemporary discussion of business ethics. LaRue Tone Hosmer, for example,
brings the Gyges' ring into this context: "what shall we say to a modern Gyges active

in management?" (Hosmer 1994, p. 191). Hosmer's answer is that "acting in ways

that can be considered to be 'right' and 'just' and 'fair' is absolutely essential to the
long-term competitive success of the firm" (p. 192). Here, disregarding criticisms of
such an approach as ineffective,1 1 we can see that the reason that it pays to be moral
is that such moral action will, sooner or later, bring benefits to the business person or

company. In such a situation, the business person does not find it a joy to be moral.
As a matter of fact, one is often pained by being moral. One chooses to be moral
nevertheless only because one takes delight in the benefits that one will reap as the
consequence of one's moral action. In other words, one performs moral actions not
for their own sake but for the sake of their consequent benefits; it is prudent to be
moral.

In contrast, the Confucian view is that the self-interest one seeks by performing
moral actions is inherent in these actions: one feels joy in being moral not because
it can serve one's interest to gain fame or praise or any material benefit; rather it is
because one realizes one's self-nature - as a moral being - by performing moral
actions.12 In Mencius' terms, the self that a virtuous person is concerned with is the
part of one's person that is of greater importance, the heart/mind with the four inborn

virtues: humanity, Tightness, propriety, and wisdom. Since one cannot be an altruist
(serving the interests of others) without taking good care of the greater part of one's
own person, an altruist has to be an "egoist"; however, one cannot be an "egoist"
(taking care of that greater part) without serving the interests of others, so an "egoist"

has to be an altruist. Thus, in Confucianism, the two apparently antithetical ideas,

egoism and altruism, are combined. Moreover, they are combined not in such a
way that Confucianism is partially egoistic and partially altruistic, but in a way that
is both completely "egoistic" and completely altruistic: a virtuous person acts en-

tirely for the sake of one's true self and so is completely egoistic; however, this is
only because the virtuous person defines his or her true self as one concerned with
the interests of others and so is entirely altruistic. It is not correct to say that the vir-

tuous person is primarily an "egoist" because he or she takes care of the interests of
others only as a means to serve the interest of his or her own true self, just as it is not
correct to say that the virtuous person is primarily an altruist because he or she takes

care of his or her own true self only as a way to serve others. Rather, altruism and
egoism completely overlap here. As illustrated by the figure used by Wittgenstein,
which sometimes looks like a duck and sometimes like a rabbit (Wittgenstein 1958,
p. 1 94), a virtuous person sometimes looks like an egoist (working toward one's own
goal) and sometimes like an altruist (making it one's very goal to serve the interests of
others).

So in contrast to the three familiar types of egoism, this Confucian egoism is altruistic and so can be regarded as an altruistic egoism. As we have seen, altruism and

egoism, instead of being antithetical, can come together in Confucianism, as it has a

unique conception of the ego or self. This ego or self in Confucian egoism is the

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great ego or self (the parts of one's person that are of greater importance in Mencius),
which is in contrast to the small ego or self (the parts of lesser importance), the ego or
self in the familiar types of egoism. In this Confucian altruistic egoism, one can fully

develop one's great ego or self only by overcoming one's small ego or self. This
explains why, while advocating learning for the sake of one's self (the great self),
Confucius also says that humanity, the most important Confucian virtue, can be realized only by overcoming one's self (the small self) (Analects 12.1).
In this egoism, it is wrong to ask, as a Kantian may well be tempted to, whether
one does a moral thing simply because one thinks it is in one's own interest or
because one thinks it is really the right thing to do. In the Kantian view, if it is the
former situation, one does the moral thing for a wrong reason, and only if it is the
latter can one's action have genuine moral value. According to Confucian altruistic
egoism, however, since to be self-interested and to be moral are not only not contradictory, they are not even two things that happen to coincide perfectly - they are
actually one and same thing. When one seeks one's true self-interest, one must
be performing a moral action; and when one performs a moral action, one must be
seeking one's true self-interest. One's true self-interest cannot be served by any other
means, and there is no moral action that does not serve one's true self-interest. In this

sense, it is even wrong to claim, as some do,13 that one should first cultivate oneself
(fulfilling one's own nature) and only later be concerned with the interests of others.

One's true self-nature cannot be fulfilled without a concern for the interests of others.
In light of such a virtuous egoism, we can say that one seeks the interests of others (to

be virtuous) precisely in order to seek one's own interest (to be an egoist); and we
can also say that one seeks one's own interest (to be an egoist) precisely in order to
seek the interests of others (to be virtuous). To be self-interested in this sense is iden-

tical to being interested in others. The very action that promotes the interests of
others, precisely when and because it promotes the interests of others, promotes
one's own self-interest as well, as one's self-interest is precisely to promote the interests of others. Thus, the more virtuous (more concerned with the interests of others) a

person is, the better his or her self-interest is served, and vice versa. This, I claim, is
the core of Confucian altruistic egoism or egoistic altruism.14

So Confucian egoism is essentially altruistic, and this is what sets it apart from
other types of egoism. In this sense, Confucianism is a type of altruism. However,
Confucian altruism is egoistic and is thus an egoistic altruism, which sets it apart
from other types of altruism. What is most distinctive of Confucian altruism is that
when a virtuous person looks after the interests of others (being an altruist), he or
she does not have to overcome his or her inclinations. Instead one takes delight in

being altruistic, because Confucianism, particularly its Mencian line, believes that
one has the natural inclination to be concerned for others. This is the essential point
I tried to make in the previous section of this essay. It is here that Confucianism
sharply distinguishes itself from Kantianism. However, this idealistic aspect of human

nature in Confucianism is accompanied by a realism with regard to human situations. Confucians, including Mencius, realized that some people may lose their innate goodness due to lack of care. For such people, moral education by sages and

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superior people is necessary, through their teachings, their example, and rules of
propriety and even laws that they help to institute. At the initial stage of this moral

cultivation, a person may perform moral actions without feeling joy in them; one
may need to make great efforts, overcome one's strong inclinations, and feel reluctant to attempt to be a moral person. Kant would regard such actions, if eventually
performed, as typical moral actions, actions of genuine moral worth. However, for
Confucianism, this is only a necessary stage on the way to moral cultivation; the
ultimate goal is illustrated by Confucius himself at the age of seventy, when he did
nothing that he was not inclined to do, and yet nothing he did was immoral.

Notes

1 - In another article, I examined some representative answers to this question

by important philosophers in the Western tradition, such as Plato, Aristotle,
Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant, and found them all wanting. Either they are confused about rationality (able to find means adequate to
the end) and reasonableness (concerned also about the interests of others when

concerned about one's own interest), in the sense in which John Rawls uses

these two terms (see Rawls 996, pp. 48-54), when they claim that egoists
are irrational (as in the case of Hobbes and, to a lesser extent, that of Hume),
or they require one to believe in God (as in the case of Kant with his idea of the

highest good), which only works, if at all, for those who already do so, or they
simply ask one to be like a god (as in the case of Plato and Aristotle). For more

detail, see Huang 2008, pp. 322-330.

2 -John van Ingen makes a useful distinction among personal egoists, universal
egoists, and individual egoists: "(a) Universal egoist: Everyone ought to seek
her own self-interest and disregard the interest of all others in cases of conflict;

(b) Individual egoist: Everyone ought to seek my (the individual egoist's) selfinterest; and (c) Personal egoist: I (the personal egoist) ought to seek my own
self-interest exclusively, the interests of others being valued only instrumentally

as an aid in the pursuit of my singular value" (Ingen 1 994, p. 39). Ingen claims
that the question we are discussing here is one raised by a personal egoist.

3 - In addition to the issue of "who" should be moral, Michael D. Bayles has

pointed out other complexities of the question "Why be moral?" - what it is
to be moral (to act morally or to be a moral person, for example) and what
"moral" means (see Bayles 1973).

4 - Davis holds a similar view. He argues that there is no non-moral reason to

answer the question: "In a very important sense moral awareness carries with
it its own authority and legitimacy. In answer to the question, 'Why be moral?'
we may say simply, 'Because you know you ought to.' We simply know we
ought to do what seems to us right, and we know this in a way that is subject
to no skeptical attack. An awareness of a moral duty contains in itself, as an

82 Philosophy East & West

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intrinsic part of what a 'duty' is, the justification, the authority, the reason for its

being obeyed" (Davis 1 991, p. 8; see also p. 19).

5 - As a matter of fact, Bradley does find an end, namely self-realization: "'Realize

yourself as an infinite whole' means, 'Realize yourself as the self-conscious

member of an infinite whole, by realizing that whole in yourself/ When that
whole is truly infinite, and when your personal will is wholly made one with
it, then you also have reached the extreme of homogeneity and specification

in one, and have attained a perfect self-realization" (Bradley 1935, p. 80).

However, Bradley does not consider self-realization as the end of morality. In
his view, self-realization as the final end is something "with which morality is
identified, or under which it is included" (p. 81).

6 - Hospers disagrees with this view. According to him, even if we could accept
what seems to him the problematic claim that morality is necessary for happiness, it is not sufficient for happiness: "no matter how moral the man may be,
he is not happy when he is being tortured on the rack, or when he suffers from
cancer of the bone, or when his family is being fed to the lions" (Hospers 1 961 ,

p. 1 79). As we have seen, Confucians do not think pain and suffering are good

things. They should be avoided. They are not to be avoided and one should
feel joy in not trying to avoid them only if, to avoid them, one has to violate
moral principles. To be tortured is, of course, a painful thing, but it is even
more painful to violate moral principles by avoiding torture. Thus, on a spectrum
with extreme happiness on the left and extreme pain on the right, for a virtuous
person, to be tortured in this case is closer to the left than to violate moral principles is, or to violate moral principles is closer to the right than to be tortured is.

7 - This Confucian argument about the distinction between humans and beasts, in
one sense, is quite similar to the argument developed by J. S. Mill in his response to the criticism that utilitarianism regards human beings as no different
from beasts when it sees pleasure as the highest goal of human life. In Mill's

view, there are different pleasures, and utilitarians "assign to the pleasures
of the intellect, of the feelings and imaginations, and of the moral sentiments,
a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation," as "few
human creatures would consent to be changed into any of the lower animals,

for a promise of the fullest allowance of a beast's pleasure; no intelligent

human being would consent to be a fool, no instructed person would be selfish
and base, even though they should be persuaded that the fool, the dunce, or
the rascal is better satisfied with his lot than they are with theirs" (Mill 1972,

pp. 8-9).
8 - Aristotle (and, in a slightly different way, Plato) also argues that to be moral is
distinctive of being human, but he does not think it is the best thing that
humans can and should do. The latter is philosophical contemplation, which,

on the one hand, not everyone can do and, on the other, may be in conflict

with one's being moral, as to be moral one will be busy involving oneself

Yong Huang 83

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with affairs of other people, while philosophical contemplation needs leisure. I

have presented an extended discussion of this Aristotelian view in contrast to

the Confucian view as presented in this article (see Huang 2008, pp. 342-346).
9 - Later, the Ming dynasty Neo-Confucian Wang Yangming expressed this idea
most vividly using the analogy of gold: "Sages are sages because their heart/
minds are in complete accord with the heavenly principle, not mixed with
any human desires. This is just as pure gold is pure gold because of its perfection in quality, not mixed with any copper or lead. People who have reached
the state of being in complete accord with the heavenly principle are sages, just
as gold that has become perfect in quality is pure gold. However, sages are different from each other in terms of ability and strength, just as different pieces of
pure gold are also different from each other in terms of the weight

different in terms of ability and strength, people are

heavenly principle in them is pure, just as different p
gold as long as they are all perfect in quality, even tho
ently" (Wang 1996, p. 62).

1 0 - When discussing this Confucian idea of "for the sake

points out that "the Confucian insistence on learning f

predicated on the conviction that self-cultivation is an end

means to an end. Those who are committed to the cult

life for its own sake can create inner resources for self
to those who view self-cultivation merely as a tool fo

social advancement and political success" (Tu 1995, p

Confucians "don't subscribe to the thesis that learnin

improvement, the demand for social service will unde
self-cultivation as a noble end in itself" (p. 106). Whil
correct in explaining this Confucian idea of "for the sa
not pay enough attention to the close relationship and
"for the sake of oneself" (moral cultivation of self) and
(virtuous actions affecting others).

11 - For example, Bill Shaw and John Corvino argue that

consider Gyges' ring in Plato: "we cannot tell whether
better than the mere appearance of morality in gener
Furthermore, we see no way at all to test whether true

ter - [H]ow can we expect them [managers] to beha

believe that they can hedge their bets and achieve as

by vice than by virtue?" (Shaw and Corvino 1996, p. 3

12 - Here we can see that though Aristotle thinks that vir

secondary role in characterizing human happiness, in hi

love of a virtuous person he holds a view very similar t

we discuss. In Aristotle's view, true lovers of self are
to themselves the greater share of wealth, honours

84 Philosophy East & West

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(Aristotle 1963, 1168b15-16), but those who are always anxious that they
"should act justly, temperately, or in accordance with any other of the virtues"

and in general "are always to try to secure for themselves the honourable
course" ( 168b26-28). The reason is that a person of the latter type "assigns
to himself the things that are noblest and best, and gratifies the most authoritative element in himself . . . and therefore the man who loves this and gratifies it

is most of all a lover of self" (1 1 68b29-33). Then he reaches exactly the same
conclusion as the Confucians: "therefore the good man should be a lover of
self (for he will both himself profit by doing noble acts, and will benefit his
fellows), but the wicked man should not; for he will hurt both himself and his

neighbours, following as he does evil passions" (1 169a12-15).

13 - For example, Meng Peiyuan W^jc, in his interpretation of the relationship

between "realization of oneself" (zi cheng g$c) and "realization of others"
(cheng wu $c%) in a passage from The Doctrine of the Mean quoted earlier in
this essay, claims that "'realization of oneself is the starting point, while 'realization of others' is the result. The key to learning of a sage is 'realization of

oneself/ 'Realization of others can take place only after one realizes oneself'"
(Meng 1 993, p. 1 8). This cannot be correct. One cannot realize oneself without
at the same time realizing others, as cheng wu is an inherent part or even the
very definition of cheng ji.

14 - Richard Kraut, having Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics in mind, regards such an

egoism as substantive egoism in contrast to form egoism. Substantive egoism

"first proposes a concrete conception of the good, and then urges each of us
to maximize our own good, so conceived

seek one's own good, come what may for others; rather, by

virtuously and acting well coincide, it seeks to undermine th

tion that at bottom the self must come into conflict with ot

sec. 4). Similarly, Jiyuan Yu, in his recent study of Confu

regards such an egoism as noble egoism in contrast to egoi
sense, which he regards as base egoism. Thus, he points out
Aristotle, "the issue about egoism and altruism is one betw
and the good of others, that is, between the pursuit to sat
self and the requirements of social morality" (Yu 2007, p. 2
to add or make explicit is that, in Confucius and Mencius, a
essarily an altruist, and vice versa.

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