The morally bad in the philosophy of the Cheng brothers

Document Type

Journal article

Source Publication

Journal of Chinese Philosophy

Publication Date

3-1-2009

Volume

36

Issue

1

First Page

141

Last Page

156

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Inc.

Abstract

The problem of “the morally bad” (e )1 has been a central issue for Confucianism ever since Mengzi claimed that “human nature is good” (xing shan ). Xunzi took an opposing position and attributed moral badness to human nature, attempting to account for the phenomena of mutual conflict and confusion among human beings by their innate tendencies and desires.2 However, those who find Mengzi’s view more appealing have to face a particular challenge: If the human nature is good, why the morally bad exists? Furthermore, Mengzi considers that the “heart-mind” (xin ) is a transcendental ground for morality which makes moral goodness possible; he has to deny justifiably the factors which cause moral badness function dominantly. This challenge is particularly urgent for Neo-Confucians, since some of their metaphysical assertions provide support for the transcendental ground mentioned above, therefore it seems that it is more difficult to explain the existence of the morally bad. This fact though makes it particularly interesting to explore the ways that Neo-Confucians have taken to address this problem. In this article I shall focus on examining the Cheng Brothers’3 approach to tackling this issue.

DOI

10.1111/j.1540-6253.2008.01508.x

Print ISSN

03018121

E-ISSN

15406253

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2009 Journal of Chinese Philosophy

Access to external full text or publisher's version may require subscription.

Additional Information

Paper presented at the Symposium on Taking Confucian Ethics Seriously, Jun, 2004, Hong Kong, China.

Full-text Version

Publisher’s Version

Language

English

Recommended Citation

Wong, W. Y. (2009). The morally bad in the philosophy of the Cheng brothers. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 36(1), 141-156. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-6253.2008.01508.x

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