to establish oneself independently of the opinion of others, to affirm his integrity, and to choose among conflicting requirements, but he can stop his moral progress at any time. Chong notes that, provided that the term “autonomy” has no equivalent in the Analects, certain features of Confucius’s ethics, such as “the expression and development of aims and aspirations, their establishment and maintenance throughout one’s life, an integral sense of self; and the effort required for self-directedness, are essential aspects of autonomy” (269). On moral autonomy and the supposed absence of heteronomy even in ritualism, see Epstein’s study “Writing Emotions” on the Qing ritualists Yan Yuan 顏元 (1635–1704) and Li Gong 李塨 (1659–1733). This study is important as it illustrates how their use of ritual was “empowering and self-expanding rather than self-constricting,” cemented affective ties in social networks, and encouraged the formation of identity itself. In addition, Epstein demonstrates that emotional authenticity was not opposed to these ritualistic performances and that filial piety did not only manifest in Confucian ritualism but also as a basic emotion, with religious tones (162–187). On the differences between the traditional concept of “moral self”—an ethical notion centered on self‐cultivation—and the modern Western concept of self, see Yao Xinzhong “Self‐construction and Identity,” 179–195.

31. Hansen (“Freedom and Moral Responsibility in Confucian Ethics,” 169–185) explains that the ritual code does not per se involve any moral decision but works more like a set of technical regulations and tools of self-cultivation. For an equivalent with “natural law” see Needham (Science and Civilisation in China, 519, 530-532), and Bodde (Essays on Chinese Civilization, 179–180). Moreover, Hansen contrasts the prescriptive character of Western ethics to the descriptive one of the Confucian system, which is based on the teaching of moral examples, and identification with and emulation of these examples. The fact that actors internalized models rather than norms made doctrines of moral responsibility and theories about justification (e.g., liberty and conscious awareness) superfluous; it was exactly in their place that the conception of “rectification of names” started being developed. The individual was thus held accountable not so much for a single transgression but rather for a lack of self-cultivation and the failure to educate their dependants. For a different approach, see Sor-hoon Tan (“The Dao of Politics,” 468–491), David Wong (“Cultivating the Self in Concert with Others,” 176–178), and Roetz (“Tradition, Universality, and the Time Paradigm of Zhou Philosophy,” 367–371). Roetz, in particular, draws on several examples from