Individual Autonomy and Responsibility in Late Imperial China By ...

enough consideration to the meaning of this term over the centuries and its mystifying use. Furthermore, relative scarce attention has been given to the tension toward personal autonomy and individual value, not necessarily in opposition to the value of harmony.²⁵ This tension is manifested in different, sometimes opposed, directions, from the moral self to its vitalistic dimensions. Part I of this book, “Tension Toward Personal Autonomy in the Confucian Tradition,” focuses on different opinions and behaviors in search for an “individual autonomy” reached by self-perfection through freedom from external alienation, individual experience and/or self-assertion, self-interests and vital aims. Self-respect might be asserted by resistance against power’s repression and conformism but could be accomplished in different ways, and the choice depends on one’s highest value and temperament. Stressing the centrality of self, but paying attention to other’s respect and well-being, as well as caring for the health and welfare of oneself and loved ones are the aims of the most enlightened thinkers. Different schools of thought and doctrines have elaborated different systems, and thinkers within each school have singled out a variety of worths. The growth of various approaches inside and outside orthodoxy and the rich contributions on the role of emotions and desires are deemed important for Chinese contemporary developments as much as it is for the construction of global ethics, the encounter of civilizations, and international cooperation. The topic is extremely complex not only for the differences between cultures and the evolution of ideas and sensibility over time but also because autonomy and individualization may be understood differently from various perspectives. Moreover, it necessarily implies modern and contemporary questions, touches on politically sensitive issues, common sense, and clichés that deserve to be rethought.

The self as a responsible agent is the theme of the second part of this book, “The Sense of Responsibility in Ming and Qing Confucianism,” which starts with a preliminary evaluation of the sense of responsibility which serves as the basis for comparison with premodern Europe. This aspect of Chinese mentality does not concern only ethics but above all