|
|
and humans, and original sin and human weakness, as well as toward the moment when weakness could lead to the fall by actual sin. Even though in Confucianism there has been no digging effort in enquiring into the sins and weaknesses of humans and their constant propensity to fall, there is an evident interest in the psychological processes that allow a moral choice between good and evil. Going back to a famous passage from Zhongyong 中庸, Neo-Confucian reflections have introduced an important element which links emotional phenomenon with the ethical sphere—this is the “metaphysical activation moment of ji” (ji shan’e 幾善惡) between weifa 未發 (heart-mind’s pre-emotional condition) and yifa 已發 (emotional arousal). Human responsibility and the sense of shame (chi 恥) were thus acknowledged by early Confucians, as was human liberty and responsibility implicitly recognized by Neo-Confucians. In sum, what emerges here is an autonomous subject who stands before their moral choices in the course of their moral progress: the self can do little to change destiny and conditions but has certainly attained agency in the moral sphere. Sense of responsibility and self-cultivation respond to the basic request of self-assertion. However, either for Daoist or Buddhist influences or various personal ideas, the self and moral responsibility are variously represented. Studies on literary productions are useful to gain deeper insight into the evolution of traditional representations of the self. Contrary to the general assumption that Chinese thought was static and modelled solely by Neo-Confucian orthodoxy, the great themes of destiny, political and cosmic order, conceptions of history, individual private sphere, guilt and punishment, and personal responsibility were all subjected to conflicting interpretations, to the extent that there was no conformist or uniform acceptance based on traditional parameters and criteria.