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

This passage leads us to the idea of Dao, linked to the metaphor of a field of force, where objects are naturally drawn toward it, without any direction or external pressure.⁷⁶ People’s inclination to humaneness and Mencian four beginnings of virtue (siduan 四端) are the basis of Confucian emotional ethics, according to which virtues are not the result of fighting of confronting passions, but rather the extension of inner moral inclinations.⁷⁷ For Fingarette, the superior person understands their determination and will (zhi) as an expression of the transcendent will of Dao. ⁷⁸ These statements do not seem to contradict but reinforce Neo-Confucianism’s implicit acceptance of human liberty and responsibility. The specific way to perceive will in China likely involves different levels or moments of self-cultivation, the need of moral effort and alertness, and spontaneous inclination toward virtue.

Even under circumstances in which choices are hard to make and responsibility is the cause of severe pain, the mind which has been well trained in self-cultivation is usually presented as finding the correct path “naturally,” without encountering contradictions or theoretical tensions.⁷⁹ This is the reason why in China “hesitation” (youyu weijue 犹豫未决) was indeed regarded with disfavor, as a form of weakness or paralysis of the will.⁸⁰ A negative judgement concerning this question is found in a passage from Cheng Hao’s 程颢 (1032–1085) “Reflections on Things at Hand”:

There are men who always seem to have two people in their minds. When one wants to do good, there seems to be evil to obstruct him, and when he wants to do evil, there seems to be a sense of shame. There are not really two people. What happens in the mind is a sure evidence of its own conflicts. One must hold the will firm so the vital force cannot disturb him. One can then readily see the evidence. Essentially, sages and worthies never suffer from such mental defects as these conflicts.

[Comment:] One has only one mind. If there were one mind to subdue and restrict, and another mind to be subdued and restricted, there would be two minds. In that case, there would seem to be