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

consequence, “feeling guilty” (心中感到罪過) would be nothing but discomfort at having done violence to social relations. Sun also shows himself inclined to deny autonomy or individual conscience, linking this to the “oral character” of Chinese civilization.³⁰ He maintains that under all circumstances the individual in China considers the way society evaluates them as being more relevant than how they see themselves. He underlines the predominantly physical perception of the “self,” the subordination of “moral sentiment” to interpersonal relationships, and the part played by education—in his view a synonym for obedience (tinghua 聽話)—in shaping these relations. In reexploring the etymology of kou 口 (mouth) and mu 目 (eye), Sun also points to the importance of “social presence” in Chinese morality, which he identifies with the fearful presence of “listeners” who may hear what has been said (renyan kewei 人言可畏).³¹

Other considerations have been made by Wolfgang Kubin in his “The Inconstant Monkey on the Problem of the Self in Confucianism.”³² According to Kubin, the history of the “self” in China is that of “increasing [self] control and not of [its] liberation.” In particular, Kubin examines the concept of desire (yu 欲) in Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism: while in Lunyu this term is primarily used as a positive verb, in Mengzi it evokes associations with sensual appetites and thereby is seen as a potential danger to society, and it came to be condemned wholesale in orthodox Neo-Confucianism and Buddhism. It was only with the emergence of heterodox schools of thought such as those headed by Li Zhi and other few thinkers that the notion of self seems to have grown beyond socially imposed limits and needs.

Another original contribution to such debate comes from Carsten Herrmann-Pillath. In one of his articles, he reappraises Fei Xiaotong’s theory for rethinking Western categories and thereby overcoming the standard dualism of individualism versus collectivism—a dichotomy that the German scholar regards as deeply misleading because “individualistic” individuals can also manifest strongly collectivistic behavior. Herrmann-Pillath’s