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

shared not only by the various Neo-Confucian schools but also by those of other streams of thought.

Amongst Wang Yangming’s followers, many used their master’s theory for proceeding with further steps. They reached heterodox positions within and beyond the scope of Neo-Confucianism, in open conflict with the dominant ideology. The centrality of the heart-mind, which contrasted the “objectivity” of the rules settled by the orthodoxy, undermined the principle of authority regarding the quest for the good and the true (dao), thereby threatening one of the foundations of orthodoxy. The reduction and transformation of the role of principles let more space to emotions and subjective situational evaluation. By syncretically combining passions with the virtue of humaneness (ren) and with the inborn conscience (liangzhi) of Wang Yangming, the writers of the cult of qing defined the term qing as a generally positive and multifaceted feeling that express a wide range of emotions: empathy for one’s fellow man and upholding Confucian virtues—including filial piety and respect for one’s superiors—a profound sense of universal humaneness linking an individual to all the other beings and things in the cosmos, like the string used to tie coins together. They emphasized that vital energy, which represented the driving force behind the continuous production and reproduction of the universe, was supposed to be more powerful than vices and virtues, even though it corresponded to personal feelings.

Whatever interpretation one gives to the orthodoxy of Wang Yangming, it cannot be denied that his spiritual revolution determined a shift in focus away from classical Confucian approaches toward a reexploration of the subjective self.²⁵ Notwithstanding the limitations already mentioned, Wang’s new construction of identity differs substantially from previous models in that greater importance is now attached to individual autonomy and the unique potentials of the self.²⁶ This shift was not limited to the way the self was perceived metaphysically but had also a series of social and political implications. Ming society during Wang Yangming’s time was, in fact, so complex and mobile that the preservation of social order