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

and morality could not be entirely monopolized by the class of scholar-officials. The fact that concepts of universal sagehood and individual development of innate conscience found an audience amongst commoners allowed the general populace to enjoy a higher degree of participation in society and widened the space for discovering activities.²⁷

Some of Wang’s disciples, influenced by his criticism of the orthodox School of Principle, sought to liberate themselves from rules and conventions by rejecting the ideological dichotomy principle-desires and showing off the “true” personality. They and other later thinkers searched for a reasonable balance between tradition and reform, ideal and reality, individual freedom and social harmony, desires and interpersonal relations. Emblematic is the case of Wang Gen 王艮 (1483–1541) who advances an apparently ambiguous interpretation of the “investigation of things” (gewu 格物): “ge means a standard or pattern and is equivalent to the “measuring square” (refer to The Great Learning). Our own self is the measuring square, and the world and the dynasty are the squares (to be measured). When we apply our measuring square, we may realize that the incorrectness of these squares means the incorrectness of our own measuring square. Thus we just need to correct that measuring square, rather than to seek such correctness in the (external) squares (measured by it). Once our own measuring square is correct, then the squares (to which it is applied) will also become correct; and once these squares have become correct, then the task of applying the pattern (ge) will have been completed.”²⁸ Wang Gen’s theory of “valuing the body” (zunshen lun 尊身論) advocates that the “body-person” constitutes the ultimate source of all beings (吾身為天地、萬物之本也).²⁹ In the Chinese language, the notion of the body (shen 身) has actually different levels of interpretation, and flesh is only one of the many meanings being generally ascribed to it. Shen is often used to indicate an individual or person with their inner drives, desires, and subconscious, as well as their identity and status as defined by the way they relate to other members of society.³⁰ For this reason, promoting one’s shen is very close to the idea of defending the value of one’s own personhood in society.