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

one’s thirst. One feels cool when drinking it, but the heat will come back nevertheless. There is really nothing one can do about it.¹¹⁶

Tu Long goes as far as to equate indulging in lust, fame, and wealth with enjoying landscapes and books (“demon of words” 文字之魔). His contemporary Song Maocheng 宋懋澄 (ca. 1569–1620) demonstrates no less moral furore than Saint Paul when he invokes illness that is the only thing that help in lowering desires (惟病可以寡欲).¹¹⁷

Some examples may be enlightening on the potential contradiction between virtues, the frequent conflict in the choice between loyalty to authority and filial piety.¹¹⁸ As David Wong remarks, rules and values conflict in many circumstances, and there are no “super-principles” to supply ready answers.¹¹⁹ Moreover, these cases confirm the evolution of Confucianism in history, and its involution with the consolidation of the imperial monarchy from the Qin dynasty and again from Tang-Song periods. Some passages from the Classics and later sources describe the agonizing trap of choosing between filial piety and loyalty to the state or spouse, where the drama comprises a dilemma without any practical alternatives. These create precedents of cases elaborated throughout Chinese history. Tension between filial devotion (xiao) and another concurrent virtue is not only a doctrinal diatribe but also an indicator of the way of interpreting the core of Confucian morality.¹²⁰ The classical case of contradiction of filial piety and loyalty is that of a father covering up his son’s mistake or a filial son covering up his father’s mistake; here, the choice has to be made between them by violating either the doctrine of loyalty or filiality. The conflict, however, may be presented in different situations.

Roetz has quoted some interesting passages in ancient China, among them the episode of Zeng Shen, the minister from the Kongzi jiayu, the “Upright Gong” from the Analects, and other cases of blood revenge, not to mention the tragic dilemmas of Shizhu 石渚 of Chu and Shituo 石他.¹²¹ A tragic solution is presented in Lienü zhuan 烈女傳 (Biographies of Exemplary Women) of the Han period,¹²² during which the Principled