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

“blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself” (Ethics, part 5 Proposition XLII). Wisdom, freedom, and love of God are the highest levels reached by humans (mentis libertas seu beatitude, Ethics, part 5, Preface). Freedom is achieved by understanding the power of emotions and by rationally accepting conditions over which one has no control, by attaining intuitive knowledge and self-cultivation. Intuitive knowledge has been associated with the innate conscience (liangzhi 良知) of the School of Mind for its moral and practical characters.⁵ For many Taizhou thinkers, the fulfilment of basic desires coincides with humaneness. Li Zhi’s sense of autonomy is more individualistic than Spinoza’s, but the latter is more detailed and states the inalienability of individual natural rights and the freedom of thought and speech.⁶ In his letter dated June 2, 1674, to Jarig Jelles, Spinoza argues: “I always preserve natural right intact (ego naturale jus semper sartum tectum conserve).”⁷

Coming back to the different approach between traditional China and Europe, the drama of the soul struggling against its desires and apprehensions, as well as the allegorical poems featuring a tension between virtues and vices of human beings, are not so common in Chinese writings. The inner conflict (xinzhan 心戰) endured by the individual at the moment of choice and their evaluation of available alternatives is quite rarely described but can still be found, especially in moral literature and fiction. More frequent conflict is that occurring when a choice is made between two duties or virtues, like loyalty and filial piety. Equally frequent is the “war between principle and desire,” an expression found in commentaries to the Classics, in which it came to indicate a painful experience. Especially this last case demonstrates how a kind of Psychomachia was not unknown to the Chinese.

In both cultures, there is evidence of a debate on a “moment” concerning the beginning of responsibility in Europe and crucial passage in the self-cultivation process in Confucianism. In European Christianity, the main question concerning responsibility was oriented toward the relation between God and humans, original sin and human weaknesses, as well