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4. Della Rocca, Spinoza, 137–174; and LeBuffe, “The Anatomy of the Passions,” 188–222).

5. Xiaosheng Chen, “A Neo-Confucian Approach,” 172–236.

6. Spinoza, Treatise on Theology and Politics (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, also translated Theological-political treatise), chapter 20, “In a free State everyone is permitted to think what he likes and to say what he thinks,” 156–162.

7. Spinoza, Letter L. The Chief Works, 369.

8. See Huang Yong’s “Virtue Ethics and Moral Responsibility,” “Why an Upright Son Does Not Disclose His Father Stealing a Sheep,” “Moral Luck and Moral Responsibility,” and “Neo-Confucianism.”

9. See, for example, Sanguo Yanyi, 81: 644645 and 82: 651, where the choice lies between keeping an oath and avenging a brother, on the one hand, and the interests of the state, on the other. See Riftin, Istoricheskaya Epopeia i Fol’klornaya Traditsija v Kitae, 190–193; Plaks (The Four Masterworks. 489–490) reports some of Mao Zonggang’s comments. See also Idema, “The Orphan of Zhao,” 175.

10. Cited in Elvin, “Female Virtue and the State in China,” 141–142. Other cases of dramatic conflicts have been presented in Roetz, Confucian Ethics of the Axial Age.

11. I am conscious that there are different opinions among philosophers on the role of emotions and reason. However, many divergent positions are often more terminological than substantial, for instance, if the emphasis is placed on the role of the rational faculty inside the affective world or in contrast with it.

12. The cosmic and holistic dimension has been emphasized by many scholars. See also Santangelo, “Reconsidering the ‘Cult of qing’ in Late Imperial China,” 133–163; The Culture of Love in China and Europe, 163–181; and “The Literati’s Polyphonic Answers to Social Changes in Late Imperial China, 357–432.

13. On their performative effects through their manifestation and communication codes see Austin, How to Do Things with Words, especially Lectures VI–IX.