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with synchronic and diachronic (contemporaneous or long-term) relevant mental states. Motives must be responsive to a sufficiently wide range of reasons (reasons-responsive), and agent must be capable of evaluating one’s motives on the basis of one’s beliefs and desires, whether they are correct or not (responsiveness-to-reasoning). Autonomy is challenged by external (pressures, brainwashing) or internal (addictions, depression, compulsions) causes. For a comparison between Confucian and Kantian perceptions of self and ethics, see Kwang-Sae Lee, East and West, 105–219.

4. Forst, “Political Liberty,” 226–242.

5. The “cult of qing” was the expression of a new trend that started in the middle of the Ming dynasty and aimed at rethinking the relation between the affective and moral spheres. Its impact continued into the new Qing dynasty. This new trend in philosophical and moral fields as well as in literary production committed to rediscuss the role and evaluation of emotions and desires, the general and the particular. In this process, several writers reached various compromises in the negotiation between the two extremes, the rigorous endorsement of heavenly principles, and the strong support of passions and desires.

6. Interesting is Wang Fuzhi’s reaction to the Ming collapse and the failure of all his past engagement, expressed in his poems and in his preface to Zhuangzi tong 莊子通 (Explication of Zhuangzi) (see Yingzhi Zhao, “Catching Shadows,” 48–67). In the preface Wang disagrees with Zhuangzi’s “walking two roads” (兩行), that is, “harmonizing with both right and wrong,” he discusses the tension between his moral principles and his compromising conduct, and he expresses his remorse for his own morally ambivalent way of life (ibidem. 67). On Xue Cai, see Struve, “Dreaming and Self-search during the Ming Collapse,” 159–192.

7. Ibid., 191.

8. Cheng Chung-ying, “Toward Constructing a Dialectics of Harmonization,” 25–59. Obviously, the term “harmony” has been misused in the past and is misused in the present to cover despotic policies and repressions. For instance, Nylan (“Whither Confucius? Whither Philosophy?,” 212) mentions Dorgon who “in 1645 defined ‘harmony’ as ‘acting in concert to serve the ruling house and country ( guojia 國家) and the people,’ as against ‘acting in concert to serve themselves, their families, or their selfish desires,’ which is said to be ‘conspiring.’”

9. On harmony and diversity, see Li Wei, “Ruxue Wenhua de Tezhi yu Minzu Wenhua de Jiaoliu,” 83–87. In the today’s increasingly globalized,