The Unity of the Virtues in Zhu Xi's Moral Psychology

Dr. John Makeham[1]

Reader in the Centre for Asian Studies

Adelaide University

Australia

Email: john.makeham@adelaide.edu.au

Abstract

Beginning with a brief introduction to Mencius' moral psychology, the model on which Zhu developed his own account, this paper has examined Zhu Xi's theory of the unity of the virtues. Instead of analyzing the individual virtues and their interaction, and instead of comparing them with virtues from other traditions, this paper has attended to a more preliminary task: identifying and describing the philosophical context in which Zhu Xi framed his particular account of the unity of the virtues. For Zhu Xi, this unity was premised on an inversion of Mencius' "reclamation" or discovery model of the virtues, in which the primacy of the "four sprouts" comes to be displaced by the cardinal virtues. Then this paper shows that Zhu's particular conception of the unity of the virtues was achieved by subsuming all of the cardinal virtues under the control of the virtue of humaneness[2].

Keywords: Mencius, Zhu Xi, moral psychology, four sprouts, cardinal virtues

In this paper, a descriptive analysis is presented of the unity of the virtues in Zhu Xi's[3] moral psychology. I will begin with a brief introduction to Mencius'[4] moral psychology, the model on which Zhu developed his own account. I have not analyzed the individual virtues and their interaction, nor have I compared them with virtues from other traditions. Instead, I have attended to a more preliminary task: identifying and describing the philosophical context in which Zhu Xi framed his particular account of the unity of the virtues. For Zhu Xi, who believed that we are already innately endowed with the cardinal virtues, the first step in the process of realization was to understand this context.

l       The Background: An Overview of Mencius' Moral Psychology and the Origin of the Virtues

The central topic of Confucian moral philosophy is "human nature"[5] or "the nature"[6]. Within the tradition, the two most influential accounts of the topic were those of Mencius and Zhu Xi. Even today, these two accounts continue to shape the premises of Contemporary New Confucian thought. For most Confucian theorists, it is by virtue of our nature that humans have an innate moral sense; a natural inclination for what is morally good. This innate moral sense is typically defined in terms of four cardinal virtues[7]: humaneness[8], rightness[9], ritual decorum[10] and knowledge/wisdom[11].

Mencius lived towards the end of the 4th century BC, a period in which many thinkers were troubled by a profound metaphysical doubt as to whether "heaven"[12] underpins human moral values. According to Mencius, our natures are "what heaven has given us"[13]. Human nature is what links us with the non-human universe, the normative order of heaven. Indeed, the quality of this relationship is such that Mencius was able to claim that "If one knows one's nature, one will know heaven"[14]. Many of his contemporaries had begun to ask to what extent is human behavior conditioned by social institutions[15] and to what extent does it spring directly from our own innate qualities[16]? Mencius maintained that humans are beings born for goodness; at birth, there exists a natural tendency for goodness, as inevitable as the natural tendency of water to flow downward.[17] This natural tendency is a function of human nature, that course of development proper to humans. When left unhindered and properly nurtured, our innate good tendencies will become manifest of their own accord.

For Mencius, the "heart" is the seat or locus of our moral capacity and our thinking capacity. As the locus of our moral capacity, it has a natural inclination for what is morally good, just as the mouth takes pleasure in the flavours of food, and the eyes in sexually attractive bodies. It is not only the case that goodness is natural; moreover, it is natural to prefer the moral to other inclinations.[18] There is a certain pleasure to be derived from acting morally and this sense of pleasure marks the moral life as the natural course of human development. According to Mencius, there are four incipient moral tendencies in the heart. These he calls "the heart of pity and compassion", "the heart of shame and aversion", "the heart of deference and compliance; and "the heart which approves and condemns"[19]. These are the so-called four beginnings/inclinations/dispositions/impulses[20]. These four spontaneous dispositions are part of one's nature in the same way as the physical growth of the body. They germinate spontaneously without having to be learned or worked for. They are present in the child from the beginning and remain latently present even in the corrupted adult. Each of these four dispositions has its fully developed form and these fully developed forms are the four cardinal virtues: pity and compassion grow into the virtue of humaneness/benevolence; shame and aversion into the virtue of rightness; deference and compliance into the virtue of ritual propriety; approval and condemnation into the virtue of knowledge/wisdom. The appeal of Mencius' theory is that because everyone is born with the same innate moral dispositions, everyone has the potential to become a sage, the ideal expression of human existence. This idea had a profound impact on later Confucian thought as well as on the development of Sinitic Buddhism.

l       Zhu Xi: The Mind, the Nature, Emotional Response and Humaneness

By Han times[21], the concept of human nature had already undergone some transformation. According to the new concept, the nature is, in part, constituted by the life force, qi. Because the quality of qi varies from person to person, different people have different innate capacities, including a person's capacity to act morally. For example, according to the Eastern Han thinker, Wang Chong[22], at the moment of conception, the quality of qi that the embryo receives from its parents[23] determines such qualities as whether one will be a person of moral worth[24], a reprobate[25], or benighted[26], as well as physical appearance and life expectancy.[27] The quality of this qi also determined the quality of the incipient virtues with which one is endowed.[28] At the same time, there was a renewed questioning of whether the nature is good, bad, a mixture of the two, "neutral", or "indifferent". One consequence of the notion of a qi-constituted human nature was a pervasive skepticism during the first half of the first millennium A.D. whether ordinary people could, in fact, become sages. Instead, an "exclusivist" thesis found wide support, according to which sagehood is claimed to be innate and unable to be learned.

The popularity of the exclusivist thesis was such that, even by the eleventh century, Cheng Yi[29] continued to challenge it. Cheng Yi was a seminal figure in the development of Song Neo-Confucian philosophy. Cheng was able to turn the tables on the exclusivists by advancing an alternative interpretation of qi. Instead of adhering to the old view that the endowment of a person's nature is fixed at birth[30], Cheng proposed that the quality of qi zhi[31] is able to be improved and that refined or pure qi is able to be nurtured.[32] Like Cheng Yi, Zhu Xi drew a conceptual distinction between "heaven bestowed nature"[33] and "psychophysical nature"[34]. The former is pure pattern while the latter is pattern[35] as it is manifest in and through qi.[36] This distinction should be understood to represent two modes or aspects of the nature: in its fundamental aspect and in its manifest aspect. Now while the nature is nothing but pattern, nevertheless without qi there would be no way for pattern to be properly settled. "With regard to the nature ordained by heaven, if there were no psychophysical endowment then it would have nowhere to lodge."[37] If one is endowed with pure and clear qi then pattern will readily be manifest as one's nature; where the defilements of turbid qi are intense, however, selfish desires will obscure pattern[38], and this is where goodness and badness arise. "The natures of all people are good, yet while there are some people who are born good there are others who are born bad. This is due to differences in endowments of qi."[39] "Only those who are endowed with pure qi are sages and worthies. Their pattern is like a precious pearl in clear, cold water. Those who are endowed with turbid qi are the benighted and the no-hopers. Their pattern is like a pearl in turbid water."[40] Only sages are born with a qi nature in which the quality of qi is so pure and undefiled that it provides unmediated access to pattern. The natures of all other people have varying qualities of qi, defiled by impurities, which impede realization of pattern. Only learning enables the latter to transform the quality of their endowment of qi so that their natures can be purified and pattern fully realized. In theory, then, ordinary people can learn to become sages.

The mind plays a nodal role in Zhu's moral psychology. It has an inner and an outer directionality, being both the locus of the nature[41] and that in which the emotional responses[42] are rooted:

"The mind refers to the combination of the nature and emotional responses. That which is referred to as combining the nature and emotional responses, contains the nature and emotional responses... The mind refers to the combination of both structure and application."[43]

Precisely because the mind is the locus of the nature, it is also the locus of the patterns which constitute the nature. "People only have a mind and all the patterns in the world are assembled therein."[44] Because of the relationship between the mind and the nature, sometimes the emotional responses are described as the animation or activation of the mind and sometimes of the nature.[45]

Although Zhu understands qing to refer to emotional responses generally, many of his examples refer specifically to Mencius' four sprouts[46]: "pity and compassion", "shame and aversion", "deference and compliance", and "approval and condemnation". "The four sprouts are emotional responses; they are the active manifestation of the mind. All four of them shoot forth from the mind, but that by which they are so is a function of patterns being in the nature."[47] Correspondingly, while the nature is said to contain all patterns, Zhu attaches particular importance to the four exemplary patterns or virtues that find their expression in the specific emotional responses associated with each of the four sprouts. "The nature is a general name for pattern; humaneness, rightness, ritual and wisdom are each the names of single patterns within the nature."[48] By virtue of having a particular pattern in one's nature, one is able to express a particular emotional response and, conversely, according to the emotional response one can see the nature.[49] "It is like knowing a shape by seeing its shadow."[50] Thus, humaneness is the particular pattern that is expressed as pity and compassion; rightness as shame and aversion; ritual as deference and compliance; and wisdom as approval and condemnation.[51]

Zhu differed most significantly from Mencius in his thesis that the four cardinal virtues are the roots from which the emotional responses issue: "Humaneness, rightness, ritual propriety and wisdom are the four roots[52]. Pity and commiseration, shame and aversion, respect and composure [sic], and sense of right and wrong are seedlings[53] which issue forth from the root."[54] In her study of Zhu's essay on humaneness, "Ren Shuo",[55] Irene Bloom points out that, for Zhu, humaneness is "more a process of reclamation than of development... [R]ather than jen developing from the "sprout" of commiseration, as in Mencius, commiseration now arises out of the endowment that, as the substance of the mind[56], is fully present from the beginning of life."[57] She further shows that Zhu's vision of humaneness was actually an inversion of the Mencian view, in which humaneness becomes invested with the weight of pattern.[58] Thus, whereas Mencius' theory of the virtues rests on a development model[59], Zhu Xi's is a discovery model.

We have seen that, for Zhu Xi, the nature is constituted of patterns, the most exemplary being humaneness, rightness, ritual and wisdom. We have also seen that just as pattern constitutes the nature so too does pattern constitute the mind by virtue of the mind being the locus of the nature. Typically, however, when Zhu discussed the mind, he singled out one pattern, one virtue, as being the most important and exemplary: humaneness. Humaneness completely possesses the other three virtues of rightness, ritual and wisdom[60], such that, on occasion, Zhu even defined them in terms of humaneness: "Humaneness is the root structure[61] of humaneness; ritual is the graded pattern of humaneness; rightness is the judgement of humaneness; and knowledge is the distinctions of humaneness."[62] Sometimes Zhu spoke of humaneness, rightness, ritual and wisdom collectively as all being the virtues of the mind but in which humaneness exercises a controlling or master role.[63] Zhu thus described humaneness in two modes: as a general virtue subsuming all four cardinal virtues and as a distinct virtue which forms one of the four cardinal virtues. As a general virtue, he remarked:

"It is undifferentiated and difficult to name. It is necessary to refer simultaneously to each of the four virtues-humaneness, rightness, ritual and wisdom-and observe them next to one another. Only by describing and comparing them with one another can the significance and characteristics of humaneness (as a general virtue) be made easy to see."[64]

He employed a range of metaphors to describe how humaneness, the general virtue, subsumes the other virtues. The most commons are the following:

1) The seed: "In spring, a grain of seed germinates[65], in summer it produces shoots, in autumn it forms fruit, and in winter it is collected and stored. Vitality[66] remains enveloped within. Every seed has life stored within, which will grow when planted."[67] Although each of the seasons correlates with each the four cardinal virtues, as a general virtue, humaneness is present in each of the four separate virtues. The idea of cyclical return is important as it underscores the idea that the life-generating properties of humaneness are ongoing and self-generating.

2) Pools of water: "Humaneness is like the flow of a stream. When a stream flows it forms large pools, small pools, square pools, and round pools. Although these pools are different they are all constituted by the stream."[68] As a general virtue, humaneness sustains and constitutes each of the separate virtues.

3) The seasons: "The vital energy[69] corresponding to each of the four seasons is variously warm, cool, cold and hot. Neither the cool nor cold seasons are able to generate things; in the summer, it is too hot and is also not a season to generate things. Only the vital energy of spring is warm and generous; only then is the generative mind of heaven-and-earth manifest. Summer is when the vital force comes to maturity; autumn is when it subsides; and winter is when it is stored. If it were not the intention of spring to generate things then there would be none of the following three seasons. Analogously, this is how humaneness includes rightness, ritual and wisdom, and how Cheng Hao was able to say that rightness, ritual and wisdom are all humaneness."[70]

4) The body: Just as the mind can be characterized in terms of the general virtue, humaneness, so too can the nature. In responding to the question as to whether the nature can be used to talk about humaneness, Zhu replied: "The nature is like the human body. Humaneness is the left hand, ritual is the right hand, rightness is the left foot, and wisdom is the right foot."

Such is the overriding importance Zhu attached to humaneness that he rarely discussed the relation of individual virtues to humaneness. On the rare occasion that he did, his purpose was to underscore the primacy of humaneness. Thus while he concorded with Mencius' statement that "humaneness is the human mind and rightness is the human path"[71], he immediately commented that rightness is able to be put into practice precisely because it is the application of humaneness.[72]

The attainment of humaneness is directly connected to the relinquishment of selfish desires. While not equivalent to humaneness, the absence of selfishness and subjective intentions was a necessary condition[73] for the realization and expression of humaneness: "If one is humane then selfish desires will be totally relinquished and the virtue of the mind will attain perfection." "If one relies on humaneness then one's moral nature will be constantly employed and the desire for things will not be active."[74] This does not mean that the humane person is without emotional responses but rather that his emotional responses are in accord with pattern. Only when humaneness has not been realized will subjective emotional responses arise. Zhu said:

"Being without a subjective mind[75] then what the humane person is fond of and what he detests will be in accord with pattern. This is what Master Cheng meant by 'The attainment of what is impartial and correct.'"[76]

"Only the mind of the humane person is replete with the pattern of rectitude. When he sees what is good in a person, he is fond of it and when he sees what is not good he detests it."[77]

For Zhu, the emotional responses specifically associated with the expression of humaneness are sensitive concern[78] and commiseration.[79] He described humaneness as the "pattern of sensitive concern"[80] because it is humaneness that makes sensitive concern for others possible. Humaneness and sensitive concern are joined in a "structure application"[81] relation in which the heart plays an active, nodal role as the locus of both the nature and emotional responses. Humaneness characterises both the nature and the heart while the heart gives expression to the emotional response of sensitive concern which is grounded in and directed by the virtue or pattern of humaneness.[82] The same applies to all four virtues and their expression as emotional responses. "Pity and compassion, shame and aversion, deference and yielding, and approval and disapproval are emotional responses. Humaneness, rightness, ritual and wisdom are the nature. The mind unites the emotions and the nature."[83]

Emotional responses are activated whenever there is contact with things, being a response of the mind to the external world.[84] In his Lun Yu Jizhu commentary to 6.3, for example, Zhu related that Confucius’ disciple, Yan Yuan, did not harbour a store of anger which he would transfer to objects and people. This does not mean that Yan had no emotional responses but that he would respond to the anger he encountered in his dealings with the world by making sure that his emotional responses were in line with the appropriate pattern.[85] If they were, then he would respond by being angry. Being part of his nature and mind, he had direct access to this pattern. Zhu cited Cheng Yi on this point:

"Yan Hui's anger depended on other things and not on himself. Accordingly, he did not transfer it... Joy and anger being dependent on particular matters, then, he would deal with a particular matter by matching it with an appropriate level of joy or anger. Not being dependent on his own temperament, he did not transfer joy or anger."[86]

Emotional responses, which do not accord with pattern, are given expression as selfish desires. Zhu drew a sharp dichotomy between selfish desires and pattern, maintaining that it is selfish desires which block or restrict unmediated apprehension of pattern. "If one entertains even an iota of disingenuousness then, when things come and one wants to deal with them, on no occasion will one's engagement be genuine and nothing will accord with the pattern of the way."[87] Only after selfish desires have been extirpated is pattern made accessible: "Only when selfish desires have already been removed will the patterns of heaven[88] flow and every activity of one's life become infused with them."[89] Commenting on those passages in the "Xiang Dang" of the Analects, which describe Confucius' fastidiousness in regards to eating matters, Zhu remarked that in every word and deed there is a right way and a wrong way to act. The right way conforms to pattern; the wrong way indulges selfish desires.[90] "Even when drinking a cup of tea one must understand what is heavenly pattern and what is human desire."[91] If one's motivation for drinking tea is to indulge a desire, one will not be drinking tea. In the absence of selfish desires the mind achieves a psycho-physical state of quiescence and equilibrium in which pattern appears. Unlike in some Buddhist teachings, however, this state is not one requiring the cessation of emotional responses, but rather one in which the appropriate emotional response is measured such that it does not deteriorate into selfish desires.

l       Conclusions

In sum, Zhu Xi understood the cardinal virtues to be of especial importance because they are morally normative patterns[92]. As for humaneness, it is "our most acutely personal[93] pattern"[94] and "the virtue of the mind".[95] It is the virtue which exemplifies how human moral values are ultimately grounded in the order of heaven-and-earth. This is expressed most clearly in opening lines of Zhu's essay, "On Humaneness":

"The mind of heaven-and-earth consists in the production of things. When people and things are produced, they each receive that mind of heaven-and-earth as their own mind. Thus, in talking about the virtue of mind, although there is nothing it fails to embrace and penetrate, one word will cover it: humaneness..."

"The virtues of the mind of heaven-and-earth are four-origination, growth, benefit and firmness-yet it is origination which unites them all. In their cyclical movement within the seasons, these four virtues constitute the sequence of spring, summer, autumn and winter, yet it is the vital energy of spring which penetrates all. Thus, in the constitution of the human mind, there are also four virtues-humaneness, rightness, ritual propriety and wisdom-yet it is humaneness which encompasses them all."[96]