Four Ends and Seven Emotions: A Comparative Philosophical Inquiry into Moral Emotions

Author: Li Minhui
Publisher: Lianjing Press
Publication Date: 2005-06-01
Features: This book belongs to the field of comparative philosophy, involving ethical thinking from Germany, China, and Korea. Chapters 1 and 2 first the development process of Kant's early ethics from Schiller's ethics to phenomenological ethics and its internal logic. This development involves the fundamental question of ethics: what is the nature of our " apprehension" (erfassung) of moral values? This question has cross-cultural universal significance, and the aforementioned thinking provides a highly useful reference framework for our discussion of related issues in Chinese and Korean Confucianism. In the development of Chinese Confucianism, this book selects the debate between Zhu Xi of the Southern Song Dynasty and the Hu-Xiang School on "benevolence" (ren) (Chapter 3), as well as the unique interpretation of Mencius's "four beginnings" and the "joys, sorrows, griefs, and pleasures" of the Doctrine of the Mean by Liu Zongzhou of the late Ming Dynasty (Chapters 4 and 5) as case studies. In the development of Korean Confucianism, this book selects the debates between the Korean Confucian scholars Yi Hwang (Tae-ri) and Chi Ho-gyun, and Yi I (Yulgok) and Seong Nong-ri on "four beginnings" and "seven emotions" (Chapters 6, 7, and 8) as case studies. Among these three cases, Zhu Xi's thought serves as a common reference system, which, like Kant's later ethics, presupposes a subjectivity framework of rationality and emotion (or nature and feeling) duality. Conversely, scholars such as Zhang Tu, Hu-Xiang School members, Liu Xishan, Yi Hwang, and Seong Nong-ri regard Mencius's "four beginnings" or the "joys, sorrows, griefs, and pleasures" of the Doctrine of the Mean as metaphysical emotions distinct from "seven emotions," a point that aligns with the fundamental direction of phenomenological ethics.