As you have probably noticed, I am teaching Mencius this semester. Right now I am reading a batch student papers, most of which are on Mencius (some are on the Analects). In one paper, a student was grappling with the questions that arise in chapter 11 (or 6A), where Mencius is debating about human nature with Gaozi (Master Kao). A key element of this debate is whether or not Duty (yi - also translated as "appropriateness") is internal.
I tend to take the position that Mencius and his followers are arguing that, yes, Duty is internal and they refute Gaozi's attempts to prove otherwise. People with much deeper knowledge of Mencius than me disagree, however. Kim-chong Chong argues that Mencius never really establishes that Duty is internal; rather, Mencius seems to be, on this account, resisting the idea that Duty and Humanity can properly be understood in terms of "internal" and "external." James Behuniak comes closer to the position I will argue below, but even he says: "Mencius does not argue here or elsewhere that appropriateness [yi] is internal..."
Of course, one of Mencius' defenders, Adept Kung-tu, does argue that Duty is internal (11.5; 6A.5), but let's say that Chong and Behuniak are correct, as least insofar as there is not an explicit affirmative argument attributed to Mencius himself that "Duty is internal." What I would hold, however, is that the clear implication of the text as a whole is that Duty is crucially, though not wholly, internal. I say this for two reasons.
First, the metaphors used in passages 11.3 and 11.4 (6A.3 and 6A.4) suggest that human nature includes something like an appetite for Duty. Both passages end with suggestions that our love of food - roast meat or broth - is relevant to the way we should understand Duty. This might be framed in terms of preference - my preference for roast meat does not depend upon who cooks it. But food entails more than mere "preference." We have a certain appetite for food. It wells up from within us when we are hungry, and we must satisfy that deep internal urge. Mencius thus could be saying that we have an appetite for Duty, we hunger for it, we have a deep and abiding internal urge to fulfill our obligations toward others. This may be an optimistic view of human nature, but I think it is what the text is trying to convey: Duty is internal.
Of course, the more particular definition of Duty will depend upon "external" circumstances. The unusual factors of Shun's life led him to understand that his filial obligations required disobedience to his parents. So, Duty is not wholly internal. But that internal drive to do the right things by others is, I would argue, more fundamental. It is what drove Shun to stay faithful to the idea of being filial, even when his parents acted so badly. It is, in the minds of the authors of the Menicus text, the originary emotional constituent of Duty.
Second, other aspects of the text strongly support the idea that Duty is internal. Most importantly, perhaps, would be the famous assertion that human nature is basically good in passage 3.6 (2A.6): "Mencius said: 'Everyone has a heart that can't bear to see others suffer.....'"
The passage describes four aspects of "heart" (or, "heart-mind" - xin): we all have a heart of compassion, a heart of conscience, a heart of courtesy and a heart of right and wrong. These four internal elements of basic human nature are the "seeds" of key Confucian principles. For our purposes here, we should note: "A heart of conscience is the seed of Duty." Thus Duty arises from, is cultivated from, a seed inside of us. It grows from within. And just to drive the point home:
These four seeds are as much a part of us as our four limbs. To possess them and yet deny their potential - that is to wound yourself...
I do not mean to deny the careful arguments of the scholars mentioned above. It may be true, that in terms of stricter logical analysis Mencius and his followers never quite fully refute the assertions of Gaozi. But the text provides sufficient grounds to support the notion that Mencius wanted us to believe that Duty is internal.
Duty may or may not be internal, but justice (yi) certainly is. Read the Zhouyi. Know why chivalrous swordsmen and swordswomen die for the protection of the weak, since the Spring and Autumn period; then we may realize that justice is indeed internal.
Of course, if you keep changing the established terms or English names for the four cardinal virtues until they are unrecognizable to most, and based on your new terms, some readers may even consider you a Buddhist!
Posted by: Allan Lian | May 02, 2009 at 04:57 PM
Certainly the Mencian notion of "heart" represents internal, but rather than thinking of this in a internal/external duality, I interpret the Mencian view as being that man is an "anthropocosmos," that is, a microcosm, human nature is a corollary to universal nature. The heavenly mandate lives within man as the heart. I don't recall that in Mencius's description of the qualities of the heart he mentions duty. I see duty as one of the means of self-cultivation, that is, a method of working towards the central harmony, of being in harmony with the heavenly mandate. With the external practice of duty, we come closer to finding the lost heart. We cultivate the benevolence that is intrinsic to the heart. Filial duty is one of the things we do, not something we are. And when we do it, we manifest our goodness. And good is what we are.
Posted by: Glenn Berger | May 09, 2009 at 05:57 AM