Open AccessRecognition and Resentment in the C onfucian A nalects
Author(s) -
Nelson Eric S.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of chinese philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 17
eISSN - 1540-6253
pISSN - 0301-8121
DOI - 10.1111/1540-6253.12036
Subject(s) - undoing , resentment , affection , context (archaeology) , mandate , element (criminal law) , social psychology , psychology , feeling , epistemology , moral order , sociology , philosophy , psychoanalysis , political science , law , social science , politics , paleontology , biology
Early C onfucian “moral psychology” developed in the context of undoing reactive emotions in order to promote relationships of reciprocal recognition. Early C onfucian texts diagnose the pervasiveness of reactive emotions under specific social conditions and respond with the ethical‐psychological mandate to counter them in self‐cultivation. Undoing negative affects is a basic element of becoming ethically noble, while the ignoble person is fixated on limited self‐interested concerns and feelings of being unrecognized. Western ethical theory typically accepts equality and symmetry as conditions of disentangling resentment; yet this task requires the asymmetrical recognition of others. C onfucian ethics integrates a nuanced and realistic moral psychology with the normatively oriented project of self‐cultivation necessary for dismantling complex negative emotions in promoting a condition of humane benevolence that is oriented toward others and achieved through self‐cultivation.