The beginnings of moral character › The four beginnings

In 2A6, Mencius identifies four beginnings, also called sprouts. Compassion is the beginning of ren, humaneness or benevolence. Shame and aversion to wrongdoing begin yi, righteousness or appropriateness. Deference and yielding begin li, ritual propriety. Approval and disapproval begin zhi, wisdom. The important relationship is between an initial response and a developed excellence. A sprout is neither a finished plant nor an irrelevant piece of raw material. See Mencius 2A6.

Humaneness involves a concern for others that can inform action beyond a passing feeling. Righteousness concerns what it is fitting to do, including occasions when advantage should be refused. Propriety gives respect an enacted social form. Wisdom includes recognizing distinctions that matter to conduct. These explanations give the terms a working meaning; the examples that follow give these meanings a more concrete form. In particular, propriety here means more than polite manners, and wisdom means more than possessing information.

The pairing of shame with righteousness needs care. Mencius is not making every experience of embarrassment morally trustworthy. Someone can feel ashamed of poverty or of failing to meet a cruel social expectation. The morally relevant beginning is an aversion that can develop into a sound response to what is dishonorable. That interpretation leaves room for education to correct the objects of shame. Treating every socially induced experience of shame as morally authoritative would convert whatever a community stigmatizes into a moral standard.

The word often translated as heart or mind, xin, likewise resists a sharp separation between feeling and thinking. In these passages, being moved by distress and discerning what should be done belong within one account of ethical agency. Mencius does not require us to choose between pure emotion and detached calculation. His account asks how an initially felt concern can become more discriminating, consistent, and effective.

Consider a hypothetical team leader who notices a colleague being humiliated in a meeting. Concern for the colleague can begin a humane response. Discomfort at having joined the laughter can begin moral self-criticism. Letting the colleague finish can express respect. Understanding when public intervention would help, and when private support is needed, requires judgment. This is a modern illustration of the fourfold account, not evidence that Mencius discussed workplace management.

The leader's first feeling settles very little by itself. It might fade when defending the colleague threatens a promotion. It might lead to an intervention that embarrasses the colleague further. Cultivation concerns these failures of endurance and judgment as well as the absence of feeling. Having a beginning supplies a possibility and a responsibility; it does not supply a certificate of virtue.