School of Foreign Languages, Central South University, 410083, Changsha, China.
Integr Psychol Behav Sci. 2023 Sep;57(3):776-795. doi: 10.1007/s12124-022-09746-9. Epub 2023 Feb 2.
The dispute of Mencius' moral ideas in the English world mainly focuses on three aspects: do moral feelings and cognition come from the root of consanguineous affection or the "heart-mind" /xin/ of universal love? What causes moral motivations: feelings, or reasoning? What actions are moral? This dispute arises due to the analysis of Mencius in a dichotomous frame. This paper reveals that there is no paradox between the root of consanguineous affection and universal love. Because the mind of "four sprouts" is unified, moral feelings and cognition interweave with each other to stimulate moral motivations. According to Mencius, there are three processes of moral development: the first is the natural process mainly with moral feelings; the second is the process of probing the root or cultivating, and the third is the process of expanding moral feelings with reasoning. Moral actions occur in the first and third processes.
道德情感和认知是源于血缘亲情的根源，还是“心”/xin/的普遍之爱？道德动机的原因是什么：情感还是推理？什么行为是道德的？这种争议源于对孟子的二分法分析。本文揭示了血缘亲情的根源和普遍之爱之间没有悖论。因为“四端”的心是统一的，道德情感和认知相互交织，激发道德动机。根据孟子的观点，道德发展有三个过程：第一个是主要以道德情感为基础的自然过程；第二个是探究根源或培养的过程，第三个是用推理扩展道德情感的过程。道德行为发生在第一个和第三个过程中。
