Mencius on how morality isn’t just following rules

Morality tells us what things we should do, and what things that we should not do. Much of western philosophy is concerned with describing morality similarly to how we describe the natural world: using reason to determine the “rules” of morality that we should follow strictly. For example, utilitarianism says “always maximize utility”. Kantian deontology says “there are certain things you can never do”.

Mengzi, the Chinese Confucian sage (also known by the latinized name “Mencius”), approaches this effort of becoming more moral very differently. He’s not concerned with providing an overarching moral framework for his teachings, or in laying out hard-and-fast rules. He acknowledges the importance of the moral rules of ritual priority, implying that one should be willing to die for the sake of being treated with the proper respect (Mengzi, 3B1). But it is important to abandon what is ritually proper when the ritual would cause you to deviate from the Way: “It is the ritual that men and women should not touch… but if your sister-in-law is drowning, to pull her out with your hand is a matter of discretion” (4A17).

So according to Mengzi, becoming an honorable person means developing our faculties of discretion, which will help us to make decisions (and, importantly, to form our motivations) in accordance with the Way. Mengzi’s teachings in themselves don’t correspond with the Way, and neither does ritual propriety. Both are methods to help his students cultivate the discretion needed to see what’s truly right.

The takeaway from this for me is that you can have a coherent system of morality without requiring that every action you take be backed up by rational reasoning. If moral obligations exist outside the natural world, then perhaps they’re things that can’t be well-described through a system of rules the same way physical laws can. And maybe utilitarianism and deontology are mistaken in assuming there is a set of abstract rules that describe morality, and what each of us should truly aim for is becoming wise enough that we no longer need hard-and-fast rules to guide us.