Cheng Yi’s Moral Philosophy

Abstract

Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107), also known as Cheng Yichuan 伊川, and his brother Cheng Hao 程顥 (1032–1085), are often referred to as “the two Chengs” (er Cheng 二程). They are both identified with the group known as the Five Masters of the (Northern) Song period (with the other three being Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤 [1016–1073], Zhang Zai 張載 [1020–1077], and Shao Yong 邵庸 [1011–1077]). To the extent that Neo-Confucian philosophy can be characterized as the learning of li (li xue 理學, normally translated as “principle”), as it is most commonly called in contemporary Chinese scholarship, the two brothers can be properly credited as its founders: it is only in their philosophy that li obtains its central position for the first time. Thus, in comparison with classical Confucian philosophy, Neo-Confucian philosophy has a more fully developed metaphysics. However, moral life is still the central concern for Neo-Confucians as for classical Confucians. The metaphysics they develop is to provide an ontological articulation of classical Confucian values, and so it is essentially a moral metaphysics. Thus, in this essay on Cheng Yi, I focus on his moral philosophy, paying particular attention to such issues as why be moral, whether one can be moral, how to be moral, the possibility of a virtue politics, and moral metaphysics.