The Limits of Moral Maturity

Abstract

In Analects 15.19 Confucius states, “The profound person is concerned with lacking ability; [he] is not concerned with others not recognizing him.” 1 In seeming contrast to this, in Analects 15.20 Confucius states, “The profound person worries that he will leave this generation without his name being praised.” While Amy Olberding does not explicitly discuss these two passages in her article, her primary issue of concern is entangled with such a comparison—namely, how do we make sense of Confucius’ dismissal of prosaic goods such as a reputation on the one hand, while at the same time taking into account his concern (or complaints) with not achieving them on the other? Said somewhat differently, how do we understand Confucius’ statements that say, for instance, “[I] do not resent heaven” (Analects 14.35), while also giving due attention to his more spontaneous remarks in the narrative depictions of his life that say things such as, “Heaven has forsaken me” (Analects 11.9)? Olberding addresses this issue by referring to two pre-theoretical sensibilities associated with the good life—those “elements that contribute to our personal happiness and well-being,” which she calls “the desirable”; and the “character and conduct that we... esteem worthy of admiration,” which she calls “the admirable” (Olberding 2013: 419). She explains that these two sensibilities can, in fact, come apart in the complexities of life. The figure of Confucius, as found in the Analects, is intriguing because he has “unknotted the tangle of desires in a self-conscious decision to seek his primary good in the admirable” (Olberding 2013: 427). In other words, when recognizing his limitations on achieving the desirable, Confucius prioritizes the admirable. Moral maturity, the central concept of Olberding’s article, is the means by Dao (2015) 14:567–572 DOI 10.1007/s11712-015-9468-4