『맹자』의 용(勇)

Courage in Mencius: A Virtue of the Supreme Gentleman as a New Political Man

It is said that Mengzi has been evaluated by way of virtuous king(wangdao). If the premise is to achieve wangdao as a final aim, Mengzi should assume the special political man possible to do it. From this Mengzi had to add new typed man with practical power to confucian type of man named Gentleman(Junzi). That is the Supreme Gentleman( Daizhangfu). Mengzi succeeded to create a new political man who had praxis to be moral man by conceptualizing Supreme Gentleman. Supreme Gentleman consisted in Being not moved in heart(Budongxin) and Great flood of the vital force(haoran zhiqu). The praxis of both those is the Courage(Yong). In the context of these conceptualization, the philosophical originality of Mengzi's thought is to re-establish new political man named Supreme Gentleman with being not moved in heart. Will(Zhi) is the trigger of convert vital force(qi) into virtue(de). Courage on Mengzi is a new political virtue which be necessary to new political man. This means that new political virtue transform the ruler and subjects into new political man possible to do rational choice. Mengzi's benevolent government is a rational heuristic based on the reciprocal relationship of the ruler with the ruled.