Defending For The Explanation Of Mencius From The Perspective Of Rational Virtue Ethics

This thesis focuses on the question of whether Mencius' s moral attitude of virtue belongs to sentimentalism or rationalism.This paper begins with the argument between the study of David Wong?CraigK.Ihara)and Myeong-seok Kim,which is about the relationship between reason and emotion in Mencius' ethics.My conclusion is that in Mencius' s ethics the relationship of reason and emotion is not separated,and Mencius is not a pure Hume-style emotionist,he attaches great importance to the role of reason.Then I analyze some problems exist in the sentimentalistic virtue ethics itself,and then mainly from Slott's point of view to point out its problems in the Hume-style emotionalism way to interpret Mencius' virtue ethics,in order to argue that the sentimentalistic virtue ethics way to explain Mencius' s ethics exist many shortcomings.And finally,I study the comparative study of rationalist virtue ethics and Mencius ethics,which is from Bryan Van Norden' work.I make a summary and express my views to his work.Then through my supplement to argue that it's better to use rationalism vietue ethics to explain Mencius' virtue ethics than using sentimentalistic virtue ethics,and point out that the profits of Aritotle rationalism virtue ethic's way to explain Mencius' ethics.