Moral Knowledge and Moral Motivation in Wang Yangming's Psychology of the Mind—From the Perspective of the Function of Consciece
This paper analyses Wang Yangming's earlier claim of the unity of knowledge and action and his later doctrine of conscience from the perspective of comparative philosophy,pointing out that Wang Yangming's central point is how moral knowledge gives rise to moral motivation.It then explains the mechanism of conscience and proposes a model of moral motivation in Wang Yangming's psychology of mind in the light of contemporary discussions of moral psychology.This paper combs through the modern interpretations of Wang Yangming's thesis of the unity of knowledge and action by various scholars such as Qian Mu,Feng Youlan,Chen Lai and Huang Yong,and finds that it contains three different paths of understanding,namely,the metaphysical thesis,the epistemological thesis,and the metaethical thesis.This paper suggests that the divergence lies in how the practical element of moral knowledge is understood,and that such an account can only be pertinent if it is developed within the framework of gongfutheory or virtue ethics towards the sages.At the same time,this paper clarifies the different levels of meaning of the concept of conscience based on analyses of Wang Yangming's texts in the context of contemporary interpretations,showing that conscience in Wang Yangming's texts is moral knowledge,moral capacity,and even moral ontology that is both universal and innate,immanent and transcendent.This paper argues that the doctrine of conscience embodies the integration of the three paths of understanding of the unity of knowledge and action,in which the relationship between moral knowledge and moral motivation,especially the explanation of"to intend is to act",is the core of grasping the thesis of the unity of knowledge and action and the doctrine of conscience.The paper understands the relationship between moral knowledge and moral motivation in Wang Yangming's philosophy of mind by reference to the internalist-externalist,Humeanism-anti-Humeanism debates on moral motivation in contemporary Western metaethics,and examines the possibility of interpreting conscience as a belief-desire(i.e.,a state of mind mixing beliefs and desires).This paper suggests that understanding the working of conscience as a process of self-expansion and realization of moral consciousness,i.e.,knowing is the self-expression of conscience,and acting is the self-expansion of conscience,not only explains the practical character of moral knowledge,i.e.,how moral knowledge generates motivation,but also explains how the gongfu is used to sharpen and cultivate moral sensitivity through the cultivation of moral emotions and ultimately lead to the development of virtues.This paper also illustrates this by combining different theoretical models of moral motivation in contemporary moral psychology.At this point,we areable to present a functional argument for Wang Yangming's fundamental claim of the unity of knowledge and action and conscience,which encompasses the three dimensions of motivation,practical knowledge and character.The paper shows that the argument does provides a hybrid model of moral motivation that approximates,but is different frominternalism,and that this leads to a discourse on virtue ethics that is grounded in the interactivity of moral perception and moral emotion.
unity of knowledge and actionconsciencemoral knowledgemoral motivation
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