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    Human beings are naturally endowed with a heart sensitive... — Carmelics
    Home/Moral Responsibility
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    Human beings are naturally endowed with a heart sensitive to the suffering of others, which is the beginning of the virtue of benevolence (ren).

    Moral ResponsibilityVirtue Ethics
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.No person is devoid of a heart sensitive to the suffering of others.
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    • 2.If a man were suddenly to see a young child about to fall into a well, he would certainly be moved to compassion.
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    • 3.This compassion arises not from self-interest (gaining favor with parents, winning praise, or disliking the child's cry) but from natural feeling.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Xunzi argues that human nature is originally bad (性惡), and benevolent conduct arises only through ritual propriety and deliberate effort, not innate feeling.
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    • 2.The well-child intuition reveals a momentary affective response, not a stable disposition, and momentary responses do not constitute evidence of natural virtue.
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    • 3.If benevolence required only cultivation of an innate seed, Mencius could not explain the pervasive moral failure and cruelty observable across human history.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Hume's distinction between natural sympathy and moral virtue shows that compassion is a passion subject to partiality, distance, and habituation, not a reliable foundation for universal benevolence.
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    • 2.Moral sentimentalism of this kind conflates the genesis of a feeling with its normative authority, committing a genetic fallacy about the source of moral obligation.
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    Moral ResponsibilityVirtue Ethics

    Related

    Hume's distinction between natural sympathy and moral virtue shows that compassi...If a man were suddenly to see a young child about to fall into a well, he would ...If benevolence required only cultivation of an innate seed, Mencius could not ex...Moral sentimentalism of this kind conflates the genesis of a feeling with its no...
    +5 moreShow less
    Natural compassion, under the right conditions, develops into the virtue of ren ...No person is devoid of a heart sensitive to the suffering of others.The well-child intuition reveals a momentary affective response, not a stable di...This compassion arises not from self-interest (gaining favor with parents, winni...Xunzi argues that human nature is originally bad (性惡), and benevolent conduct ar...

    Similar

    Natural compassion, under the right conditions, develops into the virt...84%Truly virtuous people love being and benevolence.77%Human benevolence is an appropriate or fitting response to reality.76%A delight in benevolence is a perception of benevolence's spiritual be...76%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: ethics-chinese
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    What are the four beginnings of morality? In 2A6 human nature (ren xing) it is said that no person is devoid of a heart (the word for heart in Chinese stands for the seat of thinking and feeling, hence often translated as “the mind”) sensitive to the suffering of others, and to illustrate this beginning, Mencius asks us to suppose that a man were suddenly to see a young child about to fall into a well. Such a man would certainly be moved to compassion, not because he wanted to get in the good gr
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit