Category Archives: Emotions

Louis CK and Mengzi

This clip (below) from Louis CK’s most recent interview on Conan made a splash on social networks.  The whole thing is pretty funny, but the first minute or so reminded me of Mencius 1A7.

Part of what prevents the king in 1A7 from becoming a genuine king in that passage is his disconnect from his subjects.  He feels the suffering of the ox and this tugs at his sprout of compassion.  By contrast, he doesn’t see the suffering of his subjects, so he feels no sympathy for them and fails to treat them benevolently.

Louis CK raises the same general issue for children today and cellphone use. Continue reading →

Against Empathy

The following article in this week’s New Yorker by Yale psychologist Paul Bloom has been circulating in social networks:

The Baby in the Well: The Case Against Empathy

Despite what many of us on this blog might initially wonder, the title of the paper does not refer to Mencius’s famous thought experiment.  (Instead, it refers to the famous case of an actual child in a well that led to a worldwide media circus in the 1980s.)  Nonetheless, the article may be of interest to those of us working in Confucian ethics and moral psychology.

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AAR “Religions in Chinese and Indian Cultures” Group CFP: Emotions

Dear colleagues,

AAR CFP deadline (March 1) is fast approaching. Here is the CFP of our group:

“This Group wishes to explore the various representations of emotions
within the Chinese and Indian religious traditions — particularly
engaging textually with both Chinese and Indian materials. We
especially encourage presentations by a specialist in one tradition to
engage a text from the other tradition….

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CFP From AAR Confucian Traditions Group

The Confucian Traditions Group of the AAR invites proposals concerning any aspect of Confucianism from any geographical area. Topics of particular interest this coming year are:

  • Confucianism, death, and after
  • Confucian interaction with Buddhism
  • archaeological discoveries and Confucian texts
  • contemporary representations of Confucianism, post-modern Confucianism, and/or Confucius Institutes
  • roles and agency in Confucianism
  • feelings and emotions

Proposals for a panel with a well-conceived theme and structure stand the strongest chance of acceptance, whereas proposals for an individual paper do not.

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