标题：Weakness of Will in theMencius?

讲者：新加坡南洋理工大学助理教授Winnie Sung（宋晓竹）

时间：4月28日（周二）晚上19：00

地点：哲学学院南楼小报告厅

摘要：

This paper explores the weakness of will problem in theMencius. It is first noted that unlike the traditional analytic approach that explains the problem in terms of how an agent’s beliefs fail to connect with her desires, the weakness of problem for Mencius, if there is any, has more to do with how certain emotional dispositions are related to moral actions. Hence, when I discuss the “weakness of will” problem in theMencius, the problem is one about how one fails to translate certain emotional dispositions into actions. However, as this paper shows, even if we recast the problem, it is still unclear if there is a weakness of will problem in theMencius. This is because there are at least two possible ways of understanding why one does not act morally even though one is endowed with the four sprouts (四端). On one possible reading, there seems to be a peculiarly Mencian-type of weakness of will problem. One a second possible reading, the problem dissolves because one’s moral failure would be the corollary of weak dispositions rather than a weak will that fails to translate the dispositions into action.