The Moral Self and the Perfect Self in Aristotle and Mencius

Required Reading: https://booksc.org/book/8942708/08daac

Read Section 1( around 6 pages). Other sections are optional readings.

"Section I compares Aristotle’s ergon argument with Mencius’s theory
that human nature is good. These two theories respectively provide the
natural basis for Aristotle’s and Mencius’s ethics. Both Aristotle and
Mencius start from the defining characteristic of being human, and then
show that the ultimate human good is the full development of that characteristic.
Mencius’s position regarding innate human goodness is wellknown.
But it seems that Aristotle is also suggesting in his ergon argument
that human nature has its innate goodness in rationality.
Section II and III show the roles that the ergon argument and the theory
of goodness of human nature play respectively in these two ethical
theories. Both Aristotle and Mencius show that there is a distance
between the moral self and the perfect self in the cultivation of a virtuous
self. Both agree that morality itself is not the end. Section II deals
with the moral self, and Section III with the perfect self. Whereas the
moral self is tied up with social value, the perfect self is the full
actualization of what is distinctively human. For Mencius, the perfection of the
self is a state of oneness with heaven, whereas for Aristotle, it is a state
of contemplation, of being one wit h God. Thus, in contrast to what is
usually believed, the unity between man and heaven does not seem to
be unique to oriental philosophy.
Section IV shows that these two theories suggest different views
about the relation between the moral self and the perfect self. Whereas
for Mencius the moral self is a stage on the way to the state of the
perfect self, for Aristotle, the perfect self is in tension with the moral self, as
is shown in his two notions of eudaimonia. Thus, Mencius and Aristotle
offer two different versions of the theory that Susan Wolf hopes to
develop. To identify the main issue within the space of this article, I must
drive through many controversial passages in both Mencius and Aristotle,
but perhaps the synoptic picture I present will compensate for this."