Mencius on Moral Dilemmas: 捨生取義 孟子
Updated: Aug 28
My Favorite Mencian Teaching of All Times
What makes a good person choose differently than a person of lesser character?
The Chinese philosopher Mencius thought deeply about the choices people make when facing a moral dilemma. He believed that what we choose can reveal what matters most to us.
When I was younger, I learned from Mencius how virtuous people make difficult choices. He begins with a simple example: choosing between two things we want.
孟子曰：「魚，我所欲也，熊掌，亦我所欲也；二者不可得兼，舍魚而取熊掌者也。」Mencius said, “I want both fish and bear paw. But if I cannot have both, I would give up the fish and choose the bear paw.”
Then he takes this simple choice and turns it into a much more serious one:
生亦我所欲也，義亦我所欲也；二者不可得兼，舍生而取義者也。I want to live, and I want to do what's right. But if I cannot have both, I would give up life and choose what's right.
The Chinese word 義 (yì) here means what is morally right. Mencius is asking what happens when staying alive and doing what is right can no longer go together. If we truly cannot have both, which one matters more?
He continues:
生亦我所欲，所欲有甚於生者，故不為苟得也；死亦我所惡，所惡有甚於死者，故患有所不辟也。I want to live, but there is something I want more than life. So I will not stay alive by doing what is wrong. I don't want to die, but there is something I want even less than death. So there are dangers I will not avoid.
Mencius is not saying that life does not matter. He wants to live, and he does not want to die. But those are not the only things that matter. There are circumstances in which staying alive would require doing something he believes is wrong. When that happens, simply staying alive is no longer his highest concern.
He then asks us to think through the logic:
如使人之所欲莫甚於生，則凡可以得生者，何不用也？使人之所惡莫甚於死者，則凡可以辟患者，何不為也？If nothing mattered more to people than staying alive, wouldn't they use every possible means to stay alive? If nothing were worse than death, wouldn't they do whatever they could to avoid danger?
If survival mattered more to us than anything else, we'd do whatever it took to stay alive. But Mencius points out that this isn't how people actually behave:
由是則生而有不用也，由是則可以辟患而有不為也。Yet there are ways to stay alive that people do not use, and there are things they could do to avoid danger that they do not do.
Why would someone refuse a way to survive? Why would someone face danger when it could be avoided?
For Mencius, the answer is that something else can matter more.
是故所欲有甚於生者，所惡有甚於死者。非獨賢者有是心也，人皆有之，賢者能勿喪耳。So there is something people want more than life and something they want even less than death.Virtuous people aren't the only ones who have this heart. Everyone has it. The difference is simply that virtuous people can keep it.
This last point is important. Mencius does not say that virtuous people are born with something the rest of us do not have. Everyone has this heart. The difference is that virtuous people are able to keep it.
To me, this changes the question. Instead of asking only, "What do I want right now?" we can ask, "What matters to me more?"
We often face choices between things we value. Most of these choices are nowhere near as extreme as choosing between life and doing what is right. But the same kind of reasoning can still help us.
For example, I may want to prove that I am right in an argument. But I may want peace more. If I cannot have both, I have to decide which matters more to me.
Mencius's lesson reminds me that making a wise choice does not always mean giving up what I want. Sometimes it means recognizing that I want something else even more.
