Analects 14.27: 憲問 (Xian Wen)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 14 tests ethical judgment in public life. Salary, courage, accomplished speech, and a reputation for virtue each prove incomplete measures of a person. The arguments about Guan Zhong ask how benefits to many people should weigh against a demand for personal fidelity. Accounts of officeholders, messengers, and failed appeals make responsibility concrete: competent service can sustain a flawed ruler, and a duty to speak can survive refusal. Short sayings turn from judging others toward learning, ability, and the relation between words and deeds. The later encounters press the choice between persistence and withdrawal when others offer no recognition. The dialogue with Zilu gives self-cultivation an expanding aim, ending in peace for all the people; the closing scenes test conduct through bodily bearing and the desire to seem grown before the work is done.
Analects 14.27
子曰、不在其位、不謀其政。
The Master said, “If you do not hold the office, do not plan its affairs.”
Commentary
politics Planning follows responsibility This entire saying also appears at 8.14. 位 is the office held, and 其政 is the business belonging to it. Here the following saying extends the same boundary to thought. Read beside 14.22, the book distinguishes responsibility attached to one’s standing from a general permission to manage every public matter.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high