Analects 15.27: 衛靈公 (Wei Ling Gong)
Confucius and his disciples · Classical Chinese original · new English translation and commentary by Text Atlas
Overview
Book 15 tests exemplary conduct under pressure: hunger, going unrecognized, bad government, and the pull of clever speech. Its sayings ask how learning becomes judgment, how humaneness directs action, and how ritual gives that action form. The portraits of unwavering straightness and timely withdrawal leave room for different responses to public disorder. Praise must answer to examination, and responsibility repeatedly returns to oneself. Short assurances sit beside difficult tensions about reputation and the cost of humaneness. The book closes with the Master guiding a visitor through a room, giving the call for consideration a precise human setting.
Analects 15.27
子曰、眾惡之、必察焉、眾好之、必察焉。
The Master said, “When the crowd hates someone, you must look into it; when the crowd likes someone, you must look into it.”
Commentary
ethics Inspect both verdicts The same 必察, “must look into it,” follows dislike and liking. Agreement among many people supplies a judgment to examine, whichever direction it takes. The balance prevents the warning from becoming a rule merely to oppose popular praise or to disregard popular blame.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: high