Analects 15.35: 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 15.35
子曰、當仁、不讓於師。
The Master said, “In practicing humaneness, do not yield even to your teacher.”
Commentary
ethics A duty one cannot hand over 當仁 places a person in the situation of practicing humaneness, and 不讓 refuses the usual act of yielding. The teacher is the strongest case: even that respected relationship cannot transfer away the learner’s responsibility to act. The force falls on taking up the task oneself.
Basis: textual-inference
Confidence: medium