That is, the "alliance" between these two is not an artificial amalgamation of two discrete evaluative domains but a kind of complex affective response having both moral and aesthetic aspects, and we come to have this experience when we observe moral exemplars' demeanor and admire them (93-94). This idea is related to Olberding's claim that the moral and the aesthetic are seamlessly interrelated in the Analects. The first term was originally proposed by Nancy Sherman to capture the insight that we can develop a sense of a person's abiding character over time by observing the cumulative features of her habitual demeanor and physical bearing in various situations. In order to explain this aspect of the Analects, Olberding adopts two key concepts: "aesthetics of character" (ibid.) and "physical empathy" (116).
signals a sympathetic deference to the suffering of others." (113) For example, Olberding points out that "Confucius' solemn expression and inclined posture in his carriage when he encounters mourners.
Specifically, Olberding focuses on Confucius' physical bearing or good manners in dealing with various situations, and argues that Confucius' demeanor regulated by the rituals ( lǐ) carries a personal style that arouses admiration in observers' minds by revealing something important about his character, i.e., how he feels and what he intends to do in the situation in question. Olberding argues that while the former is often skipped in embarrassment by many contemporary interpreters of the Analects, it actually reveals important aspects of human moral development and motivation that are not well captured by the text's conceptual schemata and that would even make us reconsider some recently presented virtue-ethical accounts of Confucius' thought.
In this elegantly written book on Confucius and his Analects, Amy Olberding does a splendid job of explaining how the narrative depictions of Confucius in diverse circumstances collected in the Analects make a necessary complement to the more theoretically or conceptually oriented components of the book.
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