• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• no.115
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• pp.1-29
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• 2016

I will critically argue the Mencian idea of sharing pleasure with the people in the light of happiness as emotion. Happiness as a subjective mental state can make troubles with good life in being at odds with real lives. Thus, what pursues genuine happiness goes back to a classical question of how one ought to live for good life over the subjective mental state. For this, I will focus on concepts of 'pleasure alone (tongnak)' and 'sharing pleasure with the people(yeomin-dongnak)', which can be seen in the dialogue between Mencius and King Xuan of Qi. I will show that king Xuan's pleasure as subjective happiness has discord with his good life because of the hierarchy of his desire. I will explain how to unify good life with pleasant one by the idea of sharing pleasure with the people provided by Mencius and examine certain dynamics of sympathy and mutual understanding under solidarity. Moreover, I will investigate how such power of sympathy as compassion can be connected with sharing pleasure with the people. Compassion and yeomin-dongnak can be captured by the golden rule of a measure to gauge others(shu). I will delve into how to differ from one another and summarize Confucian idea of yeomin-dongnak as happiness in terms of the theoretical frame related to good life(welfare). I briefly conclude how subjective happiness can contribute to making our lives better.