Weighing the Way: Metaphoric Balance in Analects 9:30

The world is edgy, unstable, unbalanced. Kongzi (Confucius, 551-479 b.c.e.) taught that even studious people seeking an upright moral posture have problems when faced with difficult moral situations—at least this is what generations of later Rujia scholars ¹ thought the master taught them in Analects 9:30. As I will argue later, this is a perfect example of how difficult moral cases make casuists of all moral philosophers, in practice if not always in theory.