Jin Xin I · Passage 37 / 46 · 孟子 7A.37
Mencius 7A.37: feeding without love, loving without respect
Mencius distinguishes provision, love, and respect, arguing that human relations are incomplete if they stop at feeding or even at affection without reverence.
孟子曰：「食而弗愛，豕交之也。愛而不敬，獸畜之也。恭敬者，幣之未將者也。恭敬而無實，君子不可虛拘。」
Mencius said, 'To feed a scholar and not love him, is to treat him as a pig. To love him and not respect him, is to keep him as a domestic animal. Honouring and respecting are what exist before any offering of gifts. If there be honouring and respecting without the reality of them, a superior man may not be retained by such empty demonstrations.'
Priority note
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Central question
Why does Mencius say that feeding without love is like dealing with pigs, and loving without respect is like keeping animals?
Direct answer
Because meeting bodily need alone does not yet create a human relation. Even affection without respect still treats the other as a cared-for object rather than a person who must be seriously acknowledged.
First principle
Human relationship is completed not by provision alone, nor by feeling alone, but by respect that recognizes the other as a person of weight.
Why it matters
This passage serves searches around respect, care, and Mencius on human relations. It sharply differentiates levels of relation in a way highly translatable into modern ethics.
Further reading
What this passage is doing
This is passage 37 of 46 in Jin Xin I. The cleanest entry point is "To feed a scholar and not love him,…". In context, it works as part of Mencius's argument about exhausting the heart, sincerity, and preserving the original heart and can be read alongside Human nature.
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Jin Xin I centers on exhausting the heart, sincerity, and preserving the capacities already given in the human heart.
Related principles
Citation note
Do not reduce respect here to ceremonial excess. For Mencius, respect means acknowledging that the other is not livestock or property, but a person who must be seriously received.