Jin Xin II · Passage 07 / 38 · 孟子 7B.7
Mencius 7B.7: why say that killing another person's
Mencius calls the killing of another person's father or brother especially grave because retaliation follows the same kinship line back toward oneself.
孟子曰：「吾今而後知殺人親之重也：殺人之父，人亦殺其父；殺人之兄，人亦殺其兄。然則非自殺之也，一間耳。」
Mencius said, 'From this time forth I know the heavy consequences of killing a man's near relations. When a man kills another's father, that other will kill his father; when a man kills another's elder brother, that other will kill his elder brother. So he does not himself indeed do the act, but there is only an interval between him and it.'
Priority note
A human-edited reading layer
Central question
Why does Mencius say that killing another person's father or brother nearly amounts to killing one's own?
Direct answer
Because once you unleash violence against what is dearest in another house, you also set the logic of revenge on the path back toward your own. The harm has not stopped with the victim; it has only paused before returning.
First principle
Moral responsibility includes not only the direct strike, but the foreseeable chain of retaliation one sets in motion.
Why it matters
This passage serves searches around kinship, revenge, and the recursive cost of violence in Mencius, while strengthening the site's treatment of how moral injury spreads through relations.
Further reading
What this passage is doing
This is passage 7 of 38 in Jin Xin II. The cleanest entry point is "From this time forth I know the heavy…". In context, it works as part of Mencius's argument about knowing words, knowing destiny, and the completion of cultivation and can be read alongside Flood-like qi, Human nature.
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Related principles
Citation note
Do not read it as fatalistic karma alone. Mencius is analyzing a structure: attack what is thickest in another family and the same structure carries the blow back to yours.