A basis for action
Li Ren describes the exemplary person as approaching affairs without a fixed predisposition for or against and aligning with yi. It also contrasts understanding rightness with understanding advantage. Yi functions as a criterion that cannot be reduced to immediate gain.
Wei Zheng connects failure to do what one recognizes as right with a lack of courage; Wei Ling Gong makes rightness the exemplary person’s substance. Recognition and action are therefore separate demands: identifying a fitting course is not the same as carrying it out.
Is rightness internal or external?
Gaozi I records a dispute in which Gaozi calls humaneness internal and rightness external. He appeals to respect for an elder: age belongs to the person outside oneself. Mengzi asks whether yi refers to that age or to the respect one actively gives.
Further exchanges introduce an elder brother, a neighbour and a participant occupying a ritual role. They dispute how respect should operate across changing relationships. The issue concerns the relation between responses, judgment and social circumstances, not merely rival dictionary definitions.
References: [4]
Conflicts involving gain and survival
In the comparison between fish and bear’s paw, Mengzi moves from familiar choices to cases where life and rightness cannot both be retained. He then discusses food offered insultingly and a large official income, asking why someone might reject one benefit yet abandon judgment for another.
These examples argue for an ethical position rather than reporting that everyone actually makes the same choice. Yi in this setting should also be distinguished from modern legal rights or duties and from loyalty to companions alone.
References: [4]