 Earlier scholars such as Yun Hyu (1617–1680) and Pak Sedang (1629–1703) had dared to be critical of Zhu Xi’s interpretations of texts and rituals, but Mark Setton (1997: 102–103) notes how Tasan took this to another level, arguing that even his conception of Confucian virtue was “diametrically opposed” to Zhu Xi’s. Setton also notes how Tasan even rejected the introspective aspects of self-cultivation, advocating an outward ethical practice based on our moral priorities. This then is contingent upon free will, a radical idea in Tasan’s work, where good and evil are not aspects of one’s material force, but rather, related to the psychological level, and only exist “in the context of concrete human relations” (Setton 1989: 380). Free will is then the defining feature of the human being because