The Analects states the distinction yi is built around directly: the junzi understands yi, the small person understands li, using here a different word li, profit or personal advantage, not the li of ritual propriety among the other Five Constants, an unfortunate homophone in translation that the Chinese characters themselves keep entirely distinct. Confucius is recorded holding that wealth and status gained without yi are to him like floating clouds, present and even attractive but insubstantial and not worth compromising principle to obtain, framing the virtue less as a specific list of required acts than as a standing disposition to ask what is right in a given situation independent of what it costs or returns to the person acting. Mencius develops the term further into one of his own core concepts, pairing it constantly with ren as the two virtues most necessary to good government, arguing in his dialogues with King Hui of Liang against the king's own opening question about what profit he might bring the state, insisting a ruler who leads with yi rather than li, profit, secures loyalty and stability that mere calculation of advantage cannot durably produce.
Later commentators frequently pair ren and yi together as a compound, describing a person of true moral achievement as possessing both in equal and inseparable measure, since benevolence without a corresponding sense of what is right risks becoming indulgence, while rightness without benevolence risks hardening into rigid, uncaring severity.