Mencius vs. Xunzi

C

Cypress

Well-known member
Mencius: humans are born inherently good.

Xunzi: humans are inherently bad and in need of serious remedy by learning, nurturing, reflection.


Mencius (4th century BCE Confucian philosopher) felt strongly that people were born good. Goodness was always there—for everyone, from the beginning and to the core
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Mencius writes: "When I say that no person lacks a heart-and-mind that cannot endure others’ distress, it is for this reason. Imagine a person who sees a little child about to fall down into a well. He could not endure what was about to happen. His compassion was. not a result of wanting the good will of the child’s parents, nor was it because he wanted the acclaim of his peers, and not even because of his aversion to the child’s cries."


Xunzi (3rd century BCE Confucian philosopher) voiced the polar opposite view, that human beings were born flawed and in need of serious remedy. Only through years of nurturing, learning, and reflection, Xunzi believed, could people undo the bad nature with which they were born.

Xunzi writes: "Mencius said that people’s capacity to learn is evidence that their nature is good. I disagree. His statement shows he does not know what human nature is and has not pondered the distinction between human nature and what is created by human beings. Human nature is what Heaven supplies. It cannot be learned or worked at. Ritual and moral principles were produced by the sages; they are things people can master by study and effort…."



Source credit: Robert André LaFleur, Ph.D. Professor of History and Anthropology, Beloit College
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Unfortunately, there is something to be said for Xunzi.

My adventures on JPP teaches me that without moral cultivation and self reflection, humans are inherently bad. The sheer amount of pathological lying, blatant racism, blustering belligerence, unrepentant slander, and ubiquitous character defamation widely found on JPP does not speak well for humanity.

And that is before we even get around to considering holocausts, gulags, and ethnic cleansings.
 
Jack said:
Have no idea who these guys are. :(
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join the club.

I did not know who Mencius was five years ago, and I only leaned Xunzi about two months ago.

Mencius was the Chinese intellectual who actually introduced Confucianism to Chinese civilization broadly.

He was to Confucius the way Paul was to Jesus.

There is no reason your garden variety westerner would know Xunzi, but he was a prominent Confucian scholar in the 2nd century.

The questions they raise about human nature though are eternal.
 
Cypress said:
join the club.

I did not know who Mencius was five years ago, and I only leaned Xunzi about two months ago.

Mencius was the Chinese intellectual who actually introduced Confucianism to Chinese civilization broadly.

He was to Confucius the way Paul was to Jesus.

There is no reason your garden variety westerner would know Xunzi, but he was a prominent Confucian scholar in the 2nd century.

The questions they raise about human nature though are eternal.
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Well, one:
I have no idea how 'Paul was to Jesus'.
And, two:
I'm not sure there are any 'Questions' left about Human Nature. We're all self-centered and have self-interest as our main goal.
 
"Tabula rasa
Tabula rasa is the theory that individuals are born without built-in mental content, and therefore all knowledge comes from experience or perception. Epistemological proponents of tabula rasa disagree with the doctrine of innatism, which holds that the mind is born already in possession of certain knowledge.Wikipedia"

I agree with the 'DNA roll-of-the-dice' theory. We are all born with certain characteristics. Anybody watch 'Twins'?



 
BidenPresident said:
Neither. We're born.
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I do not think that answers it.

Tigers are born.
Dolphins are born.

As far as I can tell, humans are born with an inherent penchant for unbridled violence, which we seemingly have to restrain by reflection, learning, social sanction.

Animals will kill for food or rarely to advantage their DNA in the gene pool. But I really do not think intelligent species like whales and dolphins have an equivalent to Holocausts, Rwandas, ethnic cleansing, mass murder.
 
Cypress said:
I do not think that answers it.

Tigers are born.
Dolphins are born.

As far as I can tell, humans are born with an inherent penchant for unbridled violence, which we seemingly have to restrain by reflection, learning, social sanction.

Animals will kill for food or to advantage their DNA in the gene pool. I really do not think whales and dolphins have an equivalent to Holocausts, Rwandas, ethnic cleansing, mass murder.
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Humans are animals. We are neither morally good nor morally bad.
 
Jack said:
Well, one:
I have no idea how 'Paul was to Jesus'.
And, two:
I'm not sure there are any 'Questions' left about Human Nature. We're all self-centered and have self-interest as our main goal.
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I do not see self interest explaining it.

Millions of people participated in, or condoned, the implementation of the holocaust and other genocides with no direct profit or material motive to themselves as individuals. A lot of them seemed to just enjoy indulging their hate, xenophobia, and sado-masochism.

I do not see that level of unrestrained and irrational violence in other intelligent animal species.
 
Cypress said:
I do not see self interest explaining it.

Millions of people participated in, or condoned, the implementation of the holocaust and other genocides with no direct profit or material motive to themselves as individuals. A lot of them seemed to just enjoy indulging their hate, xenophobia, and sado-masochism.

I do not see that level of unrestrained and irrational violence in other intelligent animal species.
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When I was a child I saw my gerbil eat her baby. That taught me a lot.
 
Cypress said:
I do not think that answers it.

Tigers are born.
Dolphins are born.

As far as I can tell, humans are born with an inherent penchant for unbridled violence, which we seemingly have to restrain by reflection, learning, social sanction.

Animals will kill for food or rarely to advantage their DNA in the gene pool. But I really do not think intelligent species like whales and dolphins have an equivalent to Holocausts, Rwandas, ethnic cleansing, mass murder.
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This recent article is not exactly your question, but I think it is relevant to how we talk about morality:

"What do we lose by giving up morality? As an amoralist, I continue to prize what is beautiful, or good, or interesting, or virtuous – in the morally neutral sense of the Greek term aretē. I daresay I care about most of the things that many moral people care about. That includes the wellbeing of others, as well as my own. What I give up is above all the convoluted process of sorting my reasons into moral and non-moral.

I have plenty of reasons to be kind, not to cheat or lie, just as I have reasons to read some books rather than others or travel here rather than there. Why worry about which of those reasons are ‘moral’?"

https://aeon.co/essays/five-reasons-why-moral-philosophy-is-distracting-and-harmful
 
BidenPresident said:
This recent article is not exactly your question, but I think it is relevant to how we talk about morality:

"What do we lose by giving up morality? As an amoralist, I continue to prize what is beautiful, or good, or interesting, or virtuous – in the morally neutral sense of the Greek term aretē. I daresay I care about most of the things that many moral people care about. That includes the wellbeing of others, as well as my own. What I give up is above all the convoluted process of sorting my reasons into moral and non-moral.

I have plenty of reasons to be kind, not to cheat or lie, just as I have reasons to read some books rather than others or travel here rather than there. Why worry about which of those reasons are ‘moral’?"

https://aeon.co/essays/five-reasons-why-moral-philosophy-is-distracting-and-harmful
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Thanks. But I think all humans can say unequivocally that murder is bad and compassion is good, relativism aside..

Humans are unique among animals for the unbridled irrational violence we engage in, and some humans seemingly enjoy it simply on the basis of hate and sado-masochism.

I do really see an equivalent in the dolphin world or the penguin world.

Xunzi claims that our violent and dangerous human nature is what Heaven supplies. It cannot be learned or worked at. Ritual and moral principles were produced by the sages; they are things people can master by study and effort. According to Xunzi, we restrain our violent human nature by ritual and learning.

I think there is a kernel of truth to that.
 
Flash said:
Novels that examine different sides of this issue are "Lord of the Flies" and "Walden II".
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For sure. Literature and pop culture have always explored the nature of the balance between light and dark in human nature.

Star Trek presented an optimistic, idealistic version of human nature.

Solzhenitsyn definitely wrote about the struggle between good and evil in the human heart, and like other survivors of the Gulag or the Holocaust, he probably saw the line separating good from evil in humanity in a way most of us do not.

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains ... an unuprooted small corner of evil.

Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
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Cypress said:
join the club.

I did not know who Mencius was five years ago, and I only leaned Xunzi about two months ago.

Mencius was the Chinese intellectual who actually introduced Confucianism to Chinese civilization broadly.

He was to Confucius the way Paul was to Jesus.

There is no reason your garden variety westerner would know Xunzi, but he was a prominent Confucian scholar in the 2nd century.

The questions they raise about human nature though are eternal.
Click to expand...

I credit Confucias with authoring the Golden Rule!

And If everyone would just practice that one rule- We would not need the 10 commandments, prisons, or even most of the laws on the books today!

It is the most overlooked and most violated rule in the world!
 
Geeko Sportivo said:
I credit Confucias with authoring the Golden Rule!

And If everyone would just practice that one rule- We would not need the 10 commandments, prisons, or even most of the laws on the books today!

It is the most overlooked and most violated rule in the world!
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That is one of my favorite little factoids about Confucius; he articulated a version of the golden rule 500 years before Jesus of Nazareth.
 
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