John Kennedy B.

Diaz
Chinese Philosophy

July 13, 2015

MENCIUS AND HSUN TZUS CONCEPT OF MAN

Menciuss concept of man
Mencius believes that humans are inherently good. He believed that righteousness was
determined by age; whereas, benevolence is internal because its a feeling determined by
oneself.1 Also, he suggested that all men are born good and, that with time and proper training,
can become perfect. Mencius believed that people who are left to their original nature or that
follow their gut feelings are able to do good. People are not naturally inclined to do evil. If they
do, it's because of their upbringing.2 He also believed in the "Four Beginnings." The four
beginnings are commiseration (sympathy and empathy), shame and dislike, obedience and
compliance, and right and wrong.3 He said that a person without these traits is not really a person
at all.

Hsun Tzu's concept of man

Hsun Tzu's philosophies directly contradicted those of Mencius and had a great effect on the
Chinese legal system. Hsun Tzu believed that man's nature is always selfish. He said that every
man is born with "feelings of envy and hatred... and with desires of the eyes and ears."4 He also
said that if humans indulge their nature that their lives will be difficult and any who do so will
inevitably become a criminal. He disagreed with Mencius in saying that man's good acts are
results of conscious effort rather than their nature. He claimed that nature is what is given from
Heaven and cannot be learned or acquired through effort. This opposed conscious activity, which
can be learned and applied through effort.5
Hsun Tzu had a very different idea of the nature of humans. Unlike Mencius, Hsun Tzu believed
that all humans were born evil. Tzu also believed man was born with the nature to want to be
profitable. If man indulged in this they would never earn the chance to be good.
Both Mencius and Hsun Tzu seem to have fairly reasonable arguments for their points of view
on human nature. 6Mencius believes that humans, by nature, are in all ways good, while Tzu
believes that humans are actually the opposite of that, evil. In an exerpt from Mencius work,

1 https://kabata.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/mencius-and-hsun-tzu/
2 https://sites.google.com/site/ismangoodorevil/opposing-views
3 Ibid.
4 https://kabata.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/mencius-and-hsun-tzu/
5 Ibid.
6 https://wcarrasco33.wordpress.com/2008/09/13/mencius-v-hsun-tzu/

Mencius, he has a conversation with a couple of his peers and expresses how he gives honor to
those who are superior to him and how he practices acts of good.7
In Tzus work, Mans Nature Is Evil, he contradicts what Mencius says and states that if people
were by nature good, then there would be no need for kings and ritual principles. He then goes
on to say that man is in a way selfish for giving in to their animal instincts.
As Mencius is known for the slogan "human nature is good," Xunzi is known for its opposite,
human nature is bad. Mencius viewed self-cultivation as developing natural tendencies within
us. Xunzi believes that our natural tendencies lead to conflict and disorder, and what we need to
do is radically reform them, not develop them. Both shared an optimism about human
perfectability, but they viewed the process quite differently. Xunzi envisioned that humanity was
once in a state of nature reminiscent of Hobbes. Without study of the Way, people's desires will
run rampant, and they will inevitably find themselves in conflict in trying to satisfy their desires.
Left to themselves, people will fall into disorder, poverty and conflict, living a life that would be,
as Hobbes put it, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. It was this insistence that human nature is bad
that was most often condemned by later thinkers, who rejected Xunzis view in favor of the idea,
traced to Mencius, that people are naturally good.

7 Ibid.