Following

the Dao
Week 5: Mencius

Overview
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Recap
Background to the Mencius
Hearts of goodness
Expansion
Human nature
Humans and animals
Fate?

Recap

The Mohists
Inclusive care
Fatalism
Motivation
Fatalism in the Analects?

Overview
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Recap
Background to the Mencius
Hearts of goodness
Expansion
Human nature
Humans and animals
Fate?

Background
The second major Confucian text of the Warring
States period
Since the Song Dynasty, seen as the orthodox
continuation of Confuciuss ideas
Similar to the Analects, mostly quotes Mencius,
often in conversation with others
o But: many more extended exchanges than in the Analects
o It also includes many passages that just quote Mencius

Also like the Analects, probably put together by

Menciuss followers after his death
Possibly parts of it were written decades after his
death

Background
Menciusactive in the second half of the third
century BCE
Supposed to have been a student of Confuciuss
grandson Zisi
Most famous: the slogan that human nature is
good
We can also say: stressed thinking ( ) rather
than study ( )
Also deeply influenced by the Mohists, especially
in its concept of benevolent government ( )

Overview
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Recap
Background to the Mencius
Hearts of goodness
Expansion
Human nature
Humans and animals
Fate?

The child by the well

...

Here is why I say that people all have hearts that do not tolerate the suffering
of others. Suppose people suddenly see an infant about to fall in a well. They
will all have hearts of alarm and compassion. It is not a means to establish
relations with the infant's father and mother. It is not a means to seek praise
among village groups and friends. They do not feel that way because they hate
the sound. Looking at it this way, those without a heart of compassion are not
human A heart of compassion is the beginning of benevolence People have
these four beginnings like they have four limbs. With these four beginnings, if
they call themselves unable, they injure themselvesIn general, when those of
us who have the four beginnings within ourselves know to expand and fulfill
them all, it is like a fire beginning to burn or a spring beginning to well up. If
only one can fulfill them, it is enough to protect the four seas. If only one does
not fulfill them, it is not enough to serve one's parents. (2A/6)

The other hearts

Those without a heart of compassion are not human,

those without a heart of shame are not human, those
without a heart of deference are not human, and those
without a heart of judgment are not human. A heart of
compassion is the beginning of benevolence. A heart of
shame is the beginning of righteousness. A heart of
deference is the beginning of ritual. A heart of judgment is
the beginning of wisdom. People have these four
beginnings like they have four limbs. (2A/6; see also 6A/6)

King Xuan and the ox

Mencius 1A/7
The king sees an ox being led away to be sacrificed,
and cannot bear it: trembling in fear, like a
guiltless person being sent to the execution ground
Mencius takes this to show that he has a heart that
will enable him to protect the people
To do this he must reapply the kindness he showed
to the ox, so that he will be kind to his people
instead
This is easy: the kings failure is a case of not doing
( ), not of being unable ( )

King Xuan and the ox

The basic view here is a lot like 2A/6: we have
goodness within us, it can be revealed in certain
spontaneous reactions, but we must then decide
what to do with it
The kings kindness to the ox was inappropriate
(the ox should have been sacrificed), so the
spontaneous reaction that reveals goodness may
not itself be a good one
o This is how the gentleman is with animals. If he sees them alive, he
cannot bear to see them die. If he hears their voices, he cannot bear to
eat their meat. Because of this, the gentleman stays away from the
kitchen.

The origin of
burial customs

Doubtless once in a former generation there were those who did

not bury their parents. When their parents died, they would lift
them up and abandon them in a gully. Another day they would
have passed by them to find foxes eating them while insects bit
them. There was sweat on their foreheads, they peered but they
could not see. Now the sweat wasnt for the benefit of others, it
was their innermost feelings reaching their face and eyes.
Doubtless they returned with baskets and spades and covered
them. (3A/5)
Here the spontaneous reaction leads directly to action
Emphasis again on the lack of an ulterior motive
Which of the four hearts is this?

Ability and choice

These and other passages stress the importance of
ability
o Being able to rule virtuously, being able to serve your parents

Our spontaneous reactions can reveal certain hearts, and

what these hearts give us is the ability to be goodnot
necessarily a tendency to be good
We have to exercise this ability, and even though doing
that is easy, we do have to make a choice
Mencius 6A/15 calls this following your greater part (
)
That makes it sound like a yes-or-no choice: whether to
expand your hearts, whether to follow your better part
But is it really a yes-or-no choice?

Ability and choice

Consider the heart of compassion, and the virtue of benevolence
Assumption: we sometimes feel instinctive compassion for
others, but not always when we should, and sometimes when
we shouldnt
Then: what decides when we should be compassionate, and
how we should be compassionate?
One Mencian view: we should be more concerned with the wellbeing of those close to us
Another: we should be more compassionate towards people
than towards animalseven killing animals is okay
You cant defend these views just by appealing to the heart of
compassion
So: its not really a yes-or-no choice, even though thats how
the Mencius generally presents it

The heart of shame

Mencius 2A/6 derives righteousness from our heart
of shame, which presumably leads us to feel
spontaneous shame on certain occasions
One example (Mencius 6A/10):

One basket of rice and one bowl of soupgetting

them means living and not getting them means
dying. If you give them abusively, then someone
walking in the street will not accept them. If you give
them after stepping on them, a beggar will not take
them.

The heart of shame

Instinctive righteousness also seems to be the
issue in Mencius 4A/18
o Explaining why a gentleman does not teach his son
o Because he will get angry when his son gets things wrong, and that will
make his son angry too
o This is not how it should be! Between father and son one does not
demand goodness ( ).
o Implication: just as King Xuan showed too much benevolence towards
the ox, the gentleman will instinctively be too righteous towards his
son
o In both cases, the solution is to avoid the situation that provokes the
problem

In fact the Mencius has several passages

worrying about people who are too righteous

Bo Yi
[]
[]
[]
For Bo Yi to stand in bad peoples courts and talk
with bad people would have been like wearing his
court clothes and court cap while sitting amid mud
and coal. If he was standing with a villager whose
cap was not straight, then he left, mortified, as if he
would be tainted by it. Bo Yi was narrow. (2A/9)

Cheng Zhongzi
3B/10: Cheng Zhongzi, whose way is that of an
earthworm, because he refuses to accept anything
that was gotten unrighteouslythus turning him
against his brother
What about an earthworm is significant here?

The heart of shame

So again the question isnt just whether to
expand the heart of shamewe also have to
know how far to expand it
But again the Mencius avoids defending its views
about that issue
In 2A/2, we actually find the hint that several
different choices are all legitimate:
o Bo Yi would serve only the right rulerlots of shame
o Yi Yin would serve any rulernot much shame
o Confucius would serve exactly when it was appropriate to do so
Mencius says: Confucius is best, but all three were sages.

Overview
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Recap
Background to the Mencius
Hearts of goodness
Expansion
Human nature
Humans and animals
Fate?

Expansion
Apparently we are to expand the hearts that give
us the ability to be goodbut what does that
involve?
The Mencius has very little to say about this
o Some passages make it sound like it will happen automatically, we just
have to decide to do it
o 6A/8 (Ox Hill) seems to say that without interference, it will just
happen, at least enough for normal human decency
o Other passages (e.g., 6A/9) indicate that it takes time and focus
o And nowhere is there any concrete guidance as to how to do it

Expansion

One must work at it, but not correct it. Let the heart not
forget it, but not help it grow. It is nothing like a person from
Song. There was a person from Song who was distressed by
the failure of his sprouts to grow and pulled at them. Tired,
he returned home, and told the others, Today I am worn out;
I have been helping the sprouts to grow! His sons hurried to
go and see. The sprouts were all withered. Those in the world
who do not help their sprouts grow are few. Thinking that you
have nothing to add and setting it aside is failing to weed the
sprouts. Helping them grow is pulling at the sprouts. Not only
does this add nothing, it actually harms them. (2A/2)

Expansion
Work at ( ) it but dont correct ( ) it
This comes after a tricky discussion about the
relation between the heart and the qi
o The heart is in charge, and supplies direction
o But it should not force the qi
o Qi here appears to be your emotions, temperament, instincts

Dont force yourself to do things youre not ready

for?

Expansion
Throughout most of these passages, we seem to find
the view that we can develop virtue through a process
that is in a way spontaneous
That does not mean that it will happen regardless of
what we do, we do have to decide to do it, but in doing
that we dont interfere with or force our own natures
Plant analogy: by providing nourishment and such to a
plant, we allow it to develop according to its own
nature
Apparent idea: moral improvement can be carried out
the same way, by nourishing the growth of the moral
beginnings within our natures

Expansion

In rich years the young are lazy; in bad years the young are violent.
It is not that the capacities sent down by heaven are different; it is
because of the way they ensnare their hearts. Now with barley, you
sow and cover the seeds; the ground is the same, the time you plant
them is the same; flourishing, they grow, and when it comes to the
summer solstice they are all mature. Even if there are respects in
which they differ, then there is some inequality in the richness of the
ground, in the nourishment provided by rain and dew, or in human
effort. Accordingly, all things of a kind always resemble one another.
(6A/7)
Again insistence that you either develop morally in the right way, or
dont develop at all
Apparently not willing to recognise the fact that people disagree
about morality

Overview
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Recap
Background to the Mencius
Hearts of goodness
Expansion
Human nature
Humans and animals
Fate?

Righteousness
is internal
The passage in 2A/2 about the farmer from Song gets
introduced this way:

This is what accumulating righteousness produces, it is not that being righteous takes it
by surprise attack. If one's conduct is in some way displeasing to one's heart, it starves.
Thus I say, Gaozi has never understood righteousness. It's because he considers it
external.

In 6A/4, Gaozi says that benevolence is internal but

righteousness is external
This view has some intuitive appeal: benevolence develops
the concern you have for other people, whereas
righteousness is much more a matter of learning the norms
about how to treat different people
Mencius 2A/2, 6A/4, and 6A/5 have Mencius rejecting this
view

Righteousness
is internal
In 2A/2, you gradually accumulate righteousness,
its not that you suddenly do something righteous
and take virtue by surprise attack
The arguments in 6A/4 and 6A/5 are hard to
understandits not even clear what the issue is
The basic idea seems to be that even though
righteousness requires us to follow complicated
norms for how to behave, and even though these
norms govern how we relate to strangers, still,
righteousness derives from spontaneous
emotions

Righteousness
is internal

Benevolence, righteousness, ritual, and wisdom

are not welded into us from the outside, we
originally have them; its just that we have not
attended to them. (6A/6)

Peoples xing is good

Usually translated: human nature is good
The Chinese implies that its our spontaneous
character to be goodwe have a spontaneous
tendency to be good
Even: it is unhealthy for us not to be good
o Note 6A/1: it assumes that if becoming good requires us to go against
our xing, this harms us; by extension, if it is our xing to be good, it
must be unhealthy to be bad
o Xunzi: harm to xing is called illness

Peoples xing is good

This is the most famous claim in the Mencius, but only one
passage explicitly endorses it:

The goodness of human xing is like water's tendency to go down. There are no people
who are not good, there is no water that does not go down. Now with water, if you
splash it, it can be made to go past your forehead; if you force it, it can be sent up a
hill. How is this the xing of water? It is because of its circumstances that it is so.
Although people can be made to do what is not good, their xing is still like this. (6A/2)

This is a lot more extreme than what we find elsewhere in

the Mencius
Theres nothing here about having to develop or nurture
the beginnings of virtue, its as if were all already virtuous
Even when we do bad things, that doesnt affect our
fundamental nature

Peoples xing is good

Its hard to get much out of the argument with
Gaozi in 6A/1-3 (or for that matter in 6A/4)
Mencius is able to reinterpret Gaozis analogies in
6A/1-2, but so what?
And the argument of 6A/3 (and 6A/4) seems
incomprehensible
Mostly we get the continued insistence that
goodness is natural for us, as natural as it is for a
tree to grow or for water to flow downhill

Overview
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Recap
Background to the Mencius
Hearts of goodness
Expansion
Human nature
Humans and animals
Fate?

Humans and animals

Mencius said: That by which people differ
from birds and beasts is slight. The common people
discard it, the gentleman preserves it. Shun
understood common things and was discerning
about human relationships. He acted from
benevolence and righteousness, it is not that he put
benevolence and righteousness into practice.
(4B/19)
o See also the passages about preserving the heart in Book 6A

Humans and animals

We see many appeals to the distinction between
humans and animals
o 1A/7: kindness to animals vs kindness to people
o 2A/6: is not human
o 6A/3: Is the xing of a dog like the xing of a horse, and is the xing of a
horse like the xing of a person?
o 6A/8: bad people will no longer be far off from being animals

Underlying view: its morality that makes us

different from animals

Humans and animals

3A/4 and 3B/9 both give historical accounts that
stress the human/animal distinction
3A/4 is arguing that rulers and their people must
not be equals
3B/9 is trying to explain why Mencius indulges in
the ungentlemanly practice of arguing
In both passages accounts, the sage king Yao
was confronted with a world in such disorder that
wild animals roamed throughout the human world
The presence of wild animals symbolises the lack
of virtue and good government

Humans and animals

Whats the point of stressing this distinction?
For genuine human maturity, one must be good
Is it motivating? You dont want to be an animal, so
youll try to be good
o Related issue: the heart of shame as the basis for righteousness

But why agree that what distinguishes us from other

species is so important?
o Many animals do in fact behave in ways that we could interpret as moral:
cooperating, taking care of their families, and so on
o And arent the needs that we share with animals morally significant? E.g.,
what good is benevolence if you lose sight of the fact that people need to
eat?

In any case, this does nothing to answer normative

questions

Overview
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Recap
Background to the Mencius
Hearts of goodness
Expansion
Human nature
Humans and animals
Fate?

Fate?

Mencius said, The way the mouth is to flavours, the way the eyes
are to colours, the way the ear is to sounds, the way the nose is to
smells, the way the four limbs are to comfortthese are xing. There
is fate in them, and the gentleman does not call them xing. The
benevolence between fathers and sons, the righteousness between
rulers and ministers, the rituals between guests and hosts, the
wisdom among the worthy, and the sage in relation to nature's way
these are fate. There is xing in them, and the gentleman does not
call them fate. (7B/24)
All these things are both xing and fate, but its better to call just
some of them xing and call the others fate
Whats the point?