Mengzi (4th century BCE), better known in the West by the Latinized version of his name, Mencius, was a Confucian philosopher who lived during the Warring States Period (403-221 BCE) in China. The Mengzi, the collection of conversations that bears his name, is one of the Four Books canonized by Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200) that would constitute the core of the imperial civil service examinations in China from 1313-1905. According to tradition, he was a student of Kongzi’s grandson, Zisi 子思.
Mengzi is best known for his argument that human nature is good. According to Mengzi, all human beings are born with four sprouts (compassion, disdain, deference, approval and disapproval) that, if cultivated properly, will grow into the virtues of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. In defense of this view of human nature, Mengzi offered the following thought experiment: if someone saw a child who was about to fall into a well they would react with a feeling of alarm and compassion. For Mengzi, that all human beings would experience such feelings of alarm and compassion indicated that these sprouts are innate and universal. The goal of education is thus to nurture and grow these sprouts in to full-blown virtues.
Mengzi’s theory of human nature undergirded his political philosophy, which centered on the idea of benevolent government. For Mengzi, benevolent government required rule by a virtuous king for the benefit of the people as a whole. This required providing the people with the basic necessities that they needed to live (and which Mengzi viewed as prerequisites, for most individuals, of ethical cultivation), as well instruction regarding the role-specific duties they ought to perform. Benevolent government thus required ethical cultivation by both rulers and subjects.
Further Reading
van Norden, Bryan, trans. Mengzi: with selections from traditional commentaries. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 2008.
van Norden, Bryan. Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Kim, Sungmoon. Theorizing Confucian Virtue Politics: The Political Philosophy of Mencius and Xunzi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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