Introduction

The Chinese Confucian philosophers Mencius and Xunzi are famous for their different points of view on human nature. Mencius who lived in the second half of the Zhou dynasty promoted his philosophy of ‘Human nature is good’ with the four moral sprouts which include compassion, integrity, propriety, and wisdom inside humans’ hearts in the Western communities (Norden, 2019). At the same time, Mencius portrayed that by flourishing these four moral sprouts inside the heart, human beings can create a virtuous society. On the other contrary, Xunzi who lived toward the end of the Warring States period was well known by the critics as ‘Human nature is bad’. Xunzi implied that human nature is bad because they are inherently born with selfishness only looking for their self-profit, desire-driven, and unordered beings. In his philosophy about human nature, he encouraged human beings should be trained in ethical education and rituals. Not only that Xunzi also promoted the important role of a strong authority government to maintain the people in the community to follow order, and virtue in building a harmonious society. In this paper, I will deeply emphasize not only how the two Chinese philosophers Menzi and Xunzi have discussed differently about human nature but also their common agreement on the important role of moral education in sustaining a harmonious and virtuous society. 

Mencius’ point of view on human nature

Mencius (403-221 BCE)  pointed out the nature of human beings is inherently good while they are originally born with four moral sprouts of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom in their hearts (Norden, 2009). He stated that these four moral sprouts have to be grown in a good environment, self-reflection, and moral education to create a harmonious and moral society. According to his philosophy, benevolence is recognized for compassion which means humans cannot see other people’s sufferings as well as troubles (Norden, 2019). For example, imagine someone suddenly sees an old man who is crossing the expressway while the express car is closely driving toward him. In that situation, anyone who sees this case will be shocked and feel compassion for the old man and will stop him immediately from crossing the road. According to Mencius’ theory, this kind of compassion is not because of being popular in the environment, not because of being appreciated by the old man, and not because of avoiding the screaming of the old man. This kind of compassion is unthinking and alarmed inside the hearts of human beings when someone is suffering in front of them. As the second sprout, righteousness is represented as integrity which means feeling shameful to do devious things. Righteousness is also similar to (Hiri Otta Pa) in Buddhism which means feeling shameful and afraid to do evil things such as cheating on others, lying, and making others suffer. According to Mencius, even when someone forces a righteous person to give trouble to someone else with money or power, a righteous person will absolutely reject this job. As the third sprout of human nature, Mencius implied wisdom as knowing what is right or wrong. For example, imagine that Phyo is the secretary of the W company and Phyo observes that the CEO of W company made bad decisions without caring about the well-being of his company and usually responds with the offensive rejection of the suggestions of his colleagues about the development of the company. Therefore, Phyo left W company and moved to the K company while the CEO of K company welcomed and appreciated the suggestions of his colleagues for the development of his company being humble to learn from others. At that time, Phyo also waited for the right time to share her suggestions on the profit of K company and when she was invited to share the next day, she contributed with the best of her insightful advice to her CEO K. By exemplifying this story, wisdom is defined as making the right decision regarding on the situation, judging the character to give advice, and being committed to one’s actions showing honesty. As the fourth sprout, propriety is represented as the rituals and following rites that are interconnecting with the other three sprouts. For example, in the Myanmar community, propriety serves as a behavior of showing respect such as being humble in conversation with the elder people, giving a place on the bus to the elderly, nuns, monks, and ladies, bowing when one walks in front of the older people and giving a spoon of curry or rice to the elder first before one eats. According to Mencius, all human beings are born with these above four kinds of moral sprouts in their hearts and he implies to flourish these sprouts with reflection, a good environment, and moral education to build a virtuous society. 

Xunzi’s point of view on human nature

Xunzi (310-235 BCE) who is famous for the philosophy ‘Human nature is bad’ has portrayed that human beings are inherently born with evil minds, feelings of hate, and the altitude of finding self-interests under their desire. (Hutton, 2014). Therefore, Xunzi has argued that human beings should be trained with external influences regarding rituals, good teachers, and ethical education to become order and virtuous people. Continuously, he strengthened his argument that human nature is bad by pointing out the reason why the kings and sages in history promoted moral rules and policies to control the people to be virtuous (Hutton, 2014). It can be considered related to why the Buddha advocated following the five virtues for the people which are not to kill living things, not to steal, not to misconduct sexually, not to lie, and finally not to use drugs accordingly Buddha anticipated what human nature is bad. Continuously, Xunzi explained how human beings’ behaviors are driven by their desires which means they want to eat good things, see prettiness touch smooth, etc, (Chong, 2003). Xunzi argued that the desires of human beings inherently seek to find their self-interest. For example, imagine child A naturally wants to grab the toy of another child B. Child A actually will grab the toy if he is not trained by his parents not to take other property. At the same time when the child is taught not to grab others’ property by his parents, he avoids taking other children’s toys. According to Xunzi’s philosophy on human desires, he portrayed humans should being trained by the rituals and social norms to be virtuous people. Furthermore, Xunzi responded to the critics “If people’s nature is bad, then from what are ritual and yi produced?” with the example of how the craftsman created his masterpieces by mixing and shaping the clay with his deliberate effort but not with his inherent human nature (Hutton, 2014, p. 250). According to Xunzi,  the craftsman will not be able to create his masterpieces without learning and putting his deliberate efforts into how to make crafts only with their innate nature of seeing, hearing, and touching on things. From this example, Xunzi promoted rituals and moral rules that are not created by human nature but with deliberate effort by learning and pursuing knowledge by human beings. According to Xunzi’s points of view, the badness of human nature with an evil mind, selfishness, hate, and an unorder mindset points out human beings need to be trained with rituals, moral teachers, and ethical education. 

The importance of moral education 

Mencius has strongly stated that human nature is innately good with the four moral sprouts and will flourish with a good environment, moral education, and self-reflection. Mencius significantly has pointed out the importance of a good environment to flourish human nature with the story of ‘Ox Mountain was beautiful and flourished with various kinds of greenish trees but at the same time the beauty of the mountain is exploited by its environment with machete’ (Norden, 2019). Through this story, Mencius portrays that when the environment is not good, Ox Mountain filled with greenish trees is destroyed to be barren similarly as the moral sprout of human beings will decline around the bad environment (Norden, 2019, para. 19). Continuously, Mencius encouraged to practice self-reflection on moral actions relating to one’s experiences consistently such as helping an old man to cross the road, treating the food to the street child, donating to rural war-torn regions, etc, Through reflection on one’s moral actions, one can be aware on its ethical mindset that reinforces to do moral actions. According to Mencius, by analyzing the conditions of the internal mindset and external actions with the self-reflection technique, human beings can determine thoughtfully how to act morally, taking lessons from previous experiences and fostering the growth of moral character. On the contrary, Xunzi believes since the nature of human beings is inherently bad, people need to be trained by external forces such as ethical education, rituals, and moral teachers. Xunzi promoted the metaphor of how trees need to be shaped by the external force to become straight and blunt metal as well as knives need to be sharpened to become useful compared to human beings also need the external forces of rituals and moral education to be virtuous accordingly their nature is bad. Xunzi pointed out that without training human beings with strict rituals and moral education, they will act harmfully in their environment and disorderly ways (Chong, 2003). Additionally, he implied the importance of rituals and moral education by narrating that people who have been trained by moral education following the ritual and cultural rules become virtuous people while people who reject the rituals and moral education become selfish and petty people. One interesting point here is although Mencius and Xunzi have different points of view on human nature, they both agree on the point of people need to be trained in moral education to be virtuous. 

Although Mencius and Xunzi argued differently about human nature, they agreed commonly with the role of moral education in cultivating a virtuous society. From my point of view, whether human nature is good or bad inherently, human beings necessarily need to be trained in moral education. Additionally, I do not agree with Mencius’ argument on human nature absolutely while all human beings are not born with the four moral sprouts exemplified by the leaders of the Myanmar military. Since Myanmar military leaders themselves committed the genocide issues killing more than 630 children and destroying the property of the citizens, I do not believe they might have the four moral sprouts that Mencius portrayed. On the other hand, I can resonate with Xunzi’s point of view on human beings are desired beings by reflecting on the Buddhist philosophy of humans are driven by their desires with their six senses of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, sensing, and cognizing by promoting new karma whether good or bad without escaping from the life cycle. However, no matter whether human nature is good or bad, when it comes to building a moral society, all human beings should be trained by moral education to grow the four sprouts of benevolence, righteousness, property, and wisdom to be virtuous. In Myanmar’s history, dictators starting as General Nay Win, Khin Nyunt, Than Shwe to Min Aung Hlaing are standing as good examples of how the lack of access to moral education can ruin a harmonious society with their dehumanized actions committed in Myanmar citizens. All of these military kings destroyed the harmony in the country in various ways committing unjust actions such as arresting the political activists unfairly, violating the citizens with arms, destroying the properties of the citizens, and killing thousands of people without avoiding the monks in the ‘saffron revolution’ for their self-interest and perpetuation of their thrones. By reflecting on their dehumanized actions, I resonated with the important role of moral education and ethical curriculum at every school in Myanmar not to flourish the new generation of dictators in Myanmar’s history. 

The two Confucian philosophers of Mencius and Xunzi promoted Chinese philosophical contexts about human nature with different perspectives. Mencius believes human nature is inherently good with the four moral sprouts in their hearts and has to flourish these four sprouts with moral education, a good environment, and self-reflection. On the other hand, Xunzi imagined human nature as evil who are looking for their self-interest and have to be trained by strict rituals and ethical education. Even though they promoted different ideas on human nature, both Mencius and Xunzi agreed on the importance of moral education in cultivating a harmonious society and virtuous people. In conclusion, I would like to agree with the two philosophers’ point of view on cultivating morality and ethics through moral education for building a just, equal, and harmonious society by reflecting on the unjust actions of unethical military leaders in Myanmar’s history on the community. 

References

Mengzi, & Van Norden, B. W. (2009). The Essential Mengzi. Hackett Publishing. http://books.google.ie/books?id=zorp1TNnI8UC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+essential+Mengzi+Translated,+with+Introduction+and+Notes,+by+Bryan+W.+Van+Norden&hl=&cd=1&source=gbs_api

Milburn, O. (2015). Xunzi: The Complete Text. Translated and with an introduction by Eric L. Hutton. pp. 440. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2014. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 25(3), 535–536. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1356186315000024

Kim-Chong Chong. (2003). Xunzi’s Systematic Critique of Mencius. Philosophy East and West,    53(2), 215–233. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1400090

Van Norden, Bryan, “Mencius”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.),<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/mencius/