Mencius, Xunzi and the Debate over Human Nature

Confucius's followers disagreed sharply about whether people are naturally good. Mencius (c. 372–289 BCE) argued that human nature is good: everyone has 'sprouts' of virtue, such as the instinct to rescue a child about to fall into a well, which education should nourish. He also taught that a ruler who oppressed the people lost the Mandate of Heaven, and that the people could rightly overthrow a tyrant. Xunzi (c.

310–235 BCE) argued the opposite: human nature is selfish, and goodness is the result of deliberate effort, ritual and teaching, much as a craftsman straightens warped wood. Both agreed that learning and ritual were essential, but for different reasons. Their debate parallels later Western arguments about human nature and has political consequences: a harsher view influenced Xunzi's students who became Legalists, advocates of strict laws. Mencius's optimism eventually won out as Confucian orthodoxy.