An Empirical Perspective on the
Mencius-Xunzi Debate about Human
Nature
Eric Schwitzgebel
Department of Philosophy
University of California at Riverside
March 23, 2016
Mencius: Human Nature is Good
Mencius: Confucian philosopher, 4th c. BCE.
Human nature is good (xing shan 性善) is probably his most famous
thesis. Some quotes (Van Norden trans., 2001):
6A2: Human nature’s being good is like water’s tending downward. There is no
human who does not tend toward goodness. There is no water that does not
tend downward. Now, by striking water and making it leap up, you can cause
it to go past your forehead. If you guide it by damming it, you can cause it to
remain on a mountaintop. But is this the nature of water?! It is that way
because of the circumstances. That humans can be caused to not be good is
due to their natures also being like this.
6A8: The trees of Ox Mountain were once beautiful. But because it bordered on a
large state, hatchets and axes besieged it. Could it remain verdant? Due to
the rest it got during the day or night, and the moisture of rain and dew, it was
not that there were no sprouts or shoots growing there. But oxen and sheep
then came and grazed on them. Hence, it was as if it were barren. People,
seeing it barren, believed that there had never been any timber there. Could
this be the nature of the mountain?! When we consider what is present in
people, could they truly lack the hearts of benevolence and righteousness?!
Xunzi: Human Nature is Bad
Xunzi: Confucian philosopher, 3rd c. BCE.
Human nature is bad (xing e 性惡) is probably his most famous
thesis. He begins his essay “Human Nature Is Bad” like this
(Hutton trans., 2001):
People’s nature is bad. Their goodness is a matter of deliberate effort [wei 偽
– deliberate effort, conscious activity, the artificial]. Now people’s nature
is such that they are born with a fondness for profit. If they follow along
with this, then struggle and contention will arise, and yielding and
deference will perish therein. They are born with feelings of hate and
dislike. If they follow along with these, then cruelty and villainy will arise,
and loyalty and trustworthiness will perish therein. They are born with
desires of the eyes and ears, a fondness for beautiful sights and sounds. If
they follow along with these, then lasciviousness and chaos will arise, and
ritual and the standards of righteousness, proper form and good order, will
perish therein. Thus, if people follow along with their inborn nature and
dispositions [qing 情 – dispositions, emotions, essence], they are sure to
come to struggle and contention, turn to disrupting social divisions and
disorder, and end up in violence (ch. 23, p. 284).
But What Do They Disagree About,
Exactly? And Who’s Right?
Themes of this talk:
1. What does it mean to say that human nature is good, or bad?
2. Is human nature, in the relevant sense, good, or bad, or
somewhere in between?
A Developmental Account of the
Natural
Intuitive examples of natural and unnatural: hair, sexual
attraction, foot size.
Working definition: A trait is natural to an individual just in case
it arises through a normal process of development in a normal
nutritive environment rather than as a result of injury,
acquired disease, malnutrition, or (especially) external
imposition.
A trait is then natural to a species if it is natural to normal
members of that species in a broad range of normal
environments.
Normativity of the term. Cases of homosexuality, obesity.
Contrast with the “state of nature” account associated with
Hobbes and Rousseau: The “state of nature” is unnatural.
Mencius and Xunzi use roughly this developmental notion of the
natural.
Metaphors for Moral Development
Mencius: growth of sprouts. For example:
2A6: The reason why I say that humans all have hearts that are not unfeeling
toward others is this. Suppose someone suddenly saw a child about to fall
into a well: everyone in such a situation would have a feeling of alarm and
compassion – not because one sought to get in good with the child’s
parents, not because one wanted fame among their neighbors and
friends, and not because one would dislike the sound of the child’s cries.
From this we can see that if one is without the heart of compassion, one is
not a human. If one is without the heart of disdain, one is not a human. If
one is without the heart of deference, one is not a human. If one is
without the heart of approval and disapproval, one is not a human. The
heart of compassion is the sprout of benevolence. The heart of disdain is
the sprout of righteousness. The heart of deference is the sprout of
propriety. The heart of disapproval is the sprout of wisdom.
6A9 (Lau trans., 1970): Do not be puzzled by the King’s lack of wisdom. Even
a plant that grows most readily will not survive if it is placed in the sun for
one day and exposed to the cold for ten. It is very rarely that I have an
opportunity of seeing the King, and as soon as I leave, those who expose
him to the cold arrive on the scene. What can I do with the few new
shoots that come out?
And of course Ox Mountain.
Metaphors for Moral Development
Xunzi: straightening a board, sharpening a blade. For example:
Learning must never stop. Blue dye is gotten from the indigo plant, and yet is
bluer than the plant. Ice comes from water, and yet is colder than water.
Through steaming and bending, you can make wood straight as a plumb
line into a wheel. And after its curve conforms to the compass, even when
parched under the sun it will not become straight again, because the
steaming and bending have made it a certain way. Likewise, when wood
comes under the ink-line, it becomes straight, and when metal is brought
to the whetstone, it becomes sharp. The gentleman learns broadly and
examines himself thrice daily, and then his knowledge is clear and his
conduct is without fault (ch. 1, p. 248 – the very first passage of the Xunzi).
Looking at it in this way, it is clear that people’s nature is bad, and their
goodness is a matter of deliberate effort. Thus, crooked wood must await
steaming and straightening on the shaping frame, and only then does it
become straight. Blunt metal must await honing and grinding, and only
then does it become sharp. Now since people’s nature is bad, they must
await teachers and proper models, and only then do they become correct
in their behavior (ch. 23, p. 284-285).
Cultivating Sprouts vs. Straightening
Wood
Cultivating Sprouts:
• slow process, permanent
change
• source of change is internal,
though with environmental
nutrition
• works with the inclinations
• does not require a preexisting standard or model
Straightening Wood:
• slow process, permanent
change
• source of change is external,
though requiring a certain
internal structure
• works against resistance
• requires a pre-existing
standard or model
Inward-Out vs. Outward-in
Mencius: Moral development is an inward-out process of selfdiscovery.
Xunzi: Moral development is an outward-in process of
conformity to norms.
Mencius 6A15: The office of the heart is to concentrate (si 思 – think, reflect,
ponder, concentrate). If it concentrates then it will get [Virtue]. If it does
not concentrate, then it will not get it.
Xunzi Ch. 1: I once spent the whole day pondering (si) , but it wasn’t as good
as a moment’s worth of learning (p. 249).
Xunzi Ch. 2: If you do not concur with your teacher and the proper model but
instead like to use your own judgment, then this is like relying on a blind
person to distinguish colors (p. 256).
Story of King Xuan (1A7). Mencius tells him to measure his
heart. As in the child in the well case, the sprout of
compassion is already there. He just needs to think clearly.
Similarity to contemporary “liberal” and “conservative” models
of moral education.
Mencius on Evil; Xunzi on Maturity
Mencius does not deny that people can perform evil: King Xuan,
splashing water, Ox Mountain. Recall our definition of the
natural:
A trait is natural to an individual just in case it arises through a normal
process of development in a normal nutritive environment rather than as
a result of injury, acquired disease, malnutrition, or (especially) external
imposition.
This provides a catalog of the processes leading to vice.
To say human nature is good is not to say most people are good,
but rather that evil is a perversion.
Likewise, Xunzi does not say that people can’t learn to desire the
good. First they’re forced; then they force themselves; then
they are straight without effort. E.g., not speaking in class,
waiting in the queue.
Summary of the Mencius-Xunzi
Dispute about Human Nature
Is moral learning a natural process of development, requiring
environmental support, but primarily the maturation of
inclinations we all share and discover when we reflect
(Mencius’s view)?
Or is moral learning an artificial process of being forced to
conform to norms (and then later forcing oneself),a process
that runs contrary to one’s inclinations and requires that
norms be discovered or imposed from outside?
Empirical consequences:
In child development: Which approach actually works better?
Among adults: Does free reflection lead one away from (or to
regret) evil?
Evidence from Child Development?
There’s broad consensus among educators and developmental
psychologists for something like the inward-out view rather
than the outward-in view.
Piaget: There can be no doubt that co-operation and social constraint deserve
to be far more sharply contrasted than they usually are, the latter being
perhaps nothing more than the pressure of one generation upon the
other, whereas the former constitutes the deepest and more important
social relation that can go to the development of the norms of reason….
[Co-operation with mutual respect] frees the child from the opinions that
have been imposed upon him while it favors inner consistency and
reciprocal control (Gabain trans., 1963, p. 104 and 107).
Kohlberg: The teaching of virtue is the asking of questions and the pointing of
the way, not the giving of answers. Moral education is the leading of
people upward, not the putting into the mind of knowledge that was not
there before (1981, p. 30).
Damon: Morality is a fundamental and important part of children’s lives from
the time of their first relationships. It is not a foreign substance
introduced to them by an outside world of people who know all the
answers (1988, p. 1).
Evidence from Child Development?
(cont.)
Empathy and concern do seem to appear early and
spontaneously (e.g., newborn emotional contagion,
caretaking in 12-month-olds).
But so also, apparently, does cruelty.
There has never been a direct, controlled test of the
effectiveness of the inward-out vs. outward-in approach to
moral education.
Part of the problem (but only part) is: How do you measure
morality?
Measures of morality in terms of capacity for explaining one’s
moral reasons (as in Piaget, Kohlberg, and Damon) seem to tilt
the field toward the inward-out view.
Also, outward-in may disguise itself as inward-out – may in fact
be the conservative educator’s best tool.
Evidence from Adults
Borderline case: Juvenile delinquents encouraged to reflect
(Schwitzgebel 1964; Samenow 1984).
I would like to think that something like the inward-out view is
right – in my personal reflection, in teaching philosophy.
But I worry that the evidence might be against it. For example:
Unrepentant Nazis:
• Gröning interview
• Speer’s Inside the Third Reich
• Police Battalion 101 (Browning vs. Goldhagen interpretation)
Approval of mistreatment of outgroups:
• genocide in the Bible
• celebration of aggressive warfare
The mediocre virtue of ethics professors.