PKU4 HUMAN NATURE The Chinese Tradition
Human Nature According to the Chinese Tradition
To keep in mind as you read: How does this sketch of the Chinese tradition
differ from your own sense of what it means to be fully human?
The Chinese tradition preserves some radically different assessments of human
nature. Mengzi, for example, holds a positive view [link: Mengzi text]. Hanfeizi, among
other Legalists, is strongly negative, insisting that strong, unbending rules are needed to
keep greedy humans behaving decently [link: Hanfeizi]. These differences, however,
amount to less than one might think, because all the Chinese thinkers agree that human
nature at birth is a relatively minor factor compared to how one develops in the course
of a lifetime.
Kongzi frames their basic understanding when he says: “By nature men are similar
to one another, but learning and practice make them different.” (子曰: “性相近也，习相远
也.) [Source: The Analects 17.2, 100 Sayings of Confucius, 62, Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1998,
translated by Ding Wangdao.].
In short, Chinese attention goes into how one can and should
grow into a fulfilled state of humanity, or, alternatively, how one can slide into a
disreputable example of what humans can become. In this tradition, human nature at
birth is just a starting point.
As seen in the Chinese tradition, fulfilling one’s humanity means performing well in
accordance with the multiple obligations that impinge on every individual. These start in
the family [link: xiao], but they take in very much more. The Chinese contexts in which
individuals live are always understood as hierarchical. Everyone is born into a place in
the hierarchy, whether it be high or low. Fulfilling one’s humanity implies performing well
within the confines of that place. Ambitious individuals may seek to rise above their
station, but they are suspect. Everyone has a stake in respect for the hierarchy. If it is
not respected, chaos results, exemplified most recently in Chinese history by the Great
Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976, a chaotic upside-down period. It is hard in China
today to find anyone who speaks positively of that time.
As soon as a social hierarchy becomes a matter for discussion, the Western impulse
is to ask what social classes are involved. In traditional China, the top rank was
reserved for emperors and other noble families along with their supporting bureaucrats.
Next lower came farmers, because they worked closely with the rhythms of nature to
produce the food on which everyone depended. Next lower were craftsmen and artisans.
Lower still were merchants, because they seemed to produce nothing but merely moved
goods around for a profit. Aristotle and some other traditional Western thinkers shared a
similar scorn for commerce. Hence the money accumulated by merchants did not
correlate with high status, but it could provide the means for a favorite son to study
classical texts in hopes of passing the examinations to enter the imperial administration,
a great leap to high status for the family [link: imperial exam system]. Revolutionary changes
in this traditional hierarchy are tracked elsewhere [link: the early PRC class status system].
The human hierarchy, of course, does not exist in isolation from the larger nature of
things. The Chinese tradition conceives of the nature of things in terms of unceasing
processes within which humans try to keep their heads above water. In this view, nature
is composed of two complementary realms: heaven [tian 天] and earth [tu 土]. Humans
have a special status as the aspect of nature that has the capacity to reflect on those
ongoing natural processes which are constantly changing. Because the processes are
always going on, no one can step aside for observational purposes in any objective
sense, but one can hope to sense where events are tending. Chinese culture
incorporates a variety of means toward that end, for example, luck language [link: luck
language] or divination [link: divination]. In these ways one can try to orient oneself
strategically in the interests of the family, the clan, the nation, or perhaps even the
whole human community. The larger the scale of one’s frame of reference, the more
sage-like one’s perceptions can be, hence the higher one’s status in terms of the
Chinese tradition.
Thus, in Chinese views of human nature, attention focuses not on individuals but on
how one performs or should perform in relation to the surrounding hierarchy. One’s selfcultivation focuses on these multiple relationships, and the interests of one’s family are
always more important than any individual within it. This kind of emphasis marks the
Chinese tradition, even today.
Study Questions:
1. If the Chinese presumption of change is so widespread as opposed to the
Western concern for essences and stable reality, then similar divergence should be
visible in other cultural domains as well as human nature. Given the readings studied
so far, to what extent do you find evidence to support or to undermine this general
assertion?
2. If the Western tradition pays so much homage to “nature,” how can Westerners
justify trying to modify nature or to improve upon it? If the Chinese tradition gives
such a basic role to change, how can Chinese thinkers affirm anything permanent?
Excerpt from Western Civilization with Chinese Comparisons, 3rd ed.
(Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2010), pp 209-10.