Mencius:

Inherent Human
Goodness
About Mencius
Mencius or Mengzi: Was a Confucian
philosopher who studied under a disciple of
Confucius’s grandson

Traveled around China to promote political

reform. Mencius believed that governments should
be run through exemplary conduct, with goodness
as the goal.

According to Mencius, our minds and hearts

house our inherent tendency towards moral
goodness. Evil, he believes, results from bad social
influences that reduce our natural moral strength.
Mencius and Kao
 Mencius presents this idea in a conversation between himself and a philosopher
named Kao.
Kao argues that human nature is neither good nor bad, but can be molded either
way, just as we can mold a piece of wood into different things.
Mencius rejects Kao’s analogy and argues that any such “molding”, even for the
sake of moral goodness, would do violence to our nature. We would thus be
forced to see moral virtues such as benevolence and righteousness as distortions
of who we are.
What our inherently good nature consists of
First, he argues that we naturally have four specific moral virtues, namely,
commiseration, shame, respect, and approval.
Second, these four virtues naturally give rise to others, namely humaneness,
righteousness, ritual conduct, knowledge.
Mencius insists that nature has instilled these in all of us, which we can all find
if we just look for them