Essays on Mencius

Question 4: Explaining the East Asian Conception of Human Nature

Introduction The problem of Human Nature has always been a point of hot discussions among the Western and Eastern philosophers. Although there are some theoretical discrepancies among members of the different philosophical schools, the majority of them concur that the idea of human nature encompasses the fusion of certain distinguishing characteristics, which a human possesses irrespective of his/her cultural background. Despite the fact that the nature of these characteristics, approaches to measuring them and understanding the components of this metaphysical phenomenon are not clearly defined in any philosophical school yet, there is a strong opinion in the both Eastern ...

People are naturally good and evil is just a reaction to circumstances and environment. No person is born with an evil mindset. All are born with pure soul and what makes people bad is how they are raised. If people are raised in an environment that offers the survival of the fittest, they tend to do evil just to survive. The slums for example in the third world countries are inhabited by people who just want their family to survive daily so they engage in illegal activities most of the time like stealing among others. The lifestyle is not ...

Of the pieces that we have read, I really enjoyed the various excerpts from Zhuangzi, especially chapter 6. Although it is a short piece, it is such a pure example of Confucianism. In his unique manner, Confucius manages to point out Yan Hui’s own arrogance without insulting or deriding him. It is the manner in which Confucius teaches which I find so appealing. He manages to make a person look inward for the answers they know already, versus giving them the answer directly. In this manner, people learn a much deeper lesson then they would have otherwise done. ...

Human Nature is Inherently Good

Sometimes it seems that people have forgotten what it is to be good. The world has turned into an evil and dangerous place of existence: constant terroristic acts, murders, hunger, diseases, etc. It is high time each and everyone stopped and thought about his human nature, about his inner good. However, despite the fact that the mankind is so cruel and evil, Mencius is convinced in the contrary, saying that all the people are naturally good. Mencius says that, "Human nature is inherently good, just like water flows inherently downhill" (95). He claims that irrespective of personality, these ...