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To substantiate the claim that "there is no human who does not tend toward goodness,,,18 Mencius came up with several arguments. He says:
"The reason why I say that humans all have hearts that are not unfeel
ing 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 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. ,,19 This remark can be formulated into the following argument (Argument One):
1 Anyone who sees a young child about to fall into a deep well is bound to feel anxiety and commiseration in the heart. He feels this way not to gain friendship with the child's parents, not to seek the praise of
others, and not because he detests hearing the child's screaming.
2 This example shows that people cannot bear to see the suffering of others.
3 This very feeling is the beginning of humanity.
4 Therefore, humans have the beginning of humanity in their nature.
It is interesting to note that when Rousseau tried to establish the claim that man is a creature of compassion, he used a similar example of someone's watching "a wild beast tear a child from his mother's breast, crush the child's frail limbs with its murderous teeth and tear out the living entrails with its claws." Rousseau remarked, "What terrible agitation must be felt by this witness of an event in which he has no personal interest! What anguish he must suffer in seeing it and being unable to do anything to help the fainting mother or the dying child! ,,20 In the same way, Mencius is here engaged in a kind of thought experi
ment, in which he asks us to consider the scenario of watching the imminent death of a young child and to draw the same conclusion that he does. With this kind of argument, one could perhaps challenge the first premise: not everyone would naturally commiserate in the given 73
Ancient Chinese Philosophy
scenario. But Mencius is not making any universal claim on human responses; rather, he is making a general claim, or, as Philip Ivanhoe calls it, a "generic" claim.21 Hence, a few counterexamples would not
have defeated his claim. If it is generally true that most people would have the kind of reaction that Mencius depicts, then it is generally true that most people would naturally have commiseration in the heart. Of course, having this natural sentiment is far from being moral: one could ignore the child and do nothing to save him; one could see the child as the enemy's child and proceed to push the child into the well. As David Wong observes: "An innate compassionate impulse is not compassion in the full sense.,,22 Establishing the claim that humans have a natural compassionate impulse, or the beginning of humanity, is merely a first step toward proving that all humans are naturally good.
Mencius next argues:
Life is something I desire; righteousness is also something I desire. If I cannot have both, I will forsake life and select righteousness. Life is something I desire, but there is something I desire more than life. Hence, I will not do just anything to obtain it. Death is something I hate, but there is something I hate more than death. Hence, there are calamities I do not avoid . . . . From this we can see that there are means of obtaining life that one will not employ. From this we can also see that there are things that would avoid calamity that one will not do. Therefore, there are things one desires more than life and there are also things one hates more than death. It is not the case that only the worthy person has this heart. All humans have it. The worthy person simply never loses it.23 • 1 Everyone desires life and detests death. But if you humiliate some
one by giving him food, he would not accept the food even if he needs it for survival.
2 Hence, there is always something that one desires more than life itself, or something that one detests more than death itself.
3 If there is something that one would not do to preserve life and to avoid death, then one is not simply a creature for whom self-sur
vival is the only goal (whereas other animals are).
4 Therefore, we all have our own principle on what to do and what not to do, even when it comes to matters of life and death.
S A righteous person is simply someone who holds on to his own principle in all matters.
6 Therefore, we all have within ourselves what it takes to be a right
eous person.
As stated, this argument (Argument Two) is not even valid. One could perhaps say that from Premise 1 to Premise 2 Mencius is committing a
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Mencius (Mengzi)
form of
hasty generalization.
One example, even if it is a well-known real-life example, does not warrant the claim that we are not simply creatures driven by our innate desire for survival. However, Mencius is not making such a faulty inference here. His point is rather to use it as an illustration of a general human trait, as stated in Premise 2. If there isalways
something that one would not do even for the sake of survival, then one's existence is more elevated than the basic level of survival
(contra
Gaozi's claim that "nature" simply means life). Having a principle regarding what not to do is in essence the beginning of the virtue ofrighteousness.
Hence, the sprout of righteousness is innate in us just as the sprout of humanity is.Having established the claim that the beginning of humanity and righteousness is prevalent in all of us, Mencius went on to construct his view that human nature contains the beginning of all four essential virtues: humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. He says:
Humans all have the heart of compassion. Humans all have the heart of disdain. Humans all have the heart of respect. Humans all have the heart of approval and disapproval. The heart of compassion is [humanity]. The heart of disdain is righteousness. The heart of respect is propriety. The heart of approval and disapproval is wisdom. [Humanity], righteousness, propriety, and wisdom are not welded to us externally. We inherently have them.24
We can expand this comment into the following argument (Argument Three):
1 All humans naturally have feelings of commiseration, awareness of shame and dislike, the sentiment of respect and reverence, and a sense of right and wrong.
2 The feeling of commiseration = the sprout of humanity; the aware
ness of shame and dislike = the sprout of righteousness; the senti
ment of respect and reverence = the sprout of propriety; the sense of right and wrong = the sprout of wisdom.
3 Humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom constitute goodness.
4 Therefore, all humans have the sprouts of goodness within their nature.
In the first premise, Mencius is again making a general statement about humans. We sometimes experience pity for someone else's suffering;
we sometimes feel ashamed of our own behavior, or we are disdainful of others' conduct; we sometimes have a sense of respect or awe for certain things or certain people; we sometimes make judgments on right 75
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and wrong. Mencius called these sentiments the "four sprouts" (or
"four beginnings") of morality. In his view, humans and other animals are very similar in many biological aspects, with only these moral sprouts distinguishing humans from other animals. That is why he would call these four moral sprouts or moral inclinations "human nature." Being in possession of them does not guarantee having the fully developed virtues of humanity, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. But they are nonetheless the common ground for human morality.
From the above arguments, we can see that Mencius believed that morality is rooted in humans' natural sentiments. The origin of morality is not pure human reason, but human emotions. The foundation for ethics is not social conventions, but human nature. According to Mencius, morality gets developed in human societies because the moral sense is