Confucius Theory Of Human Nature

Very little in known about the minds of the newly born. While many consider babies to be cute and fascinating, one can easily connect babies to being the epitome of selfishness. Defenseless as they may be, their terrifying roar whenever they feel tired, hungry, angry, or even bored, quickly causes those around to devote their attention towards the little one. Of course, others would simply say that babies, being unable to accomplish anything on their own, rely on their crying to communicate with people. Such human reactions share a great detail about the confusion that lies in human nature. Are humans by nature good or evil? Were humans born with a moral nature or were they reformed by society to have a matured human nature? Or perhaps we were …show more content…
The theory of self-cultivation states that the responsibility of one’s human potential is in the individual’s hands to develop (Magagna, 2014). In a previous example, I noted how Confucius’ life was built around education and learning. This is a form of self-cultivation because of how Confucius used his education to mold his life. Mencius believed that moral development was a natural process for human beings through the cultivation of ‘chi’ or vital force, which produced a sense of well-being and pleasure in the individual (Liu and Shun, 1996). In other words, self-cultivation allowed an individual to develop natural tendencies within oneself. Even Xunzi, another Confucian follower, believed in the theory of self-cultivation even though his entire theory on human nature revolved around the negativity of human nature and necessity of society to correct it (De Bary, 1999). Xunzi uses the example of the legendary king Yao and the legendary tyrant Jie of the Xia Dynasty. He states that people honored Yao because of his ability to “transform [his] nature, to generate conscious activity, and, through this conscious activity, to create ritual and rightness” (De Bary, 1999). He further states that the reason people hated Jie was because “[he] followed [his] nature, indulged [his] emotions, and was content to give free rein to [his] passions so that [his] conduct was marked by greed and …show more content…
The general principle of cooperativeness was very popular with Chinese thinkers. For example, the Legalist perspective stated that humans were inherently evil and inclined towards criminal and selfish activities, hence they implemented a reward and punishment system where the citizens were told to report anyone who breaks the law or suffer the consequences for not doing so (Schafer, 1967). While this type of cooperativeness can be looked at as rather negative and forcing people to act in a certain way, it still allowed the Legalist government to enforce what they believed to be proper nature. The philosopher Mozi based his ideas on human nature on universal love. He contended that society lacked shared benevolence and he urged people to love everyone else so as to make society prosper (De Bary, 1999). When people pursue their self-interest over the interest of others, everyone suffers. Thus, Mozi proclaimed that it would be rational for everyone to contribute towards the common good so it can be benefit everyone. Further, Mencius states that all human beings have a “commiserating mind” or a mind that cannot bear to see the sufferings of others (De Bary, 1999). He describes this with his child in a well example. Mencius states that if a child fell into a well, a person would not use the opportunity for some ulterior motive or reward because he would be worried and compassionate (De Bary, 1999). The conclusion he reached states that to save