San Ha Kim
Prof. Ruggiero
Expository Writing I
16 September 2015
Summary of Mencius’s Nature is Good Over two Expository Writing classes with professor Ruggiero, I have read three articles about Plato, Mencius, and Hsun Tzu, who were insisting each opinions about essence of human nature. From the ancient time, the topic whether human nature is good or bad has been controversial. Mencius, also called Meng Tzu, had lived in the Period of Warring States (475-221 BCE). Since this era was in chaos, a lot of discussion among people with different ideas had been held at the time Mencius had lived. Mencius argued that human nature is innately good in the terms of Confucianism while another philosopher, Hsun Tzu, claimed that people are inherently …show more content…
Mencius wrote a series of dialogues between Mencius and the famous philosopher Kao Tzu and his students. Kao Tzu argued that human nature is cannot be decided good or bad but it is blank state that has possibilities to be both according to one’s situations. In the excerpts from the Mencius, Mencius responded and refuted to Kao’s argument with different perspective. Firstly, Kao Tzu said “Shaping the human nature into Humanity and Duty is like shaping willow wood into cups and bowls.” He used metaphor to express the human nature as willow wood and duty as the cups and bowls. Response to this, Mencius said that shaping willow wood is ravaging humanity and duty because shaping into cups and bowls can destroy the willow wood. Mencius slightly shifted perspective of Kao’s metaphor to refute his argument. In the second conversation, Kao claimed that the human nature is like swirling water because human nature doesn’t choose between good and evil as water can’t choose its direction to flow. Mencius replied that Human nature is inherently good just like water flows inherently from high to low. He also added that the environment can make the human nature evil like water responds only to the forces around it. In Mencius’s mention, I felt that he is making a fallacy in his refutation because the statement “Human nature is good” cannot match with water’s flowing downfall. He might wrongly compare his idea to the swirling
Prof. Ruggiero
Expository Writing I
16 September 2015
Summary of Mencius’s Nature is Good Over two Expository Writing classes with professor Ruggiero, I have read three articles about Plato, Mencius, and Hsun Tzu, who were insisting each opinions about essence of human nature. From the ancient time, the topic whether human nature is good or bad has been controversial. Mencius, also called Meng Tzu, had lived in the Period of Warring States (475-221 BCE). Since this era was in chaos, a lot of discussion among people with different ideas had been held at the time Mencius had lived. Mencius argued that human nature is innately good in the terms of Confucianism while another philosopher, Hsun Tzu, claimed that people are inherently …show more content…
Mencius wrote a series of dialogues between Mencius and the famous philosopher Kao Tzu and his students. Kao Tzu argued that human nature is cannot be decided good or bad but it is blank state that has possibilities to be both according to one’s situations. In the excerpts from the Mencius, Mencius responded and refuted to Kao’s argument with different perspective. Firstly, Kao Tzu said “Shaping the human nature into Humanity and Duty is like shaping willow wood into cups and bowls.” He used metaphor to express the human nature as willow wood and duty as the cups and bowls. Response to this, Mencius said that shaping willow wood is ravaging humanity and duty because shaping into cups and bowls can destroy the willow wood. Mencius slightly shifted perspective of Kao’s metaphor to refute his argument. In the second conversation, Kao claimed that the human nature is like swirling water because human nature doesn’t choose between good and evil as water can’t choose its direction to flow. Mencius replied that Human nature is inherently good just like water flows inherently from high to low. He also added that the environment can make the human nature evil like water responds only to the forces around it. In Mencius’s mention, I felt that he is making a fallacy in his refutation because the statement “Human nature is good” cannot match with water’s flowing downfall. He might wrongly compare his idea to the swirling