Good Confucianism book (pdf) - Department of Physics

Mencius 93it bald, believed that there had never been any trees on Ox Mountain. Wasthis really the nature of the mountain?When we consider what is in people, could they really not have the mind/hearts of humanity and rightness? The way a person throws away their goodmind/heart is just like the axes and the trees. With the mind/heart beingattacked every day, how can it remain beautiful? With the rest it gets during thenight and at times during the day, a person ’ s likes and dislikes are sometimesclose to those of others. But then what they do during the day once again attacksthe mind/heart. If the attacks are constantly repeated, then even a night ’ s rest isnot enough to preserve the mind/heart. The result is a person not very differentfrom a beast. When other people see his resemblance to a beast, they thinkthat he never had any moral capacity. Is this really the nature of the man? 12We can lose our innate goodness to the point where it looks like we neverhad any to begin with, just as, in Mencius ’ analogy, the mountain has lostall its trees. This does not mean that our original goodness is not there; itmeans that we have cut and hacked at it to the point where it cannot be seen.We can see Mencius ’ fifth approach in two related passages. The first isin his conversation with another thinker, Gaozi. 13 Gaozi used analogy inhis argument too and argued that human nature is like water. Water willflow either east or west, whichever is more natural to it. So too, humannature is neutral: it does not know good or bad except as it may be movedin one direction or another.Mencius replied that, while it is true that water may be made to floweast or west, depending on what is open to it, the nature of water isalways to flow downwards. Like water that will always flow downhill, so,too, human nature will tend toward the good. And, just as water may bemanipulated by the use of dams and dikes to flow in certain directions,so, too, human nature can be manipulated and people may behave badly.The nature of water is to flow downhill; the nature of human beings is totend toward the good.We can see this natural standard of goodness within us when we lookat our attitudes toward life and death. Mencius says that, much as he loveshis life, he would not do anything at all to stay alive. Similarly, death issomething he hates, but he would not do anything at all to avoid death. Thedesire to live is basic to us all, but we will not use any means to stay alive.There are simply some things that are so horrible to us that we would notdo them, even if it would save our lives. If faced with the choice of savingtheir own lives or the lives of their children, most parents would give uptheir lives. This means, he argues, that we have within us moral standardsthat are more important to us than even our life. 14Human nature is not just self - interest. There are points in life when wechoose to do things, or not to do things, on an ethical basis. Human nature