Mencius born amid the warring-state period. His educator is a student of Zisi, while Zisi is the grandson of Confucius. Therefore, the ideas of Mencius are extraordinarily swayed by the philosophy of Confucius and Zisi [1] . Confucius briefly referenced the human nature, but had not discussed it in depth [2] . According to < >, Confucius regarded uprightness as the nature of human-being ². Moreover, Confucius believe all humans share similar inborn nature, however, the socialization of each individuals would be significant distinctive ³. Besides, Zisi regards benevolence (ren) as the inherent human nature ⁴. He proposes that the practice of benevolent deeds is the manifestation of human nature. Therefore, some points can be drawn from the two thinker’s views. Human nature should be regarded as good and it can be altered by external environment. Additionally, the way to practice good virtues is to cultivate ourselves. However, neither Confucius’s and Zisi’s views on human nature are vague, thus Mencius is the primary Chinese philosopher who unequivocally proposed his views or theories on the discourses of human’s nature. By referring to the publications about Mencius, it can be observed that his idea of “original righteousness of human nature” shared the attributes of Confucius’s and Zisi’s viewpoints.

Mencius proposed that human possessed inborn virtue by utilizing a story to delineate this idea: “When a man saw an infant almost fall into the well, he immediately ran to help and rescue the body”⁵. He analysed the action of that man and pinpointed he, as with every human-beings, would not bear to see the sufferings of others. While his action to help is not based on any calculations or contemplations, such as trying to please the infant’s parents or establishing a good reputation within the community, rather it is simply a reflection of innate virtue⁶. Therefore, humans are inborn virtue. Mencius then further proposed his theory of “Four Cardinal Virtues”, which argued that “benevolence” (ren仁), “ritual propriety” (li?), “rightness” (yi?), and “wisdom” (zhi智) are the components of moral virtues. In addition, he mentioned the four basic human sentiments: “feeling of compassion”, “feeling of shame”, “feeling of consideration for others” and “sense of right and wrong” are the starting point of “humaneness”, “ritual propriety”, “rightness” , and “wisdom” respectively⁷. It is crucial to note that Mencius believes the four fundamental human sentiments are vital to distinguish human-being and other species as well as they are inalienable with humans’ nature as we possess four appendages⁸. Since Mencius believed humans are characteristically good, what they need is to self-cultivate their innate virtues⁹.

Besides, Mencius’s idea of human nature can also be concluded from the debates between him and Gaozi. Gaozi first argued against Mencius’s idea of man’s nature is intrinsically good. He used willow and bowls as an analogy, which people utilize willow to produce bowls. If willow is equals to human nature and bowls are viewed as benevolence and righteousness, then Mencius is just treating raw materials as products. However, Mencius replied when we used willow to yield bowls, we would damage the nature of willow¹⁰. If we, according to Gaozi’s logic, would can to a conclusion that people need to injure humanity in order to practice benevolence and righteousness, which is completely preposterous¹¹. Gaozi then employed another analogy by saying that human nature is just like water currents, which it does not regarded good or bad as water current can flow towards the east or the west¹². Yet, Mencius affirmed that water currents can only flow to the lower area and it is just similar as human nature that inborn virtue¹³. Regardless of striking it upwards, it may leap up a little, but it still flow downwards¹⁴. Thus, human are internally possess good virtue, but the society caused them act against the moral principles in certain social contexts.

Ironically, when the time that Mencius’s expressed his musings on human nature as inborn virtuous, China was experiencing the warring-state period. It is not rare to see rulers act against the moral principles, such as fighting wars or practice tyrannical governance, and the ordinary citizens lived under extraordinary awful social conditions and they also violate moral norms for survival. In this manner, major doubt on Mencius’s idea is if humans’ nature is inborn virtuous, then why would people act against the moral principles within the society? Mencius argues there are two reasons that make people behave badly [6] [7] . Firstly, the individuals do not uphold his/her inward virtues. He believes that people would lose their virtues if they ignore them¹⁵. People would not automatically act ethically even though we possess the four basic human sentiments of good virtues and what we need is to cultivate our inner self. Moreover, Mencius also mentioned the external society would change people’s inner moral virtues. He refers the idea to the story of a mountain: “There is a mountain which is full of trees and appear to be emerald green (An analogy of humans’ nature is initially good), but people who live nearby constantly cropping the wood from the hill and the mountain become barren place (akin to the temptations of the society made us undermine our moral virtues gradually). Therefore, people who are not live nearby would have a misconception that the mountain was originally barren (similar to people who behave badly in the society are accused to be inherently bad).”¹⁶ Hence, it is argued that one’s nature is inborn virtuous; however, it need to be cultivated by persons themselves. Moreover, it exemplified that the human nature is alterable.

Mencius’s theory of original goodness of human nature established a foundation for his idea of political governance, which is rule by Kingly Way¹⁷. A ruler should possess moral character and employ moral goddesses as means of governance. Therefore, Mencius accentuated rulers’ has two political missions: self-cultivation and inspiring people towards moral goodness [8] [9] . Since Mencius believes that human nature is inherently good, it is needed to self-cultivate them by practice moral behaviours in daily life in order to embody the goodness in yourself. While the rulers should also need to “extend” his moral goodness towards the people, they should practice benevolence ruling to educate citizens with good virtues and use himself as a moral role to exemplify rituals [10] . For instance, rulers should provide aid to people when there are starvation, which is a practice of benevolence (ren), but not let people struggle by themselves. Since the kings implement a benevolent ruling and maintain a good social environment for the people, the citizen would have more leisure time for self-cultivating their innate goodness as well¹⁸. Finally, a moral social order would establishe as long as the rule by rituals is actualized.

Notwithstanding Mencius and Xunzi belong to the school of the Confucianism, numerous scholars regards them as two isolated factions [11] [12] [13] . Many ideas of Xunzi opposed to Mencius’s philosophies, even Xunzi himself has criticized Mencius’s thoughts a lot. Savants examined the origins of Xunzi’s thoughts and argued he has generated many ideas from the Hundred Schools of Thought, such as the “Xujing” from Laozi and “benevolence” (ren), “ritual propriety” (li), and “rightness” (yi) from Confucius. This paper accentuated on his idea of human nature and argued the Jixia Academy has a significant impact to the formation of Xunzi’s view of human nature. Many papers endeavoured to comprehend the ideologies of Jixia Academy by examining its publications, for instance 《Guanzi》and 《Lüshi Chunqiu》. While Xunzi was one of the academicians in Jixia Academy for several decades, he is able to learn different schools of thoughts and formulate his own ideologies.《Guanzi》 defines human nature is self-interested might likely to impact Xunzi to define human nature is inborn malevolence [14] . Besides, many papers that examine 《Lüshi Chunqiu》found that it defines human nature as “lust”, which totally identical with Xunzi’s definition of human nature as people’s original desires [15] [16] . The publication of 《Lüshi Chunqiu》has a high opportunity to mirrors Xunzi’s idea at the time that he stayed in Jixia Academy. Accordingly, Xunzi did not accept Confucius’s conviction of goodness is rooted within human themselves as well as Mencius’s “theory of original goodness of human nature”.

Xunzi has learned about Mencius’s idea on human nature and thoroughly disagree with it. Within one of his articles, he argued against Mencius’s arguments. Mencius argues that people’s nature is good as they can learn to be good. However, from Xunzi’s perspectives, “nature” means something that are inherent when we were born, such as the abilities of hearing and watching. Therefore, if moral norms and principles can be acquired, how can they be defined as “nature”?¹⁹ Moreover, Xunzi disagrees Mencius’s of humans are inherently good and the reason that they act against moral principles is they have lost their inner nature. Yet, what Xunzi observed is people need to act against their lusts when they practice moral behaviours, for example people would wait for the elderlies to eat first even though they were hungry, it regards as a kind of “politeness”²⁰. Thus, if Mencius is right, the human nature and their moral actions should not against each other but mutually benefit. The last rebuttals referred to Mencius’s core idea of human are inherently virtue. Xunzi casted doubt on the assertion. He doubted that if humans are truly, as Mencius mentioned, are inborn virtues, why people need to be educated to be good?²¹

Akin to Mencius, people casted doubt on why people practice moral customs if they are inherently bad as Xunzi mentioned. The Xunzi’s response is the society act as a source for people to be morally educated. Sages, who create the moral tenets, uphold a same view with Xunzi’s that they need to limit human innate bad nature by moral virtues. Similar to potters acquired to produce bowl, the sages realized human nature is innate evil and people’s ability to learn in order to change their badness. Thus, the moral principles or rules are set up by sages to educated people to practice good virtues, and laws are made to restrict the expansion of bad human nature. Also, Xunzi believed learning do distinguish between bad and good. As he argues all human-beings, no matter a benevolent governor or a tyrant, share the same bad innate nature, but people can learn to be good and practice benevolence to change their badness. This is the reasons why we admire and respect good rulers, such as Emperor Yao (?) and Shun (舜), are they can alter their innate malignancy (化性) and establishing good personnel and practice (起?)²⁴. Likewise, people should also learn be good by practicing moral rituals and understanding the moral thoughts of the sages, then everyone would has an opportunity to be as good as Yao and Shun.

Xunzi’s philosophies of human nature also become his fundamental bedrocks of his theory of rule by rituals (li) and laws [19] . On one hand, Xunzi suggested that li, such as moral principles and rules should be uphold by rules as well as to use them to educate people to act according to moral goodness. The purpose of rule by li is crucial to establish a social order, which relying on the “unwritten” norms to regulate people practice benevolent acts [20] [21] . This idea actually partly inherited from Confucius’s thoughts of rule by virtues (li ji), however, Xunzi tend to highlight its social function that ritual propriety served in the realm of governance. On the other hand, Xunzi also asserted laws are needed. Laws, in Xunzi’s idea, served the function to stated or practice harsh punishments to restrict human from violating moral principles. It should be regards as last resorts when li does not function well in the society. Yet, this paper argues that rule by li prior than rule by laws are not sharing an equivalent status in Xunzi’s world. He thinks the former is prior than the latter. Law is the derivation of moral norms²⁵, its establishment must follow the principles of rituals, hence, it can assure the moral order is well operated within the society.

Han Feizi is the originator of the Legalism, his philosophiesal together significantly influenced by the “legalist ancestors”, such as Shen Dao, Guanzi and Shang Yang [22] . Shen Dao believes humans are self-interested individuals [23] ; Guanzi pinpointed humans would pursue benefits and avoid dangers [24] ; Shang Yang argues humans are detestable [25] . Their views moulded the extent of Han Feizi’s thoughts of human instinct [26] [27] . Furthermore, Han Feizi, as a student of Xunzi, learned from Xunzi’s ideas on human nature. He, follows his instructor, observed people through to their origins of natural desires and found that people only act according to their natural desires. Scholars argued Han Feizi, as the student of Xunzi, completely inherit his teacher’s ideas of evil human nature [28] [29] . However, the paper argues this is a misconception. One domain that Han Feizi distinguished with Xunzi, is that he believes human nature cannot be altered by moral education. Thus, Han Feizi abolished rituals and turn to concentrates on laws and punishments. Another savant that impact Han Feizi’s thoughts is Laozi. He is an expert of《Tao TeChing》, that many historians attested that Laozi’s concept of “adapting and conforming to nature” is absorbed by Han Feizi [30] . This is also the reason why he, unlike Mencius and Xunzi, considers human nature cannot be altered or need to be changed.

Beyond his educational background has impact on his ideologies, the social context of his period also contributed his formation of thoughts [31] [32] . In light of his observations to the society, he proposed an extremely critical view towards human relations. He found that parents would kill their daughters as cost-benefit calculations draw from traditional prejudice on female under Chinese patriarchal society. Moreover, Han Feizi also found that there is no loyalty between spouses and king and officials, thus, cheatings and usurpations are not rare at that time. The social background of Han Feizi’s period influences his idea towards human relationship as well as human nature.

Han Feizi characterizes human nature as “pursue interests and avoid dangers”²⁶ (?吉避凶) and “cherish self-seeking”²⁷ (?自?心). This view is similar to Xunzi that human act according to their desires. Unlike Mencius who advocates human-beings are heterogeneous form animals as we possess moral virtues, Han Feizi regards humans are almost identical to creatures [33] . Just like animals that behave based on instinct, basic impulses and emotions, human also act according to self-seeking and disregards moral norms and principles. This definition supported by Han Feizi from his perceptions of humans relationship mentioned previously. For example, Han Feizi argued the reason why usurpations occurred as people are desperate for the thrones (pursue political power as interest) and the reason why people kill their female infants (avoid economic loss for cultivating a girl when they compare to a male’s economic production capacity). Yet, a vital point to be mentioned is Han Feizi does not evaluate human nature as inherently good as Mencius or as innately bad as Xunzi [34] [35] . What he did is provide a definition on human nature based on his understandings and observations. Hence, in his view, the nature of people is induced by the original needs of human beings and they are the natural instinct of human beings, which unchangeable or dispensable to change.

In terms of external society, Han Feizi shared a similar view with Xunzi that society as a force of moral virtues. As mentioned above, Xunzi regards society as a spot to educated citizen to be good. However, Han Feizi hold a marginally heterogeneous view that he deems society is an external force that compels humans to act morally²⁸. Whether moral actions originate from people’s heart, Han Feizi holds a negative view. Therefore, Han Feizi does not deem moral education is necessary. Since human nature is unchangeable, it is no point to focus on educating people with moral virtues. Moreover, Han Feizi absorbed the view of “adapting the nature” from Daoism, while Laozi believes that the moral principles are the destruction of human nature. Thus, Han Feizi argued that only favors and punishments can shape people’s behaviours, which follow their human nature. If people acted what social desires, then favors should be placed in order to encourage people to follow suit; If people behave against what the social desires, punishments should be exerted to prohibit people to do so. As long as human nature is “pursue interests and avoid dangers” and “cherish self-seeking”, they can be shaped as the individuals that the society desire.

Since human nature is “pursue interests and avoid dangers”, Han Feizi believe the only effective way to govern the country is rule by law, which refers to the employment of favours and punishments²⁹. What behaviours do the rulers favour and what are not should state in the laws, while the rulers control people through two means: favours and punishments. Social order can only be achieve when laws are clear, but not the employment of rituals³⁰. Moreover, Han Feizi also proposes rulers to educated citizens by laws. As law clearly provided an objective guideline of behaviours, people should be educated by it. Therefore, social norms would form according to the laws and extended around the society. Once laws become a social norm, people would educate their descendants automatically. Finally, from Han Feizi’s perspective of “abolish penalties by means of penalties”, no laws, favours and punishments would be needed³¹.

With regard to the discussions on human nature, three of them basically uphold dissimilar perspectives. Mencius formed his convictions that human own innate cardinal virtues from his observations that individuals’ good deeds do not originate from the considerations of personal interests, but the inborn care and concern to his/her fellows. Yet, Xunzi’s views completely against Mencius’s. Xunzi argued the main point behind the explicit good deeds is the abnegation of self-evil. The demonstrations of ethics are exclusively the external self, while the inner self or genuine human instincts of human beings filled with lusts and desires, which, in Xunzi’s perspective, are iniquitous. The major difference between Mencius and Xunzi is the former focused on external actions, while the latter accentuated the internal character oneself. Although the society was, in Han Feizi’s eyes, rife with immoralities, he did not share the same page with Xunzi. Indeed, he held a neutral view and argued that human beings are self-interest creatures that favor personal benefits and dread perils. What distinguished Han Feizi from the other two thinkers is he did not comment on human nature. In a similar vein, their views on how society influenced individuals’ instinct are distinct from each other’s. Mencius views society as a realm that allures people to abandon self-moral cultivation as there were too many immoral temptations. In contrast, Xunzi espoused society is an area that compels people to act morally by introduce sages as people’s role models and adopted their principles as social guidelines and norms. Han Feizi thought society is a place of an exemplification of human inner self, which he did not conceive society served any functions to change people’s internal senses.

Since their theories on basic human nature and society are nonidentical, it is not surprising that they advocated different political ideologies. Mencius promoted the rule of rituals (Lǐzhì). Rulers should self-cultivate his moral characters and be the model to their citizens. He also needs to practice benevolence, which extends his moral characters to the entire society, as well as educates his people by moral principles and norms. This is, indeed, conducive to his citizens to cultivate their inner good characters as well. Xunzi partly concurred with Mencius’s political philosophies. He argued merely relied on rituals is not adequate to maintain social order. He proposed laws should be employed concurrently with education. Therefore, the rules should utilize both as tools of governance. Laws should be used to restrain people’s detestable acts, while rituals served to socialize his citizens to practice good deeds. Similar to Daoism, Han Feizi chose to “conformity to nature” (??自然). As he deemed human’s nature need not to or cannot be changed, he suggested rulers can achieve a social order by well-exploit the human’s inherent characters. A set of transparent and comprehensive laws are the only essential implement for rulers to clearly define what sorts of the behaviours would be rewarded and punished. According to his definition of human’s nature as “favour interests and benefits, and to abominate dangers”, they would act according to the laws. Also, he asserted laws served the function of education. When laws become the social norms and guideline of the people, the ancestors would school their descendants, which the society can automatically educate itself. Thus, no laws would be needed eventually.