Mencius Human Nature Analysis

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The fundamental and perfect nature of humans is that of compassion and caring for one another; the human species is one that is social, and therefore humans have an underlying instinct to care for others. Mencius understands this, and attempts to illustrate this point in several different arguments to different people throughout his series of books on the subject of the human nature. However, if human nature is compassionate, and therefore, yang, then the corruption of human nature brings forth yin, and seeing both are at constant odds with each other, the corruption of human nature brings forth the conflict in the Dao. Mencius argues that human nature can distinguish what is right from what is wrong, much like a flowing stream can distinguish massage the stiff joints of an elderly person… this is not acting; it is not a case of not being able (116, ER16).” A person chooses with their wisdom what one does. It is an active decision that one must make, not one that is predetermined, and this ability to choose what one does creates more aspects to the human heart than compassion, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. There must be an external or internal force that causes their to be greed, anger, hate, and other negative aspects of the human condition to exist. If the human condition is one that is truly tending toward the good aspects, why does these negative aspects of life exist? Mencius states that this is due to the “soil” on which these men grow, their environments, or that the human condition is the “beautiful trees of Ox Mountain [that] were once beautiful… but axes besieged it” (144, ER 16), but there must be some seed that grows in this soil, some corruption of the heart that causes these yin aspects to come to the surface of men. The environment of one person cannot be the sole factor that corrupts one’s heart. No one person is the same as another; different people have different preferences, different personalities, but it seems that from the viewpoint of Mencius, all human

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