The nature of man, or the innate properties that every one of us is born with, is an enigma in many ways. Philosophy and religion have attempted to solve the puzzle of the nature of man for thousands of years in many parts of the world. As often occurs in philosophy and religion, the same puzzle can be viewed from very different perspectives. This same phenomenon occurred in China, where three people came away from the same puzzle with three different answers, only one of which abides by the more prevalent world view. Xunzi’s statement that man is inherently evil is the most compelling of the arguments of Confucius and Mencius.
Confucius was the first main contributor to the arena pertaining to the nature of man. He contended that man was essentially good. He spoke of the nature of man in the Analects, having been quoted saying: "Is goodness indeed so far away? If we really wanted goodness, we should find that it was at our side." (Analects 7:29) Based on this statement, Confucius seems to be saying that the nature of man is neither good nor evil. He does not say that man is perverse and sentenced to a life of struggles against his evil nature, but he also does not say that man naturally and actively seeks good. He has been quoted saying, "True goodness springs from a man's own heart. All men are born good." However, he does not say that a man maintains goodness throughout his life. He says that if we should choose to look for it, it would not be far, perhaps turning his stance slightly toward the side of good, but still remaining rather neutral.
Mencius, a disciple of Confucius, took his master’s belief in an inclination toward good and said that man is innately ethical and righteous. He has been quotes saying that human nature is like water: “The tendency of man’s nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow downward.”. The nature can be twisted and changed, the river dammed for different purposes, but generally, without corruption of witnessing poor ethics of being acted upon, the nature remains as it was made. Mencius believed that good may need nourishment and encouragement to reach its full potential in a person. He said: “The tendency of man’s nature to good is like the tendency of water to flow downward.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Xunzi believed that the nature of man is essentially evil. He commented on human nature, saying, "Man's nature is evil; goodness is the result of conscious activity." He contended that mankind is evil and is in need of boundaries in order to curtail the inclination to act in self interest. Xunzi believed that ritual is the only way in which this dark nature can be contained. His belief was that through rituals of cleansing and purification, the nature of man which would lead people into wrong doing, could be bent and taught to be good.
Under closer analysis of the various stances, we find that these differing perspectives offer much for which we can hypothesize. Confucius, for instance, is neutral for all intents and purposes, while Mencius and Xunzi hold much more concrete beliefs about the matter of the nature of man. We must look more closely at these arguments and why these individuals believed the way they did.
Confucius contended that there was most certainly good in the world, and that it was likely more tangible and accessible than evil. He maintained that most people neither lived exclusively for good or evil. This can be argued to be untrue. When holding opinions, people generally tend to choose one side over the other, and the more one argues for their side, the closer that opinion becomes to the person. The longer an opinion is maintained, the more concrete and true it becomes. It could be considered true that in average circumstances, a person would likely care neither one way or the other, but in more unusual circumstances, the type of situation in which morals can be tested, a person is likely to grasp one side over the other, and more often than not, a person is more likely to choose the road that most benefits him or herself.
Mencius discovered corruption and misery and conjectured that people are naturally good, but going into the world corrupts them and perpetuates a cycle of evil, by which corrupt society breeds corrupt people, and corrupt people create the society. The problem, however, with this argument is that if all people were innately good, the society, which is created entirely by the people, would have no reason to be corrupt, and would therefore not corrupt those who live in it. Mencius believed that the river flowing down stream has a natural course, and is interrupted only by outside forces shaping it into evil. Conversely, the exact analogy can be used for the opposite argument. The river flowing down stream may be flowing downward and becoming more evil, and that descent into evil might only be interrupted by an outside force acting on it for good. In essence, the argument holds no water.
Xunzi's world view is quite different from Mencius and Confucius. Though he viewed the same corrupt world as Mencius, he believed that the disorder came from a natural state of mankind, much like the concept of entropy, which states that the universe is prone to disorder and randomness. In the world of physics, an object in motion will tend to stay in motion unless acted on by another force. In the same way that the universe becomes less orderly, so does the person become chaotic, if not acted upon by an outside force. Xunzi believed that in order to harness the chaos within us, that rituals and laws are necessary.
To understand Xunzi's contention, we have only to look at history. There have been fewer years than a person can count on their fingers and toes in all of known history that the world has been utterly at peace. Many countries maintained wars and rivalries for hundreds of years. Through history there have been men such as Hitler, Stalin, and Mao who's own selfish ambitions came before the well being of humanity. Many noteworthy villains of our time have been men who, had their respective systems intervened more effectively on their tendencies toward ill, may not have ended up being proponents of genocide, torture, and other evils. Hitler’s inborn, and strongly genetic, mental illness was exacerbated by the unpleasant circumstances of his life and led him to genocide. The argument of Mencius does not hold up against such a historical record of wrong. If people were innately good, most atrocities such as the Holocaust would never have been conceived of, let alone carried out. His belief that humans will, in most cases, be selfless rather than selfish, while optimistic and ideal, is not true in application.
If we want a final example, however, we must only look at ourselves. Most people who are honest with themselves, would say that if faced with a tempting situation, they would seriously weigh the option of doing what is considered wrong. It is natural for us to weigh the consequences of our actions before acting, which is in itself an expression of self interest. Humans do what is right because they do not want to be subjected to consequence. Fewer will do something simply because they have been taught it is wrong. They may do what is right, but it is not simply because they know it is right, but because they were taught as such. Most of us would agree that it is not right to call people names or take things that do not belong to us, but when we were young, before our parents instilled values in us, we did those things without remorse or regret.
Many people have pondered over the nature of man throughout history. However, the prevailing view, and the view that seems to be most supported by historical example and personal experience by the majority of the human race is that man is essentially evil. Xunzi may have also been optimistic in his view of the perfectibility of human beings, but the idea that it is necessary for the selfish nature of man to be shifted is the argument that is the most compelling.
Sources:
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/confucius.html
http://dede.essortment.com/whoisconfucius_rtyr.htm
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/x/xunzi.htm