Mencius Human Nature Analysis

2. What is Confucius 's argument for virtue? They want to have a good leader and have faith on people and want people that follow rules. Ji said," What is killing good for?" Master knows that people will learn from that and will remember what they did wrong

Confucius and his disciples believed that people had a natural sense of empathy and that we owed it to one another to be kind to each other. This is a really big belief in modern society as well. We are taught as children that we should be kind to one another and care of one another. This has been a teaching throughout the centuries of human existence, and this isn’t just mentioned in the writings of Confucius and his disciples it’s also in the writing of other literary works as well. The Bible tells it reads to, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you,” (Ephesians 4:32).

“Human nature is like water. It takes shape of its container” is a quote beautifully worded by Wallace Stevens about the effect of human nature. Human nature would be the general characteristics that are shared by individuals of certain civilizations. The characteristics mainly consist of feelings, psychology, and behaviours. Although these characteristics may shape up a human being, there are many different many experiences an individual may go through which may result in disputes.

“Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly every action and rational choice, is thought to aim at some good; and so the good has been aptly described as that which everything aims. But it is clear that there is some difference between ends: some ends are activities, while others are products which are additional to the activities. In cases where there are ends additional to the actions, the products are by their nature better than activities.” (Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, as translated by Crisp, 2000, p. #3) Aristotle was the first philosopher who wrote a book on ethics titled, Nichomachean Ethics.

The journey of self-enlightenment is an unending process; nowadays, instead of ignoring the problem, one is encouraged to reflect upon himself and learn from his mistake. Both Confucius and St. Augustine embrace this philosophy and use their mistakes as a pedestal to improve themselves and attain the highest understanding. The concept of self-reflection is an essential part of Confucius and Saint Augustine’s path to enlightenment, their different education background and life philosophies have created very different processes of how one would attain self-improvement: While Confucius has an idea of how a virtuous man should be and one should follow the three virtues to reach enlightenment, Saint Augustine is unclear about his path to God, as he is a man of rhetoric and felt the need to understand God before committing himself to Christianity. Confucius regards education as the only way to self-improvement and morality ; he believes that if one were willing to learn, he will naturally find the way and become a virtuous man.

Their rationalities are still being used today. They were incredible masterminds with awesome impact in the antiquated society. Confucianism imparts to Aristotle mindfulness that for people to be great, they require moral astuteness and in addition different demeanors of character, yet Confucianism places more prominent accentuation on the part of reflection and concentrate in the improvement of good insight (Provis, 2017). Over the next several paragraphs, it is my goal to address the following: 1)

Confucius sounds Aristotelian when he states, “The virtue embodied in the doctrine of the Mean is of the highest order,” (Analects 46). Moreover, Confucius

Although both Confucius and Mencius have a lot in common with regards to governance, the two do have varying opinions on certain matters such as the legitimacy when rulers are overthrown, and the relationship between the ruler and his people. In precedence to coming up with policies and administrative measures, one has to first consider the issue of human nature as it plays an essential role in the development of a state 's political system. In the Confucian philosophy, the belief is that goodness is innate in humans and that everyone shares this same trait [子曰：“性相近也，习相远也。”] (Analects, 17.2). Mencius further elaborated on this doctrine by stating that it is mankind’s natural tendency to be kind to others, just as water would naturally flow downwards (Mencius, 6A2).

This book is the first, published in 1997, of three projected volumes examining Confucian-Mencian ethical thought by Professor Kwong-loi Shun. This book is to explore the possibilities of the text (Roetz, 1999, p. 385) and to study the reflective ethical thinking of Mencius with subsequent references to and comparisons with that of other early Chinese thinkers such as Confucius, Mo Tsu, the Yangists and Hsün Tsu, through assessing and analyzing traditional and contemporary interpretations of the Meng-tzu in commentaries and translations. By ethical thinking, the author means thinking about how one should live; a conception of the ethical life or the ethical ideal is an answer to this question. Due to the separation from the more philosophical

The understanding that some people are good or bad widespread all over the world.” The evil comes from human history and continue until today” and even today this statement has existed. Moreover, when people want to explain why people do some evil acts, the discussion often end with words like “people initially are born evil”. However, some other people argued that people are born good. Because of these many critics has debates such as: are people born bad, good or just like naked board without any morality.

Preceding Socrates, the lessons of Confucius in China were held in high respect. Confucius is credited with having said "By three strategies we may learn shrewdness: first by reflection, which is noblest; second by impersonation, which is least demanding; and third by encounter, which is the bitterest." In this insight, he held that reflection is the purest method to acquire knowledge. Again, philosophical instructing that beseeches us to consider our extremely presence. This is, truth be told, an exceptionally

Human nature is complex. Moreover, my philosophy on human nature changes based on experiences, occupation, and education. My position as a high school assistant principal has changed my “almost perfect” world, as I saw it. Human Nature; I believe we are born with certain instinctual needs such as survival, sex drive, love, acceptance, relationships. In addition, I believe human nature has given us the instinct to react in ways that are sometimes unacceptable, socially, to fulfill these needs.

(Ethics 938). It is not enough to state that one is virtuous, nor is it enough for someone to be born virtuous and end there. Rather, it is the continuous pursuit, the juxtaposition of virtuous activity and of that which isn’t, that allows an individual to flourish in an Aristotelian society. We can deduce, then, that “…human

At the beginning of the course, Professor Magagna explained to us about the concept of Confucian. He brings out the concept about Confucius on the human nature with two quotes: “ the most excellent know it and love it; the wise understand and profit” and “to know it is not as good as to love it; to love it is not good as to delight in it” (Professor Magagna, 2015). The first quote explains that people that are smart notice that the human nature is not settled, but it is a talent that we human can experience it through our life. Confucius did not judge on anything, but he wants to bring out that if we found or notice our own talent and our potential inside us, then we will become an excellent person. And even if we do not understand or found our potential, just be a wise person and that will bring you to be a good person (Professor Magagna, 2015).

Ancient Confucianism imitates political practice forms the natural pattern. Nonetheless, The Chinese government, especially emphasizes the importance of multicultural diversity refers to the phrase “Harmony without uniformity” in the section of Zi Luin the Analects. According to James Legge’s translation, the sense of individual principle of behaviour can firstly be shown as follows, “The superior man is affable, but not adulatory; the mean man is adulatory, but not affable.” The principle of a behaviour of the superior man, alleged Junzi, is not about world order, rather not about world order.