Xunzi (Xun Kuang) · Philosophy
Xunzi’s most famous doctrine, <em>xing e</em> - that human nature is bad, and that all our goodness is <em>wei</em>, deliberate human achievement. Like crooked wood that must be steamed against the press-frame to become straight, the raw self must be reshaped by teachers, ritual, and law before it turns virtuous.
You learned that Xunzi held human nature ( xing ) to be bad - a bundle of appetites and self-seeking - while goodness is wei , the acquired product of training, ritual, and effort, against Mencius’s claim that we are born with the sprouts of virtue. Explain the doctrine and its crooked-wood image in your own wor…
Leads to Mencius.
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