Philosophy
c. 372 to 289 BC, Zou, China
Human nature is innately good, its four moral sprouts grow into virtue through patient cultivation, and a ruler holds power only so long as he serves the people.
Start learning Mencius →Mencius’s claim that human nature is inherently good, shown by the spontaneous alarm anyone feels on seeing a child about to fall into a well, and that morality grows from four inborn ‘sprouts’ or begi…
How the four sprouts grow into the four cardinal virtues - ren (benevolence), yi (righteousness), li (propriety), and zhi (wisdom) - and how the moral self is built not by importing virtue from outside but by ‘ext…
Mencius’s political philosophy of ren zheng , benevolent government: the humane, economically grounded state whose first duty is the people’s welfare, and his sharp distinction between the true King who wins…
Mencius’s most radical doctrine: that the people, not the ruler, are the most precious element of a state; that the Mandate of Heaven is granted through the people’s acceptance; and that a tyrant who forfeit…
Mencius’s account of moral cultivation at full strength: the ‘flood-like qi’ ( haoran zhi qi ), a vast moral energy grown by the steady accumulation of righteous acts, and his warning, in the parable o…
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