6A8: The trees of Ox Mountain were once beautiful. But because it bordered on a large state, hatchets and axes besieged it. Could it remain verdant? Due to the rest it got during the day or night, and the moisture of rain and dew, it was not that there were no sprouts or shoots growing there. But oxen and sheep then came and grazed on them. Hence, it was as if it were barren. People, seeing it barren, believed that there had never been any timber there. Could this be the nature of the mountain?! When we consider what is present in people, could they truly lack the hearts of benevolence and righteousness?! That by which they discard their good hearts is simply like the hatchets and axes in relation to the trees. With them besieging it day by day, can it remain beautiful?--Menghzi/Mencius, 6A8, translated by Brian Van Norden p. 149 (in Van Norden/Ivanhoe)
The quoted passage is much discussed in analyses of Mencius's account of human nature. Mencius seems to believe that we (universally) have an innate disposition toward goodness. Famously, human nature is good (xing shan 性善). In Eric Schwitzgebel's felicitious phrase, according to Mencius 'moral development is an inward-out process of self-discovery.' This does not mean that according to Mencius social conditions play no role; on the contrary, as the trees of Ox Mountain passage suggests social factors are enabling and conditioning factors in this moral development (about which more below).
Human nature’s being good is like water’s tending downward. There is no human who does not tend toward goodness. There is no water that does not tend downward. Now, by striking water and making it leap up, you can cause it to go past your forehead. If you guide it by damming it, you can cause it to remain on a mountaintop. But is this the nature of water?! It is that way because of the circumstances. That humans can be caused to not be good is due to their natures also being like this. (6A2)
But it's also the case that Mencius suggests that there is an inner cognitive disposition, or direction (I am naturally inclined to think of a Conatus) toward goodness. One way to put this -- again drawing on Schwitzgebel is "that the office of the heart is to concentrate (si 思 – think, reflect, ponder, concentrate). If it concentrates then it will get [Virtue]. If it does not concentrate, then it will not get it."
One may, of course, disagree with Mencius's claims about human nature (as is displayed in the famous debate with Xunxi). But Mencius's homely examples bring out a methodological point and a political insight that eludes many: first, the empirical evidence of people's behavior (or as the economists say, revealed preferences) may say more about circumstances than about their worth: in years of famine, for example "most young men are cruel. It is not that the potential that Heaven confers on them varies like this. They are like this because of that by which their hearts and sunk and drowned." (6A7).
That is, Mencius interprets social reality in terms of a model: there is a human nature that in the right social circumstances and governance will incline toward pro-social behavior. Deviations from this (natural tendency toward) pro-social behavior need to be attributed to social causes and bad governance.*
Second, this has an important political consequence: social unrest or anti-social behavior is evidence of bad governance and misrule. It is a familiar enough thought (drawn from Confucius/Kongzhi) that esuch unrest may be a sign that the Heavenly Mandate may be endangered. But a further, nice benefit of this stance is that it prevents victim blaming.
*It is made explicit that the model itself is informed by empirical observation. But little is said about what may motivate further revision to the underlying model.
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