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Journal of Beijing Normal University(Social Sciences) ›› 2019, Vol. 0 ›› Issue (5): 118-127.

• Philosophy • Previous Articles     Next Articles

The Structure of Human Nature and Teleological Goodness: The re-discussion of Xunzi's theory of human nature

LI Jinglin   

  1. School of Philosophy,BNU,Beijing 100875,China
  • Received:2019-05-26 Online:2019-09-25 Published:2019-11-04

Abstract: The theory “evil of human nature” has been the criticism focus on Xunzi by the later scholars of the Confucius school. When talk about the structure of human nature,Xunzi emphasized that person's actual activities and emotional requirements shall be subject to the mind and it choice. The rules controlled by mind decide the implementation ways and behavior principle,add positive (good)or negative (not good or evil)moral value and significance in practical situations,rather than cause behaviors directly from the good or evil nature. In view of Mencius's “theory of original goodness of human nature”,Xunzi raised “evil of human nature”,whose essence is to emphasize there is no “ready goodness” in human nature,rather than to illustrate human nature is essentially “evil”. Xunzi held that human beings should be regarded as the same kind,whose nature is named as “dao” or “li”,which provides the ultimate existence purpose for human beings. As the existence as a “kind”,human beings have the tendency to be good,because of the logical inevitability and teleological goodness. Therefore,it did not relay on the external force in politics and in moral,but advocated self-reliance to achieve the moral goal. Both the structure of human nature of “subject to the mind” and the teleological goodness of nature formed the overall connotation of Xunzi's theory of human nature.

Key words: evil of human nature, essential evil, connotation of human nature, structure of human nature, teleological goodness of nature, self-consistent in theory

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