UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
Why does Hsun Tzu repeat his thesis (p. 84) throughout this piece? Does this technique make his argument more effective? What other types of repetition does Hsun Tzu use, and how does the repetition illustrate different aspects of his argument?
What distinction does Hsun Tzu draw between "nature" and "conscious activity"? Are these categories mutually exclusive? What kinds of things does he place in each category?
What does Hsun Tzu see as the origin of ritual principles? How does this differ from Mencius's view (p. 78)?
Why does Hsun Tzu assert that "every man who desires to do good does so precisely because his nature is evil"? Do you agree? Are his comparisons to men who are unaccomplished, ugly, cramped, poor, and humble valid? Is it possible to desire to be something that is part of one's nature?
How does Hsun Tzu define "good" and "evil"? Do his definitions concur with contemporary definitions of the same words?
How does Hsun Tzu differentiate between capability and possibility? How are they related, and does this inclusion weaken or strengthen the validity of Hsun Tzu's argument?
According to Hsun Tzu, what role does environment play in how humans deal with their nature? What kind of environmental factors determine a person's inclination or rejection of human nature?
6. T'ang: a righteous king in mythical ancient China; should not be confused with the T'ang Dynasty, which ruled China from 618 to 907 ce, nearly a thousand years after Hsun Tzu's time.
MAKING CONNECTIONS
How does Hsun Tzu's writing style compare with that of Mencius (p. 78)? Are his rhetorical strategies more or less effective than those of his major philosophical opponent? Why?
What kind of political theory is suggested by Hsun Tzu's philosophy of human nature? How do perceptions of human nature affect political arguments? Which political theories covered in Chapter 6, "Law and Government," best reflect the kind of government that Hsun Tzu would advocate?
Compare this essay by Hsun Tzu with the essay by him in Chapter 1, "Encouraging Learning" (p. 5). How do his views on human nature affect his views on education?
Compare Hsun Tzu's use of the dialogue form with that of Plato in "Gorgias"
(p. 166). Do the two philosophers use multiple voices for the same reasons? Explain.
WRITING ABOUT THE TEXT
Hsun Tzu states: "If a man is already rich, he will not long for wealth, and if he is already eminent, he will not long for greater power. What a man already possesses in himself he will not bother to look for outside. From this we can see that men desire to do good precisely because their nature is evil." Defend or refute this assertion, using historical examples to support your argument.
Compare Hsun Tzu's philosophy of human nature with that of Thomas Hobbes (p. 94). How does each philosopher feel that people should be governed?
Analyze the rhetoric of "Man's Nature Is Evil." What inductive and deductive arguments can you draw from the essay? (See p. 652 for explanations and examples of inductive and deductive reasoning.) How logically sound are his arguments?
Compare Hsun Tzu's view of human nature with the one implicit in the argument of his contemporary Mo Tzu in "Against Music" (p. 236). What elements do the texts share?
thomas hobbes
from Leviathan [1651]
LIKE THE PERIOD OF WARRING STATES in ancient China, the years between 1640 and 1714 in England saw great social upheaval. In 1642, a civil war broke out between King Charles I and the British Parliament under the leadership of Oliver Cromwell. The war ended in 1649 with the execution of King Charles, and for the next eleven years Cromwell ruled England as a commonwealth rather than a monarchy. Soon after Cromwell's death, Parliament invited Charles's son, Charles II, to return to the throne, but the hostilities among Anglicans, Catholics, and Dissenting Protestants continued for years and led to another revolution in 1689. Out of the chaos and uncertainty of the English revolutions emerged two of England's greatest political philosophers: Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704).
Both Locke's and Hobbes's theories of government imagine what people would be like in a "state of nature"—an environment without laws or social structures, one in which human nature existed without constraints. Locke and Hobbes posited that from a state of nature, humans established a social contract that required them to surrender some of their freedoms in exchange for the protections and opportunities of a civil society. The social contract arguments of Locke and Hobbes were extremely influential in their day. They were adopted by French philosophers such as the Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) and by American revolutionaries such as Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826).
Each thinker's vision of the social contract depended on his understanding of human nature. Those who, like Locke, saw the natural state as reasonably safe and secure believed that people had the right to renegotiate, through violent revolution if necessary, their relationship with their government when that government ceased to protect them. For Hobbes, however, the state of nature was so horrible, and people in their natural state so degenerate, that any form of government was preferable to it. Hobbes therefore opposed revolution in any form, not because he thought that kings ruled by divine right but because he believed that authoritarian governments were necessary to keep human beings' worst impulses under control.
The reading that follows, "Of the Natural Condition of Mankind, As Concerning Their Felicity and Misery," is Chapter 13 of Hobbes's most important political work, Leviathan. Though one of the shorter chapters in the book, it has become by far the most famous chapter. In it, Hobbes lays out his theory that the natural state of humanity is war, by which he means not necessarily armed conflict but a struggle in which each person's interests are inherently opposed to everyone else's.
In such a state, human life is, in Hobbes's oft-quoted terms, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
This selection from Leviathan provides an example of reasoning by generalization. Hobbes begins by defining the nature of individual human beings and then generalizes this characterization to apply to entire societies.
Nature hath made men so equal in the faculties of body and mind as that, though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body or of quicker mind than another, yet when all is reckoned together the difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others that are in the same danger with himself.[42]
And as to the faculties of the mind—setting aside the arts grounded upon words, and especially that skill of proceeding upon general and infallible rules called science (which very few have, and but in few things), as being not a native faculty (born with us), nor attained (as prudence) while we look after somewhat else—I find yet a greater equality amongst men than that of strength. For prudence is but experience, which equal time equally bestows on all men in those things they equally apply themselves unto. That which may perhaps make such equality incredible is but a vain conceit of one's own wisdom, which almost all men think they have in a greater degree than the vulgar, that is, than all men but themselves and a few others whom, by fame or for concurring with themselves, they approve. For such is the nature of men that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned, yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves. For they see their own wit at hand, and other men's at a distance. But this proveth rather that men are in that point equal, than unequal. For there is not ordinarily a greater sign of the equal distribution of anything than that every man is contented with his share.