and indolence would not naturally choose reason and morality;
only sage-kings who have acquired goodness through self-cultivation
would. The point is that people’s moral attributes, particularly those
of leaders, are not naturally inherited but require concerted learning
and acculturation. Such being the case, why are the human instincts to
pursue benefits and avoid harm necessarily evil rather than simply
natural or morally neutral? Xunzi argued that ‘‘men are born with
desires which, if not satisfied, cannot but lead men to seek to satisfy
them. If in seeking to satisfy their desires men observe no measure and
apportion things without limits, then it would be impossible for them
not to contend over the means to satisfy their desires. Such contention
leads to disorder. Disorder leads to poverty’’ (Xunzi, Book 19: 19.1a).
In other words, although the basic human feelings and desires are
neither good nor bad, pursuing them without social and moral con-
straints will inevitably result in combats, disorder, and poverty, which
in turn will hinder the satisfaction of human desires and threaten the
very existence of human beings. It is thus clear human nature is not
evil in that people are inherently wicked, malicious, and hopeless, but
it is evil because the unconstrained pursuit of those desires leads
to deplorable consequences such as violence, disorder, and poverty.
Consideration(lu ̈)as the foundation for self-cultivation
Although Xunzi was emphatic on the evilness of inborn human desires
and feelings, he did not claim that all inborn human attributes are
evil. He believed human evilness is capable of being transformed
into goodness through a process of self-cultivation (Xunzi, Book 2).
The psychological foundation for self-cultivation lies in some of the
human’s naturally endowed capabilities. The first natural endowment
of humans that allows for cultivation is the commanding ability of the
mind, which has the capacity to think, reason, and be concerned (lu ̈).
‘‘The mind is the lord of the body and master of the spiritual intelli-
gence. It issues commands but does not receive commands. On its own
authority it forbids or orders, renounces or selects, initiates or stops’’
(Xunzi, Book 21: 21.6a). Desires generate opposite emotions such as
liking and disliking, love and hate, and sorrow and joy, but it is the
mind that thinks, considers, reflects, and decides on a course of action
based on the calculation of social, economic, and moral appropriate-
ness. The capacity oflu ̈ therefore lays the foundation for human
58 Yan-qin Peng, Chao-chuan Chen, and Xin-hui Yang