regard as exemplary. Both of them involve Chinese ethics and so can be thought of as
continuing a tradition that goes back at least as far as Wolff and Leibniz.
Bryan W. Van Norden (2001) compares Mencius and Augustine on the explanation of
human moral evil or wrongdoing. His aim is “to show that in his Confessions Augustine's
narrative of his adolescent theft of some pears cannot be accounted for by Mencius's
philosophical psychology” (314). If this conclusion is correct, Augustine's philosophical
psychology, which can account for the theft of the pears, is superior to that of Mencius
with respect to explanatory power. Augustinian psychology would then serve as a
challenge to Mencian psychology in virtue of its greater explanatory power. The result of
the comparison would be constructive because it taught a lesson about the conditions an
adequate explanation of the full range of human wrongdoing must satisfy.
Augustine dwells on the theft of the pears in his Confessions because he finds it very
puzzling. He cannot easily identify a good that attracted him to the theft. He did not steal
the pears on account of their beauty or taste or because he was hungry; he already had
plenty of pears of his own, he tells us, better than those. Was he seeking to do evil for
evil's sake? But according to Augustine, evil does not exist; it is the mere absence or lack
of good. How could he be drawn to something that does not exist? Van Norden spells out
the crucial part of the response he attributes to Augustine as follows:
The free exercise of human will is a good. Indeed, to freely exercise the will is to act like
God. Even without the Grace of God, humans recognize this, at least inchoately. Humans
also recognize that, at least in some sense, freedom involves acting without any constraint
that is alien to them. Consequently, acting in violation of moral law appears to be an
expression of perfect freedom, since it shows contempt for a standard that seems to be
external to oneself. (2001, 332)
So rebellion against the moral law appears to be good because the exercise of free will is
godlike and appears to be at its most perfect in acting contrary to what seems to be an
alien constraint. Of course, the appearances are deceptive. Because humans were created
to love and obey God, the moral law is not an alien con
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straint. But rebellion is rendered intelligible and thereby explained by showing that it is
action for the sake of an apparent good rather than action for evil's sake.
Van Norden argues that an explanation of this kind is not available to Mencius. This is
not because there is nothing in Mencius's psychology analogous to the Augustinian will.
He thinks that Mencius supposes humans possess a capacity to cultivate or neglect the
inclinations to or sprouts of virtue that are innate in them. It is a capacity to orient desires
and perceptions in ways that help or hinder the growth of the sprouts of virtue. So Van
Norden's conclusion about Mencius is that he believes “humans have something internal
to their psychology that chooses (at least partially) the content and strength of their
desires, beliefs, and the focus of their concentration” (2001, 328). But the exercise of this
capacity does not have for Mencius the importance that the exercise of free will has for
Augustine. The exercise of free will is extremely valuable for Augustine because it is
godlike. There is no hint in Mencius that the exercise of the capacity to choose whether
or not to cultivate the sprouts of virtue is itself a great good. For him, the valuable part of
human nature is the inclinations to virtue themselves, not the capacity to choose whether