Mencius and his development of Confucian teachings
Mencius was perhaps the first most influential interpreter of Confucius who very much developed upon the original teachings of the master. He not only defined the central Confucian concept of ren/jen (humaneness), which Confucius did not do, but also gave a systematic elaboration of what constituted ethical human nature. The rise of Mencius was the result of the political activities of the shi class (educated commoners) who, during the Warring States Era (479-221 BC), were often employed as advisers/administrators to the newly risen dukes/kings who wanted to conquer the others and become the emperor. As seen from the writings of Mencius, he himself often advised the king of Qi, one of the hegemons contending for the leadership of China. The ru/ju (Confucian), a group within the shi class, gained ascendancy, which paved the way for the eventual establishment of Confucian learning as the "state ethic" around the 2nd century A.D. Mencius was very good at using allegories in clarifying his points. Many of his allegories have become Chinese proverbs, such as the story of one who tried to catch fish by climbing on a tree, meaning an impossible task.
1. The centrality of the family in the moral state.
For Confucius, the family was the unit that taught political loyalty to the king, through teaching a son to be loyal to his father. Mencius continued the emphasis on the family, rather than society on the whole, as a unit to measure the success or failure of government. Like Confucius, Mencius sees the material well being of the family as essential to the well being of the state. Much of Mencian writings are about government administration. In one instance he said a sign of social prosperity was 70 year olds eating meat and wearing silk, and the humaneness of the king was shown through how well a person's parents and family could be taken care of.(119)
Repeatedly, Mencius emphasized the importance of filial piety and self-preservation as a form of filial piety: to him the most important service was serving one's parents, and the greatest vigilance was to preserve oneself. (139)
To Mencius, the good ruler rules from the family to the state: the extended family. He quoted from the Odes (Book of Songs): He set an example for his wife; It extended to his brothers, And from there to the family of the state. (122)
Mencius commented: "This speaks of taking this mind and extending it to others. Thus if one extends his kindness it will be enough to protect all within the four seas, whereas if one fails to extend it, he will have no way to protect his wife and children." (122) Almost all his examples of satisfactory human behavior involved taking good care of one's family. (123-124)
2. Emphasis on rule by humaneness, instead of war
Although Mencius was no Mo Zi and did not advocate absolute pacifism, he was most of the time against wars. He advised rulers to take care of the people's livelihood to win their support: encouraging agriculture instead of fighting many wars (remember this is the Warring States Era, when rulers were all eager to fight to aggrandize their power) (118-119). Instead of focusing on war, Mencius advised the King of Qi, one of the nine large states in China then, to focus on humaneness in his administration. (123)
Mencius said to the king of Qi: a hegemon needs a large state, but a humane king does not. A ruler just needs to take care of the people, acting like parents. Then nobody would want to attack him. (128-129)
Mencius, however, was no democrat. Like Confucius, Mencius distinguished between ordinary people and gentlemen: while the latter would be able to "have a constant mind despite being without a constant means of livelihood," the ordinary people, without a constant livelihood, would succumb to all kinds of problems. (123) The constancy of mind, meaning a mind not swayed by external material things, was something Mencius cherished, and to him was achieved through self-cultivation. On the other hand, because ordinary people did not have such constancy of mind, their rulers must appeal to their material needs.
3. Developing on the Confucian ethical human nature.
This was perhaps Mencius's greatest contribution to Confucian learning. Confucius described an ethical Heaven and ethical human beings that corresponded to and were supervised by Heaven, for Mencius, an ethical human being is a moral universe on his own. Indeed, ethical human nature and one's very physical life force, the qi, were intertwined. If one nourishes the qi with uprightness and does not injure it, it will fill the space between heaven and earth. it is the companion of rightness and the way, born from an accumulation of rightness. If one's action causes the mind to be disquieted, it starves. (p.127).
Here, Mencius means the qi and rightness were integral parts of the human being and, at their best, humans could constitute moral universes on their own, with or without external approval. These moral universes were tied to the very physical life force of the human being, therefore they were the physical universe as well. Mencius built an even more tightly knit moral/physical universe than Confucius.
For many people searching for the Chinese origins of humanism or respect for the individual, they often came to Mencius. It is not surprising, since Mencius, as shown above, gave individuals so much moral power! Unlike Confucius who was preoccupied with the correct practice of ancient rituals, Mencius was less concerned about rituals. To him, ritual propriety was not to depart from serving one's parents and older brother.(140) The whole spectrum of dead ancestors were cut from his definition of ritual practices! Mencius was less concerned about tradition than individual moral behavior, which he generalized into the universal principle of ren/jen (humaneness).
Like Confucius, Mencius believed human nature was inherently ethical. Therefore all moral virtues originated from natural human sentiments:
Humaneness originates from human compassion; shame is the beginning of rightness; modesty and compliance is the beginning of propriety; and sense of right and wrong is the beginning of wisdom. (129).
More than Confucius, Mencius emphasized moral exertion. His very refutation of the Mo Zi style argument that humaneness is external rather than an inherent part of human nature was also to show that humans should not shy away from what they can do, which is moral efforts. (148-149)
4. Humaneness as an absolute principle instead of just concrete practices
In the Analects of Confucius, Confucius taught his students the definition of humaneness according to his students' weaknesses. To Confucius, humaneness was a way of human behavior that is realized in specific daily practices. For Mencius, although the emphasis on practice continued, Mencius also championed humaneness as a more absolute principle that could be defined. Instead of the ritualized relationship between king and ministers, Mencius defined relationship between king and ministers, king and his people, more along lines guided and judged by the principle of humaneness. Therefore the king was also required to practice humaneness, not just the abstract, remote judgment of the Mandate of Heaven. When the king of Qi asked him about the kingdom of Yan that Qi attacked and possessed, Mencius says if a ruler like the king of Yan was not righteous, he could be deposed. But the king of Qi should practice humane treatment to the people otherwise he would not be a righteous ruler. (125-126)
The relationship between king and ministers is reciprocal: the ruler should also treat the ministers nicely, otherwise the ministers would not treat the ruler nicely. The ruler serves as the moral exemplar of humaneness and rightness:(140-141)
"if the ruler is humane, everyone will be humane. If the ruler keeps to rightness, everyone will keep to rightness."
The noble person preserves his mind through humaneness and courtesy, which enables him to love others, and he will be reciprocated. (142)
Mencius even went to the extent to say that full dedication to reciprocity is humaneness. (156) Elsewhere, he did also define humaneness as inherent in the human sentiment of sympathy. Unlike Confucius, however, who saw humaneness more as a form of practice, e.g. in social relationships, Mencius treated it more as a principle of kindness to others, reflected in rulers' care for their people, in son's filiality to father, and so on.
5. Mencius, Mo Zi, and Lao Zi
Obviously Mencius's this worldly glorification of human moral efforts differed from Mo Zi who denied an ethical human nature, and Lao Zi, who advocated conforming to nature and abandoning human efforts at anything. On the other hand, there also were resemblances of Mencius, Mo Zi and Lao Zi. Mencius's emphasis on avoiding war and military expansion, although differing from Mo Zi's pacifism, also reflected the belief in the superiority of a moral code of behavior, this time humaneness, over military warfare. Although Mencius differed from Lao Zi, Mencius also had sentences like " to nourish the mind, leave the desires few," (p.158) which is likely to remind one of Lao Zi.