溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Is the Pursuit of Profit an Innate Human Nature, or Something That Must Be Governed?
Does honestly acknowledging the pursuit of profit as an innate nature actually open a more realistic path to governing it?
The nature of people today, from birth, includes a fondness for profit. Follow this nature unchecked, and contention and seizure arise while yielding and deference vanish.
Xunzi's starting point, acknowledging a nature drawn toward profit, was later pushed to an extreme by the Legalists. Han Feizi, who had been Xunzi's student, inherited this insight but diverged from his teacher, arguing that this nature must be governed not by the gentle transformation of ritual but by strict law and reward and punishment. Orthodox Confucians who followed Mencius's doctrine of innate goodness, by contrast, rejected Xunzi's premise entirely, countering that humans possess an original goodness that precedes profit. This debate clearly shows how defining human nature reshapes the entire design of political institutions.
In an age where incentive design is a basic tool of policy and organizational management, this ancient approach — acknowledging and governing a profit-seeking nature — is still very much alive and at work.
Xunzi confronted Mencius's doctrine that human nature is good head-on, declaring that human nature is, by birth, fond of profit.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Xunzi confronted Mencius's doctrine that human nature is good head-on, declaring that human nature is, by birth, fond of profit. But this was not a pessimistic conclusion about humanity. Rather, only by honestly acknowledging innate nature as it is, he argued, does a realistic path open to govern it through ritual and education — human artifice. I see, oddly, practical hope in this cold starting point. Only when I do not deny the profit-seeking mind within me can I actually find a way to govern it.
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