Overview
Mencius (Meng Ke, c. 371–c. 289 BCE) was the most influential early defender of Confucian ethics in the Warring States era. He traveled among courts arguing that benevolent government was not only right but politically effective. Tradition ranks him second only to Confucius within classical Confucianism. The book Mencius records dialogues, debates with rivals, and vivid moral psychology. Handbook consensus places his life roughly in the late fourth to early third century BCE. His optimism about human nature later became a central Confucian orthodoxy.
Main ideas
Mencius holds that humans possess innate “sprouts” of compassion, shame, deference, and moral discernment that cultivation can grow into full virtues. Evil arises when environments starve these beginnings, not from a fixed corrupt essence. Humane government (ren zheng) prioritizes the people’s livelihood; a ruler who abandons the people forfeits legitimacy. He famously allows that removing a tyrant can be justified as punishing a criminal rather than mere regicide. Moral knowledge is tied to reflective extension of ordinary sympathetic responses. Against Mohists and Yangists he defends graded concern rooted in family while still demanding public benevolence.
Major works
- Mencius
- Dialogues with rulers (within Mencius)
- Debates with Gaozi (within Mencius)
Legacy
His theory of good human nature became a major Confucian position and a lasting resource for Chinese moral psychology. Neo-Confucians elevated the Mencius within the Four Books curriculum. Modern debates on rights, rebellion, and education still return to his political ethics.