In the most recent New York Review of Books, John Gray asks this question in connection with two books: Marc Hauser's Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong, and Frans de Waal's Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved. It's all about the rejection of Hobbesian assumptions about bad human nature, and all that implies for politics. Gray argues that these books bring a new, more scientifically inflected, perspective to the debate and demonstrate an innate moral capacity of humankind. So, the answer is, "yes," we are born moral, if these new books are to be taken at their word.
I am, of course, more interested in the old books. Gray points out that the new science comes closer to an Aristotelean notion of human morality, sans the antiquated Greek teleological biology. He has a broad and learned grasp of Western philosophy and contemporary social science. What he does not do, however, is cite one of the most obvious and eloquent ancient source for the point he is trying to make: Mencius.
Mencius is very clear and straightforward about the innate moral capacities of humankind:
Mencius said: "Everyone has a heart that cannot bear to see others suffer...
"Suddenly seeing a baby about to fall into a well, anyone would be heart-stricken with pity: heart-stricken not because they wanted to curry favor with the baby's parents, not because they wanted the praise of neighbors and friends, and not because they hated the baby's cries....
"And from this we can see that without a heart of compassion we aren't human, without a heart of conscience we aren't human, without a heart of courtesy we aren't human, and without a heart of right or wrong we aren't human." (55-56).
Notice the "everyone" and "anyone" there.
Mencius is not a Pollyanna; he knows that some people will do evil, but that is simply the result of environmental influences (bad education) or bad choices. In other words, we have to learn to be bad:
Human nature is inherently good, just like water flows inherently downhill. There's no such thing as a person who isn't good, just as there's no water that doesn't flow downhill.
Think about water: if you slap it, you can make it jump over your head; and if you push and shove, you can make it stay on a mountain. But what does this have to do with the nature of water? It's only responding to the forces around it. It's like that for people too: you can make them evil, but that says nothing about human nature. (197-198)
It would seem, then, that the new science is not bringing us back to the Greeks (and their mistaken biology) but to Mencius (who has no such teleology about him). Wouldn't it be great if this point were more commonly made in these kinds of discussions?
I actually think that the 'moral grammar' described in those works is closer to Yangming's Liangzhi. Not that Yangming wasn't just expanding on the Mencian point, but I think that given Yangming's importance to New Confucianism, I do think the distinction is worth making.
Posted by: John | April 25, 2007 at 10:00 PM
Hi Sam -- I haven't read that one of De Waal's books, but in earlier work he actually does cite and reflect on Mencius, remarkably enough.
Posted by: Steve Angle | April 27, 2007 at 08:59 AM