QuestionsAre humans good by nature?Human nature is principle, hence good
Are humans good by nature?Good by nature

Human nature is principle, hence good

Zhu Xi 1130 · 1200Study the principle (li) of things to perfect oneself.
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What it claims

Human nature is good at its root; evil comes not from it but from turbid qi, and study can recover it.

Why

Human nature is the principle, which is good; evil comes only from the received breath, clear or turbid.

In short

"Human nature is principle, hence good" is an argument by Zhu Xi (Classified Conversations 4) on the question "Are humans good by nature?" (answer: good by nature). Its claim: Human nature is good at its root; evil comes not from it but from turbid qi, and study can recover it. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P4). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Classified Conversations 4
Valid with an implicit premise

Where does evil come from? Mencius said human nature is good, Xunzi that it is bad. Zhu Xi answers on two levels, inherited from the Cheng brothers: nature is the principle Heaven gives us, hence good; but this principle is carried by qi, clear or turbid depending on the person, and evil comes from turbid qi. The P1..P3 → C form is our reconstruction. It hides that Zhu Xi uses the word "nature" in two senses: the original nature (the principle) and the nature mixed with qi, which is the one Confucius means when he says "close by nature". That is where the implicit premise lies. The quotations come from the Yulei, conversations recorded by students.

P1Human nature is the principle (li) that Heaven gives us.
P2The principle as it ought to be has nothing bad in it: whatever is principle is good.
P3That some people are good and others not is only because the qi received is, for each, clear or turbid.
P4 · implicit premiseIf nature is good and evil comes from qi, then evil does not come from nature: the word "nature" (in the strict sense) is reserved for what Heaven gives, not for the qi that carries it.
Therefore human nature is good at its root; evil comes not from it but from turbid qi, and study can recover it.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, the computer finds a case where nature is principle, principle is good and evil comes from qi, but qi is part of nature: evil then also comes from nature, which is no longer simply "good".
The argument is valid and its four premises are essential. The weak point is P4. Zhu Xi himself says one cannot speak of nature without speaking of qi: without it, nature has nowhere to lodge (Yulei 4, §47); to be complete, both must be counted (§43). If qi counts as nature, then evil is also "natural": this is exactly the position of his critics. Zhu Xi therefore holds two things: the original nature is good, the concrete nature of people is unequal. He does not say all people are good in fact.
Analogy. Light and mirror: the light is always the same and always clear, but a dirty or misted mirror sends it back poorly. The fault is in the mirror, not the light. Cleaning the mirror is studying.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Xunzi 250 BC · attacks premise 1

People are born with love of gain, envy and the desires of the senses. That is their nature. Goodness is an artifice: as crooked wood needs straightening, people need teachers and rites to become good.

Zhu Xi replies
Zhu Xi Zhu Xi on Xunzi
Mencius, speaking of nature, speaks only of the original nature, and likewise of talents. Xunzi sees only the bad.
Z
Zhu Xi (another conversation)
People like Xunzi and Yang Xiong speak "of qi without speaking of nature": that is why their thesis is not clear.
The debate goes on (our summary) The disagreement is also about the meaning of the word "nature". Xunzi calls nature what is born with us, the desires; Zhu Xi calls nature the principle, and admits that turbid qi is natural too. He turns the criticism around: Xunzi speaks of qi without speaking of nature, that is, of the principle within us. Xunzi would answer that this principle is not observable in a newborn. (Our summary.)
Y
Yang Xiong 10 BC · attacks premise 2

Human nature is a mixture of good and bad: one becomes good by cultivating the good, bad by cultivating the bad.

Zhu Xi replies
summary: their text is not yet in our corpus
Zhu Xi Zhu Xi on Yang Xiong
Yang Xiong saw only people half good and half bad; what Han Yu says is a little closer.
The debate goes on (our summary) The passage does not answer on substance: it ranks Yang Xiong among those who look only at people as they are, without the principle. We do not have Yang Xiong's text in our corpus. (Our summary.)
D
Dai Zhen 1777 · attacks premise 1

Principle is not a thing received from Heaven and placed in us above the desires. It is the right relations among the needs and feelings of humans. By opposing "heavenly principle" and "human desires", one calls one's own opinion principle, and one can kill people in the name of principle.

no reply
summary: their text is not yet in our corpus
No reply possible: objection raised in 1777, after the author's death (1200).
The debate goes on (our summary) Dai Zhen writes in the eighteenth century, more than five hundred years later. Zhu Xi does say, however, that without the qi-disposition nature has nowhere to lodge (Yulei 4, §47): he refuses to make it a separate thing, but keeps the difference between what is straight and what bends it. (Our summary.)