Mencius said, “All men have some things which they cannot bear. Extend that feeling to what they can bear, and humanity will be the result. All men have some things which they will not do. Extend that feeling to the things they do, and righteousness will be the result. If a man can give full development to his feeling of not wanting to injure others, his humanity will be more than what he can ever put into practice. If he can give full development to his feeling of not wanting to break in to steal, his righteousness will be more than what he can ever put into practice. If a man can give full development to his real dislike of being addressed, ‘Hey, you,’ he will act according to righteousness wherever he may be. When an officer speaks what he ought not to speak, he is enticing people by speaking. When he does not speak what he ought to speak, he is enticing by not speaking. In both cases he is doing something like breaking in.” [Book of Mencius 7B:31]
In the
Book of Mencius 7B:31, Mencius explained the very nature ‘jen’ or
human-heartedness and ‘yi’, righteousness. This two have different meanings but
could be used separately or together. According to Mencius, “Human-heartedness
represents the heart and righteousness, the human way.”
According
to Mencius, in the previous text, all men have some things which they cannot
bear, extend that to what they can bear and humanity will be the result. This
could be pretty summed up in Confucius’ Golden Rule—“Do not do unto others what
you do not want others do unto you.” Taking from this text, humanity is not
doing to others exactly what you do not want done unto you. If you do not want
others to hurt you, do not hurt others as well. Extending that, do to others
what you want to be done to you. Humanity here is explained as not doing to
others what could hurt you, and extending to others what good you want to be
done for yourself.
Mencius
also stated that all men have something that they would not do; extending that,
there are also things that they would do, the result would be righteousness.
Righteousness is not doing what should not be done and doing what should be
done. ‘Should’ here puts emphasis to the obligation of men to do or not to do
things that should be or not should be. Righteousness is doing or not doing
things because of his moral obligations and not doing or not doing things as a
means towards his own selfish ends.
An
example would be sufficient to further explain this. If a person found a
wallet, that person knows that he should not claim it as his own and return it
to its rightful owner. A righteous person knows what is right and does what is
right. Thus, a righteous person does not claim it for himself and return it to
its owner. A not righteous person would be someone who does the right thing for
a personal end. For example, if the person who found the wallet heard that
anyone who found the lost wallet would be greatly rewarded when he returns it
returned it for the main reason of claiming the said reward, that person is not
being righteous. Righteousness is not doing what is correct because of what he
could gain. A righteous person does the correct thing because he knows it is
the right thing to do.
Mencius
explains that if one is able to cultivate his feeling of not wanting to do
anything that could harm, injure or do wrong things to others, he would be able
to develop himself to be more humane and righteous than he could ever do. It is
by doing to others what you do not want to be done to you that you are tempting
others to do the same to you. It is by not doing unto others what you do not
want to be done to you that you are protecting yourself from the harm of
others. Inflict pain to others and they will do so to you. Do good to others,
and they might just do good to you as well. Human-heartedness and righteousness
together is called ‘principled morality’.
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