The main theme of the chapter “Human Nature Is Bad (Xing E 性惡)” in the Xunzi 荀子 is that “human nature is bad; any good in humans is acquired by wei 偽 [i.e., the thoughts and actions of the human mind-heart].” Based on bamboo slips excavated from Guodian 郭店 in 1993, the character 偽 ought be written as , with the heart radical indicating cognitive activity of the human mind-heart. On this understanding of wei, the sentence quoted above indicates that, although human nature is bad, goodness nevertheless arises through the concerted activity of the mind-heart. On this view, “human nature” represents a force dragging human beings “downward,” while the “human mind-heart” is a countervailing force raising them “upward.” Xunzi thus sets forth a distinctive doctrine which sets “bad nature” in counterposition with the “good mind-heart.” According to Xunzi, the mind-heart is an intellectual and moral entity, which knows goodness, likes it, and acts accordingly. The capacity to form value judgments is intrinsic to it, and thus the doctrine of the “good mind-heart” entails that there is a natural tendency toward goodness in human beings which enables them to perform acts of goodness. Among other pre-Qin 秦 Confucian disquisitions on human nature, those of Xunzi are unique, complete, and indeed deserving of thorough scrutiny.
