"The Regulations of a King"

The most important aspects of this chapter are its extension of the role of li and of Confucian self-cultivation to a portrait of man's role in the universe, and the way in which this portrait legitimizes the Confucian ideal of the hierarchical state. Where the "Treatise on Tian" and "Man's Nature is Evil" seem principally to separate man from Nature, this chapter forges some very profound linkages. Parts of the chapter are among the most poetic in Confucian literature, while at the same time retaining the hard-headed quality that distinguishes the best parts of the Xunzi. Ask yourself how man's role in the universe relates to li, and use this chapter, which brings together many of the text's major themes, to review how the many theories of the Xunzi served to defend and promote the Confucian ritual lifestyle. (Pages 50-57 deal with specifics of political organization, and may be skimmed.)

"Man's Nature is Evil"

The Xunzi has been famous in China for attacking Mencius' claim the human nature is innately good. It does this explicitly in this chapter, but the claim that human nature is not good is made repeatedly in other chapters as well. Only in this chapter is it said that our nature is "bad"; elsewhere it is simply not good, and it is best not to lay too much stress on the word "evil," which includes a sense of "sinister" in our tradition. The Xunzi's point is simply that at birth we are not moral in any way, but are inherently self-regarding (or naively selfish), and that our "natural" dispositions do not provide us with guidance for becoming good. Obviously, an important issue is to set a standard for distinguishing what is "natural" from what is not natural. Where does the Xunzi draw the line? How does its line-drawing compare to that of the Mencius, the Dao de jing, and the Zhuangzi? How well does the Xunzi defend its choice of where to draw the line?