Mencius

Mencius (Mengzi, 'Master Meng', personal name Meng Ke) lived in the fourth century BCE; his traditional dates, 372–289 BCE, are approximate and rest on later tradition. He came from the small state of Zou, near Confucius's home state of Lu, and is said to have studied with followers of Confucius's grandson. He lived during the Warring States period, when the Zhou kings had lost real power and competing states were centralising, militarising and recruiting itinerant advisers. Mencius travelled between courts, including those of King Hui of Liang and King Xuan of Qi, offering advice that was rarely taken.

The book that bears his name records conversations with rulers, disciples and rivals and was probably compiled by his followers. From the Song dynasty onwards it was one of the Four Books of the Confucian canon, and it became part of the curriculum of the imperial civil-service examinations.

• Human nature is good. Mencius argued that all people possess 'sprouts' of benevolence, righteousness, propriety and wisdom, which can be cultivated or stunted by circumstances. Government should create the conditions in which these sprouts grow.
• Benevolent government. Rulers should govern 'through benevolence and righteousness' rather than profit or force (Mengzi 1A1). A ruler who attends to the effect of his policies on ordinary people will win their allegiance, and people flock to such a ruler 'as water flows downward'.
• Material security first. Those without a constant livelihood will not have a constant heart; if hunger and fear drive people to crime, punishing them is 'entrapping the people' (1A7). Mencius recommended light taxation, fair land division and protection of the agricultural seasons.
• The well-field system. In 3A3 he proposed dividing land into nine squares, with eight families each farming one square for themselves and jointly cultivating the central square, whose produce goes to the state as tax.
• The mandate and the people. Mencius inherited the Zhou doctrine that Heaven grants the mandate to rule to the virtuous. He argued that Heaven does not speak, but shows its will through the acceptance of the people, quoting the saying that 'Heaven sees as my people see; Heaven hears as my people hear' (5A5). In 7B14 he ranked the people first, the altars of the land and grain second and the ruler last.
• Forfeiting kingship. Asked whether a minister may kill his sovereign, he answered that one who mutilates benevolence and righteousness is a 'mere fellow', and that he had heard of the punishment of the 'fellow Zhou' but not of the murder of a ruler (1B8). Ministers of the royal family could, after repeated remonstrance, replace a ruler who made grave mistakes (5B9).

Mencius is the classical Chinese source most often cited for the idea that political authority is conditional on performance and on the people's welfare. Twentieth-century reformers and scholars have read the 'people first' passages as an indigenous basis for democratic ideas, while others treat them as a theory of accountable but non-electoral rule. The debate continues in contemporary political theory: Bai Tongdong and others have built 'Confucian' models that combine popular input with selection of rulers by merit, and Daniel A. Bell has defended political meritocracy with reference to the Confucian tradition, while Justin Tiwald warns against overestimating how far Mencius champions the people's will as a source of authority.

For governance design the Mencian tradition offers three recurring ideas: that legitimacy depends on outputs (security, livelihood, fair taxation) as well as on procedures; that officials have a duty of remonstrance and may refuse to serve a bad ruler; and that a ruler who abuses office loses the protection of office. The well-field proposal has been invoked repeatedly in Chinese history in arguments for land redistribution.

• No institutional voice. The people's acceptance is read off their behaviour — migration, rebellion, flourishing — rather than expressed through votes or representation, so the doctrine gives little guidance on how consent is measured or how disputes about a ruler's virtue are settled peacefully.
• Paternalism. Government by moral exemplars assumes that rulers and scholars know what is good for the people, a premise that critics regard as elitist and that the Legalist tradition regarded as naïve.
• Retrospective legitimacy. Because success is taken as evidence of Heaven's favour, the doctrine can legitimise any successful rebellion after the fact.
• Human nature. Xunzi, a later Confucian, argued that human nature is bad and that order must be imposed through ritual and law, a challenge to Mencius's optimistic premise.

• Mengzi (Mencius) — D. C. Lau (trans.), Mencius (Penguin Classics, 1970); Bryan W. Van Norden (trans.), Mengzi: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries (Hackett, 2008)
• Overview: Bryan Van Norden, 'Mencius', Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy