Mencius 372 BC – 289 BC

Mengzi, conventionally known in the West as Mencius, was a Chinese Confucian philosopher of the fourth century BC, traditionally regarded as the second sage of the Confucian tradition after Confucius himself. His teachings, recorded in the book that bears his name, develop the central Confucian themes of moral cultivation and right government with particular emphasis on the original goodness of human nature. He argued that all human beings possess innate moral sprouts of compassion, shame, deference, and judgement of right and wrong that, if properly cultivated, develop into the cardinal virtues. He travelled extensively as an unsuccessful adviser to the rulers of various warring states. The Mencius became one of the canonical Four Books of Neo-Confucianism in the Song dynasty and shaped East Asian moral and political thought for centuries.

Mencius (Mengzi, c. 372–289 BC) is the most important developer of Confucianism after Confucius himself. Born more than a century after Confucius's death, he claimed direct philosophical succession through Confucius's grandson Zisi and traveled among the courts of the warring states for years in unsuccessful search of a ruler who would adopt his teaching, before retiring to teach in his home state of Zou.

The Mencius — seven books of philosophical dialogues collected by his disciples — is the most systematic positive statement of early Confucian doctrine. Mencius's most distinctive contribution is his argument that human nature is good. The four sprouts of moral feeling — compassion, shame, deference, and the sense of right and wrong — are present in all human beings and need only nurture rather than radical reformation. The famous example of the spontaneous compassion one feels at the sight of a child about to fall into a well is the canonical illustration.

Mencius's political philosophy is more confrontational with rulers than anything explicit in the Analects. He argues that a tyrannical ruler forfeits the mandate of heaven and may legitimately be deposed — a doctrine more revolutionary than the inherited Confucian framework. The Mencian view of human nature was canonized as Confucian orthodoxy by Zhu Xi and the Neo-Confucians of the Song dynasty, and it has dominated subsequent Confucian thought into the modern period.