A Comparison Of Righteousness And Benefit View Between Mencius And Xunzi

Among the many themes of Chinese philosophy, the debate of Yi (Righteousness) and Li (Benefit) occupies a central role. Many famous thinkers and philosophers in the history have discussed about this question. Mencius and Xunzi both have written famous works on the subject. Their righteousness and benefit view both played an important part in the Pre-Qin Confucianism, even in the development history of Chinese philosophy. Bases on Mengzi and Xunzi, this article compares their view of righteousness and benefit, tries to find the diffidence between their ideologies.This article has three sections:First, according to the book of Shuowenjiezi, this article studies the Yi and Li's real intention and basic meaning.Second, through analysis and comparison of the intention of Yi in Mencius and Xunzi's ideologies, find the similarities and differences between their theories. It is the author's opinion that both of them stressed the importance of Yi. Mencius stressed the importance of Yi as the standard by which life values are discerned, he held Yi as a priori kindness which is concluded in the human nature. Yi played an important part in the human's ideal personalities. Mencius found the rare root of human's moral behavior in person's inner world. Under the premise of human as the subject, it planned to take the moral practice as the core content to kindness and realize this practice blueprint by the way of "seeking at ease". Yi is rational consciousness which has value in itself, so it can separate from the experience world. In Xunzi's ideology, Yi is not only moral criterion but also be put into actuality aspect, it origin of the needs of the society. The function of Yi is eliminates the dissension and adjust the relationship between the social individuals, Yi has the utility basement here. Though the definitions of Yi and Li between Mencius and Xunzi are not the same, they all stressed Yi in their moral philosophy.Third, through analysis and comparison of the intention of Li in Mencius and Xunzi's ideologies, find the similarities and differences between their theories. This article points out the different attitudes toward Li from three angles:the existence of Li, the role of benefit in the human's practical moral activity and the opinions on human's Behavior of Seeking Profit. This article comes to the conclusion that the righteousness and the benefit are completely isolated in Mencius's moral philosophy. Xunzi broke the barriers between Moral and utilitarian, stressed the unity of righteousness and benefit. Xunzi wrote complete essays in which he defends his own interpretation of the Confucian position and attacks the positions of others.A person's outlook on justice and benefit has a great influence on his whole life. The viewpoint of values initiated by a society also has a great effect on the development of a society, so a proper understanding of this point is necessary in today's society.