A Study On Xunzi Ethical Thoughts From Logical Mechanism

For the time being among the academic circle, most of the research has been focusing on the idea of human nature, Li, human heart or about delving into certain areas of the overall ideology of Xunzi. But for the fundamental questions as why are the ethical practices possible in the thoughts of Xunzi and why they are universal and inevitable, are still unknown to us. There has been no dedicated and systematic research on this point. This article is dedicated to systematically look into ethical thoughts of Xunzi through the perspective of a moral questioning, which is why it’s possible to fulfill the ethical practices and why the practices should be universThe author believes that the answer to the questioning determines the value and the fate of the theory. It’s perhaps due to the reason that Xunzi presented a unique and profound answer that makes his theory full of value and significance. The examining of Xunzi’s thoughts within the realm of this questioning in the article is about the delving deeper and deeper into Xunzi’s thoughts and see how the idea of ethics" or "morality" takes place, in order to prove whether Xunzi’s ethical thoughts are theoretically reasonable or practically effective.The reason why ethical practices may occur, is inevitably involved with the question that if they have extrinsic and intrinsic basis. About the extrinsic basis, which is about the relation between heaven and human beings, we find out that Xunzi gets to his own understanding of the issue by separating heaven and humanity. According to Xunzi, Heaven just refers to the objective operations of natural phenomena governed by laws, which cannot offer us the internal basis and driving force for our moral practice. But the Heaven is pregnant with the sense of "creating"; it is "the beginning of life" and "the source of life" that humans must live in harmony with. Therefore only by fully releasing our own initiatives, utilizing our lot and "acting in accord and with full understanding of the heaven and earth", will we arrive at level of being like divinities with all the godlinessXunzi also has his own unique answer about the internal basis of ethical practice, or the issue of human nature. Xunzi has a special definition of human nature. It is not about heart or sentiment, which refers specifically to the instinct desire of humans and such innate desires have the tendency towards evil, and therefore cannot be used as the intrinsic foundation for ethic. But such desires can also be put in healthy control through practices of moral values. So in Xunzi’s perspective, the practice of moral values arise as more important than human nature, and becomes the origin of ethics. Besides the "heart" and "sentiment" play a key role in attaining moral virtue and holiness in ethical practices. Just because of the cognitive function of "heart" and the inclination towards the Dao of "sentiment", the completion of the moral practice can be realized. We can also say that the cognitive heart provides possible conditions and innate basis for ethical practices and the inclination towards Dao by the"sentiments" generates the inner driving force for ethical practices, and the actions in these two aspects naturally becomes the ideal moral pursuit for humans.From above we can see that the essence of Xunzi theory on ethical practices is that human beings are the embodiment of ethics and "acting like saints" is the natural choice of everyone. We can also find that Xunzi’s thoughts emphasizing on "heart","sentiments" and "Li" and its systematic theories are loaded with positive significance for the moral developments of our contemporary society. However, this article also found that Xunzi’s thoughts on ethics also have its own limits and flaws, which are that he bases ethics on human nature and also to him, ethic is about external control, which is another aspect we must pay more attention to when we study Xunzi.