Interpretation On Xunzi’s Evil-nature Theory

The theory of evil-human nature is the foundation of xunzi’s whole philosophy system, It is also unique in the history of the Confucian theory of human nature, in spite of xunzi’s theory is unique, it has been criticized by later generations of Confucian, they think " the evil " will have a negative influence on people’s value judgment. Based on the analysis of the "nature" and "evil" of xunzi’s basic implications, i try to explore how the "nature" and "evil" is associated, and try to find the original meaning of "evil" and the intendent direction of xunzi words of evil-nature. I think that: firstly, xunzi’s theory of "evil" is refers to the desires of human nature, the desires from people’s feelings, needs, not to consider the needs of others, so it is selfish; secondly,xunzi’s theory of "evil" is a sense of self-indulgence, People follow the choice of self desires consciousness in human nature, This power enlarges people’s desire continuously,making the person in a state of unsatisfied forever, the consciousness of this kind of self-indulgence is called "shun shi" by Xunzi; finally, xunzi’s theory of "evil" is a kind of combination between the consciousness and the reality, people’s desires is the inner force of potentially evil consciousness,it is the beginning of real evil, begainning from this inner consciousness, it is bound to lead to people’s outside real evil behavior, the combination of the consciousness evil and the real evil is the whole presentment of Xunzi’s evil.Xunzi said the idea of "evil" is not only to reveal the humanity characteristics, its interesting intention is to defuse "evil", this is known as the thinking of "HuaXingQiWei". In xunzi’s views,selfish desire and the force of "shun shi" is the nature of the human, it can’t be eradicated, thus caused the “evil" is also can not be eradicated, and can only be reasonabley controled within the limits of "etiquette". So the theory of "Hua(化)" by xunzi is changing people’s external behavior,it is not change the nature of the " evil "; the eory of "Wei(伪)" refers to the external etiquette education to edify, making the person met the requirements of the rules of behavior, it is not the meanning of false, cheat refers to generally. Fundamentally, the essence of "HuaXingQiWei"is "YiLiYangYU", it makes the desire of a person to satisfy reasonably in etiquette norms, so as to achieve the end of both public stability and not cancelling the people’s desire. As a result, the"evil-nature" and "Hua XingQiWei" in the theoretical system of the theory of human nature of xunzi is closely related.