[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"archetype-name-map":3,"thinker-mencius":100,"$fsvh-xNlqbaOgk9AyE7Zz_AnwTbE983ABHJDtGuol51A":153},[4,7,10,13,16,19,22,25,28,31,34,37,40,43,46,49,52,55,58,61,64,67,70,73,76,79,82,85,88,91,94,97],{"slug":5,"name":6},"anarcho-capitalist","Anarcho-Capitalist",{"slug":8,"name":9},"establishment-progressive","Establishment Progressive",{"slug":11,"name":12},"progressive-activist","Progressive Activist",{"slug":14,"name":15},"conservative-democrat","Conservative Democrat",{"slug":17,"name":18},"moderate-conservative","Moderate Conservative",{"slug":20,"name":21},"reform-conservative","Reform Conservative",{"slug":23,"name":24},"national-populist","National Populist",{"slug":26,"name":27},"left-nationalist","Left Nationalist",{"slug":29,"name":30},"democratic-socialist","Democratic Socialist",{"slug":32,"name":33},"techno-progressive","Techno-Progressive",{"slug":35,"name":36},"patriotic-progressive","Patriotic Progressive",{"slug":38,"name":39},"religious-conservative","Religious Conservative",{"slug":41,"name":42},"traditionalist","Traditionalist",{"slug":44,"name":45},"moderate-liberal","Moderate Liberal",{"slug":47,"name":48},"pragmatic-centrist","Pragmatic Centrist",{"slug":50,"name":51},"authoritarian-left","Authoritarian Left",{"slug":53,"name":54},"authoritarian-right","Authoritarian Right",{"slug":56,"name":57},"welfare-nationalist","Welfare Nationalist",{"slug":59,"name":60},"christian-socialist","Christian Socialist",{"slug":62,"name":63},"market-socialist","Market Socialist",{"slug":65,"name":66},"trad-socialist","Trad Socialist",{"slug":68,"name":69},"civil-libertarian","Civil Libertarian",{"slug":71,"name":72},"compassionate-libertarian","Compassionate Libertarian",{"slug":74,"name":75},"left-libertarian","Left Libertarian",{"slug":77,"name":78},"traditional-libertarian","Traditional Libertarian",{"slug":80,"name":81},"classical-liberal","Classical Liberal",{"slug":83,"name":84},"social-liberal","Social Liberal",{"slug":86,"name":87},"national-conservative","National Conservative",{"slug":89,"name":90},"neoconservative","Neoconservative",{"slug":92,"name":93},"techno-authoritarian","Techno-Authoritarian",{"slug":95,"name":96},"market-liberal","Market Liberal",{"slug":98,"name":99},"independent-thinker","Independent Thinker",{"thinker":101,"archetypes":113,"traditions":114,"traditionLinks":122,"homeOut":123,"homeIn":124,"works":130,"homeTradition":117,"siblings":131},{"id":102,"slug":103,"name":104,"one_line":105,"bio":106,"birth_year":107,"death_year":108,"nationality":109,"primary_role":110,"era":111,"portrait_url":112,"figure_class":112},1239,"mencius","Mencius","Argued that human nature is innately good and that a ruler who fails the people forfeits the mandate to rule.","Mencius (Mengzi) is the second figure of the Confucian tradition and the one who gave it a political edge. Working roughly a century and a half after Confucius, during the Warring States period, he took a set of ethical commitments and pressed them into an argument about the legitimacy of rulers.\n\nHis foundational claim is that human nature is good. The famous demonstration is a thought experiment: anyone who sees a child about to fall into a well feels a start of alarm and compassion — not from calculation, not to earn the parents' gratitude, but immediately. That reaction is evidence of an innate moral sense, which Mencius called the \"four sprouts\" of compassion, shame, deference and judgment. Moral cultivation is therefore not the imposition of order on a crooked nature but the nourishing of something already present.\n\nThe political consequence is severe. If people are naturally good, misgovernment is not explained by their wickedness but by their rulers', and a state that leaves its people hungry has failed at its only real task. Mencius told kings to their faces that a ruler who treats the people as grass to be trampled will be treated as an enemy in return, and that killing such a man is not regicide: \"I have heard of the execution of a mere fellow, Zhou. I have not heard of the killing of a ruler.\" Sovereignty is conditional, held on a mandate of heaven that is read in the condition of the people and forfeited by cruelty.\n\nThis makes Mencius the source of the strongest doctrine of the right of rebellion in the pre-modern world outside the natural-law tradition, and it is why he was the Confucian most quoted by reformers and the one most awkward for despots. Zhu Xi placed him in the Four Books, fixing him at the center of the imperial examination curriculum, so every Chinese official for six centuries was examined on a text arguing that bad rulers may be removed.",-372,-289,"Chinese","philosopher","Ancient",null,[],[115],{"is_primary":116,"traditions":117},false,{"id":118,"name":119,"slug":120,"short_description":121},478,"Confucianism","confucianism","The Chinese tradition that grounds political order in cultivated character, ritual propriety and reciprocal obligation between ruler and ruled rather than in law or force.",[],[],[125],{"relation_type":126,"traditions":127},"descends_from",{"name":128,"slug":129},"Enlightenment Philosophy","enlightenment-philosophy",[],[132,136,137,141,145,149],{"name":133,"slug":134,"birth_year":135},"Confucius","confucius",-551,{"name":104,"slug":103,"birth_year":107},{"name":138,"slug":139,"birth_year":140},"Xunzi","xunzi",-310,{"name":142,"slug":143,"birth_year":144},"Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz","gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz",1646,{"name":146,"slug":147,"birth_year":148},"Christian Wolff","christian-wolff",1679,{"name":150,"slug":151,"birth_year":152},"François Quesnay","francois-quesnay",1694,{"cards":154,"influenced":155,"shapedBy":157,"outbound":158},[],[156],{"slug":134,"name":133},[],1]