Schwitzgebel December 16, 2005 Human Nature & Moral Education, p. 1 Human Nature and Moral Development in Mencius, Xunzi, Hobbes, and Rousseau Eric Schwitzgebel Department of Philosophy University of California at Riverside Riverside, CA 92521-0201 November 18, 2005 Mencius, Xunzi, Hobbes, and Rousseau were all political philosophers well known for their views on “human nature”. I will argue in this essay that, to some degree of approximation, their views about human nature can be interpreted as, or even reduced to, views about the proper course of moral education, and that, consequently, a view of moral education stands near the center of each man’s philosophy. I will then suggest that we can explore empirically which philosopher was nearest the truth. 1. The “State of Nature”. The dispute between the 17 th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes and the 18 th century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau regarding human nature is generally cast – and was indeed by Rousseau himself cast – as a dispute about what people (or “man”) would be like in the “state of nature”, a state without social structures or government. Hobbes famously writes in the Leviathan (1651/1996) that the “naturall condition of mankind” (p. 60/86) – his condition prior to establishment of the state – is one of misery and “Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man” and the life of man is “solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short” (p. 62/89). We are propelled into violent competition by the desire for limited goods and for glory, and due to our relative indifference to the suffering of others. A man in the state of nature will see something he