Episode 9: Moral Sprouts

What is the nature and source of morality? Are human beings naturally inclined toward moral goodness? The early Confucian thinker Mencius (Mengzi) believed that human beings by nature possessed certain moral sprouts that could be nurtured and developed into robust virtues. In this episode we explore Mencius's account of these moral sprouts, examining both philosophical and psychological justifications for their existence.

Many thanks to The Hong Kong Ethics Lab for sponsoring this podcast series.

Want to continue the discussion? Need links to some of the sources mentioned? Go to the support page for this episode on Warp, Weft, and Way.

We thank Lena Li (LI La 李拉 ) for her expert editing and sound engineering. We also thank the blog Warp, Weft & Way for hosting the discussion for this episode.

Co-hosts:
Richard Kim's website
Justin Tiwald's website

Chapters

• 0:00 Part I -- Introduction
• 8:47 • Preface to today's topic
• 18:10 Part II -- Moral sprouts
• 18:15 • Introducing the child-and-well passage (Mencius 2A6)
• 19:07 • Mencius 2A6, two paragraphs
• 22:57 • What is this virtue “righteousness” (yi 義)?
• 34:04 • Mencius 2A6, final paragraph
• 36:06 • The sprouts are incipient. They need to be developed.
• 38:35 • Mencius is demonstrating that we have more moral desires than we realize
• 42:04 • What makes these moral desires more important than others ("what we really want")?
• 45:52 • Is Mencius suggesting that our good consists in fulfilling our desires?
• 50:23 • What is the significance of being human?
• 59:52 • The significance of the fact that the moral desires are "sudden" (zha 乍)
• 1:05:26 • Feelings, cognition, and wisdom
• 1:16:18 • The sprouts as moral modules
• 1:24:10 • Preview of the next episode: how do you improve upon the sprouts?