Mencius's rival: 'people are not naturally good'

Xunzi was, like Mencius, a Confucian thinker, but reached the opposite conclusion about human nature. He believed that left to themselves, people pursue self-interest and desire until they clash with one another — which is exactly why ritual and education are indispensable.

He compared it to straightening a warped piece of wood: it must be forced into a press and bent by pressure. Likewise, he argued, human nature only reaches goodness after passing through the 'press' of teachers and ritual propriety. To Xunzi, goodness was not innate but manufactured.