Mengzi (Mencius) on Human Nature

What is human nature? Is human nature good or bad? Can human nature be good even if the world contains some notably bad people? Matthew Walker (Yale-NUS College) looks at the views of the early Confucian thinker Mengzi (Mencius).

Associate Professor of Humanities at Yale-NUS College

I am Associate Professor of Humanities (Philosophy) at Yale-NUS College and author of Aristotle on the Uses of Contemplation (Cambridge University Press, 2018). My primary areas of research and teaching include ancient Greek philosophy and comparative ethics. I received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale University, and a B.A. from Amherst College. In the past, I have been an ACLS New Faculty Fellow in the Philosophy Department at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and a post-doctoral fellow in virtue ethics at the University of Miami.