Connecting with reality, can we talk about the reference significance of "righteousness" advocated by Mencius to today's social reality?

Mencius' Thought of Good Nature and Evil Nature Pre-Qin Confucianism paid great attention to the good and evil of human nature. In the history of China's theory of human nature, Mencius was the first to put forward the theory of good nature. He believes that human nature is good, just like water flowing downwards, which is an indisputable fact. Mencius believes that all people are born with the most basic innate nature, which is "good nature" or "unbearable heart", or pity and sympathy for others. For example, he said that when people suddenly saw a child fall into a well, they would feel scared and sympathetic. This kind of sympathy is not to please the children's parents, nor to gain a good reputation among the villagers' friends, nor to hate the children's crying. It is entirely out of human nature and is "unbearable." "Unable to bear the heart of others" is also called "compassion". In addition, there are "shame and disgust", "resignation" and "right and wrong". These four kinds of hearts (also called "four virtues" or "four virtues") are the basis for Mencius to discuss human nature. Mencius believed that the difference between humans and animals is very small, just because people have these "hearts". Without these "hearts", you can't be a person. In his view, people are not good, not in our nature, but because they abandoned their nature and failed to keep it well. I have to say that he does not have these "good" natures. Therefore, if people have bad thoughts and behaviors, they should think behind closed doors, check whether they have given up those gifted "hearts" and try to bring them back to humanity. This is what Mencius called "seeking his peace of mind", and later people called it "renaturation". If you reflect on yourself and everything conforms to the moral concept of nature, that is the greatest happiness. This is what Mencius said: "reverse and sincere, great joy." Mencius' theory of good nature has a great influence on traditional thought. The first sentence of San Zi Jing, which was circulated after the Song Dynasty, is "at the beginning of life, human nature is good." The theory of good nature also became the orthodox concept of Confucianism later. In the pre-Qin Confucianism, there was a school that opposed Mencius' theory of good nature and advocated the theory of evil nature. The representative of this school is Xunzi. Xunzi put forward the famous conclusion that "human nature is evil and human nature is good and false". He believes that human nature is: hungry, want to eat, cold, want to wear warm clothes, tired, want to rest, which is the true expression of human nature. In his view, "goodness", "illness" and "good music" are all natural desires of human beings, and they are all manifestations of human evil. The moral consciousness of goodness is the result of artificial processing. This artificial treatment is called "pseudo". In view of Mencius' theory of goodness of nature, Xunzi first used the categories of "sex" and "falsehood" to explain the relationship between human natural nature and social morality, opposed moralizing human natural attributes, and emphasized the difference between "sex and falsehood". He believes that the natural nature of human beings is the desire for material life based on physiological functions, and social moral norms restrict and regulate this desire, which is opposite. At the same time, the two are unified, "asexual, false; Without falsehood, sex cannot be self-beauty. Sex is false, and then the name of the saint is one. "It means that if there is no natural nature, it will be processed by people without social morality; Without artificial processing, human nature cannot be changed from evil to good. The function of a saint is to combine "sex" and "falsehood" well. Xunzi comprehensively discussed the unity of opposites between "nature" and "emptiness", emphasized the transformation of human nature, and put forward the viewpoints of "turning nature into emptiness" and "painting people as metaphor", holding that everyone has the possibility to change his nature and become a saint. Xunzi's view of evil nature has a great influence on legalists, but it has never become the orthodox concept of Confucianism.