LEONARDO, Ydette Ann T.

3ID3

Thought Piece #1 (Human Nature and Ethics)

Everyone is born without a sense of who we are and what our role is in this
world. We are all the same in this aspect, but we just grew up differently. The
wrongdoing of one cannot be our basis of how we should perceive them. We don't know
about who they are, what they went through, and how they were led to doing such
things. Each one has an innate heart of gold, and someone has to dig deep in order to
see.

According to Mengzi, we have four concepts of good life: benevolence,

righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. We are like sprouts, you become bigger when
you live your life according to this, or a small sprout when you are mostly likely to make
mistakes and have less concern about the people surrounding you. Anyone can be
either wrong or right, and each one has the capacity to change and become someone
we or even them have not perceived to be. Mengzi's concept is a testament that
whoever made something wrong can change, and they cannot be like that forever. We
should share these concepts, and make their lives better according to it.

These days, the internet and modern technology have brought so much
convenience in the lives of people. And because life is easier now, it is also easy for
people to be vulnerable and make mistakes. People, especially those of the younger
generations, are easily persuaded by the information they absorb from the media and
their surroundings, and they rely so much on it without consulting factual evidence,
reflecting on their own selves, and even asking for guidance from their parents. We tend
to accuse and judge everything we see, but how about we look back on ourselves and
see if we are also free from any flaws.

Blaise Pascal (1995) said "Do not accuse those who have made a choice of
being wrong, for you know nothing about it, No but I will blame them not for having
made this choice, but for having made any choice for though the one who chooses the
heads and the other are equally wrong, they are both wrong. The right thing is not to
wager at all." Simply put, there is no law and standard on how we should live ourselves,
we control our lives and so it is up to us to decide how we want to live. Like a coin, life
has only two possible outcomes, you could only be right or wrong.
REFERENCES:

Video
PHILOSOPHY - Ancient: Mengzi (Mencius) on Human Nature.
https://youtu.be/qvmxbDomk90.

Website
Editors of Chinasimplified.com. (2017). China Simplified. Kongzi 孔子 (Confucius)
Self-Help Guru. https://www.chinasimplified.com/2013/12/29/the-zi-crew-philosophers-
who-blew-everyones-mind-part-one/.

Text
Pascal, Blaise. 1995. Pensees and Other Writings. Edited and Translated by
Honor Levi. New York: Oxford University Press.