%A YAO Xinzhong %T “Learning to Be Human” as Moral Development—A Reconstruction of Mengzi’s Views on the Heart-Mind %0 Journal Article %D 2018 %J Front. Philos. China %J Frontiers of Philosophy in China %@ 1673-3436 %R 10.3868/s030-007-018-0015-7 %P 194-206 %V 13 %N 2 %U {https://journal.hep.com.cn/fpc/EN/10.3868/s030-007-018-0015-7 %8 2018-06-15 %X

Learning to be human is a highly important concern in Confucian philosophy. This paper is intended to provide a special perspective on this theme through an attempt to reinterpret Mengzi’s views on the heart-mind (xin心) as “learning to be human” and to reconstruct these views into a multi-staged process of moral development. Through an intentional interpretation of various arguments advanced by Mengzi, we seek to justify that his views on the heart-mind and moral virtues can be seen as a learning process and that he subjects the inborn beginnings of goodness to a delicate development before they can actually qualify a person as fully human. Having examined the three dimensions of Mengzi’s learning, the intellectual, the practical and the spiritual, we will come to the conclusion that whether innate or a posteriori, initial good senses and knowledge require a moral and spiritual process of learning to develop which is, to Mengzi, crucial for one to become a genuine human being.