The Just War Theories Of Mencius And Xunzi

This article discussed the just war theories of Mencius and Xunzi. To resolve the conflict between rites and killing the king in "Tang-Wu revolution", Mencius proposed a just war theory as "relieve the people and punish the tyrant", while Xunzi proposed another theory as "stop the violence and punish the villain". However through comparing, there was a distinct difference in their attitude towards the people, especially to villains. There were three reasons as I found:the different view about the heaven, king and people; the different view about the human nature; the different confidence in the people’s will to be good. It was the different attitude towards people that led them to different ways to implement the just war. So in the end I discussed the difference in their requirement and restriction for the King, the general and the army.