Li Lou I · Passage 08 / 28 · 孟子 4A.8
Mencius 4A.8: how can one reason with the non-benevolent?
For Mencius, the deepest danger of the non-benevolent is not merely bad action, but inverted judgment: danger is treated as safety, calamity as profit.
孟子曰：「不仁者，可與言哉？安其危而利其葘，樂其所以亡者。不仁而可與言，則何亡國敗家之有？有孺子歌曰：『滄浪之水淸兮，可以濯我纓；滄浪之水濁兮，可以濯我足。』孔子曰：『小子聽之！淸斯濯纓，濁斯濯足矣，自取之也。』夫人必自侮，然後人侮之；家必自毀，而後人毀之；國必自伐，而後人伐之。《太甲》曰：『天作孽，猶可違；自作孽，不可活』，此之謂也。」
Mencius said, 'How is it possible to speak with those princes who are not benevolent? Their perils they count safety, their calamities they count profitable, and they have pleasure in the things by which they perish. If it were possible to talk with them who so violate benevolence, how could we have such destruction of States and ruin of Families? There was a boy singing, "When the water of the Cang Lang is clear, It does to wash the strings of my cap; When the water of the Cang Lang is muddy, It does to wash my feet." Confucius said, "Hear what he sings, my children. When clear, then he will wash his cap-strings; and when muddy, he will wash his feet with it. This different application is brought by the water on itself." A man must first despise himself, and then others will despise him. A family must first destroy itself, and then others will destroy it. A State must first smite itself, and then others will smite it. This is illustrated in the passage of the Tai Jia, "When Heaven sends down calamities, it is still possible to escape them. When we occasion the calamities ourselves, it is not possible any longer to live."'
Priority note
A human-edited reading layer
Central question
Why does Mencius ask how one can reason with those who are not benevolent?
Direct answer
Because he is describing a mind whose evaluative system has flipped. What should terrify them looks profitable, and what should be judged ruinous looks enjoyable. Once judgment is inverted at the root, talk has little ground to enter.
First principle
The deepest failure is not a wrong tactic, but a reversed scale of good and bad, safety and danger, profit and loss.
Why it matters
This passage serves searches around non-benevolence, self-caused ruin, and Mencius on why whole polities collapse from corrupted judgment.
Further reading
What this passage is doing
This is passage 8 of 28 in Li Lou I. The cleanest entry point is "How is it possible to speak with those…". In context, it works as part of Mencius's argument about self-examination, disorder, and keeping the way and can be read alongside Four beginnings / four sprouts, Humane government / kingly way.
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Li Lou I often approaches disorder through self-examination and the standards for keeping the way.
Related principles
Citation note
Do not read it as a general claim that dialogue is useless. Mencius is marking a threshold: when the scale of judgment itself is reversed, the problem is deeper than rhetoric can usually solve.