Mencius puts forward innate knowledge and ability. Children naturally love parents (benevolence) and respect elders (righteousness). These native moral instincts belong to all humans and form the universal foundation of Confucian morality.
Confucius asks his son Boyu whether he studied Zhou Nan and Shao Nan, the foundational poems of The Book of Odes. He compares those skipping them to someone facing a wall, blind to family ethics and social norms, stressing poetry’s vital role in moral self-cultivation.