Xunzi teaches that human nature is bad

Xunzi (Master Xun, c. 310 to 235 BCE) was a Confucian from the state of Zhao who three times headed the great Jixia Academy of Qi and later served as magistrate in the state of Chu. In his book, now in 32 chapters, a chapter titled Human Nature Is Bad answers Mencius. Mencius had said people are born with sprouts of goodness. Xunzi says that people are born with desires for profit and pleasure and with envy and hatred, so left alone they quarrel and the world falls into disorder. Goodness is something people make, by effort, through education, the guidance of teachers, ritual and music, which reshape raw nature as a craftsman straightens warped wood.¹²³

His other famous claim is that Heaven does not care about human behavior: its patterns are constant and impersonal, and neither the virtue of the sage-king Yao nor the cruelty of the tyrant Jie changes them. Disasters and omens are therefore natural events, not messages. Two of his pupils became famous for harsher ideas: Han Fei, the great theorist of Legalism, and Li Si, who became chancellor of Qin, the state that unified China in 221 BCE. Han dynasty Confucians drew heavily on Xunzi's emphasis on ritual and learning, but later Neo-Confucians sided with Mencius and pushed Xunzi to the margins.¹²³