Telling a fourth century BC monarch to his face that starving subjects have the moral right to remove him sounds like modern revolution, but it came from a philosopher revered as the second sage after Confucius. This episode explores the life of Mencius as a biography, beginning with the mother who raised him alone after his father's early death. Her three moves, from beside a cemetery to a market to a school, her slashing of her own woven cloth to teach him about abandoning his studies, and her siding with his wife in an etiquette dispute all planted the idea that environment shapes character.

The hosts then situate Mencius in the Warring States period and explain why warlords entertained a wandering scholar preaching benevolence: peasants were the engine of the war machine and could flee to better-governed states. They cover his post at t ...