Hm . I have thought about your reply , and I think maybe I should have shared the earlier part of what I quoted . Here it isMencius said , ' I like fish , and I also like bear ' s paws . If I cannot have the two together , I will let the fish go , and take the bear ' s paws . So , I like life , and I also like righteousness . If I cannot keep the two together , I will let life go , and choose righteousness . I like life indeed , but there is that which I like more than life , and therefore , I will not seek to possess it by any improper ways . I dislike death indeed , but there is that which I dislike more than death , and therefore there are occasions when I will not avoid danger . If among the things which man likes there were nothing which he liked more than life , why should he not use every means by which he could preserve it ? If among the things which man dislikes there were nothing which he disliked more than death , why should he not do everything by which he could avoid danger ? There are cases when men by a certain course might preserve life , and they do not employ it when by certain things they might avoid danger , and they will not do them . Therefore , men have that which they like more than life , and that which they dislike more than death . They are not men of distinguished talents and virtue only who have this mental nature . All men have it what belongs to such men is simply that they do not lose it . With this in mind , I couldn ' t make sense of the part where Mencius talks about a person accepting money without considering righteousness . Mencius seems like he said , ' That person who accepted money , they wanted XYZ for these reasons and now , he has XYZ . ' But Mencius was just talking about how righteousness can be more important than even life itself . But here is a person taking money without even thinking of righteousness , yet not suffering , in any noticeable way from what I can tell . I am assuming that someone who didn ' t think of righteousness at all would suffer , in Mencius ' s view . So I thought maybe I ' m missing something .