However, Xunzi does not rest solely on the fact of convention. Tian nature again takes its authoritative role. Xunzi is a naturalist because the natural world sets the context and, implicitly, thereby entails that some daos will get us through the forest better than others. The features of Confucian dao to which Xunzi most consistently appeals are its ability to give morally sustainable expression to natural feelings and to channel and coordinate those feelings in ways that are necessary for survival. The first is a twist on Mencius' argument about e.g., funerals.
Arguably funerals are important in managing human grief.
Xunzi's second point is that in order to have social stability we must have differential desires for people of different status. Only in this way can all desires be satisfied. Notice that this also builds on Laozi's point that desires are instilled by social daos . Xunzi's pragmatic conventionalism also starts from the familiar shared moral psychology. This suggests that humans are naturally social, even naturally moral animals.