Mohism

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Mohism or Moism (Chinese: 墨家; pinyin: Mòjiā; literally "School of Mo") was a Chinese philosophy developed by the followers of Mozi (also referred to as Mo Tzu, latinized as Micius), 470 BCE–c.391 BC. It evolved at about the same time as Confucianism, Taoism and Legalism and was one of the four main philosophic schools during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period (from 770 BCE to 221 BCE). During that time, Mohism was seen as a major rival to Confucianism. The Qin dynasty, which united China in 221 BCE, adopted Legalism as the official government philosophy and suppressed all other philosophic schools. The Han dynasty that followed adopted Confucianism as the official state philosophy, as did most other successive dynasties, and Mohism all but disappeared as a separate school of thought.

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Contents 1 Important beliefs 1.1 Discipline and Motivations 1.2 Meritocratic Government 1.3 Morality and Impartiality 1.4 Society 1.5 Organization 1.6 Supernatural forces 1.7 Against Fatalism 1.8 Against Ostentation 2 The Logicians 3 Mathematics 4 See also 5 Further reading 6 Notes 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Important beliefs

Mohism is best known for the concept of "impartial care" or "universal love" (Chinese: 兼愛; pinyin: Jian Ai; literally "inclusive love"). Mozi's philosophy was described in the book Mozi, compiled by his students from his lecture notes.

[edit] Discipline and Motivations

A ruler may have strategies in war, but courage is the fundamental. A funeral may have many rituals but mourning is the fundamental. Scholars may have knowledge, but applying the knowledge or practicality is the fundamental. If the fundamentals are not strong, good works cannot be done. Mozi teaches that a good man must discipline himself: to avoid listening to malicious gossip, avoid cursing, avoid murderous thoughts. The poor should show purity, the rich should show benevolence, to the living show love, to the dead show mourning. The foundation of all motives should be immeasurable love.

Mohists believed that everyone is human and because of that, we are selfish and only find the best interest for ourselves. This is why Mohists conflict with Confucianists and ignored Confucious along with his rituals. Mohist believe in equality between all people and to do things that benefit others for the right reason. Confucianists believe that if you act like a good person, you are; even if you don't do good deeds for the right reason. However Mohists believe that you should act like one and truly believe in what you are doing.^[1][2] Mozi believed that good works, if not motivated from the heart, cannot be maintained. He taught that "everyone is equal before heaven", and that people should seek to imitate heaven by engaging in the practice of impartial and collective love. His epistemology can be regarded as a form of empiricism; he believed that our cognition ought to be based on our perceptions – our sensory experiences, such as sight and hearing – instead of imagination or internal logic, elements founded on our capacity for abstraction.

[edit] Meritocratic Government

During the period of Mozi, he felt that the norm of handing out important government responsibilities to one's relatives regardless of capabilities was the root of poverty in society. Mozi taught that as long as a person was capable for the task, he should be engaged and promoted regardless of blood relations. If an officer were incapable, even if he were a close relative of the ruler, he ought to be downgraded even if it meant poverty.

Mozi also emphasized on the power of influence, using the analogy of dyes. A ruler should be in close proximity to talented people, treasuring talents and seeking their counsel frequently. Without discovering and understanding talents within the country, the country will be destroyed. History unfortunately saw many people who were murdered, not because of their frailities but rather because of their strengths. A good bow is difficult to pull, but it shoots high. A good horse is difficult to ride but it can carry weight and travels far. Talented people are difficult to manage, but they can bring respect to their rulers.

Law and order was an important aspect of Mozi's theology. He compared the carpenter who used standard tools to do his work with the ruler who might not have any standards to rule by. The carpenter is always better off depending on his standard tools rather than his emotions. In comparison, it is even more that a ruler uses standards to rule by. These standards cannot originate from man since no man is perfect. The only standards that a ruler uses has to originate from Heaven, since only Heaven is perfect. That law of Heaven is love.

In a perfect governmental structure - where the ruler loves all people benevolently, and officials are selected according to meritocracy - the people should have unity in belief and in speech. His original purpose in this teaching was to unite people and avoiding sectarianism. However, in a situation of corruption and tyranny, this teaching became a tool for oppression.

Should the ruler be unrighteous, seven disasters would result for that nation. These seven disasters are: (1) Neglect of the country's defense, yet there is much lavish on the palace. (2) When pressurized by foreigners, neighbouring countries are not willing to help. (3) The people are engaged in unconstructive work while useless bums are rewarded. (4) Law and regulations became too heavy such that there is repressive fear and people only look after their own good. (5) The ruler lives in a mistaken illusion of his own ability and his country's strength. (6) Trusted people are not loyal while loyal people are not trusted. (7) Lack of food. Ministers are not able to carry out their work. Punishment fails to bring fear and reward fails to bring happiness.

A country facing these seven disasters will be destroyed easily by the enemy.

Unlike capitalism's standards of national wealth which is usually rationalized in terms of first-world development, industrialization, capital and assets appreciation, trade surplus or deficit; the measure of a country's wealth in Mohism is a matter of sufficient provision and a large population. Thriftiness is believed to be key to this end. With contentment with that which suffices, men will be free from excessive labour, long-term war and poverty from income gap disparity. This will enable birth rate to increase. Mozi also encourages early marriage.

[edit] Morality and Impartiality

Mohism promotes a philosophy of impartial care - equal care for all individuals.^[3] This impartial care is what makes man good according to him. This advocacy of impartiality was a target of attack by other schools, most notably the Confucians who believed that while love should be unconditional it should not be indiscriminate. For example, children should hold a greater love for their parents than for random strangers.

Mozi is known for his insistence that all people are equally deserving of receiving material benefit and being protected from physical harm. In Mohism, morality is defined not by tradition, but rather by a constant moral guide that parallels utilitarianism. Tradition is inconsistent, and human beings need an extra-traditional guide to identify which traditions are acceptable. The moral guide must then promote and encourage social behaviors that maximize general utility.

[edit] Society

Mozi posited that the existence of society as an organized organism reduces the wastes and inefficiencies found in the natural state. Conflicts are born from the absence of moral uniformity found in man in his natural state, i.e. the absence of the definition of what is right (是 shì) and what is wrong (非 fēi). We must therefore choose leaders who will surround themselves with righteous followers, who will then create the hierarchy that harmonizes Shi/Fei. In that sense, the government becomes an authoritative and automated tool. Assuming that the leaders in the social hierarchy are perfectly conformed to the ruler, who is perfectly submissive to Heaven, comformity in speech and behaviour is expected of all people. There is no freedom of speech in this model. However, the potentially repressive element is countered by compulsory communication between the subjects and their leaders. Subjects are required to report all things good or bad to their rulers. Mohism is opposed to any form of aggression, especially war between states. It is, however, permissible for a state to use force in legitimate defense. Mohist ideology has inspired some modern pacifists.

[edit] Organization

In addition to creating a school of philosophy, the Mohists formed a highly structured political organization that tried to realize the ideas they preached. This political structure consisted of a network of local units in all the major kingdoms of China at the time, made up of elements from both the scholarly and working classes. Each unit was led by a juzi (literally, "chisel"—an image from craft making). Within the unit, a frugal and ascetic lifestyle was enforced. Each juzi would appoint his own successor. However, there was no central authority beyond the writings of Mozi. Mohists developed the sciences of fortification and statecraft, and wrote treatises on government, ranging in topic from efficient agricultural production to the laws of inheritance. They were often hired by the many warring kingdoms as advisers to the state. In this way they were similar to the other wandering philosophers and knights-errants of the period. They were distinguished from others, however, in that they hired out their services not only for gain, but also in order to realize their own ethical ideals.

[edit] Supernatural forces

Mohists believed in the heavens as a divine force (天 Tian), which knew the immoral acts of man and punished them, encouraging moral righteousness. Due to the vague nature of the records, there is a possibility that the scribes themselves may not had been clear about this subject. Nevertheless, they were wary of some of the more atheistic thinkers of the time, such as Han Fei. Using historical records, Mohism shows that the spirits of innocent men wrongfully murdered had appeared before to exact vengeance. Spirits had also been recorded to have appeared to execute justice. In fact, rulers have ritually awarded punishments and rewards in spiritual places to ensure that justice was done. The respect of these spirits were deemed so important that prehistoric ancestors had left instructions on bamboo, plates and stones; to ensure the continual obedience of future descendents. In Mozi's teachings, sacrifices of bulls and rams are mentioned during appointed times during the spring and autumn seasons. Spirits were described to be spirits of nature, or souls of men who died. They polemicized against elaborate funeral ceremonies and other wasteful rituals, and called for austerity in life and in governance. On the other hand, spititual sacrifices were not deemed wasteful as they consume food offered for sacrifices afterwards.

[edit] Against Fatalism

Mozi disagrees with the fatalistic mindset of people, accusing the mindset of bringing about poverty and sufferings. To argue against this attitude, Mozi used three criteria (San Biao) to assess the correctness of views. These were:^[3]

1. Assessing them basing on history
2. Assessing them basing on the experiences of common, average people
3. Assessing their usefulness by applying them in law or politics^[3]

In summary, fatalism is an irresponsible excuse of those who refuse to acknowledge their own sinfulness. Prosperity or poverty are directly corelated with virtue and sinfulness; not fate. Mozi calls fatalism a heresy which needs to be destroyed.

[edit] Against Ostentation

Mozi has various expositions along this theme.

By the time of Mozi, Chinese rulers and the wealthier citizens already had the practice of extravagant burial rituals. Much wealth was buried with the dead, and ritualistic mourning could be as extreme as walking on a stick hunchback for three years in a posture of mourning. During such lengthy funerals, people are not able to attend to agriculture or care for their families, leading to poverty. Mozi spoke against such long and lavish funerals and also argued that this would even create resentment among the living.

Mozi views aesthetics nearly useless. Unlike Confucius, he holds a distinctive repulsion towards any development in music, fine arts. Mozi takes some whole chapters named "Against Music" （《非乐》） to discuss this. Though he mentions that he does enjoy and recognize what is pleasant, he sees them of no utilization in terms of governing, or of the benefit of common people. Instead, since development of music involves man's power, it reduces production of food; furthermore, appreciation of music results in less time for administrative works. This overdevelopment eventually results in shortage of food, as well as anarchism. This is because manpower will be diverted from agriculture and other fundamental works towards ostentations. Civilians will eventually imitate the ruler's lusts, making the situation worse. Mozi probably advocated this idea in response to the fact that during the Warring States period, Zhou King and the landlords spent countless time in the development of delicate music while ordinary peasants could hardly meet their subsistence needs. To Mozi, bare necessities are sufficient; resources should be directed to benefit man.

[edit] The Logicians

One of the schools of Mohism that has received some attention is the Logicians school, which was interested in resolving logical puzzles. Not much survives from the writings of this school, since problems of logic were deemed trivial by most subsequent Chinese philosophers. Historians such as Joseph Needham have seen this group as developing a precursor philosophy of science that was never fully developed, but others believe that recognizing the Logicians as proto-scientists reveals too much of a modern bias.

[edit] Mathematics

The Mohist canon of the Mo Jing described various aspects of many fields associated with physical science, and provided a small wealth of information on mathematics as well. It provided an 'atomic' definition of the geometric point, stating that a line is separated into parts, and the part which has no remaining parts (i.e. cannot be divided into smaller parts) and thus forms the extreme end of a line is a point.^[4] Much like Euclid's first and third definitions and Plato's 'beginning of a line', the Mo Jing stated that "a point may stand at the end (of a line) or at its beginning like a head-presentation in childbirth. (As to its invisibility) there is nothing similar to it."^[5] Similar to the atomists of Democritus, the Mo Jing stated that a point is the smallest unit, and cannot be cut in half, since 'nothing' cannot be halved.^[5] It stated that two lines of equal length will always finish at the same place,^[5] while providing definitions for the comparison of lengths and for parallels,^[6] along with principles of space and bounded space.^[7] It also described the fact that planes without the quality of thickness cannot be piled up since they cannot mutually touch.^[8] The book provided definitions for circumference, diameter, and radius, along with the definition of volume.^[9]

[edit] See also

• A Battle of Wits, a historical film themed around Mohism
• Agape
• Ascetism
• Logic
• Logic in China

[edit] Further reading

• Graham, A.C., Disputers of the TAO: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (Open Court 1993). ISBN 0-8126-9087-7

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 3, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth. Taipei: Caves Books Ltd.
• Ivanhoe, Philip J., and Brian W. Van Norden, Eds. Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001.
• Ivanhoe, Philip (2001). Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy. New Haven, CT: Seven Bridges Press, ISBN 9781889119090.
• Clarke, J (2000). Tao of the West: Western Transformation of Taoist Thought. New York: Routledge, ISBN 9780415206204.

[edit] External links

• Mohism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• Mohist Canons, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• The Ethical and Political Works of Motse (Mozi)
• Full text of the Mozi
• Explication on the Mozi