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Mozi wanted objective standards of rightness

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believed this was modeled on heaven

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the central principle of Moism: jian ai

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usually translated as impartial caring

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sometimes has been translated as universal love

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both terms are wrong

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jian = impartial

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distribution that is done in a fair and objective way

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we need to get away from our partial view

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for the Confucians, on the other hand, we are naturally partial to our families

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you obey your parents

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for Mozi it is the opposite

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it is the partiality to family members that creates the chaos of the warring states

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ai = caring/benefiting

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caring for someone materially

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ai does not describe an emotional state of love, but a behavior

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e.g. you ai livestock

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feeding them, making sure that they are safe and warm

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it's not an eternal, emotional feeling

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it about an external behavior of benefiting someone materially

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this goes along with a broader theme in Mozi, that he doesn't care about emotional states

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he doesn't care what you are feeling on the inside

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he's not trying to change the way you are feeling on the inside

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what he wants is to modify your behavior by making you materially content

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this would horrify Confucius

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filial piety is about inner respect, not just e.g. making sure your parents have enough food, as Mozi suggests

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Mozi would say, you care for horses and dogs, and you also care for your parents

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for Mozi, ren means benevolence

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not goodness in the general sense

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someone who is ren benefits other people, someone who behaves benevolently and compassionately in a physical sense, not in a emotional sense

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Mozi is concerned with external consequences, with regulating your external behavior, and he doesn't really care what you feel on the inside

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in fact, he expects that you're not going to like it

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he expects you to not like acting in accord with impartial caring

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but you have to suppress your internal feelings, adopt this standard, and force yourself to do it

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it's very much about overriding your hot cognition by using these cold insights

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the cold insight being that impartial caring is the only logical way to behave toward other people if you're going to be a moral human being

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Wu-wei is not an idea for Mozi

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practicing impartial caring is not something you can do spontaneously

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it's never going to become something that is natural

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you don't follow your heart's desires

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your hot tendencies will be to favor yourself and your family

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you have to consciously counter this

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spontaneity has nothing to do with morality, in fact, spontaneity leads to immorality

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the Mozian pyramid of persuasion

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people aren't going to like impartial caring

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it goes against our nature

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it is counter-intuitive

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that you should care for everyone

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and not just yourself and your family

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persuades people in different levels

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1. the worthies

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they get the logic of his argument

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they simply adopt his ideas

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when heaven sends down rain, it rains on people impartially

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act toward other people's fathers the way you want them to act toward your father

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he sees these arguments as verifiable fact

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practicing impartial caring leads to the best benefit for the state

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these are the highest level

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2. not quite self controlled enough to understand it, but are motivated by rewards

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people who practice impartial caring get rewards and they want rewards

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Mozi sees this as inevitable

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3. mass of people who lack the intellectual capacity and self control to put it in the practice

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you have to use punishment and the threat of punishment to motivate them to practice impartiality

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this is how you wrest order out of the chaos of the warring states

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Confucian vs. Mohist ethics

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reason

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Confucius: virtue involves feeling the right thing

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Mozi: emotion has not place in morality at all

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he doesn't care what you feel, and he believes what you feel is going to be immoral

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human partiality

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Confucius: it's inevitable, an organic virtue is grounded in the feelings of partiality that we have

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Mozi: the family can be superseded, family ties can be overridden

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looks very much like modern views of ethics

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Peter Singer, Australian moral philosopher

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utilitarian

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consequentialist, rationalist, morality is about rationality

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deeply suspicious of human partiality

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he has a site that shows the impact of charities

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it's disturbing how our psychologies are set up to favor ourselves and our families