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Mozi is a materialist, state consequentialist

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measuring material profit and benefit ("li")

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wants to maximize the

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wealth

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population

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order of the state

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characteristics which can be measured

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in the Warring States, population is power

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you can measure ideas and processes with these three criteria

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Mozi believes there are many things going on in the Warring States societies which don't pass these three tests

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the anti-Confucian chapters

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against Confucian funeral practices

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wants them more moderate

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condemnation of musical performances

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condemnation of fatalism

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against Confucians themselves

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problems with Confucianism

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partiality is built into Confucianism

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don't treat your own parents better than other's parents

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for Mozi, this doesn't pass the order principle

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leads to nepotism and chaos

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Confucian ethics are built upon emotional family ties

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Confucianism produces a lot of waste

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music and ritual consume vast amounts of material and labor resources

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he's not against music per se, but it is very expensive and provides no benefits

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he means public music, massive orchestras

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Confucian bells put in arrays

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expensive to built

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expensive to play

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Mozi is a

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materialist and so only materialist goods matter to him

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goods that you can actually measure

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externalist

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only external characteristics matter

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he is not trying to cultivate you

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for Confucius, music is about reshaping people from the inside out

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Mozi doesn't care about these internal states

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Mozi was later criticized as being inhuman

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people want to sing and Mozi won't let them sing

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there's no obvious answer to how you balance cultural goods, art, and moral improvement

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Confucian counter argument

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we want people to have enough food to eat, but human beings aren't livestock

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human beings need other things, too, e.g. beauty and culture

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to reduce human live to utilitarian survival is not the best goal

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at what point is spending on art and culture too much, at what point is spending on social services not enough

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every society has to grapple with and it will define their society

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Mozi has a passionate moral vision

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Confucians are spending money on things that we don't need and that are not essential, or at least we shouldn't think about until basic needs are met

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is upset that the Confucians think the past is good in and of itself

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their mindless aping of the past

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The Confucians say, "The superior man must use ancient speech and wear ancient dress before he can be considered benevolent."

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"...but we answer: The so-called ancient speech and dress were all modern once, and if at that time the men of antiquity used such speech and wore such dress, then they must not have been superior."

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why would you want to only transmit and not innovate in the modern world

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it comes down to practical benefits

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against fatalism

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Confucians say that there are things outside your control

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how long you live

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whether you are wealthy or not

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heaven will give it to you or not depending on fate

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Confucianism

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you want to focus on the internal goods of the Confucian way

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money and fame are either going to come or not

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says things cannot be changed.

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if officials believe in fate, they will become lax in their duties

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Mozi vs. Laozi on social reform

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Mozi has a social reformer mission behind him

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they both are opposed to Confucianism

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think that there is something wrong with the elites

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for Laozi, the elites cause suffering because they're greedy

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greediness is caused by desire so let's eliminate desire

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disband these large-scale societies and get everyone to go back to subsistence farming in agricultural communes

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for Mozi, the elites are causing suffering in that they are doing wasteful activities

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keep hierarchical society but do it in a fair way

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not because you are related to someone, or you look nice, or you can sing the odes

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but because you're a worthy person and good at your job

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we keep large-scale society

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material goods are not the problem, but we should distribute it more fairly

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some people portray Mozi as socialist or communist, that he wants everyone to share things

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his society is a very social stratified one

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but people get their position in society based on objective measures

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Mozi vs. Confucius on human nature

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Confucius

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people without culture were not human beings

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we wouldn't want to live in a world where we didn't have these things

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Mozi

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everyone has there basic needs met but there's no music, no ritual, when our parents die, we bury them in an unmarked grave and go back to work again

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the argument that we need to cultivate culture is the way spoiled elites think

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in the Warring States period, many people didn't have their basic needs met

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the beauty of this debate is that it was happening in the 4th century B.C. China and it's happening now

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reading about ancient people grappling with these problems can give us new insights into our world