Fraser - The philosophy of the Mòzĭ: the first consequentialists

The Philosophy of the Mz

The Philosophy of the Mz

The First Consequentialists

Chris Fraser

Columbia University Press

New York

Columbia University Press

Publishers Since 1893

New York Chichester, West Sussex

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Fraser, Chris, author.

Title: The philosophy of the Mzi : the first consequentialists / Chris Fraser.

Description: New York : Columbia University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015038566 | ISBN 9780231149266 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780231149273 (pbk.) | ISBN 9780231520591 (electronic)

Subjects: LCSH: Moism.

Classification: LCC B127.M65 F73 2016 | DDC 181/.115dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015038566

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For my family

Contents

History has not been kind to Mz and the social and intellectual movement he founded. The Mohists were tremendously influential grassroots social reformers and one of the most prominent and respected schools of thought in preimperial China. They were instrumental in setting the early Chinese philosophical agenda, and their theories and arguments represent a quantum leap in clarity and rigor over anything that preceded them. In texts from the early imperial era, Mz is regularly paired with Confucius (Kngz) as one of the two great moral teachers of the past. During the Western Hn dynasty (206 B.C.E.8 C.E.), however, the Mohist movement faded away, probably largely because changing social, political, and economic factors in first-century B.C.E. China eliminated much of its intellectual appeal and sociopolitical relevance. With the exception of their dialectics, the Mohists philosophy no longer attracted much attention, and their texts fell into neglect. Throughout Chinese history, classical texts have been sustained as living, comprehensible intellectual resources through a lively commentarial tradition. But the only significant ancient commentary on the Mz was the now-lost work of L Shng (fl. 300 C.E.), which covered only the dialectical chapters.

During the seventh century C.E., chance events contrived to prevent Mohist philosophy from receiving serious consideration from Chinese intellectuals for

With the development of rigorous philology in the Qng dynasty, scholars set out to clarify or emend the many obscure or corrupt graphs in the Mz, explain its often peculiar grammar, and reconstruct the damaged, misarranged, and corrupt dialectical chapters. This work began with the pioneering efforts of B Yun (17301797) and Sn Xngyn (17531818) and culminated in the comprehensive commentary of Sn Yrng published in 1894.

The Qng philologists provided would-be readers of the Mz with a legible, intelligible text. But the availability of such a text does not ensure that it will be understood or appreciated. By and large, the Mz has fared badly at the hands of philosophical interpreters during the modern era. To be sure, the Mz found appreciative readers during the early decades of the twentieth century, when prominent public intellectuals such as H Sh and Ling Qcho turned to Mohism to explore alternatives to Ruism in the Chinese intellectual tradition. Chinese Marxists in the mid-twentieth century admired Mohism for its egalitarian and communitarian tendencies and its concern for the welfare of the common people. Some Chinese Christians felt Mohist religious beliefs resonated with their own.

But the general trend in both Chinese and international scholarship has been deeply uncharitable toward Mohism. Indeed, few philosophers in any tradition have been the victims of such bad press. The Mohists are regularly the targets of an implicit prejudice that casts Ruist views and practices as norms from which Mohist positions are deviationseven when the practice at stake is deeply questionable, such as the three-year mourning custom, and opposition to it surely reasonable. All too often, Mz is treated as a dull, misguided foil against which to contrast favored Ruist views, particularly those of Mencius, a self-described arch-opponent of Mohism. Mohist ideas are routinely misconstrued and frequently twisted into implausible caricatures wildly counter As this book will show, all these characterizations of Mohist thought are unjustified.

Among scholars publishing in English, defenders of the intellectual importance of the Mohists have been few and far between. I have already mentioned H Sh, who assigned the Mohists a prominent place in his pioneering 1922 work The Development of the Logical Method in Ancient China. Another important early advocate of the Mohists importance was Yi-Pao Mei, author of the earliest monograph on Mz in English, who rightly called the Mohist doctrine of inclusive care one of the epoch-making discoveries in the evolution of human relations. In the preface to Meis book appear these remarks, happily less accurate today than when he wrote them in 1934 but still pertinent:

The growing conviction through the work is that Confucianism is not the only valuable way of life that China has ever possessed and can offer, that that system has won its place of supremacy by accidental circumstances as well as intrinsic worth, and that Western attention in Chinese systems of thought has been led to distribute itself unjustlya large amount to Confucius, only a little to Laotse, and none to speak of to Motse, to mention only the three most original thinkers. (ix)

This book is intended as a contribution to what Hansen called the philosophical rehabilitation of Mohism. One aim of this book is to help us see more clearly what some of those things might be.

In particular, I hope to elucidate the Mohist ethical theorynotable as historys first version of consequentialism and perhaps the earliest systematic normative theory of any kindand to show that it is both more plausible than it is typically taken to be and deeply instructive as to the shape a convincing normative theory might take. It does not, as often suggested, have the unappealing consequence that we have an equal moral obligation to promote the well-being of all persons, regardless of their relation to us.of impartialityand, indirectly, universalizabilityin ethical theory. Despite their tremendous contributions on this point, however, the Mohists approach to articulating impartiality constitutes a major flaw in their ethics. I will examine this issue in detail and argue that the Mohists mishandling of impartiality is among the most instructive features of their ethical theory.

A second topic to which I will devote special attention is the Mohists fascinating nonmentalistic, nonsubjectivist psychology, which permeates their epistemology, political theory, and ethics. The Mohists regard perception, inference, and action as based not on an innate capacity to form inner, mental representations or to grasp logical relations between propositions but on the public, often socially acquired ability to distinguish different kinds of things and respond to each kind in a consistent way. This model is the basis for a plausible philosophy of mind and action intriguingly different from the familiar individualist, subjectivist, and representationalist picture that has come down to us from the Judeo-Christian tradition and Enlightenment conceptualism. It is valuable both for its inherent interest and as a potential inspiration for contemporary philosophy of psychology. The failure to recognize the place of this model in Mohist thought is among the main factors driving the pervasive misunderstanding of their moral psychology.