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The theory of the Mandate of Heaven implied a single monarch who, as Son of Heaven, rules for the benefit of the people. His mandate depends upon his virtue. Confucius taught that the well-being of society depended upon the reintroduction of traditional ethics (‘the rites’) and ‘humaneness’ (ren). People should be ruled by education and persuasion. The noble person should devote himself to public service. Rulers should only appoint worthy people to office. Ministers may admonish the ruler, and, if ignored, should retire from office. Mozi, on the other hand, rejected the traditional hierarchy and ethics altogether, and taught ‘universal love’. Others (‘Legalists’) recommended rule by coercion and command, exclusive devotion to agriculture and warfare, and realpolitik. Han Feizi combined this with the ‘inactive’ ruler, to suggest a new kind of monarchy governing exclusively through law and bureaucracy. The unified empire was achieved by violent realpolitik, but sustained by Confucian ideology.

The purpose of this chapter is to elucidate the Mohist view of motivation and to defend it against this criticism. It shows that, in fact, the Mòzǐ presents a rich, nuanced picture of a variety of sources of moral and prudential motivation which the Mohists can reasonably view as sufficient to guide people to practice the core tenets of their ethics. The widespread opinion to the contrary is probably due mainly to two factors. One is a misunderstanding of just what Mohist ethics demands. The other is a failure to understand the Mohist conception of action and motivation. As this chapter shows, however, once the Mohists' conception of action and motivation is elucidated, they can be seen to have a sophisticated, defensible approach to motivation.

This chapter turns to the writings of Confucius' first great philosophical rival, Mozi, or Mo Di. From its obscure beginnings, Mohism quickly burgeoned into an influential philosophical school with a firm hierarchy and organization. Whatever their origins, Mohists soon came to be known first and foremost as thinkers. Mozi, the sole surviving repository of Mohist teachings, is extensive and is best understood as a school text. The core of the book is a sequence of what were originally thirty chapters advancing ten basic credos: “Exalting Worthies,” “Upward Conformity,” “Impartial Love,” “Objecting to [Military] Aggression,” “Moderating Expenditure,” “Moderating Funerals,” “The Will of Heaven,” “Clarifying Ghosts,” “Objecting to Music,” and “Objecting to Fatalism.”

This chapter sets out the main questions to be explored more fully in the chapters to follow. It does this by studying three well-known debates about morality and art: from classical China, the debate between Mozi and Xunzi about the value of music; from ancient Greece, the difference between Plato and Aristotle over poetry; and from the Harlem Renaissance, the argument between W. E. B. Du Bois and Alain LeRoy Locke over the value of art as propaganda. The chapter concludes by showing that the problem of morality and art has three main parts: the morality of the artist; the effects of art on the audience; and the relationship between art and moral knowledge. The chapter also serves to set out some arguments and positions that are made use of later in the book.

The theory of the Mandate of Heaven implied a single monarch who, as Son of Heaven, rules for the benefit of the people. His mandate depends upon his virtue. Confucius taught that the well-being of society depended upon the reintroduction of traditional ethics (‘the rites’) and ‘humaneness’ (ren). People should be ruled by education and persuasion. The noble person should devote himself to public service. Rulers should only appoint worthy people to office. Ministers may admonish the ruler, and, if ignored, should retire from office. Mozi, on the other hand, rejected the traditional hierarchy and ethics altogether, and taught ‘universal love’. Others (‘Legalists’) recommended rule by coercion and command, exclusive devotion to agriculture and warfare, and Realpolitik. Han Feizi combined this with the ‘inactive’ ruler, to suggest a new kind of monarchy governing exclusively through law and bureaucracy. The unified empire was achieved by violent Ralpolitik, but sustained by Confucian ideology.

Mozi traced the basic problems of the world to unrestrained human emotions and desires, and proposed that solving these problems required properly directing these emotions and desires in a way that was beneficial to others. But unlike Confucius, Mozi emphasized the attainment of an objective, impartial perspective onto the world—one that ought to be deployed in one’s relations with others, in the form of “impartial concern,” or jian ai. Mozi’s invoking of reasoned argument to persuade people to care impartially about everyone represents an appeal to reasons whose soundness he assumes can be recognized by all. Such an approach corresponded to Mozi’s assumption that knowledge was not a matter of applying models and standards but of enacting reasoning processes that could provide insight into “how things are.”