Introduction

Chinese philosophy of all periods looked back to what we can think of as a ‘Classic Period’ between about 500 and 221. At the beginning of this period China was supposedly under the control of the Zhōu dynasty (1045-256) and had been for about 500 years, but the feudal system was breaking down and the country was being divided up amongst small states. China then entered into its ‘Warring States’ period (戰國時代, zhànguó shídài; 476-221) as these states engaged in a vicious struggle for power which finally ended when the whole Chinese world was united under the semi-barbarian Qin dynasty. It was, as you can imagine, a time of great strife, but it was also a time of great cultural productivity. Many of the displaced and dispossessed minor nobility took their education into the disordered world and set up as teachers and public intellectuals; and as a result of their activity this time became known as the time of ‘The Hundred Schools of Thought’ (諸子百家, zhūzǐ bǎijiā).

Only six of these schools, however, were later supposed to be really significant: Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, Legalism, the School of Names , and the Yin-Yang School . We’ll ignore the School of Names (名家, míngjiā), which was a school of logicians that grew out of the later Mohists, because they disappeared early and had little effect. As was explained earlier, logic was never a significant interest of the Chinese. We’ll also ignore the Yin-Yang School (陰陽家, yīnyángjiā). This school was mostly interested in oracles and divination, and tried to explain the universe in terms of the five elements and the principles of Yin and Yang. We’ll ignore it because its doctrines only became interesting when they were combined with Confucianism. Confucianism, of course, and Taoism are very significant, but we’ll consider them separately later on. At this time, however, we will look at the remaining two schools, which, although they were ultimately unsuccessful, do have some implicit philosophical interest, and are remembered in Chinese thought – if only as things to avoid.

Mohism

The first of these is the "School of Mo" (墨家, mòjiā), created by followers of Mozi[1] (墨子, Mòzǐ; 470–391). The teachings of this school are found in the book Mozi – only recently partially recovered – and it will be convenient for us to treat them as the teachings of Mozi himself[2]. From this book we learn that Mozi explicitly rejected the teachings of the Confucians. In particular he denied (1) that the decaying society could be saved by a return to the supposed virtues of the former feudal nobility; and (2) that the degree of concern that one deserves from another depends upon the social relationship that exists between the two. It is often supposed that the fundamental reason for Mozi’s rejecting these ideas is that he was himself (unlike all other school founders) a commoner, and so had fewer illusions about the way the earlier society worked and less affection for a social hierarchy in which he would have been disadvantaged. Be that as it may, Mozi is very unusual in Chinese philosophy in that he actually argues for his positions, so we don’t have to pay much attention to this sort of speculation. (Perhaps this too is a consequence of his not belonging to a class trained in the classical literature – his writings are notoriously clunky, as if he was self-taught.)

Proto-Utilitarianism

Mozi’s principal concern – as with so many of the Chinese philosophers – was with finding a way to repair his damaged society and escape from the Hell of war and revolution that had been created by the collapse of the Zhōu dynasty. In his search for principles that would achieve this he began by proclaiming that there were three tests that any such principles would have to pass before they could be accepted. These ‘meta-principles’ were[3]:

1.                    It should be based on the deeds of the ancient sage-kings

2.                    It is to be verified by the senses of hearing and sight of the common people

3.                    It is to be applied by adopting it in government and observing its benefits to the country and the people

Of these principles the last is of considerable interest. It marks Mozi out as a very early consequentialist, who would claim that a principle is right to be followed only if that principle, when followed, resulted in benefits to the society as a whole. With just a few modifications here and there, that could easily be a statement of ‘Rule Utilitarianism’ such as J. S. Mill is said to have propounded and that is still influential. (Most people are some kind of Utilitarian today, even if they’ve never heard the term.) The first implication of this doctrine to note is that Mozi, again unlike most Chinese philosophers, is not principally interested in developing the moral character of a person. A thing is good or bad depending on the actual results and does not depend on the motivation of the person doing it. Good intentions count for nothing.

Utilitarians, of course, phrased their principle in terms of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and the meaning of ‘happiness’ was (at least originally) taken to mean little more than pleasure. Mozi’s rule, on the other hand speaks of ‘benefits’ (利, lì) – and by benefits he clearly means very basic materialistic goods. There is no place in his world for music and the arts for example, not because he does not enjoy the sound of the drum, he says, but because money spent on these things would result in more benefits if spent elsewhere. A similar result has long been an embarrassment for Utilitarians in the West, but it was embraced by Mozi. Since a society run according to this principle would quite obviously be an arid and brutal thing, it did not appeal to many people, and this probably contributed to the quick disappearance of Mohism.

Universal Concern

Oddly enough, however, Mozi is best known for his championing of "impartial concern" or “universal love” (兼愛, jian ai). In this he was explicitly arguing against the the discriminating and partial concern of the Confucians, and his argument is perfectly straightforward: he puts their principle of partiality to the benefit test, and finds it wanting, and concludes that the principle of impartiality is therefore to be preferred. Thus, looking at the disasters and misfortunes of the world he asks:

When we come to think about the cause of all these calamities, how have they arisen? Have they arisen out of love of others and benefiting others? Of course we should say no. We should say they have arisen out of hate of others and injuring others. If we should classify one by one all those who hate others and injure others, should we find them to be universal in love or partial? Of course we should say they are partial. Now, since partiality against one another is the cause of the major calamities in the empire, then partiality is wrong.[4]

It’s easy to get a bit carried away by the ‘love’ thing though. Other passages in Mozi indicate that he should be understood as saying that we should consider the interests of others to be as important as our own, and if we treat them that way then all of society will benefit. But it is a cold calculation, not an emotional state, that should drive this behaviour.

The Will of Heaven

So why would people follow Mohist principles that are justified as being for the benefit of society in general but not of themselves in particular? If they are going to act to pursue benefits, isn’t it more likely that they’ll act to pursue benefits for themselves rather than for others? One obvious response is that if society as a whole benefits then the individual as a member of society will benefit, and this will act as a motivation for the individual to act appropriately. But this is not necessarily true. It might well be that in any particular case the rational thing to do is to act selfishly and let others be altruists. This is the age old problem of the free rider, the prisoner’s dilemma, the tragedy of the commons, etc.

Mozi, however, would have had an answer to this. He argues[5] that there is a God who has an interest in our behaving according to the Mohist recommendations – presumably because God wants mankind to be benefitted, and the Mohist recommendations are the only way to benefit mankind as a whole. Those who obey the rational law of the Universe will be rewarded by God and those who don’t will be punished. Therefore, everyone also has a selfish interest in acting ‘altruistically’[6]. It’s a scheme that we’re familiar with from our own history, but with respect to Chinese philosophy it is yet another very unusual feature of the Mohist system.

The Absolutist State

Mozi, however, does not appear to believe just that people will simply act in their own perceived best interests. What he seems to believe is that people naturally have diverse interests, and that these interests may conflict. This, he thinks, has consequences for the kind of political organization that is best suited to bringing benefits to the country and people. He argues, in much the same way that Hobbes does, that a single ruler is required to deliver us from the discord of a ‘State of Nature ’:

Mozi said: In the beginning of human life, when there was yet no law and government, the custom was "everybody according to his own idea." … and so arose mutual disapproval among men. … The disorder in the (human) world could be compared to that among birds and beasts.[7]

Yet all this disorder was due to the want of a ruler. Therefore (Heaven) chose the virtuous in the world and crowned him emperor.[8]

The function of this wise ruler is to determine what the true interests of the people are. He delivers to them a single set of values which they are obliged to adopt. Naturally this correct set of values will be those of the Mohists, since the wise ruler is wise enough to agree with God on that. The obligation of the people to obey this ruler probably arises from the manner of his selection, which, however, seems to be undecided as between divine selection (as in the passage just quoted), or selection by the mass of the people. In either case the obligation is said to be absolute.

Legalism

The Mohists weren’t the only ones to argue for the absolute power of the state. The Legalists (法家, fǎjiā, ‘School of Law’), were famous – or perhaps one should say notorious – for their defence of that position. They were a late school which seems to have arisen from a need to provide a coherent intellectual justification and rationale for the methods that were being adopted by statesmen and political advisors in the later Warring States period. Hán Fēizi (韩非子; 280–233) may be taken as the major thinker of this school: he synthesized the arguments and positions of several earlier thinkers into something that could stand as the beginnings of a complete theory of organization and management.

As Han Feizi describes it, it had become more and more clear that the world in which they were living was a very different world from that of the ancient sages, where lǐ (礼, ‘conventions’) guided the behaviour of the nobility and xìng (刑, ‘punishments’) determined by the nobles kept the commoners in line. The new states were too large to be run according to the traditional principles, where order was maintained by the personal charisma of the nobility, and the nobility itself was now too devastated and decadent to play that normative role even in a small state. The lǐ simply were not applicable any longer, and the xìng were not being fairly or consistently applied. Therefore disorder was the rule in the world.

Law and Order

It was clear to the Legalists that some new method of establishing order in the world was required. They looked for a new ‘standard’ or ‘norm’ of behaviour, and they found it in Law[1]. The word fǎ (法) does in fact mean all these things – so the school could as well have been known as the ‘standardizers’ or the ‘norm-establishers’ – but the sense of ‘law’ quickly became its main meaning. The choice of Law as the method for giving order to society was argued for on the basis of a rather gloomy theory of human nature, which held that (1) Man was naturally self-interested, and (2) the only universally effective way of modifying Man’s behaviour was by means of the ‘Two Handles’ of reward and punishment.[2] As Han Feizi said:

In ruling the world one must act in accord with human nature. In human nature there are the feelings of liking and disliking, and hence rewards and punishments are effective.[3]

By establishing rewards and punishments according to Law, this single principle of order could be extended to the whole of society – so that, in our terms, everyone would be ‘equal before the Law’. This was a principle established by Shāng Yāng[4] (商鞅, d. 338) under the rubric yī mín (一民; ‘one people’). Lord Shang also realised that in order for these laws to have the desired effect they would have to be made known to all, and to be simple and comprehensible, and, above all, to be predictable in their application: therefore his principle of dìng fǎ (定法; ‘fixing the standards’) insisted that the laws be objectively interpretable and impartial in their effect, so that the element of subjectivity and privilege in the old system could be eliminated. That being the case

Since the officials well know that the people have knowledge of fa and orders … they dare not treat the people contrary to the fa …

As for the content of all these laws, that was determined by the legislator, whose intention ought to be ‘the enrichment of the state and the strengthening of its military capacity.’[5] In this respect the Legalists were similar to the Mohists, for their goal was very clearly a specific form of ‘benefit’ to the country. The Legalists also agreed with the Mohists that a diversity of opinions in the state could only increase discord, and therefore it had to be eliminated. (The Qin attempted this with results that made them hated forever – they burned as many of the non-Legalist philosophical works as they could get their hands on, resulting in an incalculable cultural loss to the world.) They were equally keen on creating uniform standards in all other parts of the culture, regulating weights and measures, language, axle lengths, etc.

The Prince

Much as it would have been preferred, however, these laws could not just appear out of thin air, and men were still required to apply them. The legalists therefore had a need to say something about these necessary instrumentalities. In general, they hoped to establish a system in which the ruler would delegate functions and reward or punish the officials for their performance or failure according, again, to strict and objective criteria; and each level of government below the ruler would similarly use reward or punishment on its subordinates. Thus, it was hoped, the ruler would need to do nothing for everything to be done. (Sentiments like this have been interpreted as evidence of a sympathy with Taoism that is often remarked upon, but which seems rather superficial.)

Doubtless, they would have liked to eliminate the ruler’s role entirely, but this was not possible. Realising the essential role that the ruler did still play in any political system, the Legalists theorized about the characteristics that were required in this person, each emphasizing one or another of a range of traits. Eventually Han Feizi accepted that ruler required the following three things, at least, for effective rule.  

1.                    shì (勢):          authority               the power to make his commands be obeyed

       Emphasised by Shèn Dào (慎到, ca. 395-315)

2.                    shù (術):        methods                 the ability to handle his subordinates

       Emphasised by Shēn Bùhài (申不害, d. 337)

3.                    fǎ (法):            law                          the guarantee of impartiality and justice

       Emphasised by Shāng Yāng (商鞅, d. 338)

Given the aspiration to mechanical, universal application of simple laws, there was (intentionally) little scope for flexibility. But life is complicated, and all laws must admit of exceptions and different situations to some degree. (Judges can not be replaced by simple automatons.) The legalist system would not, however, make any concessions to the messiness of real human life. This inflexibility, and the harsh nature of the punishments, made the Legalist’s programmes unpopular in the end.