CLASS NOTES: Mozi's Doctrine of Impartial Caring (Chinese Thought: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science)

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Notes on video lecture:

Mozi's Doctrine of Impartial Caring

Chinese Thought: Ancient Wisdom Meets Modern Science

Edward Slingerland, University of British Columbia

Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on September 26, 2017 (go to class or lectures)

Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:

inside, respect, emotional, love, benevolence, opposite, consequences, wrest, eternal, horrify, benefiting, force, objective, partial, livestock, Moism, rewards, overriding, impact, not, Singer, superseded, warring, punishment, intellectual, desires, objective, wrong, behavior, materially, logical, everyone, spontaneously, pyramid, right, parents, inevitable, heaven, fact, disturbing, worthies

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Mozi wanted standards of rightness

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believed this was modeled on

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the central principle of : jian ai

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usually translated as impartial caring

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sometimes has been translated as universal

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both terms are

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jian = impartial

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distribution that is done in a fair and way

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we need to get away from our 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

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

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ai = caring/

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caring for someone materially

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

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e.g. you ai

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feeding them, making sure that they are safe and warm

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it's not an , emotional feeling

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it about an external behavior of benefiting someone

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

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he doesn't care what you are feeling on the

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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 Confucius

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filial piety is about inner , 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

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for Mozi, ren means

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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 , 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 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 yourself to do it

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

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the cold insight being that impartial caring is the only 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

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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

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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 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

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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

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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

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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

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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 capacity and self control to put it in the practice

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

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this is how you 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 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 , an organic virtue is grounded in the feelings of partiality that we have

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

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looks very much like modern views of ethics

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Peter , 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 of charities

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

Spelling Corrections:

spontenaity ⇒ spontaneity

superceded ⇒ superseded

Ideas and Concepts:

Mozi's concept of impartial caring via this evening's Ancient Chinese Philosophy course:

"The central principle of Moism is jian ai which is usually translated as impartial caring. Sometimes it has been translated as universal love, which is incorrect.

Jian means to be impartial, or to distribute goods in a fair and objective way. With this term, Mozi insists that we need to get away from our partial view. For the Confucians, on the other hand, we are naturally partial e.g. to our parents and our families. Confucius teaches that we must obey our parents, and our families, and after establishing this obedience, we learn to be obedient to others in society.

For Mozi it is the opposite:he believes that it was partiality to parents and family members that created the chaos of the warring states in the first place.

The term ai means caring, but more in the sense of benefiting someone materially. The term ai does not describe an emotional state of love, but a behavior. For instance, you ai your livestock, i.e. you feed them, and you make sure that they are safe and warm, but you don't have any deep emotion for them. Ai is not a an eternal, emotional feeling, but simply indicates the behavior of providing for people materially.

This goes along with a broader theme in Mozi, that he doesn't care about emotional states. He doesn't care what you are feeling on the inside, he's not trying to change your emotions, but rather he wants to produce in you reasonable behavior by making sure you are materially content."

Mozi's concept of ren (benevolence) via this evening's Ancient Chinese Philosophy course:

"For Mozi, filial piety is not about inner respect for your parents, or any inner feeling at all. It's simply about making sure your parents have enough food and are properly cared for.

This would horrify Confucius, who suggests that this is how we care for horses and dogs. Yet Mozi would say, yes, you care for horses and dogs by providing them with the food and warmth they need, and that is how you care for your parents as well.

For Mozi, ren means benevolence, not goodness in the general sense. Someone who is ren simply benefits other people. A person who is ren is someone who behaves benevolently and compassionately in a physical sense, not in an emotional sense.

Mozi is concerned with external consequences, with regulating your external behavior, and he doesn't really care what you feel inside. In fact, he expects that you're not going to like it. He expects you to not like acting in accordance with impartial caring, but you have to suppress your internal feelings, adopt this standard, and force yourself to do it.

In today's psychological terminology, it's very much about overriding your hot cognition by using these cold insights, namely, that impartial caring is the only logical way to behave toward other people if you're going to be a moral human being."