Reading Notes about Fung Yu-lan’

Reading Notes about Fung Yu-lan’s A Short History of Chinese Philosophy: Part V, Mohist school a Chinese philosophical school which is not Chinese enough

Once my tutor evaluated the Mohist school in class that: “Mohism is similar to a western school in four points, the first they have a religion, the second they admire equality, the third they emphasize machine manufacture and technology, the fourth they are good at the logics.” I almost agree with him. Mo Tzu may was the first thinker who opposed Confucius in Chinese history. But it was Confucianism rather than Mohism that became the official theory in the after days. We can make an assumption that, if Mohism win finally, maybe China will go on the same path with the western world in modern history.

Just like those Confucianists originated in the civil officers who serviced the kings and feudal lords, those Mohists originated in the warriors serving the aristocrats. With the disintegration of feudalism, those warriors lost their positions and titles, scattered throughout the country, and was called “xia” or “you xia” which means “knights-errant.” Some of them constituted the Mohist school. Xia were some people very brave. Thus in the book of Huai-nan-tzu, it is stated that: “the disciple of Mo Tzu were one hundred and eighty in number, all of whom he could order to enter fire or tread on sword blades, and whom even death would not cause to turn on their heels.” And next we can see that a large part of Mo Tzu’s teaching was an extension of the professional ethics that “their words were always sincere and trustworthy, and their actions always quick and decisive”[1] of those warriors.

The Mohism as A Religion

As we know, the leader of Mohists organization was called the Ju Zi, which means “Great Master”, and he has a authority over the members of the group. It is said that Mo Tzu was the first “Great Master” of his group. Similarly, the Christian has their religious leader too, and the most famous one was Jesus. And also, both the Mohists and the Christian have some kind of universal value. Just as the saying above, the theory of Mohist school comes from the professional ethics of the class of xia(knights-errant). The major ethics within the group of xia is that: “enjoy equally and suffer equally.”But Mo Tzu tried to give a logical extension of this professional ethics, and broadened and preached his doctrine as that: everyone in the world should love everyone else equally and without discrimination. His such proposition is called “all-embracing love.”

As those scholastics, Mo Tzu was good at logics. He raised, as Mr. Fung says, “his ‘tests of judgment’ to determine the right and wrong of these principles.”[2] And “according to him, every principle must be examined by three tests, namely: ‘Its basis, its verifiability, and its applicability’.”[3] And finally, in Mo Tzu’s opinion, these principles must “be beneficial to the country and the people.” Therefore, Mo Tzu makes a logic verification to prove the justifiability of all-embracing love. He argues:

The task of the human-hearted man is to procure benefits for the world and to eliminate its calamities. now the greatest among all the current calamities of the world is that the large and strong oppress the small and weak. All of these calamities arisen out of hate of others and injuring others, but not out of love of others and benefiting others. And those in the world who hate others and injure others, we shall call them “discriminating” but not “all-embracing.” So is “mutual discrimination” the cause of the major calamities of the world. Therefore the principle of “discrimination” is wrong. On the contrary, if everyone regards the houses and states of others as he regards his own, then nobody will attack these other houses and states. When every one regards the things of others as his own, nobody will size the things of others and others will be regarded like the self. So is “all-embracing” the cause of the major benefit of the world. Therefore the principle of “all-embracing” is right. When all-embracing love is adopted as the standard, such are the consequent benefits.

As Mo Tzu says, one loves and benefits others, must also be loved and benefited as well. Thus, then, the love of others is a sort of personal insurance or investment. But most people are too shortsighted to see the value of a long term investment of this sort. Therefore there should be some religions and political sanctions to introduce people to practice the principle of all-embracing love.

Mo Tzu had some critiques to Confucianism. Some of them are misapprehension, for example, Mo Tzu thinks that the Confucianists believe in a predetermined fate, causing the people to be lazy and to resign themselves to this fate. As Mr. Fung’s explanation: “for Confucianists, signified something that is beyongd human control. But there are other things that remain within man’s power to control if he will exert himself. Only after man has done everything he can himself, therefore, should he accept with calm and resignation what comes thereafter as inevitable. Such is what the Confucianists meant when they spoke of ‘knowing Ming’.”[4] And some other of Mo Tzu’s critiques to Confucianists show the major difference between these two schools. Mo Tzu thinks that the Confucianists do not believe in the existence of God or of spirit, with the result the God and the spirits are displeased.

Indeed the Confucianists do not take care about the existence of God or of spirits, but pay more attention on those that human can control about. In the word of Confucius, we must “keep a respectful distance” from such mysterious beings. But even Mo Tzu did not believe truly in the existence of the God and of the spirits. In the Mo-tzu there are chapters on “The Will of Heaven”, in which Mo Tzu tells that the God is existence and He loves mankind; and that is His Will that all men should love one another. He punishes with calamities persons who disobey His Will, and rewards with good fortune with those who obey. See, Mo Tzu just intend to broaden his theory by the story of the existence of the God. As Mr. Fung says: “Thus his doctrine of the Will of God and the existence of spirits is only to introduce people to believe that they will be rewarded if they practice all-embracing love, and punished if they do not.”[5]

Holding the belief of all-embracing love, so when a powerful state invades a small state, Mhoists often sent a military to help the small one to defend. But their defense did not only base on oral persuasion, but also on physical force.

The Mohism as Technologism and Pragmatism

From the book of Mo-tzu, we know that Mo tzu had a competition with a mechanical inventor, Gong-shu Ban, who is considered as the father of Chinese craftsman. Gong-shu Ban was employed by the king of Chu state, which was preparing to attack Song state. Before the king of Chu, Mo tzu made a modeling exercise with Gong-shu Ban by using miniature model machines, in order to compel the king of Chu to give up attacking. Gong-shu Ban thereupon set up nine different kinds of machines of attack, but Mo Tzu nine times repulsed him. Even more , Gong-shu Ban had used up all his machines of attack, while Mo Tzu was far from being exhausted in the defense. And therefore the king of Chu gave up his plan of attacking finally. Mr. Fung gives an interesting evaluation to this story that: “If this story is true, it would give a good example for our present world in setting disputes between two countries. A war would not need to be fought in the field. All that would be necessary would be for the scientists and engineers of the two countries to demonstrate their laboratory weapons of attacking and defense, and the war would be decided without fighting.”[6]

We can know in this story that the Mohist school emphasize machine manufacture and technology much more than other Chinese philosophical school. As we know, both the Confucianism and the Taoism look down upon the technology, and they both considered such things as “special tricks.” While “in the Mo-tzu itsel,” said by Mr. Fung, “no less than nine chapters deal with the tactics of fighting a defensive war and the technique of building instruments for defending city walls.”[7]Confucianists emphasize those traditional institutions, rituals, music, and literature of Zhou dynasty, while Mohists questioned their validity and usefulness, and pay more attention to the utilitarian of things. The book of Mo-tzu says: “Even those with long life cannot exhaust the learning required for their [Confucianist] studies. Even people with the vigor of youth cannot perform all the ceremonial duties. And even those who have amassed wealth cannot afford music.…Their doctrine cannot meet the needs of the age, nor can their learning educate the people.” In Mo Tzu’s opinion, the Confucianists insist on elaborate funerals and the practice of three years of mourning on the death of a parent, so that the wealth and energy of the people are thereby wasted. Interesting, one of Confucius’ disciples had asked the master the same question, and Confucius said “you can just do it, if you do not feel guilty to your dead parents” as a reply. My viewpoint is: besides the consideration of utility, there is also a religion reason that the Mohist school do not think that a man has many duties to his parents, because, just as those Christians think, all the human including you and your parents are the sons and daughters of the God, and in this sense you, your parents and other strangers are all sisters and brothers, anybody only has the duty to the God, but not to their relatives; while the Confucianism is a theory about the real society and politics which origins in the relationship of lineage.

The Mohism as Contranctualism

Mr. Fung says: “Besides religion sanctions, political ones are also needed if people are to practice all-embracing love.”[8] To Mo Tzu, a government or an absolute authority is needed as the agency of the God in our world. The state is the God on land. And the people have to accept such an authority, not because they prefer it, but because they have no alternative. As Mr. Fung says: “According to him, before the creation of an organized state, people lived in what Thomas Hobbes has called ‘the state of nature’.”[9] At this early time, anyone had his benefit and the judgment of right and wrong. And “the world” as Mo Tzu says, “was in great disorder and men were like birds and beasts.” Therefore there was a war between all men to all men. Then, people wanted to stop this and selected the most virtuous and most able man of the world, and established him as the Son of Heaven, in order to save themselves from anarchy. These are, according to Mo Tzu, the two sources that the authority of the ruler of a state comes from : the will of God and the will of the people.

Thus, Mo Tzu argues, the state must be totalitarian and the authority of its ruler absolute. This is an inevitable conclusion to his theory of the origin of the state. The state was created precisely in order to end the disorder which had existed owing to the confused standards of right and wrong. And the primary function of the state is “to unify the standards.” There is only one standard of right and wrong that can exist that the right is the principle of “mutual all-embracingness”, and the wrong is the principle of “mutual discrimination.”

[1] Please see Si-ma Qian, “The narration of Biographies of Knights errant”, Historical Records.

[2] Fung Yu-lan. A Short History of Chinese Philosophy. The Free Press, 1948,p.54.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.,p.53.

[5] Ibid.,p.58.

[6] Ibid.,p.51.

[7] Ibid.,p.52.

[8] Ibid.,p.58.

[9] Ibid.