Overview
Mozi (Mo Di, c. 470–c. 391 BCE) founded Mohism, a Warring States school rivaling early Confucianism. A former craftsmanly or artisan milieu is often inferred from the text’s technical and disciplinary tone. Mohists organized disciplined groups advocating inclusive care and opposing aggressive war. The Mozi compiles doctrines, logic, and military defense chapters. Handbook dates are approximate for the fifth–fourth centuries BCE. His challenge forced Confucians to clarify graded love and ritual expense.
Main ideas
Jian ai (impartial concern) extends care beyond one’s own kin to all, measured by benefit to the world. Heaven (Tian) desires righteousness and watches conduct—an early form of divine command cum consequentialist ethic. Condemnations of elaborate funerals, music, and fatalism target waste and passivity. Standards of judgment appeal to the will of Heaven, evidence of the ancients, and present utility. Dialectical chapters develop names, disputation, and model-based reasoning. Defensive warfare manuals show pragmatic statecraft allied to anti-aggression ethics.
Major works
- Mozi
- Dialectical chapters (Mozi)
- Against Offensive War (Mozi)
Legacy
Mohism nearly vanished as a living school after the Qin–Han but remains crucial for reconstructing classical Chinese ethics and logic. Comparative philosophers read Mozi as an early consequentialist voice. Confucian orthodoxy defined itself partly against his critiques.