Mohism and Confucianism: ‘father and state’, the case of Mencius.

Mohism is the third biggest schools of China, following Confucianism and Daoism.1 The core values of Mohism, in relation to the state, is the “impartial-treated nation”[jian tian xia], which highlights on the universal love. Confucianism, on the other hand, places the “the family-governed monarchic nation” [jia tian xia] at its core, highlighting the concept of the differential and preferential love.2

A discourse over the relationship between the individual and the state is afoot. Both schools of thought offer different insights. Confucianism focuses on righteousness (yi) and looks down upon benefits (li), finding them polar opposite to one another as values.3 However, Mohism finds both righteousness and benefits to be well-integrated, highlighted together both theoretically and practically.4

Mohism, likewise, unlike Confucianism, does not stand for the fixed social ladder,or the basic social structure of “king, minster, father and sons” (jun, chen, fu, zi).5 Instead it sees a connection between freedom or autonomy of life in the universal values and individualism of man.5 Confucianism takes the priority of group value rather than the individual value in the social order. Mohism, on the other hand, Mohism takes the priority of individual value rather than group value in the society.5 Confucianism took the priority of the state with a centralized form of power – in contrast that Mohism took the priority of decentralized power and dispersive small states.5 This is all important to establish in order to understand the respective schools’ thought on state and man as it shows how Confucianism took the priority of nation integrity over the common people, the civilian, which is the complete opposite to Mohism.

Whilst both Confucian and Mohist ethics embraced both universal love, as well as love for one’s own parents, they differently configured competing values.6 They disagreed on which degree to which one was more important. Confucians did give love for one’s parents a priority comparatively higher than Mohists do, whilst Mohists gave universal love the priority comparatively higher than Confucians.7 And it was due to these different ethical schools having different configurations of values that they presented competing configured perspectives on whether to love the state more than one’s own parents.

Examples of moral values of filial piety and loyalty to the state (i. e. the emperor) although both highly valued in Confucianism, pre-Qin Confucianism would have given filial piety a higher priority than to the loyalty to the state, the emperor.8 In the example of Mencius as Chenyang Li’s article provides, Mencius’s student, Xian Qinmeng, raised a significant question. The question regarded the people who in serving the state were ‘too busy with state affairs to care for their own parents’8 – what should they do? To whom first came filial piety – the state or own parents? Mencius replied ‘the sons utmost act of filial piety is to honour his parents; the utmost act of honouring parents lies in supporting his parents with the entire country. Being the emperor’s father is the highest honour; being supported with the entire country is the utmost form of support’. The service to the country was the greatest act of filial piety in his eyes.9

 

 

 

Bibliography:

 

Song Jinzhou, Mohist Theoretic System: The Rivalry Theory of Confucianism and Interconnections With the Universal Values and Global Sustainability, in Cultural and Religious Studies, Vol. 8, No. 3, Shanghai (2020)

 

Chenyang Li, Does Confucian Ethics Integrate Care Ethics and Justice Ethics? The Case of Mencius, in Asian Philosophy, Vol. 18, No. 1, (2008).

  1. Song Jinzhou, Mohist Theoretic System: The Rivalry Theory of Confucianism and Interconnections With the Universal Values and Global Sustainability, in Cultural and Religious Studies, Vol. 8, No. 3, Shanghai (2020), p. 178 [↩]
  2. Song, Mohist Theoretic System, p. 178. [↩]
  3. Song, Mohist Theoretic System, p. 178, [↩]
  4. Song, Mohist Theoretic System, pp. 178-179. [↩]
  5. Song, Mohist Theoretic System, p. 181. [↩] [↩] [↩] [↩]
  6. Chenyang Li, Does Confucian Ethics Integrate Care Ethics and Justice Ethics? The Case of Mencius, in Asian Philosophy, Vol. 18, No. 1, (2008), p. 71. [↩]
  7. Li, Does Confucian Ethics Integrate Care Ethics and Justice Ethics?, pp. 71-72. [↩]
  8. Li, Does Confucian Ethics Integrate Care Ethics and Justice Ethics?, p. 72. [↩] [↩]
  9. Mencius 5A:4 [↩]