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Mencius, Mozi and Peter Singer

Mencius, Mozi and Peter Singer

ARE DOUBLE STANDARDS REQUIRED?

A case study in evaluating East and West: , and Peter

José C. van Mechelen

Studentno. 0477001

Defence: 30th of August 2018

Universiteit van Amsterdam

Faculteit Wijsbegeerte

First examiner: Dr. M.M. Leezenberg

Second examiner: Dr. E.C. Brouwer

Mencius Mozi

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The Master said:

“From fifteen, my heart and mind () was set upon learning; from thirty I took my stance; from forty I was no longer doubtful; from fifty I realised the propensities of (tian ming); from sixty my ear was attuned; from seventy I could give my heart-and-mind free rein without overstepping the boundaries.

Lunyu 2.4 (The of , translated by Ames and Rosemont 1998)

For Paula, in loving memory

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TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 7 INTRODUCTION 9 Translations used 14

Chapter 1 Chinese ‘’ and some of its key concepts 15

1.1 In which sense is Chinese ‘Philosophy’ philosophy? 15 1.1.1. History 15 1.1.2. Opinions 16 1.1.3. My opinion 18 1.1.4. ‘Zhongdaology’, a Chinese view on the ‘Masters of ’ 18

1.2. The concept of ‘Dao’ 22

1.3 The Period of the Warring States (475– 221BCE), the quest for a uniting 25

1.3.1 in the period of the Warring States 27 1.3.1.1. The hundred schools of thought 28 1.3.1.2. The 28 1.3.1.3. The six schools of thought ‘jia’ 29

1.4 The ‘Ru’ (Confucian)’ mandate of ’ ‘tian ming’ and Mozi’s ‘tian ’, ‘heaven’s intention’ 31

1.5 The concept of ‘xiao’ 34

1.6 The concept of ‘xin’: both ‘heart-organ’ and ‘heart-mind’ 35

Chapter 2 Mencius 36

2.1 Introduction 36

2.2 and emotions in the Mencius 37

2.3 Mencius among his philosophical rivals Yang Tzu and Mozi 39

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Chapter 3 Mozi and the Mohists 41

3.1 Introduction 41

3.2 Mozi against spending too much on and on war 44 3.2.1. funerals 45 3.2.2 music 46 3.2.3 war 47

3.3 On jian’ai in the Mozi, ‘ for all’/‘Inclusive love’/‘impartial love’ 48

Chapter 4 Discussion of Benefit () in the Mencius and the Mozi 54

Chapter 5 Peter Singer and his movement of Effective 58

5.1 Introduction 58

5.2 ‘The point of view of the universe’ 63

5.3 ‘The of equal consideration of interests’ 64

5.4 ‘’ 65

Chapter 6 Singer, Mencius and Mozi compared 69

6.1 Discussion 69

6.2 Philosophical guiding standards 71

6.3 The role of the 72

CONCLUSION 75

BIBLIOGRAPHY 79

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

When it appeared in 2004 that I would be made redundant from my job as a teacher any time in the future, I took up academic studies again. My partner Paula, suggested Philosophy, which turned out to have been an excellent choice. At the onset, my aim was learning from as many philosophical disciplines as I could. However, a year later, got me into its grip. My teacher, Karel L. van der Leeuw, a true master himself, used to warn his students at the first lecture that the subject is a ‘mer à boire’ and could take over your whole life. I discovered that it is an ocean in which you can easily drown indeed, but that it is possible to learn how to ride the waves. For that I am very grateful to master Karel and his lectures which I attended for a great number of years. He passed away in 2015 -not having found the means to reach immortality- but his books are still here and his wisdom will be passed on.

It took more than eight years longer than expected to finish my studies, due to ill- health of my partner and myself. I promised Paula, who died in 2012, that one day I would end up with a degree. Now this day is here to enjoy with my family and friends who are such a great support.

I would like to thank Michiel Leezenberg for his guidance in writing this thesis; he kept me going into the right direction. Special thanks to Elsbeth Brouwer, who has known me as a student for many years, for agreeing to be the second examiner.

Amsterdam, 26th of August 2018

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INTRODUCTION

This case study is about Philosophy East and West. It is rather common nowadays to use this phrasing when indicating a comparison made between philosophical works of Eastern

(Chinese in this thesis) authors and those with a formal Western education in philosophy. It is also the name of an influential magazine in the field, published by the University of Hawaii.1

This thesis has as its aim to compare the ‘leitmotiv’ of ‘Effective Altruism’ in the philosophy of Peter Singer, a contemporary utilitarian , born and bred in

Australia, who currently holds positions as a professor of philosophy in Melbourne, Australia and as a professor of at Princeton, U.S.A., with the most striking ‘philosophical’ thoughts of two masters of the Period of the Warring States (471-221 BCE) in what we now call : Mencius and Mozi. They travelled from court to court to advise the rulers and in

Mozi’s case spoke to the common people as well. All three thinkers give suggestions how to make a better place to live for all people. Peter Singer tries to make the world one, advocating his utilitarian impartial philosophy and lifestyle and uses as many channels as possible to do so. He is often in the news and on television with his ideas. He employs the

‘principle of marginal ’, derived from economic theory, that says that when you have already enough money to live a life, you could spare anything extra to donate to others in need. Mencius advocates a traditional Ru (Confucian) of how a society should be organised, namely through xiao, filial piety, as the building block, with the ruler as connection between tian, heaven and di, earth, at the top of civilisation. Mozi proposes a new radical theory: ‘love for all/inclusive love/impartial love’, an impartial egalitarian view that challenges the traditional values of the Ru (Confucians). In Mozi’s view tian, heaven, is there for all and communicates directly with ruler and common people alike.

1 Philosophy East and West: a quarterly journal of oriental and comparative thought. University of Hawaii, Honolulu 9

When I got acquainted with Singer’s theory I could not escape the thought that it was very similar to Mozi’s and in Singer’s way of getting his ideas across, the examples given by

Mencius resonated. That is why I decided on a comparison of these three thinkers for the subject of this thesis.

First I will shed some light on a few ‘key’ concepts in Chinese ‘Philosophy’, starting with the concept of ancient Chinese ‘Philosophy’ itself in chapter 1. To understand the view of the world as unfolded to us in the Mencius and the Mozi (the books have got the names of the masters that provided the inspiration for them) some acquaintance with the following concepts is necessary in my view. They are: Dao ,道. mostly translated into English as the

Way (spelled in capital W), tian ming, 天命, the ‘’ as used in Ru, 儒2

(Confucian) worldview and tian zhi, 天志, heaven’s intention/will’ as used in the Mozi.

Furthermore the concepts of xiao(孝), filial piety and xin (心), the ‘heart-mind’, which have the same meaning today as they had 2500 years ago. I will give some background information on the period in which Mencius and Mozi lived and worked as far as is necessary to understand their thoughts on how to make the world of the Middle Kingdom, zhong guo,中國 a better place to live.

In Chapter 2, I will give a very brief introduction on the Mencius, 孟子, and will then discuss his view on emotions and the heart (心) - or rather the various hearts-, in particular. I will use one special example from Mencius 2A6 to illustrate what is and through that, what makes a person humane/benevolent. It is the famous: ‘Child due to fall into a well’ example. Anybody would be touched and would rescue the child as a matter of course and

2 Whom we in the West know as Confucian scholars, used (and still use) the name of Ru 儒 for themselves. See: Dr Bin (Ruist scholar) on : https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dr-bin-song-on-the-meaning-of-ru-%E5%84%92-for- confucianism_us_59793cf7e4b09982b7376212 10 this emotional leads us to the reason behind such behaviour: we simply cannot bear to see another person suffer. The question is raised whether Mencius’ ‘exposé ’would be

‘philosophy’ seen through the eyes of Peter Singer or not.

Chapter 3 is on Mozi 墨子 and the Mohists. I discuss the Mozi in more detail than I do with the Mencius. The reason is that there is a most striking resemblance between the philosophy and philosophical movement of two of the philosophers compared in this thesis:

Peter Singer and Mozi. Mozi is often depicted by his fellow masters (Mengzi (Mencius) 孟,

Xunzi荀子and 莊子) as the Chinese master that was against everything. is a radical movement that would like to change its contemporary society by doing away with the overspending on luxury that went with how Ru (Confucian) scholars executed ritual.

Furthermore the Mozi argues against waging war, which was rampant in the Period of the

Warring States. Frugality is advocated in the Mozi and this rings a bell: Peter Singer and his movement of Effective Altruism favour a simple lifestyle as well, so that benefits can be shared with the rest of the world. A lofty ideal the Mohist movement would have agreed to wholeheartedly.

In Chapter 4 the discussion is on benefit or profit (li 利) in the Mencius and the Mozi.

This is done rather extensively because it shows the position of the individual within Chinese society and the role of the government both from a Mencian (Ru or Confucian) and from a

Mohist perspective.

Chapter 5 is about Peter Singer and his theory and movement of ‘Effective Altruism’.

I wonder at the fact that he argued against scientific fMRI3 ‘proof’ that altruism may be ‘hard-

3 fMRI: functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The MRI scan apparatus is used to scan the brains of healthy people while they are given cognitive tasks. The images that are saved show to which part of extra blood flows at a certain moment, indicating action in a specific area of the brain, connected with specific 11 wired’ in the human brain. After all, Singer claims that altruism is a product of biology and evolution through expanding circles of kinship and tribal communities. It appears from his books that, as a Western trained philosopher, he cannot rely on emotions alone; he needs a firmer guide for ethical behaviour. He finds this in ’s Practical Ethics, the

‘standpoint of the universe’, and he applies this throughout in his philosophical thinking.

Singer started a philosophical movement: Effective Altruism. He gets more and more people into his camp, advocating donating ‘surplus’ money to the needy in the world. Our standard of living in the modern Western industrialised countries is high enough to economise a little bit and then we will still have enough to live a good life is Singer’s crede. I attended a lecture by him in June 2018 and report from what I experienced there. Singer is an amiable, compelling figure and has an amazing rhetoric. It is hard not to get convinced by his rendering of ‘his’ practical ethics.

In Chapter 6 there is a discussion of the various philosophical positions of the three philosophers under consideration in this thesis. The helpful –or sometimes adverse - role of the government for a well-ordered society in which it is pleasant to live, is considered in somewhat more detail, as it is part and parcel of their . In Mencius’ case it is even the force his philosophical theory is built on.

I will then end by concluding that this case study, that I started, thinking that for

Philosophy East and West double standards were required, since they seemed incompatible, has a result differently from what I had expected. For me it turned out that Peter Singer’s philosophy and that of the Mohists are a match. They are both of utilitarian character and carry forth a ‘lofty standpoint of the universe’ (Singer 1979, 219): Singer by taking Sidgwick

functions e.g. frontal lobe with planning, judgment and problem solving. The RT, response time is always measured which gives an indication of the difficulty of performing the task. 12 as his master of impartiality (he does not allow for a God in his theories), and Mozi by alluring to tian zhi, heaven’s intention, as an impartial guiding principle, not a God either. A comparison between Singer and Mencius is complicated. They use the same kind of examples to arouse emotions in people. Their aim is for the audience to see the reason within. For

Singer reason alone is not enough to create a solid philosophical concept. Following

Slingerland’s theories4 that xin, the heart, evolved during the Period of the Warring States in philosophical writing from consisting of pure emotion to a more and more cognition-laden concept, the ‘heart-mind’ or even the mind, it is easier to compare Mencian virtues and emotions with Singer’s Western philosophical values. Yet there is no match there, so the

Mencius should be considered differently from how we see Singer’s theories, unless we regard this specific use of emotion-arousing examples as a rhetorical device. Then we do not compare the two philosophies but the philosophers’ ways of going about their philosophy, their methods of conveying ideas and concepts. Anyway, it is certain that both Mencius and

Peter Singer have a compelling style to win over the hearts of the people for their good cause: a better world.

4 Slingerland, Edward (2013) “Body and Mind in Early China: An integrated humanities-science approach”. Journal of the American Academy of Religion Vol. 81(1)pp.6-55 13

Translations used

When not indicated otherwise I used the following translations: for the Mencius D.C. Lau’s and for the: Mozi that of Ian Johnston’s and for the The Analects of Confucius (Lunyu) also D.C. Lau’s translation:

Mencius, Mencius (1970, 2003/4) Translated into English by D.C. Lau. Penguin Classics

Mozi, The Mozi. A Complete Translation (2010) Translated by Ian Johnston. New York: Press

Confucius, The Analects (Lun yü), translated with an introduction by D.C. Lau, Harmondsworth [etc.]: Penguin Books 1979

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Chapter 1 Chinese ‘Philosophy’ and some of its key concepts

1.1 Philosophy East and West: In which sense is Chinese ‘Philosophy’ philosophy?

1.1.1. History

The term ‘philosophy’ has only been applied to the Chinese tradition of the thinking of the

Masters (zhuzi, 諸子) since the beginning of the twentieth century of the Christian era. China started sending scholars abroad only after Japan had opened up to the West. The Japanese scholar, Nishi Amane (1829-1887), invented a term for philosophy in his own language ‘the

‘study’ of ‘wisdom’, tetsugaku (tetsu, wisdom and gaku, learning) which was adopted into

Chinese as zhexue with the same characters: 哲学. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century the Chinese Masters had already been labelled ‘philosophy.’ by the learned men of the day and by Jesuit missionaries from Belgium, e.g. Ferdinand Verbiest,5 Italy ,e.g. Matteo Ricci6,

France7 and Portugal8. This may be concluded from the titles of e.g. Philosophica Sinica, etc.9 by François Noël S.J. of 1711 and ’s small treatise Entretien d’un philosophe chrétien et d’un philosophe chinois sur l’existence et la Dieu of 1708.

5See e.g. Blondeau, Roger A. (1970) Mandarijn en Astronoom. Ferdinand Verbiest S. J. (1623-1688) aan het hof van de Chinese Keizer. Brugge-Utrecht 6See e.g. Wiest, J.P. (2012) “Ricci: Pioneer of Chinese-Western Dialogue and Cultural Exchanges”. International Bulletin of Mission Research 7 Baldini, Ugo (2012). “French Jesuit Missionaries in China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.” Metascience March 2012, Volume 21, Issue 1, 227-230 8 See e.g. Brockey, Liam (2000). "A Vinha do Senhor": The Portuguese Jesuits in China in the Seventeenth Century” Portuguese Studies,Vol. 16 (2000), pp. 125-147 9 Noël, François S.J. (1711) Philosophia Sinica, tribus tractatibus, primo cognitionem primi entis, secondo ceremonias erga defunctos, tertio ethicam juxta Sinarum mentem complectans. , J.J. Kamenicky 15

Defoort (2001, 395) writes:

The difference was that in that age [17th JvM] there was still reciprocity, e.g. ’s work was described in Chinese terms (qionli gewu, ‘the investigation of things and exploration of ’)10.

European learned men of the seventeenth century, among others Leibniz and were very much interested in the East. As Voltaire put it:

“If, as a philosopher, one wishes to instruct oneself about what has taken place on the globe, one must first of all turn one’s eyes towards the East, the cradle of all arts, to which the West owes everything”.— Voltaire. 11

1.1.2 Opinions

Feng Youlan (1895-1990) who studied at Columbia University is a representative of the thought that Chinese Philosophy exists and that Chinese and Western thinkers alike participated in the universal human project of philosophy (in Defoort 2001: 397).

There is an implicit presence of a structured philosophy in their texts, but it is up to us to make it explicit; philosophical progress and originality lie hidden in inconspicuous commentaries, and it is up to us do discover them; weak points in Chinese philosophy, in particular , , or , are often the result of the masters’ selective attention and conscious decision, and it is up to us to appreciate this.

Defoort (2001, 396) further discusses whether Chinese ‘philosophy’ is philosophy in the

Western philosophical tradition in that it shows “systematic thinking, reflection and rationality”.

A great deal of the teachings of the masters from the so-called Golden Age of Chinese philosophy (the fifth to third centuries) rarely meet these demands. Thinkers like and Confucius, who are traditionally branded as the founders of and Confucianism, respectively, expressed themselves in short proverbs, aphorisms, or conversations without concerning themselves too much with systematicity, logic, or any other philosophical criterion.

10 Defoort, Carine, “Is there such a thing as Chinese Philosophy? Arguments of an Implicit Debate.” Philosophy East and West, Vol. 51, No. 3 pp 393-413 11 Voltaire as quoted in Defoort (2001. 395) 16

Roger Ames 12 tells us ‘to take Chinese philosophy on its own terms and says of the interpretation of Chinese ‘philosophy’ the following:

[t]hen, that we must begin from the interpretive context by taking into account the tradition’s own indigenous presuppositions and its own evolving self-understanding. We must be aware of the ambient, persistent assumptions that have given the Chinese philosophical narrative its unique identity over time . He gives us an example by mentioning some of the most ‘familiar’ terms, but warns that these are interpretations from a philosophy based on Greek standards that cannot be seen but from a

Judeo-Christian perspective. Ames (2007, 14):

To the extent that Chinese philosophy has become the subject of Western philosophical interest, it has more often than not been analyzed within the framework of categories and philosophical problems not its own. (…) There are numerous examples of grossly inappropriate language having become the standard equivalents in the Chinese/English dictionaries that we use to perpetuate our understanding of : ‘the Way’ (dao 道), ‘Heaven’ (tian天), ‘benevolence’(ren仁), ‘righteousness’ (yi義), ‘rites’ (li禮), ‘’ (de德), ‘substance’ (ti體), ‘principle’ (li理), ‘material substance’ (qi氣), and so on. Can a Western student read the capitalized ‘Heaven’ as anything other than a metonym for the familiar notion of a transcendent God? Is living a life as someone’s son or daughter a ‘rite?’ Should we reduce what is quite literally the image of cultivated, consummate human beings in all their aspects – cognitive, moral, esthetic, religious, somatic – to a single psychological disposition: ‘benevolence?’ When and in what context would a native English speaker ever utter the word ‘righteousness?

Thus Ames warns us not to employ a static Western interpretation of the works of the

Chinese Masters. He certainly acknowledges the fact that we can compare East and West as to their philosophical thought, but we should always try to take into consideration the comprehensive world behind it. Chinese thought is about ‘growing’, ‘developing’ and

‘moving’, both for the individual, the country and the universe. As an example: what Ames here calls ‘benevolence’, I would like to translate by a word that is now obsolescent in this meaning: ‘humaneness’, which does indeed mean showing benevolence, but encompasses

12 Ames, Roger T. (2017) “Better late than never: understanding Chinese philosophy and ‘translating it’ into the western academy.” Ethics and Education, 12:1, 6-17

17 more. Humaneness is the essentiality of being human and becoming completely human and acting as a human being should at the same time, it points to the qualities that befit a man.

The concept includes a sense of cultivating the self, attaining a higher level of one’s character, and that is exactly how it is used in Chinese thought. In modern day English it is hardly used differently from the meaning it has in e.g. a humane society that advocates “humane treatment” of animals, which has come to mean ‘inflicting less pain’. Human is the term that has often replaced humane now, a static concept, not stressing the flow and the movement that is in the qualities of ‘humane’. So, what is wiser, translating from the Chinese using a term hardly anybody employs these days, or losing some of its meaning in ‘benevolence’?

The point is that everybody strife to become a humane/benevolent human being and that is

‘practical ethics’.

1.1.3. My opinion

It is my opinion that the works of the Chinese Masters should be considered ‘philosophy’ of a practical kind and that they can be compared with the concepts of Western philosophers such as Peter Singer’s, who calls his philosophy ‘practical ethics’. I am comparing Peter Singer’s

Western philosophy of the 21st century AD with how Mencius and Mozi of the 4th century

BCE see an ideal society, worlds apart we might think. The titles of Peter Singer’s books: One

World (2002) and the revised edition One World now (2016) may make us think otherwise.

1.1.4. Zhongdaology, a Chinese view on the ‘Masters of Wisdom’

We should bear in mind that the methods of going about philosophy East and West are different. I am quite sympathetic to the ideas of Professor Keqian Xu of Nanjing Normal

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University who - in his 2016 essay-13: sheds some light on this difference by proposing an interesting view, based on Chinese concepts

‘The essence of traditional Chinese Confucian philosophy can be termed “Zhongdaology’’; it searches for the appropriate degree of zhong which is a standard guiding people’s actions.’ [Generally translated as ‘the ’ JvM]

He confronts his concept of ‘Zhongdaology’ or “zhong dao (the Way of Zhong)”with the concept of ontology in traditional Western philosophy. He states that the latter

‘[f]ocused attention on metaphysics, which studied the fundamental being of entities in reality. (…) With the premise that all entities in reality have their constant and fixed being, ontology deals with the abstract and static concept of being and the categories of being.

It goes without saying that there are a great number of important differences between the Western and Chinese philosophical traditions. In part they are due to the philosophical concepts that are the basis of their views and the language they are founded on. A.C. Graham, in his appendix 2 to Disputers of the enlightens us on the subject 14 and Xu tells us in his article that in early ancient the verb ‘to be’ and hence the gerund being did not exist. It is his view that therefore Chinese early philosophical masters have not paid attention to the ontological concept of being. ‘Only in the later (25-220 B.C.E.) the modern Chinese equivalent of “to be”, i.e. shi began to be used as a predicate verb.’(189)

In this essay and an earlier one “A Synthetic Comprehension of the Way of Zhong in Early

Confucian Philosophy” of 201115 Xu explains that the concept of zhong is a synthesis of all the meanings of the word [and this means in ancient Chinese also a concept that could be used

13 Xu, Keqian (2016) “Confucian Philosophy of Zhongdaology and its practical significance in resolving conflicts”. Dialogue and Universalism No.4/2016 14 To Disputers of the Tao (1989), A.C. Graham attached Appendix 2: “The Relation of Chinese Thought to the Chinese Language in which he tells us many of the same things Professor Xu does. 15 Xu, Keqian (2011)”A Synthetic Comprehension of the Way of Zhong in Early Confucian Philosophy”. Frontiers of Philosophy China 2012, 7(3): 422-438 19 in a philosophical sense]. As the word-concept zhong has no exact equivalent in English,

Professor Xu provides us here with a number of options so that we can taste the gist of it e.g. zhonghe (zhong and harmonious), zhongzeng (being just and correct [or sincere]’), zhizong

(wisdom and zhong, holding to the principle of zhong). (423). He claims that the translation that is generally used for zhongyong (practising zhong) or zhongdao (the Way of zhong) is the

“doctrine of the mean”, although e.g. “Central Harmony”16 or Focusing the Familiar17 have been proposed.

The Origin of the ‘Doctrine of the Mean’ lies with Confucius, who found himself in a society out of harmony (和, he) in the middle of the 6th century BCE. Confucius suggested for improvement on the existing situation to put into practice the ‘doctrine of the mean’, zhongyong. 18 He advocated returning to the detailed rites and ‘li’ of the .

For him this was the exemplary model of society. It had been a just system and above all there was harmony in those days. Confucius believed that the Zhou Dynasty had reached the Dao of heaven, tian Dao天道. To quote from Confucius, Lunyu 8:2019:

The Zhou, with two thirds of the world in its possession, continued to submit to and serve the House of Yin. The excellence of Zhou can be said to be the highest excellence20 of all.

Confucius stresses ‘station in society’ here. Possession of and land is not the criterion for excellence, but reverence and obedience to one’s masters, teachers or to tian, heaven itself. A virtuous person –or a whole dynasty in the case of the Zhou- knows exactly what his place in society is and does not veer from its path. He knows the right dao and for

16 Lin, Yutang. (1938). The Wisdom of Confucius. New York: The Modern Library. 17 Ames, Roger T., and Hall, David L. (2001). Focusing the Familiar: A Translation and Philosophical Interpretation of the Zhongyong. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 18 Confucian learning. See e.g. Legge, James (1920)The four books : Confucian analects, The , The doctrine of the mean, and The works of Mencius, Shanghai 19 Translated as the Analects, I use the translation of Ames and Rosemont in this thesis 20 The concept of de德, here translated as excellence, is translated as virtue by others

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Confucius that is the one guided by the principle of zhong, the doctrine of the mean.

Zhongyong, the practice of zhong, entails that in all activities and thoughts moderation should be practised. Moderation engenders harmony in action and this then leads to a . Harmony was a virtuous state to be reached through virtuous behaviour. Sincerity, 誠, cheng, a virtuous behaviour played a key role here, it was seen as the root of human behaviour. It should be practised until it became part and parcel of a just way of life and this is where 理 li, ritual comes in. Practising ritual and rites ensures this just and righteous

‘middle of the road’ way of living. Man must not go too far left or right but stand in the centre

‘without leaning towards one side’. For pure harmony it is necessary not to wander from the right tone, this is the central tone in music – music practised in the right way, harmoniously, is a firm basis for a well ordered society. Mark that Chinese is a musical language with its four notes to pronounce words on and words can be used as philosophical concepts. This is why the Ru/Confucianist has devoted a whole chapter, number 20, of his book to music, how it should be used as a means of harmony, and why both Xunzi and Mencius attack Mozi on this subject. From Xunzi 20.4:21

It is precisely in their ritual and music that the Way of the Ancient Kings has its highest expression Yet Mozi condemns it. Thus, I say that Mozi’s understanding of the Way is like that of a blind man trying to distinguish white from black, or of a deaf man bass and treble notes, or like someone who tries to reach [in the south] by traveling to the north.

Mozi proposed to do away with music altogether, because in his view rituals with dance and music cost too much money and time spent on making music could not be used on providing more basic needs. The Ru (Confucians) had lost their good practice of zhong in his days; Mozi describes how ritual was not moderate anymore. Professor Xu suggests that zhong

21 Xunzi, Xunzi. (1999).Translated into English by John Knoblock. Hunan People’s Publishing House, Foreign Languages Press 21 and dao together be used as a philosophical term for the Chinese practice of what I would call

‘practical’ ethics’:‘zhongdaology’. I must remark here that it cannot be a coincidence that the

‘zhong’-part of professor Xu’s term seems to fit Ruism (Confucianism) to a ‘T’, thereby perhaps leaving little room for alternative ‘philosophical’ worldviews for Early Chinese society. My view is that Mohism cannot be described in terms of ‘zhongdaology’, because it takes a position that is too extreme for Ruism. (See also:‘Mencius between his philosophical rivals’ on page 39 of this thesis).

1.2 The concept of Dao, 道

The concept of Dao can be looked at from various angles. The inherent quality of Dao is that it is utterly flexible. This means that we may think it is constant according to one perception, but that it turns out to have fled from our grasp the next moment. Why such a vague description of Dao here? The reason is that this is exactly the way Dao is made known to us. Dao might be a mainstream word in all Chinese classical philosophical texts - Dao is everywhere- but Dao means more than just the way it is still used in modern Chinese language today, namely a road to walk and drive on. Dao means a way of life, the road as a metaphor for the quest that life is. And Dao is considered the equivalent of a –maybe even firm- first principle by some scholars. From Dao comes everything in heaven and earth: 道生

萬物, dao sheng wan wu. Wanwu means the indefinite multitude of all forms and beings in manifest existence and is translated by Eno as ‘the things of the world’ 22 or in another, more literal translation it is the ‘ten thousand things’ and those cannot be but concrete, but it seems that the beginning of heaven and earth lies in nothingness. For me the truth of the matter lies

22 Lao zi (2010) Dao de Translated by Robert Eno, version 1.2.of 2018. Indiana University, Bloomington.In his foreword Eno states: This translation was originally prepared for use by students in a general course on early Chinese thought. It should not be regarded as a scholarly translation.

22 in the fact that Dao is empty and can be filled in accordance with the particular situations it is to serve. I would like to compare it to a painting of a landscape on a silk role. The art of landscape painting, 山水, (literally mountain-water)23 is strictly bound to rules: e.g. there should be at least one empty space in the painting, a void. This void is Dao. What it can be filled with is , 氣 the principle of energy which is the life force, the breath of life, the air around us that makes beings live and simply denotes the weather as well.

‘Tian qi hao’, in contemporary Chinese is just a greeting, meaning ‘It is nice weather’, literally translated the qi, the life force of heaven (= the weather) good. The metaphor of the bellows, Laozi 24uses to describe Dao seems to go well with this thought

‘All between heaven and earth is like a great bellows. Empty, yet it does not collapse, The more it is moved the more it issues forth.’

There exist many translations of this ancient manuscript, when I quote from a more modern one of 2001 that is quite poetic in style, it reads as follows:

Ways that can be spelled out. Cannot be the eternal way. Names that can be named Must change with time and place. “Emptiness” is what I call the origin of heaven and earth; “Existence” is what I call the mother of everything that had a birth. Appreciate Emptiness, that we may see nature of the Way’s versatility; Appreciate Existence, that we may see the extent of the Way’s possibilities. These two, Emptiness and Existence, came from the same source. Though they bear different names, they serve the same mystical cause. A mystery within a mystery, Such is the gateway to all versatility.

23 See e.g. Trouveroy, N. (2003)”Landscape of the Soul: Ethics and Spirituality in Chinese Painting”. India International Centre Quarterly, 1 July 2003, Vol.30(1), pp.5-19 24 Dao de jing section 5, in the translation by Robert Eno (2010), version 1.2. of 2018 23

This translation is by Lok San Ho, who translated the Daodejing into English as: The Living

Dao: The Art and Way of Living A Rich & Truthful Life .25 At the end of his introduction Ho wants his readers to know that:

[L]aozi did not write the Daodejing as a Chinese, but as a member of the human race. I hope that readers will see the Daodejing not as a sample of Chinese philosophy, but as an exploration to the meaning and of life itself from someone whose inner reflections are unusually sharp and downright honest.

To adhere to a certain Dao also means agreeing with that particular lifestyle and the principles connected with it, e.g. the Confucian Dao, or the Mohist Dao or the Daoist Dao.

Just as Keqian Xu informs us about zhong in the paragraph before this, there is no one-to-one corresponding translation in English for Dao. Dao takes various forms in the philosophical texts that are considered. For Western philosophers this makes it not the most agreeable concept to consider, it is not straightforward enough to their prevalent taste for seeking Truth.

Professor Xu even suggests translating Dao by Truth at times. 26

The Pre- scholars’ enthusiastic attitude in pursuing “Dao”, was quite similar to the attitude of the ancient Greek philosophers in pursuing “Truth”, which was considered as the ultimate goal in their philosophic pursuing. There is, however, a difference, in paragraph 2.4, Xu says:

Searching for “Truth” in traditional Western philosophy mainly asks the question of “What is?” While searching for “Dao” in Pre-Qin Chinese philosophy mainly asks the question of “How to?”

25 Ho, Look San (2001) The Living Dao: The Art and Way of Living A Rich & Truthful Life November13, 2001, Lingnan University, Hong Kong (revised August 4, 2009 26 Xu, Keqiang “Chinese “Dao” and Western “Truth: A Comparative and Dynamic Perspective 6 (12):8 (2010) page 42 24

1.3 The Period of the Warring States, the quest for a uniting political philosophy (475– 221BCE)

From: Encyclopaedia online (free of copyright for educational purposes)

The Chinese masters Mencius and Mozi whose works I will discuss in this thesis lived in the period of the Warring States. As already suggested by the name, the period was rampant with war, but due to this turmoil it provided room for innovation as well. In agriculture better water management was applied and peasants started to use iron tools, which advanced production a lot. A new type of administrator, not only chosen from the ranks of the landed gentry anymore, was being employed in the cities. China did not know a bourgeois middle class. The court of the ruler with its vast household was at the top of society, immediately thereafter came the peasants, then the artisans and craftsmen and merchants held the lowest position.

Due to the constant shifting of power among the rulers in the Period of the Warring States, there was also room for innovation in thought. Chinese masters of wisdom were employed by

25 the rulers of the states as political advisers and once they had got famous, their value went up, so to speak, and rulers tried to lure them away from their rivals.

Near the end of the period of the Warring States the seven largest states were:

Qín (秦), Chǔ (楚), Qí (齊), Yàn (燕), Hán (韓), Zhào (趙), and Wèi (魏): There had been other, smaller states, but these had been conquered and enfeoffed by the larger states. The ruler of such a state goes by the name of hegemon; he is not just any ruler, but one with influence over a large area, mostly with several cities in it. This period was to last to 221 BCE when the state of Qin had grown large enough to claim the over-all hegemony. Then Qin Shi

Huangdi proclaimed himself emperor and ruler of the whole area known to its inhabitants as the Middle Kingdom: zhong guo. 中国.

In the period of the ‘Warring States’ the role of city states changed, largely due to economic prosperity. They became ‘macro-states’, that extracted taxes and services [e.g. conscription for military service] from the peasantry and were to be ‘nodes in an administrative network that “existed for the sake of the country and not vice versa”. So the rural component rather than the cities ‘defined the Chinese way of life’.27 Crops were more abundant in these days, due to better water management, iron tools and use of fertilizers.

Many new cities were founded and older ones expanded. In the cities grew from populations of a few thousand to a few tens of thousands, to cities of ‘ten thousand households’ or more and that will have meant up to 200,000 people. An interesting development was the shift from the ‘concentric’ city to the ‘double city’. Formerly the entire hustle and bustle of the city with all its specific quarters designated to administration or varied handicrafts had been enclosed by one wall. Now a new urban space was created by raising a

27 See Lewis, M.E. (2006). The construction of space in early China. State University of New York page 150 26 rammed earth platform which was to house a district for nobles and political affairs. Larger cities such as Linzi in the state of Qi had two distinct walled enclosures, of which one served as the ‘palace-city’ for rulers and administrators and the other as a place for merchants, artisans and peasants. Sometimes artisans had their own distinct place as well (Lewis (2006),

150,151).

1.3.1 Philosophers in the Period of the Warring States

In order to make his influence last, a hegemon needed more than just the conquest of other states and a raised platform in the city from which he ruled. In the period of the Warring

States, there was a quest for a political philosophy that could serve as a firm basis for an ever enlarging kingdom that would ultimately grow into the Empire in 221 BCE, based on the state of Qin and its conquests.

The various rulers of the Warring States employed masters. They were itinerant scholars, wandering from one court to the next. Mostly they were invited to stay for a large period of time, so that they could advise the ruler on politics and related philosophical matters. Ancient Chinese Philosophy is a practical philosophy as a matter of course. When the state and its people do not experience chaos and the ruler is able to maintain harmony, all things, i.e. heaven and earth (and man in the middle) prosper. These philosophical masters did not come alone; they brought their ‘manuscripts’ with them, a collection of bamboo slips, transported in a great number of ox-drawn carts. With them travelled their families and servants and their disciples. The ruler of a state had to provide lodging for all these people and their animals and belongings. Small wonder that sometimes such a peripatetic philosopher was left standing at the gate of a city. The ruler had to decide first whether it was worthwhile to invest in the ideas of this master of wisdom and his retinue.

27

From Mencius IIIB 4:

P’eng Keng asked, ‘Is it not excessive to travel with a retinue of hundreds of followers in scores of chariots, and to live off one feudal lord after another?’

Mencius answers when P’eng Keng says that a 君子,junzi, gentleman (literal meaning: lord’s son) should earn his keep by working for it, that the philosopher should be fed because he is

‘a man who practises ’ and that is ‘how he makes a living.’

1.3.1.1. The hundred schools of thought

The period of the Warring States knew much turmoil, but such an almost chaotic situation creates opportunities as well. This certainly occurred in the field of thinking. As pointed out in the previous chapter there were many itinerant philosophers who offered their services to the rulers. They had all kinds of suggestions for an ethical mode of behaviour in society. This applied to the behaviour of the peasants and other common people and implied the ways of governance by the principal rulers of the country. The (mid-3rd century BCE) by

Han Fei Zi or- though of a much later date but before 139 BCE, the Huainanzi by Liu An –a himself, the king of Huainan, are examples of books with prescriptions of how princes should rule.

1.3.1.2. The Jixia Academy

The ruler of the state of Qi founded and funded the famous Jixia academy, where philosophers were able to share their thoughts in debate. We know that Mencius was employed here for a period of time. Richard Hartnett 28 (2011, 79) writes:

28 Hartnett, Richard A. (2011)The Jixia Academy and the Birth of Higher Learning in China. The Edwin Mellen Press, Lewiston 28

The Jixia was given faculty privileges, including completely free thought and expression, and in return the Qi ruler expected Jixia to contribute to good government, including frank and fearless criticism of the ruler when this was necessary. Jixia balanced scholarly inquiry and disputation with scholarly responsibility for the affairs of state. The relation between scholars and the state was seen as one of mutual dependence.

1.3.1.3. The six schools of thought jia

The most common indexation of all philosophical theories that were known as the ‘Hundred

Schools of Thought’ is the one made by the historian Ma Tan shortly before Chin Shi

Huangdi proclaimed himself the first emperor of the Middle Kingdom in 221 BCE.

According to Sima Tan’s classification and invention the most important schools of thought were the following six:

1. Yinyang,

2. Ru (known to us as Confucians),

3. Mo (The Mohists),

4. Fajia (called Legalists),

5. Mingjia (called Sophists)

6. Daojia (or Daode, the supposed Daoists).

As Westerns students of ancient Chinese philosophical thought, we are accustomed to these six which might be to our minds the ‘most important’ schools. At the least they are the most well-known to us. The writings have been translated and/or commented upon by many scholars since the reception of Chinese thought in the West in the seventeenth century AD by eminent scholars of the Enlightenment both in France and in Germany among whom Leibniz,

Malebranche and Voltaire.

29

I will quote Kidder Smith next who is interested how these schools of philosophical thought functioned in society, since Si Ma Tan is not explicit on this point.

From Smith (2003, p. 150)29

As a historian, I am curious about the Warring States origins of those ideas Tan appropriates to the six jia. In particular, I would like to know more about groupings-of men, of ideas, over time, in one place or many, in their relationships with their own and other groups, formed to what ends and by what means, in their conjunction with state power. Until recently, all students of this past accepted the theory of the Many Schools (baijia)-six or ten main ones, plus many smaller, family- owned ones. (…) we know it does not represent conditions in the Warring States.

Csikszentmihalyi and Nylan (2003) for instance prefer the term ‘scholastic lineages’ to be applied to these bodies of philosophical thought. 30

The framework of six schools of thought or more accurately ‘scholastic lineages’, as jia is typically translated, was an invention of: Sima Tan. He was lord grand astrologer (taishigong) to the Han court. His essay Yaozhi (Essential points) was included in the final chapter of his son ’s Taishigong , which is generally known in Chinese as the Sjiji and in English as Records of the Grand Historian.31

And Smith again (2003, 129)

All previous classifications of thought had identified doctrine with the name of a founding teacher, e.g. “the transmissions of Laozi.” By contrast Sima Tan’s account omits all personal names save Mozi, and instead of seeking to group men or texts, it organizes knowledge with reference to its intellectual content. Tan abstracted this content from the zi or Masters literature of the Warring States/early Han period and refashioned it into six ideal types. Names for the first three types – Yinyyang, Ru and Mo –pre-existed Tan. The other names –Fajia, Mingjia, and Daojia – were his own invention. All six groups were in an important sense synthetic. Though drawing on presently existent knowledge (e.g. yinyang cosmic cycles, the frugality of the Mo), each was in varying degrees a novel combination, crafted for its usefulness in ruling the empire.

29 Smith, Kidder (2003). Sima Tan and the Invention of Daoism, “Legalism,” et cetera. The Journal of Asian Studies 62, no. 1 (February 2003):129-156 30See Csikszentmihalyi, M. and M. Nylan, (2003) Constructing lineages and inventing traditions through exemplary figures in early China. Toung Pao LXXXIX pp 59-99. Brill, Leiden 31 Sima Qian (145 or 135 BCE-86? BCE) followed into his father’s footsteps (Si Ma Tan 190-110 BCE) and was responsible for the library of the first Q’in emperor Qin Shi Huangdi and consequently in charge of all written material that was to be read during this period, he continued to use his father’s classification of the six jia that bundled slightly varying, but still distinctive philosophical lineages together.as in the case of the three Daoist ‘branches’: He made the Zhuangzi the authoritative writings for this jia. Sima Qian compiled the Shiji 史記, the first large and universal history of China that influenced countless generations of Chinese historians.

30

1.4. The Ru mandate of heaven 天命, ‘tian ming’ and Mozi’s 天志, tian zhi, intention (or will) of heaven

Heaven and earth together, tian di (天地), have in modern Chinese still the same meaning as in ancient times: it means: all. In Chinese cosmic thought of how the world is composed, macrocosm and microcosm mirror each other and form at the same time a closed system with man on top of the microcosm between heaven and earth. When there is and quiet and order in society, everybody will benefit. Chaos should at all times be avoided. Chinese philosophy is about relations and must explain how things and people are placed in the greater scheme of the totality of things that have originated from the same source, i.e. Dao. It is of the utmost importance that all things and people are in their right place and have the right names that indicate the right relations.

In the Confucian strain of thought the ruler was endowed with tian ming, the mandate of heaven. Confucius, who saw that in his time, the (Confucius was born in the middle of the sixth century B.C.E, during the eastern Zhou dynasty.), the right order in society was lost, had proposed a strict system of rites and ritual that involved both everyday good behaviour and higher order rituals, such as the ‘Spring and Autumn offerings’ executed by the ruler, that served a well-ordered functioning of society.

As history had taught, a ruling house could hold tian ming, the mandate of heaven, only as long as it acted in a morally right way. Therefore it was of the utmost importance that rulers and ruled alike believed in a sound philosophical basis for politics. Confucius had proposed a system of rules and rituals based upon the stability of the sovereignty of the ruler.

As long as people recognised that heaven and earth could only be in harmony through the intermediary of a good ruler and practised rites and rituals as they should, there would be

31 prosperity in the land. From common people to the ruler, all should comply with li, ritual. All should adhere to their station and position in society and do what their specific duty is. The ruler should execute the state sacrifices directed at tian, heaven and the common people should honour their ancestors by small sacrifices. So li, ritual or duty, became one of the main virtues in Confucius’ thinking and was considered the source of harmony.

Mencius (孟子, 372-289 BCE), some two centuries after Confucius, sees heaven as an anonymous, ethical force that may reward and punish, but does this through the behaviour of the ruler. When a ruler is unjust and inhumane towards his subjects, tian, heaven, will see to it that he is abolished from the throne. The people will become so dissatisfied in that situation that the ‘mandate of heaven’ is taken from him. This is a situation that occurs about every five to seven hundred years according to the Mencius. Then a new, humane leader will come to power. Mencius’ ideal state is one that is led by a virtuous absolute ruler, who constantly watches over and cares for his grateful subjects.

The Mohists believe in tian zhi, heaven’s ‘íntention’ or the ‘will of heaven’. Tian, heaven is a force to be reckoned with for everyone, it can punish and reward. Note, however, that tian, heaven is never a transcendent notion. Tian, heaven, has just a special place in nature and people should find a way how to live with tian, heaven, on an daily basis. Mozi has to make a change to the ‘mandate of heaven. He acknowledges the ruler as the governing force of society, just as the Confucians do, but does away with the hierarchy that is inherent in the ‘mandate of heaven’. For him tian, heaven is there for all people and what is more, treats them all in an equal way. Mozi had to change the theoretical position of tian, heaven because of his egalitarian theories. Even the king was subject to these. When a king can be just as fallible as any other person and can be abolished from the throne by a man with better

32 leadership qualities, the mandate of heaven is no longer existent. Tian, heaven gets the function of being able to directly punish and reward without the mediation of the ruler. I quote here from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Mohism: 3. the search for objective standards)32:

This notion of taking Heaven as a moral role model leads the Mohists to develop a credible normative theory based on equal, impartial concern for the welfare of all. At the same time, however, it steers them into formulating some of their central normative principles in a potentially problematic way. Their conception of Tian (Heaven) provides a compelling basis for arguing that everyone’s interests have equal moral worth. But since the Mohists believe that Tian acts impartially on everyone’s behalf, adopting it as a moral model tends to imply that each of us as individuals is obliged to treat others and ourselves equally — to act in others’ interest exactly as we act in our own. This view, if indeed the Mohists hold it, would invite several objections commonly levelled at crude forms of . The most obvious is that limitations on our time and resources make it practically impossible for us to act equally on others’ behalf as well as our own. (…)The Mohists’ ethical theory thus raises fundamental questions concerning the moral claim on us of others’ interests, the role of impartiality, fairness, and benevolence in an adequate , and the elements of a good life — questions that remain vital in moral philosophy today.

The Mohist dao, seen as a method and a way of life, gradually lost its appeal.

Obviously because Qin Shi Huangdi, the first ruler of the Qi empire (221-206 BCE) had made

Han Feizi’s legalist theory based on standards and laws the official theory of the state and during the dynasty that followed, the Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 AD), Ruism

(Confucianism) was the dominant political . The real reason why Mohist ethics, which have a rather sound practical basis, faded into the background is not fully known. Of influence might have been that such a stringent life-style could only be followed to the letter in small groups of like-minded people and that society at large demanded more from life than just a frugal subsistence.

32 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/ “Mohism” by Chris Fraser First published Mon Oct 21, 2002; substantive revision Fri Nov 6, 2015 33

1.5 The concept of filial piety xiao: 孝

Although filial piety seems to be a matter of course, as it is customary in most cultures to honour your parents and elders, xiao, filial piety deserves extra attention in ancient Chinese philosophy. It is the basis for order in society. Confucius had even made it into one of the main virtues of people and so of civilisation as a whole. As Läänemets 33 writes, it had acquired a sacred dimension in China

In tribal life elders and seniors kept a leading role in the society. The worship of ancestors was a necessary component of the cultivation of filial piety, and it was transferred into the religious cult as early as in the Shang-Yin period. In the early Zhou period, the concept of filial piety had obtained a sacred dimension, and the cultivation of that was considered as the main guarantee for the maintaining of the stability and order in the society.

As the family was and is considered the building block of society, filial piety is by extension applied to society as a whole. Sons should show filial piety to fathers, fathers to ancestors, common people to their superiors and ministers to rulers. Filial piety is considered a standard of behaviour throughout civilization. It was and still is the pillar of the hierarchically organised Chinese family unit. The Chinese saying “Of all virtues, filial piety is the first”, is still in use today. Not being filial enough creates a sense of shame, you lose face and it means that you show lack of character. It is a matter of honour to behave as a good son to one’s parents and as a good citizen to one’s country. Filial piety is symbolised in food and money. These two aspects rank highly in Chinese civilisation and beyond. Good food which is attractively presented and eating out with the family is a revered tradition and the deceased are given a lot of money and food (often in the form of paper objects) with them in the grave to continue the good life they had on earth wherever they may be going.

33Läänemets, M. “The conception of Filial Piety in Early Confucian Texts” . Religio IV 1996 2 Studie

34

1.6 The concept of xin: 心, both heart-organ and heart-mind

The heart is considered by the Chinese to have more functions than that of physical engine of the body alone. Emotions, impressions and deliberations come together in this central human organ and are welded into a meaningful moral whole. Xin is the seat of life: the physical heart-organ and at the same time the ‘heart-mind’, seat of reflection and moral conduct.

Living a morally meaningful life starts within the heart. Xin always refers to something good and is directly connected to the life people lead.

To give an example, when [today] the Chinese refer to ‘using Heart’ to do a task, it refers to efficiency and quality of the work, and to have a positive attitude. Therefore, having xin throughout the entire process of completing a task is highly valued and regarded as genuine and noble. Conversely, one cannot say in Chinese ‘use Heart to cheat’ or ‘use Heart to steal’. Just as xin relates to moral values, it is also related to doing something good. 34

The Chinese are devoted to tiao xin 條心,orderliness of the heart, cultivating the heart, so that life can be led in peace and harmony with oneself and others. For that reason so many

Chinese practise some sort of cultivation of the body in the form of physical exercise as

Qigong and peaceful martial arts such as Tai Qi.

In the Analects, Confucius uses

[t]he metaphor of ‘ The heart is the ruler of the body’, the heart organ is regarded as the central faculty of cognition and the site of both affective and cognitive activities in ancient Chinese philosophy. The heart is considered the central faculty of cognition. The universe will make no sense to us without our heart functioning as the organ for thinking, knowing, and understanding. (Yu, N. 2007 p 33)35

34 Li, Jing, Christer Ericsson and Mikael Quennerstedt, “The meaning of the Chinese Cultural Keyword Xin “ Journal of Languages and Culture, 2013, Vol.4(5), pp.75-89 35 Yu, N. (2007). “Heart and cognition in ancient Chinese Philosophy”. Journal of Cognition and Culture 7(1-2):27-47

35

Chapter 2: Mencius 孟子 (372-289 BCE)

2.1 Introduction:

The four duan (端), beginnings or sprouts:

Ren(仁), humaneness or benevolence,

(義), righteousness or duty,

li (禮), ritual and etiquette and

zhi (智), wisdom, discerning right from wrong.

Mencius or Mengzi, master , 孟子 (372–289 BC or 385–303 or 302 BC) -his given name was Meng Ke 孟軻 is an ancient Chinese philosopher of (low) noble birth whose work the Mencius is probably compiled by his pupils and disciples. Mencius elaborates on

Confucius whose stories, anecdotes and wisdoms are written down in the Analects.36 For

Mencius man’s nature, 性,xing, is good to begin with, but in order to make this innate goodness flourish, cultivating this with its four good sprouts, the beginnings, the 端,duan,37 is necessary. Those sprouts are in themselves virtues or serve as virtuous attitudes to attain virtue. With Confucius they are still virtuous behaviours, in the Mencius virtues in their own right. The four sprouts are: , benevolence or [as I prefer] humaneness, yi, righteousness or duty, li, ritual and etiquette and zhi, wisdom: discerning right from wrong.

The English translations of the Chinese concepts slightly vary with the translator’s interpretation of their meaning; sometimes they decide that ‘being faithful to the original in

36 or Lunyu as its original title goes 37 In modern Chinese duan means straight or upright as an adjective: literally (bean)sprouts are straight, but figuratively: the (up) right way 36 meaning is more important than gaining in fluency and clarity.’38 With Mencius humaneness is a virtue in itself and so is righteousness, but the latter also serves as the virtuous attitude through which one can become a humane person. The virtues of humaneness/benevolence and righteousness are often paired in the Mencius, which leads to courage and courageous behaviour.

Mencius IV A, 27 39

Mencius said, ‘The content of benevolence is the serving of one’s parents; the content of dutifulness is obedience to one’s elder brothers; the content of wisdom is to understand these two and to hold fast to them; the content of the rites is the regulation and adornment of them; the content of music is the joy that comes of delighting in them. When joy arises how can one stop it? And when one cannot stop it, then one begins to dance with ones feet and wave one’s arms without knowing it.’

2.2 Virtues and emotions in the Mencius

As the example that shows that goodness is innate Mencius uses the imagery of a child on the verge of falling down a well 40 when people see this happening they immediately feel a spontaneous emotion of pity:

He would certainly be moved to compassion, not because he wanted to get in the good graces of the parents, nor because he wished to win the praise of his fellow villagers or friends, nor yet because he disliked the cry of the child. From this it can be seen that whoever is devoid of the heart of compassion is not human, whoever is devoid of the heart of shame is not human, whoever is devoid of the heart of courtesy and modesty is not human, and whoever is devoid of the heart of right and wrong is not human. The heart of compassion is the germ of benevolence; the heart of shame, of dutifulness; the heart of courtesy and modesty, of observance of the rites; the heart of right and wrong, of wisdom. Man has these four germs just as he has four limbs. For a man possessing these four germs to deny his own potentialities is for him to cripple himself …

38 Mozi I, translation into English by Wang Rongpei and Wang Hong. Library of From the Preface, page 50 39 Mencius, Mencius (1970, 2003/4) Translated into English by D.C. Lau. Penguin Classics 40 Ibid. IIA6 37

Mencius calls this spontaneous reaction ‘not being able to bear the grief or misfortune of other people’41, and this holds the germ of humaneness/benevolence (ren).So humaneness starts with an emotion. When the environment is beneficial this germ grows into a full virtue.

However, this development can be disturbed both from the inside and the outside. For virtues to grow to maturity, a good foundation is needed, well fertilised soil, so to speak.

Mencius speaks of various hearts xin (the Chinese language knows no plural). Edward

Slingerland has an interesting theory about the rendering of xin into the English language and what it entails into Western philosophical concepts.

Edward Slingerland42 remarks:

Although the xin is often portrayed as the locus of emotion as well as other cognitive abilities in the pre-Warring States period (roughly 1500 BCE–450 BCE), this study suggests that, by the end of the Warring States (221 BCE), there is a clear trend whereby the xin is less and less associated with emotions and becomes increasingly portrayed as the unique locus of “higher” cognitive abilities: planning, goal maintenance, rational thought, categorization and language use, decision-making, and voluntary willing. This neatly maps onto a parallel trend in the translation of early Chinese texts: in pre Warring States texts, xin is almost exclusively translated as “heart,” whereas translations begin to switch to “heart–mind”(or simply vary among themselves between “heart” or “mind”) by the early Warring States and then render xin almost exclusively as “mind” by the time we reach such late Warring States texts as the Zhuangzi or Xunzi.

Slingerland’s study gives a kind of proof that the ‘heart-mind’ that was considered both the source of emotions and of thinking had developed into a source of cognition in philosophical writings at the time of the Warring States. For me the four sprouts, duan, of Mencius and what they entail form a mixture of emotions and cognition in xin, the heart. I regard the use of emotions in the case of the child due to fall into the well as a prelude to a sense of cognition that provides us with reason. The contents of reason in this case is that a human being that

41 Mencius translation into Dutch by Karel L. van der Leeuw page 107 . It says here literally ‘the heart of the not being able to bear’, but it is clear that this is the’ not being able to bear the grief or misfortune of other people’. The example of the child on the verge of falling down the well has become the staple image of spontaneous compassion [my translation] 42 Slingerland, Edward (2013) “Body and Mind in Early China: An integrated humanities-science approach”. 38 shows humaneness/benevolence cannot bear the of a fellow human being. The emotion that stirs up the cognition may not be considered a sufficiently valuable philosophical concept for moral action in Western philosophical thought. At least, Peter Singer does not think so, for him only a utilitarian philosophical concept that is ‘universalizable’43 and seen from the ‘standpoint of the universe’ –he quotes Henry Sidgwick- 44 can give a reason for ethical behaviour such as his movement of ‘Effective Altruism’. Yet Singer frequently uses emotions to make us see the reason why we should have altruistic feelings. I wonder if his audience would be just as interested in his theories if his lectures did not contain the examples he shows us and which he uses to make us see reason in spending our ‘surplus’ money on people in need. In that case his theory could be compared to a Kantian ‘categorical imperative’: you should give to people in need, as you would like them to do, were circumstances reversed. And then Singer’s theory would be not much more than the of Confucius: ‘Do to others as you would like them to do to you’45. Singer, by the way ascribes this rule to the figure of the Moses of the Old Testament of the Bible.

2.3. Mencius among his philosophical rivals: Yang and Mozi

Mencius likes to walk the Confucian path of the middle and to adhere to the ‘doctrine of the mean’ (zhongyong). That is why he polarises his position towards his philosophical rivals of the period of the Warring States. 楊朱 (around 440-360 BCE)46 of whom is said that he promotes a philosophy of egoism [probably just meaning that he takes the ‘self’ and its preservation as a guiding standard], belonged to the circles of the individualists or ‘proto-

43 Singer (1979,205) On ‘universalizable’: ‘Ethics and reason both require us to rise above our own particular point of view and take a perspective from which our own personal identity –the role we happen to occupy – is unimportant. Thus reason requires us to act on universalizable judgments and, tot hat extent, to act ethically.’ 44 Singer, Peter (1979). Practical Ethics . Cambridge University Press, p. 219 45 Analects, 15,24 46 , Chapter 7 ‘Yang Tzu’ Translation A.C. Graham as The Book of Lieh-Tzu 39 daoists’ is put to the one end and Mozi with his benefit for all to the utmost other. Mencius uses a rhetorical device here to attract all attention to his own theory. Everybody reading the

Mencius immediately understood why he, being a Ru (Confucian) put himself in this middle position. However, being in the middle was not enough without adhering to the proper measure of the middle: ‘zhong’, the ‘doctrine of the mean’. I quote from Mencius VII A26:

Mencius said, ‘Yang Tzu chooses egoism. Even if he could benefit the Empire by pulling out one hair he would not do it. Mo Tzu advocates love without discrimination. If by shaving his head and showing his heels he could benefit the Empire, he would do it. Tzu- mo holds on to the middle, half way between the two extremes. Holding on to the middle is closer to being right, but to do this without the proper measure is no different from holding to one extreme. The reason for disliking those who hold to one extreme is that they cripple the Way. One thing is singled out to the neglect of a hundred others.’

Mencius is not a philosopher that comes with new ideas for a better world. He continues on the path that Confucius has laid out. His theory of xing, human nature, and the four duan are probably influenced by the ideas of Yang Tzu47. Some scholars doubt whether the Mencius contains a consistent philosophical theory. The Chinese scholar C.C. Huang48 calls it e.g.

‘educational philosophy’. It consists of stories and anecdotes in which Mencius is the master who answers questions that pertain to all kinds of situation in society. His replies are of a moral nature and Mencius would like society to be an ethical civilisation in a Ru (Confucian) manner. It is not his aim to provide a consistent theoretical basis for these ethics.49 Here we see a difference with Mozi, who, in my opinion, does provide a sound philosophical fundament for utilitarian ethics.

47 Karel L. van der Leeuw in his introduction to his Dutch translation of the Mencius page 42 48 Huang, Chun-Chieh. (2014).”Mencius’ educational philosophy and its contemporary relevance”. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 10 November 2014, Vol.46(13), p.1462-1473 49 Van der Leeuw, introduction to his Dutch Mencius’ translation page 36 40

Chapter 3: Mozi, 墨子and the Mohists

3.1. Introduction

The Mozi is not a single book by Mozi himself. It is a collection of 71 essays (of which only

59 have been known until today), most likely compiled by followers and disciples of the master and teacher Mo Di, of whose life we do not know anything for certain. Mostly it is assumed that Mo Dı or Mozi, master Mo, (his latinised name is Micius) was a man from the

Chinese state of , which would be now. He lived from about 470 BCE to 391

BCE. Scholars disagree about his background. He might have been an artisan -some scholars say an expert on the manufacture of weapons- or have come from low-noble background. Mo means black and this could have pointed to his complexion or to his being tattooed because of having served time as a prisoner. Mozi might have studied to become a Ru (Confucian) and later on have fallen out with his Confucian teacher(s). The Mozi is in any case a collection of his thought on society and government, how the state of affairs was in his time and how he thought it should be. Mozi blamed the Confucians and their rigidly hierarchical idea of society with the ruler, mandated by heaven, at the top. Only cultivating good virtues in people, the ‘Mencian dao’, was for Mozi not enough to provide better living conditions for all under heaven. Mozi was an advocate of equality, that is why he is often labelled a utilitarian philosopher in western philosophical terminology. Furthermore, he tried to inspire people to lead a frugal life. It is alleged that he cultivated his own greens and grew his own pulses and grains.

During his lifetime - or perhaps later- his followers formed groups in which they lived

‘frugally’ together according to the ‘Mozian dao’ and inspired each other to try and create a better life for all people. It is hinted at that there could have been three somewhat differing strands of followers, because there appear to have been three versions of the same chapters of

41 the book, the Mozi. These Mohist groups are often seen as sects and some scholars see them as a kind of zealously religious groups. Kristofer Schipper50 compares them in one of the notes to his translation of the Zhuangzi to agrarian communities comparable to Israeli kibbutzim .The Zhuangzi (Watson (1968) p 367) speaks of sects with a grandmaster presiding whom the followers see as a sage. From his translation of chapter 33 of the Zhuangzi “The

World” the following impression:

So it is that many of the Moists of later ages dress in skins and coarse cloth, wear wooden clogs or hempen sandals, never resting day or night, driving themselves on to the bitterest exertions.

In this thesis I compare them with the groups of Effective Altruists, inspired by Peter

Singer’s theories. Groups of people that are living examples of the theory they advocate. Mozi did not propose to do away with the ruler or with the government. He pleaded for a ruler that

‘delighted’ in mutual love and mutually beneficial exchange. Then the rational self-interested society would cohere and persist as a matter of course’ (Mozi 16.14 “Universal Love III”).

Just as Mencius did, Mozi obviously believed in the good qualities of people, but not enough to ascertain a well-ordered society on their basis alone. When contemplating the wrongs of society he proposes e.g. ‘the method of increasing the number of worthy men’ by ‘enriching’,

‘ennobling’, ‘respecting’ and ‘praising’ them (Mozi 8.1 through 8.3) .This had already been done by the great Sage Kings of old before. Just as the Confucians do, Mozi uses the righteous acts of the Kings that ruled in prosperous times as examples to follow. He states that the Sage Kings saw to it that worthy men got promoted to worthy places irrespective of their ranks. That should be done in his time as well. There was also the matter of Fate. Confucians who believed in the mandate of heaven, had come to think that it was enough only to follow the example of a good ruler, to have a prosperous society. In Mozi’s view this was submitting to Fate and this made them foul and idle. Heaven, or for that matter, the incumbent of

50 Zhangzi, Zhuangzi . Dutch translation by Kristofer Schipper (2007), p. 23 42 heavenly virtues on earth: the ruler, would provide for them, they still thought. In Mozi’s view the Sage Kings of old had worked a well-ordered society by their efforts and not by relying on fate (Chapters 35, 36, 37 Against Fate and Chapter 39 Against the Confucians II).

To illustrate the way Mozi spoke about Confucians the following passages from chapter 39

(Johnston, pp.353-355) two quotations:

39.3 They also hold firmly to the doctrine that there is Fate, arguing thus: “Living to old age and dying young, poverty and wealth, peace and peril, order and disorder are determined by Heaven’s decrees and cannot be decreased or increased. Success and failure, reward and punishment, good luck and bad are established [by Fate] and cannot be affected by a person’s knowledge or strength.” If the many officials believed this, they would be careless in their allotted duties. If the ordinary people believed this, they would be careless in following their tasks. If officials do not bring about order, there is disorder. If agricultural matters are attended to tardily, there is poverty. Poverty and disorder strike at the root of government, yet the Confucians take it [i.e. Fate] as a teaching. This is damaging to the people of the world.

39.4 They [Confucians] believe in Fate and accept poverty, yet they are arrogant and self- important. They turn their backs on what is fundamental and abandon their duties, finding contentment in idleness and pride. They are greedy for drink and food. They are indolent in carrying out their responsibilities and fall into hunger and cold, but, when endangered by starvation and freezing, they have no way of avoiding these things. They are like beggars. They hoard food like field mice. They stare like billy goats. They rise up like castrated pigs. When a gentleman laughs at them, they angrily reply, “Useless fellow! What do you know of good Confucians” In spring, they beg for wheat. In summer, they beg for rice. When the five grains have been harvested, they attach themselves to large funerals with their sons and grandsons all flowing along, and so they get their fill of drink and food. They depend on other people’s households for food and rely on other people’s fields for wine. When a rich man has a funeral, they are very happy and say delightedly: “This is a source of clothing and food.”

Mozi stated that a good citizen knew his place in society and did what was expected of him, according to his rank and station. This was no different from the traditional Confucian view, be it that for Mozi the Confucians had lost the energy to make the world a better place.

Cultivating virtues was considered a good thing, both by Mozi and by Mencius. The former, however, went more with his time of economic prosperity and tried to reap the benefits of it.

In the period of the Warring States, cities grew larger and the influence on society of the

43 administrations based here was on the increase, and this made the influence of the landed gentry on matters of state wane. The ‘gentleman, junzi, whom Confucius’ teachings were directed at, had mostly belonged to the landed gentry and was of low noble rank. There was more and more demand for educated officials of a new urban style now, in Mozi’s view an education preferably in accordance with the Mohist dao. It should also be possible to choose officials from all layers of society on account of individual merits and not because of hereditary stature and rank.

3.3. Mozi against spending too much on ritual and on war

There is a striking similarity of how Peter Singer tells us to cut our expenses and how Mozi tries to win his contemporary audience over to economising in daily life. We are able to experience how Peter Singer compellingly explains us in video registrations of his lectures before live audiences what the economic principle of ‘marginal utility’ entails: ‘when you have already enough to live on, it is easy to spend some of your surplus on those in need’. For those in need that have next to nothing a little bit of money can make the difference between life and death. He provides us with vivid examples here and pictures of children in bad circumstances. In Mozi’s time Confucian practice of ritual went with lavish spending on funerals in society at large and on extra music and dance at courts. The Mohists’ advocating frugality was to counter this wastefulness. They hated overspending and extending the period of grief after the death of a relative for too long so that it might hamper productivity. In the next passages Mozi attracts our attention by describing in graphic detail how much is spent on funerals. In the second passage he condemns the use of music. This sounds too rigid to my taste. I think it is not possible to ban music altogether from Chinese daily life, if only for the language and its variety of meanings that consist of varying tones and is profoundly musical.

Mozi will hopefully have made use of the rhetorical device of exaggeration here. So in my

44 view he aimed predominantly at music that fulfilled a ritual function, in which the tone scales were prescribed, the rhythms, the instruments, even the pitch of the notes. And all this should be of the highest quality. Mark that dance is a part of music, so also dancers should be cared for in money or in kind.

3.2.1. Funerals

Mozi 25.12 “Nowadays, kings, dukes and great officers, in their conduct of funerals and burials, are different from this. There must be an outer and an inner coffin, embroidered hide in three layers, jade emblems and jade already prepared, spears, swords, tripods, drums, pots, vessels, embroideries and silks, and funeral garments in countless layers as well as carriages, horses, women and musicians all prepared. They say the ground must be beaten down to make a road [to the grave] and the burial mound should resemble a hill. The interference with the business of the people and the wastage of their wealth cannot be calculated. This constitutes the uselessness of these [funeral practices].” [In these days all people and animals were still buried alive, when they had to go with the ruler. JvM]

Confucius had proposed the practice of li, ritual and rites, as a means of maintaining order in society. It was adamant for people to exercise prescribed rules of orderly behaviour following an exact scheme, so this should not only be beneficial to them as persons, but the state would benefit as well. Confucius’ ritual encompassed the whole of society and ranged simply from attention to personal well-being and keeping fit to the well-being of the state impersonated by a righteous and benevolent ruler who adhered to the ritual that was proper to his position in society as a head of state. In Mozi’s days, many people thought ritual had gone out of hand. The Ru (Confucians), literates who had studied and knew how to apply ritual properly, were thought fit to perform all ritual and rites, including the funeral rites for the common people. This was the way in which they made a living for themselves. Mozi definitely writes in a very negative way about them.

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3.2.2. Music

The music at the courts of the hegemons51 during the period of the Warring States might make use of not only a full orchestra but might take up to 8 rows of 8 dancers in the courtyard as well. These 8 rows of 8 were initially only allowed to the Imperial Court, but already in

Confucius’ days the Ji clan, seen by him as usurpers, whom he thought not worthy of being the incumbents of high office, had allowed themselves some upward mobility in the hierarchical status.52 The money spent on this music and dance and a great many inner and outer coffins and several burial cloths in funeral rituals had better be used to alleviate the inequality of standard of living among the inhabitants of the Middle Empire in the Mohist view. In the chapters with the title Condemning Music [of which only one of three remains]

Mozi gives the following reasons why making music and listening to it do not benefit the good order in society.

MOZI 32.10 If, as things are now, kings, dukes and great officers delight in music and listen to it, then they certainly will not be able to come to court early and retire late, resolve lawsuits and bring order to government. As a result, the state will be in disorder and the altars of soil and grain will be in danger. If, as things are now, officers and gentlemen delight in music and listen to it, then they certainly will not be able to exhaust the strength of their limbs and use the capacities of their minds to the full in bringing order to government offices within, and receiving the benefits of the taxes on passes and market places, mountains and forests, and marshes and bridges without, so as to fill the public granaries and the treasuries. As a result, the public granaries and the treasuries will not be full. If, as things are now, famers delight in music and listen to it, then they certainly will not be able to go out early and come back late, sowing grains and planting trees, and collecting large amounts of pulses and grains. As a result, pulses and grains will not be enough. If, as things are now, women delight in music and listen to it, then they certainly will not be able to rise early and go to bed late, spinning and weaving to produce large amounts of hemp, silk and other cloth, and weaving cotton and silk. As a result, the production of cotton and silk will not flourish. What is it that destroys the great officer’s attention to government and the lowly person’s attention to

51 Hegemon is the term by which the rulers go that after having conquered some minor states had enlarged their area of influence accordingly 52Analects 3.1 46

work? I say it is music. This is why Master Mo Zi said: “Making music is to be condemned.” Mozi suggests that throughout all layers of society music is not instrumental to a good order of society. All people should know their situations in life and society and adhere to them. This goes for both the upper class and the farmers section.

3.2.3 War

In the Mozi there are a number of chapters on war, or better said ‘against war’. Wars consume an enormous amount of money, so this is e.g. better spent on feeding society. The Mohists had put forward an elaborate theory on how to wage war or better ‘how not to wage war’.

They found that under certain strict circumstances war was permitted, but only a war for purposes of defence. A war for conquering other states was out of the question. We should consider another state just as we consider our own state and following this principle of equality it is not appropriate to start a war in order to submit others to our rule. Interestingly enough the Mohists had grown to be experts on defence techniques. In the Mozi part V, chapters 52 through 71, detailed instructions are given of how to defend a city. They range from Preparing against ladders and tunnelling to Flags and pennons and in Orders and commands the right way of choosing the troops is being discussed and how to make use of divination and shamanism when that is appropriate. The popular image of a Mohist today in film and in television series is that of a peace loving ‘monk-like’ person that abstains from all war-like actions.53 A discussion of Mohists and Just war54 is outside the scope of this thesis, so I will not elaborate on this subject here and concentrate on the three chapters on jian’ai, love for all/universal love/impartial care that is to me the core of Mozi’s philosophy and the

53 See e.g. the film ‘A Battle of Wits’ (2006), also known as ‘Battle of the Warriors’, directed by Jacob Cheung 54 See e.g. Fraser, Chris (2016)”The Mozi and in Pre-Han Thought” in Journal of Chinese . November 2016, Vol.5(2), pp.135-175 47 way he would like to change his world. Impartial care between neighbouring states leads to better relations and will end war.

To quote from Mozi 15.3:

If the people of the world all loved each other, the strong would not dominate the weak, the many would not plunder the few, the rich would not despise the poor, the noble would not scorn the lowly, and the cunning would not deceive the foolish.

3.3 On jian’ai. 兼愛 in the Mozi 墨子

Wai Wai Chiu states in his article “Jian ai and the Mohist attack of Early Confucianism” 55 that translating jian’ai into English as ‘universal love’ leads to suggesting a dichotomy between the Mozi and the Mencius in the nature of how the two Masters portray relations of family and kinship on the one hand and on the other hand relations between a human being and another or others, for that matter. Youngsun Back provided us with a clear visual means of this distinction: Mencius’ ‘graded love’ and Mozi’s ‘love for all’ or ‘inclusive love. A system of concentric circles for the Confucian Ru and a centripetal circle for Mozi. (See

Chapter 4, page 57)

Chiu (2013) claims that the understanding of Mohist ethical doctrine 兼愛, jian’ai as universal is misleading.

The character 兼, jiān means universal indeed, but Chiu (434) in his conclusion says:

It is common, yet misleading, to translate 兼愛, jiān ai as “universal love”. Not only does this misleading translation fail to have strong textual support, it also gives the wrong impression that “universal love versus graded love” is a core conflict between Mohism and Confucianism. A more plausible view is that the Confucians would agree with the scope of

55 Chiu, Wai Wai,(2013).”Jian’ai and the Mohist attack of Early Confucianism”. Philosophy Compass 8/5 (2013): 425-437 48

jiān ai (including all people in moral consideration), and the Mohists would agree with the preferential treatment we grant to people close to us. Both of them take social roles as a given. The contrast between jiān ai and discrimination is possibly not taken by the Mohists to be the key contrast between the Mohists and Confucians. The ethical disagreement between these two schools is not a battle between nepotism and excessive insistence on impartiality.

The difference is of a practical nature, it lies in how the state is governed. The Confucian ruler is directly attached to heaven by ‘tian ming’, the mandate of heaven. The ruler, although privileged by heaven, gets his commands from above as well. He is to secure peace in the land and that means first and foremost feeding the people and making sure there will not be a reason for insurgence. Mohists do not rely on this construction. They work towards a constant supply of food and do not allow waste of food and money or time. The Mohist dao, method/way prescribes that everybody pulls his weight and sees to it that what people need to live on is equally distributed.

Chiu (425) delivers an interesting theory by explaining the origin of the 兼 jian character, which goes as follows:

The character 兼 undoubtedly means universal, but the Shuo Wen56 associates 兼 with

In Bronze inscription is a symbol of two persons standing next to each other (Gu Wen Zi 8:919-926) .The character might symbolize two grains or two arrows or might actually symbolize three persons (Karlgren 168). All these interpretations have a common point: both 兼and have a sense of togetherness or concurrence. It is to have two (or more) things at the same time or same place. Nonetheless, there is no specific expression that states that the two things are equal in quality, status or other characteristics.

[In modern Chinese jiān 兼 goes by the meaning of double, twice, simultaneous as in: holding two or more (official) jobs at the same time.57 JvM]

56 Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 "Explaining simple and analyzing compound characters", short Shuowen 說文, is the oldest and one of the most important character dictionaries of ancient China. It was compiled by the Later Han Period 後漢 (25-220 CE) scholar Xu 許慎. The book was finished in 100 CE but was only submitted to the court in 121 by the author's son, Xu Chong 許衝. From http://www.chinaknowledge.de 57 From Chinese English dictionary https://chinese.yabla.com/chinese-english-pinyin- dictionary 49

Chiu (426) in quoting Mencius 6A14 in D.C. Lau’s translation on pages 256-257:

A man cares for all parts of his person without discrimination (ren zhi yü shen ye jian suo ai). As he cares for them all without discrimination, he nurtures them all without discrimination. If there is not one foot or one inch of his skin that he does not care for, then there is not one foot or one inch that he does not nurture. Is there any other way of telling whether what a man does is good or bad than by the choice he makes? The parts of the person differ in value and importance.

Chiu’s observation is the following:

‘Thus, even Mencius agrees that jiān is compatible with differential treatment. It is inclusive, but it may or may not be impartial. (…) So we may say that in many other texts around the time when Mohism was popular, to propose jiān is not to propose that every entity should be treated equally. The opposite of jiān is isolation or exclusiveness, not inequality.’

What then does Mozi mean by jian’ai? In any case the emphasis on the kind of care that is given to oneself or from oneself to others or to oneself including others varies in the chapters on jian’ai. Each time jian’ai as a concept is used, the reader should determine which specific relation is meant. Carine Defoort (2005/006, 126) in “The Growing Scope of Jian 兼 tries to track this down by following the concept of jian ai evolve in the three chapters that are dedicated to it in the Mozi. She writes (30):

My alternative characterization of the three chapters highlights their views concerning “caring” and related concepts in the “Jian’ai” triad. Nobody denies that it is good to love or care (ai). But the crucial question is: for whom? For oneself, for each other, for specific others, or for everyone? The answer differs in the three “Jian’ai” chapters, which, I argue, can be seen as stages in the growing scope of caring, reaching the ideal of “love for all” only in the last chapter, where the expression jian’ai is for the first time used. In this respect, the relation of chapter 16 to chapter 15 is not a willingness to compromise but rather a further radicalization of the moral stance. The evolution that will now be traced throughout the triad starts off with reciprocal love within traditional relationships and moves toward unidirectional concern of the rich and strong towards the poor and weak. Along with this tendency towards an ever growing scope of ai there is an increasing specification of the moral stance: the attitude of caring in chapter 14 is later (in chapter 15) specified as a double duty, namely feelings of concern (ai 愛) as well as beneficial acts (li 利). Thus, only in chapter 15, the concept of benefit or profit joins the scene in a positive sense.

50

Wang Zan yuan (quoted in Chiu, p. 428) argues for the similarity between Mohist and

Confucian ethical doctrine, noting that both of their “care” involves reciprocity. Wang suggests that the way of practicing jian ai is like the Confucian saying that “a benevolent man helps others to take their stand in so far as he himself wishes to take his stand” (Analects 6.30; trans. Lau 85). Although there is reciprocity, there is, however, a meaningful difference here.

The Ru (Confucian) version of the benevolent man achieves taking his stand through ritual and that is something the Mohists would never advocate. In general in the Mozi ritual is at the least frowned upon and mostly the text is sceptical about it or ritual is simply done away with for the excessive amount of money spent on it. Money that could go much further and be beneficial to more people than the ones adhering to and performing the rituals. It goes without saying that for both the Ru (Confucians) and the Mohists the Golden Rule of Confucius is always in the background 58 It speaks of reciprocity in a strong sense: ‘Do not impose on others, what you yourself do not desire’59

Chiu (429) states further that ‘

the Mohists do advocate some sort of equality, but it is an abstract equality. (…) It depends on our social roles, our relationships, the contexts of meeting, and so on. Nothing in the Jian’ai chapters oppose this. There is even a passage that seems to hint at this:

Now if I am to seek to promote the world’s benefit and eliminate the world’s harm, I shall choose jian as being right. As a result, [people] … will use their strong and powerful limbs to help each other in action; and those who know the way will instruct each other. As a result, those who are old, without wives and children, will have the means of support and nourishment through their old age, and those who are young and weak, or who are alone without a father and mother, will have the means of help and support while they grow into adulthood … (Mozi 16.4. adapted from Johnston 148-151)

58 Also indicated as ‘Silver’ rule because of the double negation: ‘Do not do to others as you do not want them to do to you.’ The golden rule then being: ‘Do to others as you want them to do to you.’ 59 Analects 15.24; trans. Lau p. 135 51

From this passage it is clear that care should be extended to everyone. But how this is realised may differ from case to case. In Mencius 3A5 Mencius reproaches the Mohist Yi Zhi, who claims he adheres to the Mohist dao, method/way, but has paid for a lavish funeral for his parents, Ru (Confucian) style. Chiu (430).‘He seems to imply the distinction between two types of equality – that everyone is equally included in moral consideration, on the one hand, and that everyone is treated equally, on the other when he says “there should be no gradations in care, though the practice of it begins with one’s parents”60 Chiu (431): ‘The difference between Mencius and Mozi is the method of such extension, not that they disagree about whether one should care for people who are not close to us’. Youngsun Back (2017, p. 1109) holds that in the Mencius the care for others that are not affiliated in some kind lies with the government of the ruler. This may remind us of the institution of ‘old-people’s homes’ of our society of today.

Of course, it is not that the Ru were not interested in those in inferior positions in society, but, in the Ru classics, the care of those people was almost exclusively the ruler's responsibility. When Mengzi emphasized the importance of the welfare of people, particularly those who need special care—old men without wives, old women without husbands, the elderly without children, and the young without parents—his advice was offered to 齊宣王, not to people in general.

As Back states: the Mencius is an advice to the ruler, completely in line with

Confucian tradition. Mozi includes more people in his address, he would like everyone to care for everyone else, but this does not mean that this care should be equal in nature for all individuals. He recognises that xiao, filial piety, the obligations of children to their parents, is different from the care people feel for their neighbours or even for people that live in other states. So jian’ai is ‘inclusive/impartial care’, it does not exclude anyone, but the love and care for one’s parents or children might go just a little bit further than that for people in other states. In her conclusion (Defoort 2005/2006, 139) states ‘From this viewpoint, early

60 Mencius, IIIA 5, translation D.C. Lau p.62 52

Mohism has to be seen as an ever radicalizing force, despite various objections, and not an evolution towards compromise or accommodation.’ To illustrate her viewpoint the conclusion of her investigation (139):

This analysis shows an evolution from “caring for oneself”, via “caring for each other” towards an unconditional type of caring for anybody else. The center of the debate is not caring but its scope and, more specifically, the changing nature and value of reciprocity. Since the traditional type of reciprocity (of chapter 14) is a burden for the new [Mohist] focus on jian, it is gradually replaced by a reciprocity among non-kin (in chapters 15 and 16) and ultimately with Heaven. The last step not only motivates a wide moral concern for others, but also further radicalizes it, since Heaven not only responds to humans but also expects response from them in the form of “inclusively caring” for others.

I am very sympathetic towards the theory Defoort unfolds. Mohist movement should not be seen as a , but as a movement towards a better organised society, though radical in character. Social order will benefit extremely when the Mohist ideas are applied through and through in all layers of society. The best way to achieve this is not to start too radically and gradually build up the theory. This might have been done in the course of time by Mozi and his movements of followers. One scholarly conviction on the existence of the three chapters on the Mozi’s Jian’ai is that they might be written by three strands of Mohist followers. These distinctive movements did not differ as to the general core of Mozi’s ideas, but as time went by, the argumentation had become clearer, more concise and more to-the- point regarding changing society. For that matter it was inevitable that it would be seen as more conflicting with the traditional prescriptions for life in a society based on an order in the

Ru (Confucian) tradition.

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Chapter 4

Discussion of Benefit 利 (lì)61 in the Mencius and the Mozi

Both Mencius and Mozi are in favour of improving the bonds among the members of society, so that the whole of society will benefit. With Mencius good bonds between people start with one man (ren) and then widen through the traditionally societal concentric circles: son-father, son-family (mostly elder brother), son-mother’s family (mother’s brother), family-higher order officials, minister-ruler62 To forge these bonds the emphasis with thinkers that build on the thoughts of Confucius is on the virtuous qualities of humaneness (ren), righteousness (yi) and filial piety (xiao). Mencius e.g. distinguishes four sprouts (duan) that grow when looked after with care. They are ren, humaneness, li ritual and rites, yi, righteousness or duty and zhi,

(moral) wisdom. Man is good in nature, but good qualities have to be nurtured for society to benefit from them. From Mencius 2A6:

If a man is able to develop all these four germs that he possesses, it will be like a fire starting up or a spring coming through. When these are fully developed, he can tend the whole realm within the Four Seas, but if he fails to develop them, he will not be able even to serve his parents.

From Mencius 4A19:

Mencius said, ‘What is the most important duty? One’s duty towards one’s parents. What is the most important thing to watch over? One’s own character. I have heard of a man who, not having allowed his character to be morally lost, is able to discharge his duties towards his parents; but I have not heard of one morally lost who is able to do so. There are many duties one should discharge, but the fulfilment of one’s duty towards one’s parents is the most basic. There are many things one should watch over, but watching over one’s character is the most basic.

61 Not to be confused with the concept of 禮lǐ ritual 62 Although daughters are not explicitly mentioned, as members of a family they owed the same respectful attitude towards their elders. For respect from son to mother see e.g. Brown, Miranda (2003) “Sons and Mothers in Warring States and Han China, 453 BCE-220 CE”, Brill, Leiden NAN NÜ, 2003, Vol.5(2), pp.137-169 54

Mencius speaks here of xiao, filial piety and the way to attain this, by doing one’s duty, yi, one of the four basic sprouts of good human nature. He also mentions that a man who is morally lost is not able to perform his duty towards his parents. Of importance here is to note that a man is required to watch over his own character, moral behaviour is up to the person in question. In this way a moral system of concentric circles evolves throughout society, starting with one man’s character and widening through the family and larger society to the bond of mankind with heaven in the person of the ruler, the mandate of heaven. For

Mencius a good king guarantees a well ordered society, society will be in chaos when the mandate is broken, because the king does not show the moral behaviour that befits him.

The benefit (li) for people when they follow Mencius’ advice is in the first place a moral benefit that results from personal behaviour and depends on the good bonds starting between two parties: individual and parents and then widening to society at large. It certainly includes care for other people than relatives, but only as a result from family bonds.

Mohism does not deny the existence of such societal circles and the Confucian good qualities and respect for one’s elders at all and certainly does not do away with them, but suggests implicating all people in society in an equal way from the start. In Mozi’s time of the

Warring States, much money is not only wasted on unnecessary wars among the various small states, but also on the lavish household practices of the rulers of the States. This had become the result of the practice of ritual and rites Confucian style. The Confucian scholars, who never called themselves Confucian, but simply Ru, had reserved for themselves the right to conduct the rituals at court and the funeral rituals for all the people in the land. Originally these were much more modest Confucius himself had said about the roots of ritual propriety when asked after them by Lin Fang63 :

63 Analects 3,4 55

‘The Master replied: “What an important question! In observing ritual propriety, it is better to be modest than extravagant; in mourning it is better to express real grief than to worry about former details.”

By the time of the Warring States, the rulers employed more and more boshi,64 as political advisors or performers of the rites and rituals at their courts. For a large part they were former soldiers who had to seek other occupation when their army had become redundant, because another state had conquered theirs. They had mostly held the higher positions in the army and were literates. They studied to become Ru and perform the rituals and having so many of them had led to practicing rituals and rites far more extensively than Confucius had probably ever intended. A ruler’s household might consist of up to thousands of people and mostly counted a full orchestra and many dancers among them for the rituals.

Mozi was well aware of the bad consequences good bonds within families might have, i.e. nepotism. Many of the rulers of the States were related to each other and saw themselves obliged to help out in a military way when a cousin once removed saw it fit to wage war. This led to high cost for society at large, both timewise and financially. In the end the expenses had to be met by the common people. Farmers were conscripted to be soldiers in the army, mostly at times when they were needed to attend to their crops, often resulting in famine for the people at large.

Youngsun Back65 , apart from giving a clear description, has found a direct visual means of showing the difference between the Ru’s ren, e.g. Mencius’s ‘love with distinctions’ or graded love and Mozi’s jian’ai , love for all/ inclusive love/ impartial care. I will gratefully make use of it here, I agree with her completely and think it is highly illuminating.

64 Boshi Is Nowadays used as the title of University professors in China. See: Zufferey, Nicolas Érudits et Lettrés au debut de la dynastie Han Asiatische Studien = Études Asiatiques, Jan 1, 1998, Vol.52(3), p.915 65 Back, Youngsun (2017) “Reconstructing Mozi’s Jian’ai”. Philosphy East and West, Volume 67, No. 4 56

Ruist ren, ‘love with distinctions or ‘graded love’ jian’ai as love without distinction In the concentric circle of the Ru, non-particular others always stand in the periphery (…) However, in Mozi’s centripetal circle, non-particular others constitute considerable parts of our relationships, even if they occupy smaller portions in importance and frequency than our particular others. As a result, Mozi paid careful attention to them, particularly those who are weak, poor, lowly, foolish, and in the minority. Of course, it is not that the Ru were not interested in those in inferior positions in society, but, in the Ru classics, the care of those people was almost exclusively the ruler’s responsibility.(…) It was Mozi who brought them into the ethical context of everyday life. Through his doctrine of jian’ai, Mozi shed equal light on all human relationships as an arena where we should practice impartial care.

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Chapter 5: Peter Singer and his movement of ‘Effective Altruism’

5.1 Introduction

‘Is it morally permissible to kill a stranger by pushing him onto the track of a runaway trolley in order to save the lives of five others?’ To sacrifice one life to save five is to act in line with utilitarianism, the view that we should maximize aggregate well-being, regardless of the means employed. (Peter Singer, Ethics and Intuitions. Journal of Ethics, 9, 331-52)

Peter Albert David Singer (6 July1946), is an Australian born and raised philosopher who received his formal education in philosophy in Melbourne and in Oxford and is currently attached to both the universities of Melbourne, Australia and Princeton, United States of

America as a professor of bioethics He dwells on one of these in contemporary Western ethics well-known problems that usually go by the name of ‘trolley’ problems in his essay Ethics and Intuitions. 66 Singer, a modern day utilitarian philosopher, has an interest in the origins of morality and ethics to be found in reason and reflection. The moral ‘trolley’-problems were the topic of research for the philosopher and psychologist Joshua Greene and his research group. 67 From the abstract of his report:

The long-standing rationalist tradition in emphasizes the role of reason in moral judgment. A more recent trend places increased emphasis on emotion. Although both reason and emotion are likely to play important roles in moral judgment, relatively little is known about their neural correlates, the nature of their interaction, and the factors that modulate their respective behavioral influences in the context of moral judgment. (…)These results may shed light on some puzzling patterns in moral judgment observed by contemporary philosophers.

66 Singer, P. (2005). Ethics and Intuitions. Journal of Ethics, 9, 331-52. This is a more poised and elaborated version of his first reaction to Greene cs. How reliable are our moral intuitions?, Free Inquiry; Winter 2002/2003; 23, 1; Arts Premium Collection 67 Greene, J.D., Sommerville, R.B., Nystrom, I.E., Darley, J.M., Cohen, J.D. (2001). “An fMRI Investigation of Emotional Engagement in Moral Judgment”. Science, 293(5537), 2105-8. 58

About the ‘trolley’ problems Greene cs. give us this information on page 2105 of their article:

[A] runaway trolley is headed for five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. The only way to save them is to hit a switch that will turn the trolley onto an alternate set of tracks where it will kill one person instead of five. Ought you to turn the trolley in order to save five people at the expense of one? Most people say yes. Now consider a similar problem, the footbridge dilemma. As before, a trolley threatens to kill five people. You are standing next to a large stranger on a footbridge that spans the tracks, in between the oncoming trolley and the five people. In this scenario, the only way to save the five people is to push this stranger off the bridge, onto the tracks below. He will die if you do this, but his body will stop the trolley from reaching the others. Ought you to save the five others by pushing this stranger to his death? Most people say no.

Taken together, these two dilemmas create a puzzle for moral philosophers: What makes it morally acceptable to sacrifice one life to save five in the trolley dilemma but not in the footbridge dilemma

Greene cs. claim to have found that the difference in deontological (inspired by duty) and utilitarian (aimed at maximising benefit) decision making is ‘hard-wired’ in our brain, for there was reaction in different parts of the brain and there was a significant difference in response time when people were confronted in an fMRI scan with problems of life and death and were asked to react in a way that corresponded with either a utilitarian or deontological way of ethical thinking. For Singer this is an important find, since ‘not looking for religion to guide us in matters of ethics’, 68 he relies on evolution to describe the origin of ethics. In his book The Expanding Circle of 1981, he assumes a biological basis for ethical thinking and behaviour that evolves to group feelings by means of kin altruism, reciprocal altruism and group altruism.69 However, he states repeatedly that ‘cultural and biological factors interact’.70

Singer’s conclusion in commenting on the results of the research by Greene cs. in

Ethics and Intuitions is the following:

68 Singer, P. (1981). The Expanding Circle. Clarendon Press. Oxford page 84 69 Singer, (1981)23-54 70 Singer (1981) 52 e.g. 59

We can take the view that our moral intuitions and judgments are and always will be emotionally based intuitive responses, and reason can do no more than build the best possible case for a decision already made on non-rational grounds. (…)Alternatively, we might attempt the ambitious task of separating those moral judgments that we owe to our evolutionary and cultural history, from those that have a rational basis. This is a large and difficult task. Even to specify in what sense a moral judgment can have a rational basis is not easy. 71

Singer has been profoundly committed to this abovementioned specific task for over forty-five years now and tries to persuade those who inhabit the world, adroitly and eloquently, not to respond to their intuitions immediately, but carefully and deliberately let reason and reflection override the basic responses that are due to a human’s natural disposition. So will the outcome of the following neuroimaging research be more in line with what Singer expects of morality and ethics.

Guy Kahane72 and his fellow researchers, using the same 60 odd ‘trolley problems’

Greene cs. did and adding some new problems, refined their neuroimaging studies with a focus as to whether moral judgements were intuitive, immediately compelling to most people, or utilitarian or deontological in content. They conclude:

In addition, we obtained evidence that neural differences in moral judgment in such dilemmas are largely due to whether they are intuitive and not, as previously assumed, to differences between utilitarian and deontological judgments. Our findings therefore do not support theories that have generally associated utilitarian and deontological judgments with distinct neural systems.

It appeared from the Kahane cs. fMRI research that the difference in Response Time to the ethical dilemmas presented had to do with issues that were intuitive or counterintuitive, not really with the difference between deontological or utilitarian choices. The intuitive decisions made by persons in their research group appeared to be more linked to the

71 Singer, (2005), 351 72 Kahane, G., Wiech, K., Shackel, N, Farias, M. Savulescu, J. and Tracey I. “The Neural basis of intuitive and counterintuitive moral judgment.” SCAN (2012) 7, 393-402 60 deontological option of ‘killing not being allowed’ and accordingly were more rapidly made than the utilitarian options requiring a more long term perspective, because they were felt counterintuitive at first and took more consideration. Of course, as good academic practice requires, Greene and others replied to this investigation with new research of their own and found again that utilitarian decisions take longer to arrive at than deontological ones.73 From their abstract:

However, for both dilemmas, the degree to which an individual engaged in prior reflection predicted the subsequent degree of utilitarian responding, with more reflective subjects providing more utilitarian judgments.

Peter Singer will certainly not contest these findings, but adds, in the case of decisions where morality is involved, a deliberate reflection on ethical values to a more or less immediate biologically based emotional response. From Ethics and Intuitions: 74

Greene's findings fit well in a broader evolutionary view of the origins of morality For most of our evolutionary history, human beings have lived in small groups, and the same is almost certainly true of our pre-human primate and social mammal ancestors. In these groups, violence could only be inflicted in an up-close and personal way-by hitting, pushing, strangling, or using a stick or stone as a club. To deal with such situations, we have developed immediate, emotionally based responses to questions involving close, personal interactions with others. The thought of pushing the stranger off the footbridge elicits these emotionally based responses. Throwing a switch that diverts a trolley that will hit someone bears no resemblance to anything likely to have happened in the circumstances in which we and our ancestors lived. Hence the thought of doing it does not elicit the same emotional response as pushing someone off a bridge

Living within a group that endorses certain moral values and complying with these values make people judge and often act according to these values as a consequence. These group ethics provide the rational and biologically based origins for moral judgement Peter

Singer is looking for. However, Singer sets himself the task of widening group ethics into

73 Paxton, J.M., Bruni, T., Greene, J.D. “Are counter-intuitive deontological judgments really counter- intuitive? An empirical reply to”. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Volume 9, Issue 9, 1 September 2014, Pages 1368–1371, 74 Singer (2005) 61 global ethics. A difficult task indeed. He claims that our world is globalised and that its inhabitants have to acquire moral judgments that are not based anymore on the ethics specific to their own groups. Peter Singer aims at turning the people of the world into real cosmopolitans. However, he aims his ethical arrows not only at people to win over their minds, but tries to get them to act correspondingly and donate the part of their money that is not strictly necessary for them to live on to alleviate the poverty in the world.

Although in favour of deliberate reflection on moral matters, Peter Singer himself does frequently make use of immediate natural responses to emotions when he starts his argumentations. Think of the thought experiment of ‘the child due to drown in the pond’ in his famous 1972 essay Famine, Affluence and Morality, written at the time of the Bengal

[now Bangladesh] famine that caused many Bengali to flee into India. It appeared in the first volume of Philosophy and Public Affairs, ‘the journal’s title was itself a manifesto, an assertion that philosophy did, after all, have something to say about public affairs’75. Singer attracts our attention to the global problem of starvation and poverty by starting to elicit our personal emotional responses. His thought experiment unfolds as follows: ‘Imagine that you walk past a shallow pond on your way to work or a meeting for which you are dressed rather formally. You see a small child on the verge of drowning. Would not you rescue the child, although you might be late for your appointment and ruin your clothes in the process?’

Anyone would rescue the child, is Singer’s conviction, especially when it comes to only a small sacrifice, the cost of having your clothes dry cleaned and buying a new pair of shoes. In the same vein it is quite logical that we that live in the affluent part of the world donate money to alleviate the poverty and miserable circumstances as to medical care and living conditions in the less fortunate part of the world. Singer asserts that nowadays the whole

75 Singer, P. America’s Shame. Chronicle of Higher Education. 3/13/2009, Vol. 55 Issue 27 62 world is a global community and that separate nation states should not be the for the twenty-first century. In his books One World, the ethics of globalization76 and One World

Now, the ethics of globalization, the revised edition of 201677 he suggests78

‘that we are moving beyond the era of growing ties between states and are beginning to contemplate something more than the existing conception of state sovereignty. But this change needs to be reflected in all levels of our thought, especially in our thinking about ethics and our political theory.’

The last pages of the two books end in the following sentences:

Now the twenty-first century faces the task of developing a suitable form of government for that single world. It is a daunting moral and intellectual challenge, but one we cannot refuse to take up. The future of the world depends on how well we meet it.

A huge problem for Singer to put his theory into practice is the position of the government in our contemporary system of sovereign states. Another is the position of

Church and Religion in global politics. Singer tries to work a better world through the help of individuals that sympathise with his ideals. Many ‘chapters’, departments of the movement of

Effective Altruism have already been established in a great many countries of the world. They consist of like-minded people that come together to find the ways of donating money to the needy with the maximum effect.

5.2 ‘The point of view of the universe’

Why act morally? This is the title of chapter 10 of Singer’s book Practical Ethics of 197979 In it Singer tells us to take up ‘the point of view of the universe’80, as the 19th century British utilitarian philosopher Henry Sidgwick put it:

76 Singer, P. (2002). One World, the ethics of globalization. Yale University Press. 2002 77 Singer. P. (2012) One World Now, the ethics of globalization. Yale University Press revised edition of 2016 78 ibid. page 9 79 Singer, P. (1979).Practical Ethics. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge 80 Sidgwick, H. The methods of Ethics. 7th edition (1907) p. 382 63

‘The good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view (if I may say so) of the Universe, than the good of any other; unless, that is, there are special grounds for believing that one good is likely to be realised in the one case than in the other.’

Singer explains81 that the ‘ethical point of view does (…) require us to go beyond a personal point of view to the standpoint of an impartial spectator.’

Thus [from the standpoint of the universe] looking at things ethically is a way of transcending our inward-looking concerns and identifying ourselves with the most objective point of view possible.

For Singer the ethical view an individual should have is a point of view outside of himself.

Ethics requires us to go beyond ‘I’ and ‘you’ to the universal law, the universalizable judgment, the standpoint of the impartial spectator or ideal observer, or whatever we choose to call it.82

Many ethical theories endorse this universalizability. So how does Singer arrive at a utilitarian point of view from this general statement? For him the fact that ethical judgements must be made from a universal point of view leads him to what he calls a ‘broadly utilitarian position’.

Thus my very natural concern that my own interests be looked after must, when I think ethically, be extended to the interests of others. 83

5.3 ‘The principle of equal consideration of interests’

This leads him to discuss ‘the principle of equal consideration of interests’ in chapter 2 of

Practical Ethics titled Equality and its implications. Singer asserts that it is a minimal principle of equality in the sense that it does not dictate equal treatment.84

The’ point of view of the universe’ entails, for Singer, imagining yourself being in the situation of the sentient beings, persons and animals, that will benefit from the actions in the realm of ethics you will take, all those that may be affected should be included in the view,

81 Singer, P. (1979) 219 82 Singer, P. (1979) Practical Ethics page 12 83 Ibid. 12 84 Ibid.21 64 however, just a view is not enough. What is moral can only be ascertained by examining whether the actions you take will have beneficial moral implications. ‘The principle of equal consideration of interests’ might have an unequal outcome in some cases. Singer gives the example of two seriously injured persons, one with a crushed leg, and there being only two shots of morphine left.

Equal treatment would suggest that I give one to each injured person, but one shot would not do much to relieve the pain of the person with the crushed leg.

Two shots would relieve her pain, but the other injured person will have just the same amount of pain. Here Singer resorts to ‘the principle of declining marginal utility, well known to economists. When you have already enough, you will not benefit significantly from a little bit more. When you have next to nothing, only a little might improve your circumstances to a large extent.85

When marginal utility is taken into account the principle of equal consideration of interests inclines us towards an equal distribution of income, and to that extent the egalitarian will endorse its conclusions.

5.4 ‘Effective Altruism’

Peter Singer is not a man for theory only. He engendered a whole movement of relatively affluent and generally well-educated people in the western industrialised countries. They try to give the poor and needy of the world a better life, it is called ‘Effective Altruism’. I, personally, would call Peter Singer the ‘figurehead’ of the movement, living up to its aims and donating a substantial 25 percent of his income to particular charities.86 These charities are carefully chosen and - in line with utilitarian principles- have been screened for their

85 Ibid. 22 86 Although he himself would rather apply such a label to his younger followers. When I asked him whether he saw himself as the figurehead of the movement of Effective Altruism, he answered that he had been at it for so long and that his followers should get the credits now. When I stated that he must be John the Baptist then, he laughed. 65 effectiveness. It turns out that effect is to be ‘maximally’ maximized by donating to a relatively small charity that hands out mosquito bed nets in Africa, the AMF, the Against

Malaria Foundation. This is a small organisation with limited expenses. The money donated goes almost entirely to the manufacturing of the products. And what’s more: the organisation sees to it that the bed nets are properly used. This has been examined by the Effective

Altruism movement with great care, setting up scientifically sound double blind investigations and all.87

From introduction to Effective Altruism88:

Most of us want to make a difference. We see suffering, injustice and death, and are moved to do something about them. But working out what that ‘something’ is, let alone actually doing it, is a difficult problem. It would be easy to be disheartened by the challenge.

Effective altruism is a response to this challenge. It is a research field which uses high- quality evidence and careful reasoning to work out how to help others as much as possible. It is also a community of people taking these answers seriously, by focusing their efforts on the most promising solutions to the world's most pressing problems.

On the website of Effective Altruism all sort of information is to be found concerning the movement. One of the key problems for research is how to come from idealized decision- making to practical ethical decision-making in real-world situations. I copied the following:

‘Practical ethical decision-making’ is a framework for making decisions that best approximate the recommendations of idealized decision-making in real-world situations.

Idealized assumes that we have taken into account all possible consequences of our actions. But we often forget to take into account the indirect effects of our actions or the actions of others when assessing these outcomes.

We are also not perfectly rational: sometimes it can be difficult to weigh up all of the evidence available to us, and we need a more practical guide to how to assess different kinds of evidence.

87 In which one village would get the antimalarial nets with instructions how to use them, another village would get the nets without the instructions and yet another village no nets. 88 https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/introduction-to-effective-altruism/ 66

Even if we have views about the correct theory of value, we need practical advice about how we should measure and compare the value of the different interventions available to us.

Finally, it is often natural to think in terms of problems, interventions, and focus areas, rather than thinking purely in terms of actions, states, and outcomes. General frameworks for practical decision-making can therefore help us to assess the effectiveness of different interventions and focus areas in real-world situations.

It is obvious that Effective Altruism is a movement based on a utilitarian philosophy: it is important to think in terms of actions, outcome and results, not in terms of problems and how to solve them by interventions. The difficulty is then how to value actions and that is practical ethical decision-making. Many young professionals are sympathetic to the movement and donate not only their money, but also their time and talents to it. The terminology used is that of 21st century management, economics and practical and applied philosophy.

In his lecture of 19 June 2018 at Leiden University, location The Hague, which I attended, Peter Singer defines Effective Altruism - it has existed for some ten years now and has many chapters in the world- as follows:

A philosophy and social movement that applies evidence and reason to determining the most effective ways to improve the world.89

Singer provided his audience with the following underlying argumentation:

1. If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance we ought to do it 2. Extreme poverty is bad 3. We can prevent [some] extreme poverty without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance Conclusion: So we ought to prevent it

89 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_altruism and https://www.effectivealtruism.org/articles/introduction-to-effective-altruism/

67

Singer is aware of the fact that in strictly utilitarian terms he should speak of maximizing well-being in the world. He has decided to lay down a somewhat weaker claim:

‘without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance’. He admits that this term may be weaker, but he says that it is also more all-encompassing than a strict . He does not want to provide us with a kind of ethical law we should have the moral duty to adhere to at all times, even when sometimes we might not be in a position to stick to it.

In his lecture Singer, who is an eloquent and compelling speaker, mentions the fact that 6 million children die a totally preventable death of pneumonia, diarrhoea or malaria.

Undernutrition or malnutrition and poor hygiene and lack of access to safe water and adequate sanitation contribute to more than half of these deaths, 6 million per year is 17 000 per day and this is background of the world that we live in.

So we ought to do something about these situations. To alleviate the worst poverty in the rest of the world, we should reduce our own spending to a level where we can still have satisfactory living conditions on our income. Singer holds that the affluent in the world –of which there are 1 billion, he says -, have still money left after having met all their needs and making provisions for the future. The World Bank defines extreme poverty as not having enough income to meet your basic needs: you cannot be confident that you are able to provide food for you and your family the whole year round. At the moment -allowing for purchasing power parity- this is living on less than US$ 1.90 per day.

Peter Singer holds both and individuals responsible for the poverty in the world, but we as individuals are all responsible for the fact that we do not do enough. His view is that it is in the power of individuals to effectuate a better world where income will be distributed more evenly and this will make access to medical care and the use of raw materials to be less out of proportion between the rich and the poor of the world.

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Chapter 6 Singer, Mozi and Mencius compared

6.1 Discussion

In Peter Singer’s One World (2002) and One World now, the revised edition of 2016, there is a reference to the Chinese Masters. Chapter 6, A Better World? begins in ‘What is the way of universal love and mutual benefit? It is to regard other people’s countries as one’s own.’90

‘Nowadays it is widely agreed upon that Mozi’s audience were the rulers of his day’ [the rulers of the Warring States] and ‘those who aspired to be the rulers of the world’, says

Youngsun Back in “Reconstructing Mozi’s Jian’ai ”91 in her introduction to the article. As to the way Mozi captured his audience she adds:

Mozi’s fundamental ideas and rhetoric were so tightly intertwined that it is hard to discern to what extent his words engage in persuading his audience to practise jian’ai and to what extent his words reflect his theoretical claims about jian’ai’

When we would confront Peter Singer with a claim such as this, it is obvious that he has carefully laid down his theoretical claims before us in the many books he has written.92

He takes care that the stage on which he presents his ideas has a fair grounding in widely accepted Western philosophical concepts. Yet, when you see him ‘perform’ during a lecture he makes elegant –and eloquent- use of fine rhetoric. In his speech he refers one moment - as is supposed of scholars - to philosophical ideas and concepts, e.g. Henry Sidgwick ‘the standpoint of the universe’ in The Methods of Ethics, seventh edition (1907) page 382, but at

90 Cited by Singer from W.-T. Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1963. 213 Singer says:’I owe this reference to Hyun Höchsmann.’ 91 Back, Youngsun “Reconstructing Mozi’s Jian’ai ”. Philosophy East and West, Volume 67, Number 4, October 2017, pp. 1092-1117, 2017 92 The expanding circle, One World and One World now, The life we can save etc. 69 another he evokes our emotions by showing pictures of a little Chinese girl that has been hurt when run over by a lorry at a market place and is not helped by anyone. Several people pass by and do not do anything. In the end a second lorry hits her and only then was she rushed to hospital, where she eventually died of her injuries. He asks of us, his audience, if we would not have helped her when we had been among those who passed by. This is how Mencius speaks to us when he gives the example of the child that is on the verge of falling into the well. Both Peter Singer and Mencius reach out for our emotions. For Singer ethics should be rooted in theoretical concepts, but he gladly makes use of the arousal of our innate kindness to involve us in his theoretical framework of ethics. For Mencius the heart, xin, is the organ in which the amalgamation of emotions and thinking takes place. Emotions and ethical concepts go together and provide us with one front of virtue. And would this be so different from the way in which Mozi would have tried to get us into his camp? When reading the Mozi, I often get the feeling that I am in the market place at a gathering with Mohists and people new to his ideas alike, listening to the Master or one of his followers explaining why society should be reformed as to include care for everyone, jian’ai, love for all. In this the standard will always be li, benefit, as benefit is the standard for Peter Singer. We know for sure that Mozi gave advice to rulers, but the feeling that his audience will have included people of a lesser station is inevitably there. In his clear style, he gets his message across: all humans should benefit and there should not be any distinction as to people, we are to share what we have with everybody else. And what is more: states should not engage in unjust warfare, for the costs of it are enormous. States should consider each other as the other that is to be loved as himself.

Although the Mohists thought it permissible to wage war under certain very strict conditions and had even evolved into skilled masters of the defence of cities, they advocated a frugal lifestyle and to make most of the land they farmed. They will probably have lived in agrarian communities comparable to Israeli kibbutzim. (I take this suggestion from Kristofer Schipper

70 on page 23 of his introduction to his Dutch translation of the Zhuangzi93) And is not that exactly how Peter Singer tells us to live by suggesting a sober, but sufficient standard of living for ourselves and donating any surplus money to charities so that the inequality in the world can be alleviated.

In Peter Singer’s movement of Effective Altruism Mencius’ ideas of the virtuous sprouts (duan) that have to grow by careful cultivation before their benefits can be reaped and the Ru/Confucian system of concentric circles that pervade society are connected with Mozi’s all-encompassing system of jian’ai, ‘love for all'/’inclusive care/impartial care’. Peter Singer extends his care of Effective Altruism to the whole world. He sees altruism come into existence by a system of expanding circles, which found their basis in evolution and go back to our ape-like human ancestors.

Singer94: There has long been skepticism about whether people can really be motivated by an altruistic concern for others. Some have thought that our moral capacities are limited to helping our kin; those with whom we are, or could be, in mutually beneficial relationships; and members of our own tribal group or small-scale society. Effective altruism provides evidence that this is not the case. It shows that we can expand our moral horizons, reach decisions based on a broad form of altruism, and employ our reason to assess evidence about the likely consequences of our actions. In this way it allows us to hope that we will be able to meet the ethical responsibilities of a new era in which our problems will be global as well as local.

6.2 Philosophical guiding standards

Peter Singer claims that his movement of Effective Altruism shows that people care about other people and not only when they are their nearest and dearest. For Mencius to care about the next of kin, xiao, filial piety, is the core of his philosophy of innate virtues. Mozi does recognise this filial piety, but teaches that we should show equal concern for our own kin and

93 Zhuang Zi, de volledige geschriften, het grote klassieke boek van het taoïsme (2007), vertaald en toegelicht door Kristofer Schipper. Uitgeverij Augustus 94 Singer, P. The Logic of Effective Altruism, Boston Review Forum, July 6, 2015 71 others. Mencius adheres in his thinking to the Confucian ideal of the ‘Doctrine of the Mean’, zhong, for a guiding standard.

To Confucius, the Mean is Heavenly nature, being Zhong – He “Equilibrium - Harmony” and Cheng – Ming “Sincerity - Intelligence”. Confucius thinks that Heaven’s nature itself is the virtue of Heaven because it is innately good, so the doctrine of the Mean is a theory of virtue as well. 95

Mozi uses the concept of benefit, li; everybody should benefit equally in society-, but does this often in a negative way: people should not waste time, labour and money. Singer, as a western utilitarian philosopher, uses benefit as a capitalist concept. We should make as much use of money and its equivalents in time or labour as we can and then share it with the people in the world that are worse off than we are. He even suggests that it is better to hold a well-paid job and earn a lot of money and then spend it on the rest of the world than just to live a modest and sober life. Maximising benefit is the name of Peter Singer’s game.

6.3 The role of the government

All three philosophers take the position and the role of the government for society into account. It goes without saying that a stable situation in society is required for a country to flourish. Any political system should provide a firm foundation so that chaos may be avoided.

This is easiest for Mencius. Traditional Confucianism claims that the mandate of heaven, tian ming, legitimizes the position of the ruler. However, this ruler does not only reap the benefits of this situation in society. Tian, heaven, has also provided him with a task: to care for all those who are not automatically cared for within the system of xiao, filial piety. A good, righteous and just ruler creates stability, but an unjust ruler might cause chaos, which for that matter could be caused by natural disasters as well. In that respect, the ruler has to face the

95 Xia, Scaltsas, Dory. “A Comparative Study of Two Doctrines of the Mean between Aristotle and Confucius”. http://hdl.handle.net/1842/362 Master Thesis, University of Edinburg, 2009 72 consequences of the forces of nature. For Mozi tian ming, the Confucian concept of the mandate of heaven, has shifted position a little. Tian, heaven has changed from favouring the ruler and through him benefiting the people, to a kind of institution that directly communicates with all the people. Tian, heaven, favours everybody in an equal way, as proof

Mozi states that tian, heaven gives us food. In Chinese culture, food is a symbol of parental care on the one hand and of the debt of children towards parents on the other hand. By supplying food to the people, tian, heaven, is given the role of a parent. Mozi uses the concept of ‘the intention or will of heaven’, “to act as a principle and standard just as the wheelwright has his compasses and the carpenter his square”. (Mozi Heaven’s intention III, 28.9)

I quote from Heaven’s Intention II, 27.3

When, within there is food for the hungry and rest for the weary, and there is support and care for their ten thousand people, then rulers and ministers, and superiors and inferiors are kind and loyal, and fathers and sons, and older and younger brothers are compassionate and filial. Therefore, only when there is clear compliance with Heaven’s intention, and obedience to Heaven’s intention is widely practised in the world, will the administration be well ordered, the ten thousand people harmonious, the country wealthy, materials for use sufficient, and the ordinary people all obtain warm clothes and enough food so they will be at peace and free from anxiety.”

It means that a man is not only responsible for his own (good) life but for the lives of others as well, the responsibility does not only lie with a government as for the Confucians.

Government must be made up of righteous people that are fit for the job and chosen because of their qualities. They should live virtuously and provide a good example to the people. Here is an example from Exalting Worthiness III, 10.4

[I] say there is nothing to compare with being worthy. What is the way of worthiness? I say that one who has strength must hasten to use it to help people. One who has material wealth must distribute it to people to the best of his ability. One who possesses the Way must encourage people through teaching. In this way, then, the hungry will obtain food, the cold will obtain clothing, and the disordered will find order. If the hungry acquire food, if the cold acquire clothing, and if the disordered acquire order, this will bring about the maintenance of life.”

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For Peter Singer governments should not play any role at all. He would like to see the whole world as one large global community where everybody is treated equally by everybody else. The problem is that nowadays the world is still divided into sovereign nation states that are responsible for what happens within their own borders first. It is true that international organisations that provide help to people in need cross those borders and mostly are allowed to do this, but they often do not attain the effect desired because of the sovereign position of the governments that might refuse to cooperate all of a sudden. In his earlier works Peter

Singer only evokes the individuals of the world to do something about the inequality of income and living circumstances on the planet. Later in his career he started recognising the responsibility of governments as well. He has now agreed to the fact that birth control is one of the areas governments should be definitely involved in. A decrease in population cannot be achieved by donating to charities only; there should be a government policy that explicitly sets it as its aim. Another global matter that is still acted upon from a governmental perspective of nation states is the world’s climate change. It is true that international climate agreements are being signed, but it is still not recognised by all governments that the global greenhouse effect is a direct source for poverty.96 Not all people are able to eke out a living anymore tilling the soil in their own countries. So they flee them and become refugees in neighbouring countries or even go to neighbouring continents. Singer states clearly that there are too many people especially in the poverty-stricken countries of the world. He pleads for stricter birth control and education for women and sees this as a concern of the governments involved.

96 The title of Peter Singer’s Nijmegen lecture of 18 June 2018 was: “Too many people? Ethics and population in the 21st century” 74

CONCLUSION

In my opinion the works of the ancient Chinese Masters should be considered ‘philosophy’; and I think they can be compared with the philosophical concepts of Western philosophers. In this thesis I compared Peter Singer’s Western utilitarian philosophy of the 21st century AD with how Mencius and Mozi of the 4th century BCE see an ideal society. However, there is a difference in philosophical method between East and West. I follow Professor Keqian Xu here (see page 18 of this thesis), who even invented a term for the philosophical method of the

Chinese masters of the East: zhongdaology. According to his views, the difference lies in the search for the Truth in the West, centred on ‘What is?’ rather than on the ‘How to?’ of the search for the Dao in the works of the Eastern masters. In my thesis I only focused on the practical ethics of Peter Singer, as I am of the opinion that Chinese philosophy is also practical ethics of a political nature, concerned with how a society should be ordered.

I set out with the idea that Western and deserved a different approach in evaluating. It turned out that with the examples I have chosen the standards do not have to be double. Peter Singer’s theory and practice can be partly described in Mencian terms and Mohism as a theory is at any rate a match for Singer’s, based on the utilitarian terms and a ‘standpoint of the universe’ they both employ. What they have in common is the focus on benefit and the same kind of frugal lifestyle they advance, albeit in the style of the economy of their time, a capitalist consumer society for Peter Singer’s effective altruists and an agrarian kind of kibbutzim for the followers of Mozi. The Ru (Confucian) theory of the virtues and the amalgamation of emotions and philosophical concepts in xin, the heart-mind, as covered by Mencius could be used for the evaluation of the examples Peter Singer gives in his lectures and his writings. The examples aim at a philosophical concept that is behind them, for Singer this is Reason. For Mencius the reason beneath his emotion arousing

75 examples is comprised of: ‘we do not like to see another person suffer’. Peter Singer says exactly the same thing. But, trained as a Western philosopher, for him reason is not enough for a sound philosophical concept. There should be more, in his case Henry Sidgwick’s

‘standpoint of the universe’, which provides the cognitive basis for an impartial view. Peter

Singer claims that he cannot arrive at such a view on the basis of emotions only (read about his reaction to the Joshua Greene and Kahane experiments, page 59 of this thesis). The examples he uses, are, however, intimately connected with his theory: if he does not attract people to his ideas and he is not sincere in the way he goes about doing this, his vision of a better life for all on earth will not be advanced as quickly as he would like to see it rolled out.

The Chinese concept of xin, the ‘heart-mind’ could in my view be applied to Peter Singer’s practical ethics, especially, following Slingerlands’s theories (see page 38 of this thesis), since this concept had acquired a more cognitive content as time went by in the Period of the

Warring States. We have the contents of the Mencius, and in my opinion this well written prose may qualify as ‘philosophy’, albeit Eastern style. This means that it addresses the issue of ‘How to?’

My answer to the question in the title of this thesis ‘Are double standards required?’ in evaluating ethics East and West is “No”, double standards are not required, Chinese and

Western philosophy could be compared on the same terms. At least, this goes without problems when evaluating the philosophical ideas of Mozi and Peter Singer. They both calculate the benefits for society resulting from the style of living they advocate and try to maximise them. They both employ a standard to guide them in their philosophy, Singer the point of view of the universe, Mozi tian zhi, heaven’s intention/will. Singer would like the world to be one, without governments, Mozi would like states to be as brothers, so that there will be no war and requires a righteous government, a ruler, yes, but a benevolent one, who does not discriminate.

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A comparison between Mencius and Singer is more complicated. For Mencius, along

Confucian standards, tian ming, the mandate of heaven, governs the whole of society down from the ruler to the simplest commoner. The mandate of heaven rests on xiao, the principle of filial piety, the building block that holds civilisation together. This construction could easily collapse if the root, the sprout (one of the four duan) of filial piety, ren, humaneness or benevolence, is not constantly activated in man, and this occurs in the heart-mind, xin, by means of emotions. This means that, according to the Ru (Confucian) dao, way, as unfolded by Mencius, emotions provide a sound basis for ethics, through the connection with the

‘thinking mind-heart’, xin. Singer is of the opinion that emotions are not enough as a firm basis for philosophical concepts. Although he starts his theory from a biological, evolutionary perspective, he does not believe that the ethical attitudes that show in our brain when fMRI investigation is conducted are so called ‘hard-wired’. Emotions are not firm enough for Peter

Singer to base ethics on; they need a point of view outside the actual human being. For

Mencius that point of view is inside: xin, the heart-mind which is the vessel of both emotions and cognition. My opinion is that the examples Peter Singer gives in his lectures and his writings could be compared with the way Mencius tries to make a better world of his society by evoking people to become a humane/benevolent person and that the examples someone chooses to employ cannot be but part of his theory. One of Peter Singer’s well-known lines to be found on the website of Effective Altruism is: ‘There is a growing movement called effective altruism. It is important because it combines both the heart and the head.’

This will certainly not be the last thesis that uses Peter Singer’s practical ethics for a subject of comparison. At the moment he is really ‘hot’ as a philosopher, stirring up lots of emotions in today’s society, especially by his opinions in the field of bioethics, which I have not discussed here. The fact that we possess numerous videos of his lectures so that we can actually see and hear what he thinks and how he would like us to understand him is an

77 advantage. Sadly, we do not know how to give an interpretation true to the author of the well written prose of the Mencius, loaded with subtle rhetoric or we might dismiss some of Mozi’s ideas as too factual or his scorning of the Confucians as simply too abusive because of the way they are written down. If we had been able to listen to these masters’ words in the Jixia academy or in some market place they could have won us over to their ideas more easily, just as Peter Singer can now. I am convinced that the words/ philosophical concepts of the ancient

Eastern masters of wisdom could add valuable thoughts to the practical ethics of our world of the 21st century97. For me –and I am with Peter Singer here- that means ‘one world’, not one divided in e.g. East and West.

97 Slingerland (2013, 34) who suggests to consult Ames (2008) in honour of Rosemont (2008) in this respect 78

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