Mo Tzu (Zi) according to Schwartz
Instead of a thinker who was developing his own views, Mo Zi (Tzu), in Schwartz's description, was bent on restoring the true Confucius. Born about the time Confucius died, in his adult life Mozi fought against the degeneration of Confucian teachings. His fighting was also testimony to the pervasive influence of the thought of the ju, or followers of Confucius, during the Warring States period in China (479-221 B.C.) when, with the decline of the Zhou Dynasty and fightings among the duchies, the shih (educated), usually of commoner background and often influenced by Confucian teachings, often served as advisers to dukes. (Schwartz, 136)
Q: Did Schwartz's characterization of Mo Zi (Tzu)'s social class (plebian, or commoner) in contrast to Confucius's differ from what you thought? How did he justify his characterization?
1. Similarities and differences between Confucius and Mozi.
Both shared the ultimate goal of cultural restoration, by an elite (138, 144). Mozi, like Confucius, is similarly preoccupied with the human world and his religion totally concerned with human concerns. (Mozi did not tell any stories of Chinese deities.)
Schwartz points out also Mozi's major denunciations of Confucius, but arguing that they were the results of the improper practice of Confucian learning, not because Mozi disagreed with Confucius.
139-141: Mozi's denunciation of li (rites) was a reaction against the excessive emphasis on rituals by the followers of Confucius that Mozi felt they deviated from the teachings of the true Confucius: li should be used to illustrate the dao, or heavenly way, not to be practiced as an end in itself. On the other hand, 151-152, Mozi did not completely denounce li, in fact what he denounced was the excessive waste of substance or energy. c.f. Mozi on p.76, de Bary. Mozi also deemphasized music because he prioritized the basic necessities of life to what he considered superfluous factors such as music. And indirectly, it was a criticism of the Confucians during his time who were reduced to custodians of music and rites, and not the spirit behind them, (153) and who held a passive attitude toward life, putting too much emphasis on fate (p.141)
Mozi's emphasis on a simple life made him idealize the unadorned purely functional culture created by the first sage-kings, and his hero was Yu, (154) who, as king, reputedly was so busy building water irrigation projects that he did not enter his own door three times passing it.
2. Mozi's views on human nature
However, the biggest difference between Mozi and Confucius lay in their definitions of human nature. Unlike Confucius who believed in innate human ethical nature, Mozi denied it, thus creating tension within Mozi's thinking: he wanted to stress the active will of and intelligence of heaven, spirits and men. On the other hand, unlike the Confucians, he did not think humans had innate ethical nature. His first point was to see Heaven as a moral enforcer but the denial of humans of an ethical mind also denied moral agency: despite enforcement, humans only passively carried out moral dictum. (142-143)
Schwartz uses this difference between Confucius and Mozi to explain Mozi's utilitarian approach to virtue and his idea of universal love:
Because Mozi did not believe in innate ethical nature, hence self-cultivation would not do much good in achieving the ideal sociopolitical order, he exhorted people to direct their efforts outward, and to do good instead of being good. 147 Schwartz concludes that "Mo-Tzu here seems to share the pathos of both the modern radical and the modern technocrat." (146)
It is interesting that Mozi emphasized universal love because he did not believe each individual would carry out love to his neighbor and family and then extend it to the state. Therefore universal love had to come first. (148) (but then he did not explain this leap; nor did he quote the enlightened self interest as the basis of universal love, e.g. Mozi, de Bary, p.72) love as such was not so much an emotion as an abiding moral disposition (149) With the enforcer of universal love being the ruler (150) because rulers had charismatic power.
3. The question of Men of worth:
Schwartz then sets out to explain how, taking the ethical nature out of the Confucian description of man, Mozi adheres to a Confucian vision of elite leadership, represented by his term of Men of worth, to develop social and political prosperity. The question for Schwartz is how Mozi explained the moral qualities in the Men of worth, so central to Confucius but not inevitable in Mozi because humans did not have innate ethical nature.
To Schwartz, Mozi's definition of men of worth was regarding practical abilities. As discussed in de Bary, Schwartz broadens the definition of men of worth to including not only diligent and effective work, but also "virtuous behavior, their skill in argument and their knowledge of methods." (157) But on the whole, these are practical criteria as well compared with the Confucian emphasis on innate human ethical nature and the importance of self-cultivation.
Men of worth will serve because they will realize that only through universal love could disorder be avoided (Schwartz uses Hobbes as comparison) so this was something achieved through reasoning. (159) In other words, men of worth form their concept of universal love, not based on their ethical nature, which they do not have, but on the dire practical consequences of not following the moral dictates.
4. The fate of Mohism:
The big question of why it did not become an alternative to Confucian learning as the state ethic: to Schwartz, the most important reason was perhaps it lacked all the elite cultural elements, including music and rituals.