Shenzi
Mohism is a school of philosophy in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty in China, and it is one of hundreds. Together with Confucianism represented by Confucius and Taoism represented by Laozi, it constitutes the three major philosophical systems of the Han nationality. Han Feizi, a representative of legalism, called it "the talent of the world is used", and Mencius, a representative of Confucianism, once said that "the words of the world do not belong to Yang (Yang Zhu, a representative of Taoism), but to Mohism", which proves that Mohism thought once existed in China.
Mohism was born in the Warring States Period. The founder is Mo Zhai (Mozi). Mohism is a disciplined academic group, and its leader is called "Giant". Its members must advocate Mohism when they go to various countries to serve as officials, and their salaries must also be dedicated to the group. Mohist school is divided into early and late stages: the early stage mainly involves social politics, ethics and epistemology, and pays attention to secular wars; In the later period, Mohism made an important contribution to logic and began to move closer to the field of scientific research.
The main ideas of Mohism are: advocating equal love between people (universal love), opposing wars of aggression (non-attack), advocating economy, opposing extravagance and waste (frugality), attaching importance to inheriting the cultural wealth of predecessors (understanding ghosts and gods) and mastering the laws of nature (ambition).
Due to the unique political attribute of Mohist thought and the collusion policy of Emperor Wu of the Western Han Dynasty, Mohist thought was continuously suppressed, gradually losing its realistic foundation of existence and gradually dying out in China. It was not until the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China that scholars rediscovered Mohism from that pile of old papers and discovered its progress. In recent years, with the efforts of many new Mohists, Mohism has revived, and it has shown the trend of starting a prairie fire because of its progress.
Mohist viewpoint
Social ideal and legal view of "mutual love and mutual benefit"
Mohism believes that their time is a troubled time when the strong hold the weak, rob the widowed, the rich bully the poor, and the nobles are arrogant and humble; The people live a painful life of "hungry can't eat, cold can't put on clothes, and workers can't rest"; The reason is that "everyone in the world doesn't love each other" and should be replaced by an ideal society where everyone in the world loves each other. In order to realize this ideal, they advocate "mutual love and mutual benefit" between people and oppose "mutual hatred and mutual theft" between people. In this way, there will be an ideal society in which "the strong don't hold the weak hostage, the public don't rob the widowed, the rich don't bully the poor, the expensive don't be arrogant, and the deceivers don't bully the fools".
Mohism's view of law is also centered on "mutual love and mutual benefit" and serves their social ideal. They attach great importance to the role of "law", "instrument" or "law", and think that no matter what they do, they must have "law", just like the "square to square, round to discipline" of Baigong, otherwise they will accomplish nothing. Mozi? The scripture says, "If the law is appropriate, it is natural." Everything must follow the law. Of course, there must be a "law" to govern the country. The key lies in what is "law" and what is law? Mohist school's answer is that we must "take heaven as the law" and "learn from heaven". Because "the trip to Heaven is broad and selfless, and its generosity is generous but not virtuous ("Hugh "in the Book Collection), it will last for a long time." It means that heaven is the most just and merciful. To "take heaven as the law", we must decide people's code of conduct by the desire of heaven and Hubei. Under the pretext of "having both" and "eating both", they declared that "Heaven wants people to love each other and be mutually beneficial, but does not want people to be evil thieves". In other words, "taking heaven as the law" should be based on "loving each other and bringing out the best in each other". Mohist's "law" is broad, including laws, ethics and other behavioral norms, as well as rules, norms and other weights and measures. They put forward the purpose of "taking heaven as the law" in order to make "loving each other and bringing out the best in each other" become a unified objective standard to measure all right and wrong, right and wrong, good and evil, merits and demerits.
The "legality" of Mohism can be understood as the naturalness of law, that is, their theory of "mutual love and mutual benefit" is in line with natural law. However, Mohism finally turned to "Shinto teaching" and even put forward such an argument: "Heaven will bless those who love others; The wicked thief, the sky is a disaster "; "The son of heaven is good, and heaven can be rewarded; Heaven can punish violence with violence, and heaven can punish it. " In this way, "Tian" is portrayed as a personality god who can reward good and punish evil and the supreme Lord above the son of heaven, and he fantasizes about using the power of traditional religious superstition to realize his ideals. Therefore, "loving each other and bringing out the best in each other" has become "providence", thus putting on the coat of religion.