Traditionally fifth century BCE; dates uncertain
Mozi
The Mozi is a composite text of the Mohist school. Conventional personal dates are approximate.
Mozi and the Mohist school argue for an impartial concern — jian ai — and evaluate practices by the benefits and harms they bring to the world. The Mohists criticize Confucian partiality and elaborate funerals on those grounds. Later Mohist chapters also contain important work in logic, language, and optics. Comparing jian ai with British utilitarianism is a real scholarly topic and not an identity. The school is not a consequence of Western consequentialism.
Also in the atlas
- Impartial concern
- Benefit and harm
- Against wasteful ritual
Reading, not a syllabus ranking
- Mozi — A composite school text. The chapters on impartial caring are the usual moral starting point; their exact numbering is an editorial matter.
Questions for reflection
- If concern should be impartial, what happens to the duties you have because of who is near you?
Mozi is the atlas’s non-Western neighbor to consequentialism and to a demanding form of common concern. The neighbor is not a translation.