Mohism and ruism on care (Ai)

Abstract

In this thesis, I propose to address the three criticisms made by Ruists (Confucian儒) regarding Mohist (墨) care (ai愛). I will achieve this purpose by discussing the ai in the two schools of thought, with a particular focus on the framework of the Mohist conception of care. While the responses to the criticisms I propose do not directly come from the Mohist texts, they are inspired by the texts and represent a reconstruction of Mohist arguments. The thesis contains five chapters. In the first chapter, I will introduce the historical background of Mohism and Ruism, with a number of preliminary remarks on my approach to the relevant topics. The two sections will inform the rest of the discussion. In chapter 2, I will reconstruct the conception of care in Ruism and Mohism in early Chinese philosophy. In brief, this chapter is divided into three sections. I will first provide an overview of the meaning of the classical Chinese word ai and the proper translation of the word. Regarding the latter two sections, I will discuss the role of care played in Mohist and Ruist ethics respectively, with explorations of the distinctive focuses of each account. The emphasis of the next chapter will be the discussions about three challenges from Ruists to the Mohist conception of care. This chapter is structured in three sections. In each section, I will delve into the rationale behind a criticism. In particular, I will detail the criticism with the aid of some contemporary philosophical attempts to discuss how the concept of care should be. I hope to show their general worries over the Mohist care: Mohist care violates the ethical experience of caring for others, and people face various practical difficulties when carrying out the Mohist care. They jointly present rebuttals of inclusive care on practical and theoretical levels. Chapter 4 will concentrate on the Mohist replies to thee Ruist criticisms. These replies are inspired by the Mohist canon the Mozi. By reconstructing the Mohist arguments, I will present the rationale behind the responses and gather evidence to support my interpretation. For the replies, they demonstrate how the Mohist care fits the ethical experience of caring for others, thereby avoiding the three Ruist challenges. The last chapter refers to the summaries of my main points, with a discussion about the limits of this study and the suggestions for further explorations of this topic.