Mozi
Confucianism's great early rival — a disciplined movement of artisans, engineers, and logicians who argued, against the grain of their age, for impartial care for all, against aggressive war, and against waste and empty ritual. Austere, practical, centuries ahead of its time. Gathered here by doctrine, with the one true story the book contains.
Mo Di & followers 墨翟
Warring States · 5th c. BCE.
Received text · Chinese via Chinese Wikisource
Impartial Care
A physician cannot cure a sickness without first knowing where it starts. Mozi looks at a world of war, theft, and broken families and finds one cause under all of it: people draw a line between their own and everyone else's. His remedy is plain, and it is the idea his enemies could never forgive.
ReadAll pieces
Against Offensive War
Mozi Stops a War
Elevating the Worthy
Against Waste
The Will of Heaven
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Lines worth knowing
Regard another's state as you regard your own. Regard another's household as your own household. Regard another's body as your own body.
視人之國若視其國，視人之家若視其家，視人之身若視其身。
Kill one man and they call it a crime, and there is a death sentence for it. By that reasoning, to kill ten men is ten times the crime, and to kill a hundred is a hundred times the crime.
To attack a state that has done you no wrong cannot be called decent. And to know this, and not stop it, cannot be called loyal.
I have the will of Heaven the way a wheelwright has his compass and a carpenter has his square.
我有天志，譬若輪人之有規，匠人之有矩。
Common questions
What is the Mozi (Mohism) about?
The Mozi is the founding text of Mohism, an early rival to Confucianism that argued for impartial care for all people, against aggressive war, and against waste and empty ritual. Compiled by the philosopher Mo Di (Mozi) and his followers in the Warring States period, it was the work of a disciplined movement of artisans, engineers, and logicians who tested every custom by a single blunt standard: does it benefit the world, or only cost it? Austere and relentlessly practical, it reads as centuries ahead of its time.
What is impartial care, or universal love (jian ai)?
Impartial care (兼愛, jian ai) is Mohism's central doctrine: the idea that you should regard other people's states, households, and bodies as you regard your own, without drawing a line between what is yours and what is not. Mozi diagnosed war, theft, and broken families as all springing from one cause — people caring only for their own — and prescribed inclusive care as the cure. Here 愛 is not warm feeling but a practical regard for another's welfare: the opposite of injuring others to benefit yourself. It is the idea his Confucian enemies, who insisted love should be graded by relationship, could never forgive.
What did Mozi believe about war?
Mozi condemned aggressive war as the largest theft of all. His essay Against Offensive War points out that a man who steals a peach is condemned, and one who kills a single person is executed — yet a ruler who invades a country and kills thousands is praised as glorious rather than punished as a criminal. He held that attacking a state that has done no wrong is simply crime scaled up. And the Mohists did not only argue: they were trained military engineers who traveled to defend weak cities against strong attackers, as in the story of Mozi stopping Chu's planned invasion of Song.
Who was Mozi?
Mozi (Mo Di, c. 5th century BCE) was a Warring States philosopher and the founder of Mohism, one of the most influential schools of early Chinese thought. He is thought to have come from an artisan or craftsman background rather than the aristocracy, and he built his followers into an organized, quasi-military movement of engineers and logicians who lived by strict frugality and hired themselves out to defend besieged cities. The book that bears his name gathers his doctrines as recorded by his disciples, who mark his words with the phrase 'Master Mozi said.'
How does Mohism differ from Confucianism?
Mohism was Confucianism's great early rival, and the two clash on almost every point. Where Confucians taught love graded by relationship — deepest for your own parents, thinner for strangers — Mozi insisted on impartial care extended equally to all. Where Confucians prized elaborate ritual, music, and lavish funerals as the marks of a good society, Mozi attacked them as waste that adds cost but no use. And where Confucians favored the well-born, Mozi urged elevating the worthy: giving power to whoever can do the work, farmer or artisan included. Mohism judged every practice by benefit and harm, not by tradition or refinement.