the moist criticism of the confucian use of fate

franklin perkins

THE MOIST CRITICISM OF THE CONFUCIANUSE OF FATE

The Moists were the first thinkers we know of in China to appeal toexplicit criteria in order to interrogate tradition and custom. They arethe first to make what, following Chad Hansen, we might call the“Socratic turn,” and in this sense we could call them the first Chinesephilosophers.1 When it comes to Moist religious views, though, theyseem to oddly fall back on tradition, embracing implausible views thatmake them appear less critical and reasonable than their contempo-raries. In this article, I will focus on one aspect of those religious views,the Moist criticism of ming (fate), attempting to situate it within abroader concern for motivation and the efficacy of human action.More specifically, the Mozi should be seen as using opposition to fateas a way of maintaining the view that human beings are primarilyresponsible for the condition of the world and thus to encourage acommitment to changing the material conditions of human life, inparticular, to ending war and poverty. From this context, I will showthat they raise genuine problems with the way that ming is used inearly Ruist texts. Before turning to the Mozi itself, we must brieflyconsider the background for its discussion of ming.

I. Fate in Early Confucian Thought

Our knowledge of very early views of tian and ming is quite limited,but two points are fairly certain in setting the context for the Mozi.First, there was a doctrine that appealed to the moral authority of tian(or Shang Di ) as part of the attempt to justify the rise of theZhou Dynasty. According to this doctrine of tianming , the“Mandate of Heaven,” tian rewards and assists those who are goodand punishes and thwarts those who are bad. We cannot know quitewhen such views appeared or how dominant they ever were, butcommentators like Xu Fuguan have placed great significance on them

FRANKLIN PERKINS, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Chair ofChinese Studies Committee, DePaul University. Specialties: classical Chinese philosophy,early modern European philosophy, comparative philosophy. E-mail: [email protected]

© 2008 Journal of Chinese Philosophy

as setting the basis for Chinese “humanism.”2 That connection mightappear strange, since claims about tian seem theological rather thanhumanist, but Xu’s point is that by making tian consistently andpredictably responsive to human actions, the responsibility for theorder of the world shifts from the divine to human beings themselves.Tian functions to increase human responsibility. The second point isthat, as the Zhou Dynasty broke down, this doctrine receives explicitchallenges from something like the problem of evil: As the social andpolitical order collapsed, it became more and more evident that badthings did happen to good people. One line of response to thisproblem questioned the goodness of tian by blaming it for the injus-tices of the world.The other line introduced a concept of ming distinctfrom tian and equivalent to something like blind fate.3 The “Will ofTian” chapters of the Mozi can be seen as responding to the first lineof change while the “Against Ming” chapters respond to the second.4

Both are meant to reaffirm the role of tian in increasing humanresponsibility.

The immediate context we have for the Moist opposition to mingare the early texts of the Ru.5 There are tensions, if not contradictions,in how tian and ming are presented in the Lun Yu. Xu Fuguan arguesthat the best way to makes sense of these tensions is through a cleardistinction between tian and ming, where the former has ethicalmeaning and the latter does not.6 Certainly one finds two distinctattitudes toward the relationship between the structure of the uni-verse and human ethics. On one side, a number of passages describetian in fairly anthropomorphic terms and grant it a kind of ethicalauthority.7 On the other side, several passages recognize that theforces of the universe do not always work to help the good. Thesepassages emphasize “ming,” which we could here translate as “fate.”For example, the early death of Yan Hui, one of Kongzi’s favoritedisciples, is attributed to his having a short ming.8 When anotherdisciple, Bo Niu, falls seriously ill, Kongzi says, “It is killing him. It isming, alas! That such a man should have such a sickness! That such aman should have such a sickness!”9 In both cases, the disciples do notdeserve to be sick, which shows that ming is separated from questionsof reward and punishment. In passage 14.36, Kongzi gives a broaderrole to ming, “If dao is practiced, that is ming. If dao is abandoned,that is ming.” The fact that both the enacting and abandoning of daocome from ming indicates that ming itself does not particularly alignwith the good. It also suggests that there are certain times when thechaos of the world is determined by ming and that human effort toreverse that might be futile.This point draws strong Moist opposition.

Separating tian as an ethical force from ming as a non-ethical fateseparates injustices from tian itself, but on the level of terminology,

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this distinction is not consistently maintained, even in the Lun Yu.Although the death of Yan Hui is blamed on ming, Kongzi also says,“Alas! Tian is destroying me! Tian is destroying me!”10 In a passagesimilar to one criticized in the Mozi, tian and ming appearinterchangeable:

Sima Niu said anxiously, “People all have brothers, only I have not.”Zixia said to him,“There is the following saying which I have heard—‘Death and life are ming; prosperity and honor are tian.’ Gentlemenare respectful and do not lose, they are reverent and have ritual.Within the four seas, all are their brothers. How can gentlemen betroubled by having no brothers?”11

Here, tian functions like ming, with no sense that long or short life,prosperity or honor are distributed according to an ethical purpose.

This element of fatalism continues more explicitly in other early Rutexts, perhaps most clearly in the Guodian text, Success and FailureAre by Timing (qiong da yi shi ), which begins:

There is heaven and there are humans; heaven and humans have adifference. By examining the difference between heaven andhumans, one knows how to act. Although a person is worthy, if it isnot the right era [shi ], he cannot act. If it is his era, what difficultycan there be?12

The passage continues by describing historical figures like Shun whowent from difficulties to success later in life by meeting a ruler whoused them, then concludes:

In the beginning they were sunk in difficulties, but later their namesspread wide. It was not that their virtue increased. Wu Zixu firstaccomplished much and then was assassinated. It was not that hiswisdom declined.13

The emphasis that the virtue of these people did not increase indi-cates that meeting or not meeting the proper ruler is not determinedby one’s own goodness. Fate functions in a similar way in the Mengzi.A detailed examination of those passages would go beyond the scopeof this article, but one passage helps clarify these ideas in relation tothe Mozi. It is a passage describing Mengzi when he is leaving thestate of Qi without success:

When Mengzi left Qi, on the way Chong Yu asked,“Master, you looksomewhat unhappy. I heard from you the other day that gentlemendo not reproach tian and do not blame people.” Mengzi responded:“This is one time; that was another time. Every five hundred years atrue King should arise, and in the interval there should arise one fromwhom an age takes its name. From Zhou to the present it is overseven hundred years. The five hundred year mark is passed; the time

423moist criticism of fate

seems ripe. It must be that tian does not as yet wish to bring peace tothe world. If it did, who is there in the present time other thanmyself? Why should I be unhappy?”14

This passage echoes the importance of having the right time or era inSuccess and Failure, but goes beyond it by attributing a regular fivehundred year cycle to this timing. It also illuminates the connectionbetween personal success and the peace and prosperity of the worlditself. For a good Ru, personal success means enacting one’s principlesto make the world better; the uncontrollability of personal successthus implies the uncontrollability of the prosperity of the world itself.

On a theoretical level, the use of ming in these texts is a reasonablerecognition of the limited power of human action and the fact thatgoodness does not guarantee success, but it is motivated more bypractical concerns than by theory. Its basis is the assumption that ifcertain things are determined by ming, then they are not within ourown power. For this reason, even though such things might be desir-able in theory, it is not worthwhile to seek them in practice. Appealsto ming direct our effort away from consequences and toward theprocess of self-cultivation itself, as we can cultivate and maintain ourvirtue no matter what fate brings. The Mengzi explains this point bydistinguishing the external and the internal:

Mengzi said, “When we seek and obtain, or neglect and lose—thisseeking is of benefit [yi ] to getting and the things sought are withinourselves. When the seeking has dao but the getting has ming—thisseeking is of no benefit to getting and the things sought are outsideourselves.”15

By guiding our desires, appeals to ming help us resist temptations thatmight come in a conflict between virtue and personal success. Twopassages in the Lun Yu emphasize the possible conflict betweenethical commitment and what is controlled by ming; both say that agood person when seeing danger accepts ming.16 The point is that agood person will risk their life for what is right, because they accepta short or long life as determined by ming. Appeals to ming also givesome peace of mind to those facing difficulty. When Zixia tells SimaNiu that honor, wealth, and long life are determined by ming, hisremarks are meant to comfort him by reminding him that the thingsdetermined by fate should not upset us. Success and Failure concludeswith a similar point:

Meeting or not meeting is Heaven. If action is not for success, thenone can be poor yet without (difficulties). (If acting is not) for a name,then one can be unknown yet without regrets.17

Success and fame are determined by tian; if we recognize this, we willbe content even when lacking them.


II. The Moist Opposition to MING

From a Moist perspective, these views of tian and ming are among themost dangerous Ruist errors. One passage in the “Gong Meng”chapter lists four disastrous policies of the Ru: Two of these involvetian and ming.18 We can begin by examining the view the Moistsoppose. The clearest statement of this position is in the “Against Ru”chapter, which says:

Also, those who strongly hold that there is ming, to promote it say:“Long life and short life, poverty and prosperity, safety and danger,order and disorder, certainly have tian ming and cannot be reducedor increased. Success and failure, punishment and reward, fortuneand misfortune have a limit; human wisdom and strength cannotattain them.”19

A version in the “Gong Meng” chapter is briefer:

Gong Mengzi said, “Poverty and wealth, long life or short life, cer-tainly are with tian and cannot be decreased or increased.”20

This is strikingly similar to Zixia’s line in the Lun Yu, and it is prob-ably either a reference to that passage or, more likely, both passagesreport versions of a common Ruist saying. The Moist formulation ismore absolute, adding that these things “cannot be decreased orincreased,” but the passage above from the Mengzi uses one of thesame terms (yi ), saying that for things determined by ming,“seeking is without increase/benefit to attaining.” In this case, then,the position opposed by the Moists appears to be a fair statement ofwhat some Ru actually held. A second position is not stated explicitlybut is the implicit target of several criticisms. Each of the “AgainstMing” chapters contains a claim that Tang succeeded and Jie failedwith the same people and at the same time or age (shi ). Thisappears to be a reference to the doctrines about timing that appear inSuccess and Failure and in a more developed form in the Mengzi.21

Both of those echo Kongzi’s claim that ming determines whether ornot dao is enacted. This position, also, then has a genuine basis inRuist teachings.

The Moists use a variety of arguments against fate. Some consist ofappeals to the sagely kings of the past, either to what is implied bytheir actions or recorded in their texts. Often they point to empiricalevidence that hard work brings success. All three of the “AgainstMing” chapters contrast the sagely kings with the brutal kings on thispoint. The most detailed formulation is in the third version, whichbegins by saying that the sagely kings of the past desired to encouragegood people and so they set up systems of rewards and punishmentsso as to bring about order and safety. At this point, the argument


emphasizes both that the sagely kings believed in the power of hardwork and that their own hard work was the reason for their success.The argument continues:

If you think it is not so, formerly what Jie disordered, Tang ordered.What Zhou disordered, King Wu ordered. At those times [shi ], theage [shi ] did not change and the people did not change. Thegovernment above changed and so the people reformed their prac-tices. Existing under Jie and Zhou, the world was disordered. Existingunder Tang and Wu, the world was ordered.The world being orderedwas from the work of Tang and Wu. The world being disordered wasfrom the crimes of Jie and Zhou. Looking at it like this, then safetyand danger, order and disorder all exist from the governing of thoseabove. So how can one say there is ming?22

This argument is directed against claims that order, safety, and honorare determined by ming rather than effort, but more specifically, theyattack claims that the possibility of success is determined by the time.The comparison between Jie and Tang sets up something like a con-trolled experiment, where the timing and the people remain the samewhile the results differ. The difference in causes, then, is that Tangworked hard for the good and Jie was lazy and bad. Implicit in theargument is that the time of Jie was one of the most extreme cases ofthe world not having dao and yet even at that time, Tang was able tobring order.23

The primary focus of the Moist opposition to fate is on the dangersthat come from teaching it. The most developed formulation of thisargument appears in the third “Against Ming” chapter:

What is the reason why kings, dukes, and great men go to court earlyand retire late, listening to the counsels of government,dividing thingsin the court evenly, not daring to be lazy? We say, because they thinkthat if they work hard things must be well managed and if they do notwork hard they will be disordered; if they work hard there will besafety and if they do not work hard there will be danger, thus they donot dare be lazy and lax. . . . What is the reason that today’s farmers goout early and come back late, working hard in tilling and planting,gathering much grain and not daring to be lazy? Because they thinkthat if they work hard they will be rich and if they do not work hardthey will be poor, if they work hard they will be full and if they do notwork hard they will be hungry. Thus they do not dare to be lazy.24

Ministers attend to their offices with dedication because they believethey can thus attain honor and glory, and women work hard inweaving because they believe this will make them prosperous andwarm. The passage then presents what would happen if these peoplebelieved in ming:

Now . . . suppose one sincerely believes there is ming and fully enactsit, then they will surely be lazy in listening to the counsels of govern-


ment, high ministers will be lazy in managing the offices and store-houses, farmers will be lazy in ploughing and planting, and wives willbe lazy in weaving and sowing.25

If all these groups are lazy in doing their work, believing that it bringsno benefits, then there will be disorder, poverty, and ultimately thecollapse of the state and the scattering of the people. The argumentconcludes that it was precisely this belief in ming that led to thecollapse of the former brutal kings such as Jie and Zhou.

In making this argument, the Moists have been accused of unfairlyrepresenting the Ru, so it is important to recognize the structure ofthe argument.26 The Moists do not accuse them of advocating lazinessand complacency. On the contrary, a passage in the “Gong Meng”chapter accuses the Ru of contradicting themselves because they doadvocate hard work.27 The argument of the Moists then is not that theRu advocate a passive response to fatalism, but that their doctrineleads to that result, even if they themselves do not realize it. TheMoists’ main concern is how promoting fate will affect society ingeneral, but they do suggest that the Ru themselves sometimesbecame too passive. Some of their criticisms seem more like slander,as a few passages say that Confucians “stand on ming and are lazy intheir work,” but the basic concern is that the Ru are not activistenough, not willing to seek out opportunities and too willing to acceptfailure.28 We find this position in Moist criticisms of what appears tobe a Ruist saying:

A gentleman folds his hands and waits. If asked then he answers andif not asked then he stops. It is like a bell: if struck then it rings outand if not struck then it does not ring out.29

The Moists do not directly tie this claim to ming, but it comes quiteclose to the position seen in Success and Failure. What is striking inthat text is the passive attitude shown toward opportunities; the claimis not that they are difficult to find and so one should spend their livesseeking them out but rather that they cannot be controlled and so oneshould cultivate oneself and wait for good luck.30 In arguing againstming, the Moists believe there is no time in which success is impos-sible and so no time in which one should accept failure.

On the theoretical level, Moist criticisms of ming express a tensionin the Ruist distinction between the external and internal. “Inner”self-cultivation tends toward meaninglessness if it is separated from“external” concerns. What does cultivating filial piety mean if not aconcern for the actual material conditions of one’s parents? Couldone cultivate benevolence without striving to end poverty and disor-der? Yet wealth and poverty are external, controlled by ming. Morespecifically, the Moists rely on two contradictions in the Ruist view.


The first cuts along lines of class—a gentleman should not pursuematerial things but farmers and workers should. The second cutsalong the distinction between personal and common interest—agentleman should not be concerned about his own suffering orpoverty but should be concerned about the suffering and poverty ofother people. The Moists would not object to these distinctions: Theypromote a division of labor based on ability and inclusive rather thanpartial concern. The point is that neither distinction can be based onappeals to ming, which must be equally determining for the gentle-man and the farmer, for one’s own poverty and the poverty of thepeople. The Moist concern is that the use of ming on one side of thedistinctions (to discourage a good person’s concern for their ownpoverty) easily carries over to the other side, both on a logical leveland on the level of actually influencing behavior.

In this context, we can articulate two possible Ru positions, both ofwhich have some textual support. One would be to affirm a stronglyfatalist position, that, as Mengzi says, external things are determinedby ming and human seeking is of no use in attaining them. This is theposition the Moists accuse the Ru of advocating and it best fits mostof what they literally say about ming.31 This position would admit thata good person strives to change the external world, from alleviatingpoverty to providing a fancy coffin, but these would never be of directconcern. Our motivation would be entirely internal, from a concernfor acting ethically. For this reason, failure to succeed in these externalendeavors would not upset us, while failure to make our greatesteffort in them would. Thus when he leaves the state of Qi, with itspeople in misery and its ruler still a threat, Mengzi is not unhappy.While this fatalistic position best fits most early Ru statements, it hasat least two major problems, both of which the Moists point out. First,it is empirically false. Human effort contributes to attaining externalthings, even if it does not guarantee them.The Moist contrast betweenTang and Jie demonstrates this point well enough. Second, this Ruposition assumes that people will make full effort toward a goal whilebelieving that effort is of no benefit to reaching the goal. It completelyseparates consequences from motivation, the external from the inter-nal. While the details of the Moist theory of motivation are compli-cated, they assume that to teach people that benefits—as order,wealth, and honor, or as food, clothing, and rest—follow from mingrather than their own effort will necessarily lead them to stop workinghard. In making this point, the Moists need not say that all peoplenecessarily act for results; they need only say that it is unrealistic toexpect most people to, like Kongzi, know that what are they are doingis impossible but do it anyway.32 Here, the Moist criticism exploits oneof the contradictions in the Ruist position—while it may be admirable


to teach a small class of “gentlemen” that material things are outsideof our control and worthless to pursue, it is a dangerous doctrine toteach to farmers.

These difficulties make this kind of strong fatalist position highlyimplausible, so one might suspect that the Moists misrepresent theactual views of the Ru, taking their words too literally and withoutcontext. Yu Xiong nicely expresses this response:

The ming which the Moists oppose is a ming that completely pre-determines. All results are predetermined and completely withoutrelation to human work; if wealth is fated then even without hardwork there necessarily is wealth and if poverty is fated then even withdedication in doing work there is still poverty. If one believes in whatthis calls ming, then they must end by abandoning human work. Butwhat is here called ming is really not what the Confucians call ming.What the Confucians call ming really takes human work as it condi-tion; once human work is exhausted and nothing more can be added,the limit can be called ming. Thus the ming in which the Confuciansbelieve does not at all end in being lax in doing one’s work.33

Events are determined by many factors, one of which is human effort.Sometimes human effort is enough for success and sometimes it isnot, but since the complexity of things makes this impossible to knowbeforehand, we can only do our best. If we still fail, we can thenconsole ourselves by appeal to ming. As an account of fate, this viewis quite reasonable, and if Mengzi or Kongzi had coherent views ofming, I suspect this was it. The problem is that such a position con-tradicts the actual use of ming in the Ruist texts. Their own appeals toming rely on the following assumption: If we recognize that a thingcannot be attained by our own effort, then our desire for it will beweakened. This frees us to pursue things that we can attain, goals ofself-cultivation, and it leaves us less dissatisfied when we lack thingslike wealth or recognition. Such uses of fate are common acrosscultures; Spinoza gives as a psychological law: “Insofar as the mindunderstands all things as necessary, it has a greater power over theaffects, or is less acted on by them.”34 Ming can only function in thisway, though, if external things are outside our control. The more oneallows for the efficacy of human action in attaining things, the less onecan exclude such things as legitimate objects of concern. Thus ifpoverty follows from ming to a degree that it is not worth striving toeliminate, this must apply to my poverty and to that of the people. Ifpoverty can be sufficiently controlled by human effort so as to maketrying to alleviate it worthwhile, this also must apply to my povertyand that of the people. The crucial point is that wherever one drawsthe balance between effort and ming, it applies equally to all externalconditions.


III. Moism and the Problem of Evil

Even if the Mozi does include important criticisms of the Ru use ofming, the Moist alternative is hardly persuasive: “If I do what tiandesires, tian also will do what I desire.”35 Their view seems to be thatgoodness and hard work always prevail. Similar Christian claims atleast have the advantage of pushing the results into an afterlife; theMoists never consider such a possibility. Constrained to results in thisworld, any adult has witnessed enough to know that goodness andhard work do not always suffice: One needs something like timing. Itis difficult to believe that the Moists did not realize this, so a charitablereading prompts us to question whether or not they really believedthe justice of tian to be so thorough. Within the core chapters, there isno acknowledgment of this difficulty, but four passages in the dialoguechapters raise something like the problem of evil. In two, Mozi evadesthe problem by saying the person in question is not really goodenough to deserve reward.36 The other two passages are morecomplex, because both take Mozi himself as an example.The first is inthe “Geng Zhu” chapter:

Wumazi said to Master Mozi,“You enact rightness, but people do notserve you and ghosts do not make you prosper.Yet you still do it.Youare crazy!” Master Mozi said, “Now suppose you have two servantshere, one person does his work if he sees you but does not do hiswork if he doesn’t see you. The other person does his work whetherhe sees you or not. Which of these two people do you honor?”Wumazi said, “I honor the one who works whether he sees me ornot.” Master Mozi said, “So then, this is you also honoring those whoare crazy.”37

This seems to be a bad argument that misses the main point. Mozishifts from what one would do oneself to what one would preferothers to do, but of course what we would want in a servant is notnecessarily what we would want if we were that servant. The argu-ment, though, might be more sophisticated than it appears, if Wumazias master is being compared to the ghosts. The point would be that,like any master, the ghosts are not constantly watching and rewarding,and so sometimes the good servant does not get rewarded. The mostplausible way to take the metaphor is that the master will almostalways eventually be able to differentiate the good servant from thedeceptive one and so reward the first and punish the second. Thisinterpretation of the passage, though, is uncertain.

The second passage, from the “Gong Meng” chapter, focuses on theproblem of evil more directly:

Master Mozi was sick. Ju Bi entered and asked him, “Master, youconsider ghosts and spirits as insightful [ming ] and able to make


calamities and prosperity, rewarding those who do good and punish-ing those who do bad. Now, master, you are a sagely person, for whatreason are you sick? Could it be that your words contain somethingbad? Or is it that ghosts and spirits are not insightful?” Master Mozisaid, “Even though I am sick, how could they not be insightful? Thatby which people become sick has many methods: some attain it fromcold and heat, some attain it from bitter labor. To have a hundredgates and block only one of them, how will this prevent thieves fromgetting in?”38

In this passage, Mozi significantly moderates the efficacy of ghosts andspirits. While they do have a significant causal role, they are only onecause among many and so do not guarantee results. One other textgives a more radical response, but it is not from the received versionof the Mozi. A brief text found in the Shanghai museum collection ofbamboo strips begins with a familiar Moist argument, that we knowghosts and spirits are clear-seeing/insightful (ming ) because wehave the examples of the sagely kings being rewarded and the brutalkings being punished.39 It then continues in a different tone:

When it comes to Wu Zixu, one of the world’s sagely people, he wastied in a leather bag and died. Rong Yi Gong, one of the world’sdisruptive people, lived many years and then died. If you use this toquestion it, then of the good some are not rewarded and of the bad[some are not punished]—should I rely on this? For the ghosts andspirits not seeing, then there must be a reason. Is it that their strengthcan reach to it but they do not do it? I do not know. Or is it then thattheir strength cannot reach to it? I do not know. These two aredifferent. I thus [say ghosts and spirits have] what they see [ming ]and have what they do not see.40

Cao Jinyan takes this as a Moist text, which is plausible based on itstheme, structure, and terms.41 Even so, there is no way to know if sucha passage was considered heterodox and deliberately excluded fromthe Mozi or if it was an accepted Moist position lost by accident,perhaps a fragment from one of the two missing chapters on ghosts.

While these three passages show that at least some of the Moistsbacked away from stronger claims that goodness and hard work arealways rewarded, their significance may be doubted because none arefound in the core chapters of the Mozi. There is, though, a strongerreason to believe the Moists did not take the fairness of theuniverse—its distribution of success and failure—as complete. One ofthe most central principles of Moist political thought is the need forhuman beings to establish and accurately administer rewards andpunishments. The urgency of establishing a system of justice onlyfollows if it is the case that without an effective government, badpeople will at least sometimes (perhaps often) escape justice. Thispoint is clearest by contrast with the Dao De Jing. While the Moists


would agree with the claim that “the way of tian has no familial biasbut is constantly with good people,” the Dao De Jing concludes thatthere is little need for human government and the administration ofpunishments.42 The Moists would clearly and strongly reject thatimplication of their own position.Assuming they were able to see thiscontradiction, they must have believed that without human assistance,the justice of tian would be incomplete.

IV. The Conflict over MING

The problem with weakening the Moist position on human efficacy isthat their position ends up quite close to the most likely position ofthe Ru: Hard work is an important factor in determining the outcomeof events and does generally lead to success, but this is not absolute,since other factors are involved. How then do we explain the Moists’vehement opposition to the Ru?

First, even if the Ru and the Moists both recognize limits to humanefficacy, their attitudes toward these limits vary significantly. Considerthe above passage in which Mozi explains his illness: “That by whichpeople become sick has many methods, some attain it from cold andheat, some attain it from bitter labor.” Mozi’s illness here can easily becompared to that of Bo Niu in the Lun Yu, where Kongzi wouldsimply label the other factors mentioned here as “ming.” Yet there isa difference marked by Mozi not using “ming.” Kongzi’s orientationremains passive: Saying it is ming is saying that it is a mystery, unana-lyzable and irresistible. Mozi in contrast lists a set of possible causes—excessive heat, cold, or labor. There is nothing mysterious or divineabout his illness, and nothing that requires simply accepting it. Hisresponse points toward investigating and in the future controllingthose causes. While the Confucian account retains an earlier religiousorientation, seeing events as largely determined by an inexplicabledivine force, ming or tian, which cannot be explained, cannot beresisted, and cannot even be blamed, the Moists argue for a world inwhich the fate of human beings depends entirely on human effort. Inshort, the Moists can be seen as defending what Xu Fuguan calls the“humanism” of the early Zhou period in the face of a Ruist recogni-tion of the limits of human efficacy and responsibility. At the sametime, it is precisely the Moist emphasis on human efficacy and respon-sibility that forces them to project a strongly anthropomorphic deity.Ironically, the only way to maintain a thorough-going humanism is toproject a universe controlled by an anthropomorphic force.The Moistaccount of tian, along with the ghosts and spirits, fills this function.

Furthermore, even if the Moists and the Ru in theory held similarpositions, the differences in what they say are significant. After all, it


is what the Ru teach, not what they believe, that the Moists attack.TheMoists are explicit in judging doctrines partially by the consequencesthat follow from their use, and much of their argument against mingis that believing in it has bad consequences. A full examination of thispoint would go beyond the scope of this essay, but a passage from the“Gong Meng” chapter is particularly illuminating.43 The story beginswith Mozi promising a person that if he studies, he will be made anofficial. After a year of study, the student asks Mozi to do it. Mozireplies:

I will not make you an official. Have you not heard this story fromLu? Lu had a family of five brothers. Their father died and the eldestbrother desired liquor and would not do the burial. His four brotherssaid,“If you bury him with us, we will buy liquor for you.”They urgedhim with good words to do the funeral. Completing the funeral, heasked for the liquor from his four younger brothers.The four youngerbrothers said, “We will not give you liquor. You buried your fatherand we buried our father, how could he be our father alone? If youdid not bury him, then people would ridicule you, so we urged you todo the burial.”44

The story seems odd, but it clearly allows motivating someone withthe promise of reward even if the rewards will never arrive.45 I wouldnot go so far as to say the Moists did not believe that tian was good orthat ghosts and spirits existed, but the implications of the passage areobvious enough that it can be taken as an acknowledgment andjustification for exaggerating the efficacy of human actions in order toencourage good behavior.

This way of using language with a focus on the role of speech inshaping behavior rather than expressing truth is of course not uniqueto the Moists. The Ru appear as guilty of exaggerating the power ofming as the Moists are guilty of minimizing it. A. C. Graham insight-fully refers to both as “fictions,” one meant to discourage interest inmaterial things and the other meant to stimulate hard work.46 Whilethis suggests that their opposition is grounded in a different sense ofthe greatest threats to be addressed in teaching (avarice or laziness),this difference probably lies in a more fundamental difference ofaudience and the role of doctrine. There is little danger involved in afriend or teacher telling a person facing difficulties that he or sheshould not be upset—they did their best and this result was just meantto be. One might even invoke some kind of slogan like, “Death andlife are ming; prosperity and honor are tian.”47 It is another matter,though, for such slogans to spread indiscriminately, in Plato’s words,to “roam about everywhere, reaching indiscriminately those withunderstanding no less than those who have no business with it.”48

While Kongzi, like Socrates, may have taught only person to person,by the time of the Mozi, conditions had changed. This change prob-


ably followed in the just way it did for Plato, with a shift towardwriting. By the late fourth century BCE, one finds multiple copies ofRu texts buried in the distant state of Chu. At what time this processof circulating philosophical ideas on bamboo strips began, we do notyet know, but Mozi himself is described as traveling with a mass ofwritings.49 In any case, the Moist criticisms of ming partly point out thefailures of the Ru to negotiate the transition from teaching in privateconversations to the teaching of public doctrines. Of course one findspassages in the Lun Yu and the Mengzi that seem explicitly written toaddress this problem, and by the time of the Xunzi, one finds a fullshift to doing what we might call public philosophy.50 This shift,though, might well have happened in response to pressure from theMoists.

DEPAUL UNIVERSITYChicago, Illinois

Endnotes

Many people gave helpful comments on this article or earlier versions of it, and I wouldparticularly like to thank Dan Robins, Chris Fraser, Hui-chieh Loy, Owen Flanagan,Robin Wang, and Susan Blake. I am also grateful to Chung-ying Cheng and Linyu Gu fortheir assistance. The basic work on this article was done in Beijing with the support of aSummer Research Grant from DePaul University and a Fulbright Research Grant. I amgrateful for the opportunities they provided.

1. Chad Hansen, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1992), 106–8.

2. Fuguan Xu, Zhongguo Renxing Lun Shi (Shanghai: Huadong Daxue Press, 2005),10–20. Xu’s discussion includes examples of this view of tian, primarily from theShang Shu and Shi Jing. Wing-tsit Chan makes the same point in A Sourcebook inChinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 2–3. All transla-tions from Chinese texts are my own.

3. For examples of both trends, see Xu, Zhongguo Renxing Lun Shi, 24–25, 33.4. All references to the Mozi are to Sun Yirang, ed., Mozi Xiangu (Beijing: Zhonghua

Shuju, 2001).5. There is little reason to think the Moists are directing their criticisms only at the Ru,

but the Ru were one of targets, as is clear in the dialogue chapters. I assume the Ruwere a broad group that held a variety of views, and I use the texts we have, includingsome most likely composed after the Mozi, to show that the views the Moists criticizeare indeed close to views expressed by some of these Ru. I use the term “Ru” ratherthan “Confucians” as I suspect that “Ru” in the Mozi refers more to a broad group ofpractitioners than to a movement centered around the philosophy of Confucius. Fordiscussions of these issues, see the article by Dan Robins in this issue.

6. Xu, Zhongguo Renxing Lun Shi, 53–57. This distinction is close to the distinctioncommonly made between prescriptive and descriptive uses of tian and ming.

7. For examples, see Lun Yu, 3.13, 6.28, 7.23, 9.5, 9.12, 14.35. References are to chapterand passage in Bojun Yang, Lunyu Yizhu (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2002).

8. Lun Yu, 6.3, 11.7.9. Ibid., 6.10.

10. Ibid., 11.18.11. Ibid., 12.5.


12. Zhao Liu, ed., Guodian Chujian Jiaoyi (Fuzhou: Fujian Renmin Chubanshe, 2003),168, strips 1–2.

13. Ibid., 168–69, strips 9–10.14. Mengzi, 2B13. References to Mengzi are to Jiao Xun, Mengzi Zhengyi (Beijing:

Zhonghua Shuju, 1987).15. Ibid., 7A3; cf. 5A6.16. Lun Yu, 14.12, 19.1; cf. 11.18.17. Liu, Guodian Chujian Jiaoyi, 169, strips 11–12.18. “Gong Meng,” in Mozi Xiangu, ed. Sun Yirang (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2001), 459.19. “Against Ru,” in Mozi Xiangu, ed. Sun Yirang (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2001),

290–91.20. “Gong Meng,” 455.21. We do not know how significant the text of Success and Failure was, but it is at least

a version of an account of timing that appears in many other texts, most notably in theXunzi. For a detailed discussion of the relationships between various versions, see RuiLi, “Guodian Chujian ‘Qiong Da Yi Shi’ Zai Kao,” in Xin Chutu Wenxian yu GudaiWenming Yanjiu, ed. Weiyang Xie and Yuanqing Zhu (Shanghai: Shanghai Daxue,2004), 268–78.

22. “Against Ming III,” in Mozi Xiangu, ed. Sun Yirang (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2001),278–79.

23. Mengzi inverts this point, implying that it is precisely when things are at their worstthat a good ruler can easily rise up (Mengzi, 2A1), which is to say that for Tang or KingWu, the timing was right. There is no way to evaluate such a claim, but the Moistcontrast between Tang and Jie at least shows that human effort and virtue arerequired in addition to timing.

24. “Against Fate III,” in Mozi Xiangu, ed. Sun Yirang (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2001),283–85; see also, “Gong Meng,” 459.

25. “Against Fate III,” 284–85.26. Bryan Van Norden illustrates a common claim: “They [the Moists] accuse Ruists of

endorsing self-fulfilling defeatism: there is no point in trying to improve the world orone’s own situation, because success or failure has all been determined already.However, it appears, based on the received Analects text, that the Moist criticisms area misinterpretation of the role of fate in the thought of Kongzi.” (Bryan Van Norden,Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy [Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 2007], 152.)

27. “Gong Meng,” 455.28. “Against Ru,” 300; see also 291.The Moist argument has interesting similarities to the

position of Robert Eno, who writes, “There is a sense here that the decree [ming] thatdetermines the failure of the Ruist political mission almost frees the Ruist, extricatinghim from the toils of political responsibilities and allowing him to retire, at leastpartially, into the pure ritual practice of the Ruist community.” See this in his TheConfucian Creation of Heaven (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990),92–93.

29. “Gong Meng,” 449–51, 296–97.This principle might be implicit in Mengzi’s attempt tojustify his role in Qi’s invasion of Yan (Mengzi, 2B8). An official of Qi asks Mengzi ifYan can be invaded and Mengzi answers that it can.When later accused of sanctioningQi’s invasion, Mengzi explains that if he had been asked if Qi could invade Yan, hewould have said no. But this was not the question. Mengzi’s explanation seems weakand odd, but it would make more sense if it implicitly invokes an established policy onanswering questions only according to what is asked. The same metaphor appears inthe “Xue Ji” chapter of the Li Ji (Xidan Sun, ed., Li Ji Jijie [Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju,1989], 969) and in the Xing Zi Ming Chu (Liu, Guodian Chujian Jiaoyi, 93, strip 5), butwith different uses. For a discussion of both, see Tianhong Li, Guodian ZhujianXingzimingchu Yanjiu (Wuhan: Hubei Jiaoyu Chubanshe, 2002), 140.

30. Although defending the Ru conception of ming, Ted Slingerland acknowledges thispoint: “This awe [of ming] is, however, rather passive in the sense that it pertains tosomething beyond the realm of human agency. Just as one should “show reverence forghosts and spirits but keep them at a distance,” one should maintain a healthy respect


for the power of ming while nonetheless concentrating on the task at hand—self-cultivation.” “The Conception of Ming in Early Confucian Thought,” PhilosophyEast and West 46, no. 4 (1996): 573.

31. Ted Slingerland takes this interpretation in an attempt to find a consistent theory ofming in early Ru texts, writing,“Ming refers to forces that lie in the outer realm—thatis, the realm beyond the bounds of human endeavor, or the area of life in which‘seeking does not contribute to one’s getting it.’ This external world is not the concernof the gentleman, whose efforts are to be concentrated on the self—the inner realm inwhich ‘seeking contributes to one’s getting it.’ ” Ibid., 568.

32. In Lun Yu, 14.38, Kongzi is described as one who “knows it cannot be done but stilldoes it.”

33. Quoted in Jinan Wu, Mojia Zhexue (Taibei: Wunan Tushu Chuban, 2003), 347–48.34. Ethics, Part V, Proposition 6, from Edwin Curley, trans. and ed., A Spinoza Reader:The

Ethics and Other Works (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 249.35. “Will of Tian I,” in Mozi Xiangu, ed.Yirang Sun (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2001), 193.36. “Gong Meng,” 462–63; “Questions of Lu,” in Mozi Xiangu, ed. Yirang Sun (Beijing:

Zhonghua Shuju, 2001), 476–77.37. “Geng Zhu,” in Mozi Xiangu, ed. Sun Yirang (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 2001), 428.38. “Gong Meng,” 463–64.39. Jinyan Cao, ed., Guishen zhi Ming, in Shanghai Bowuguancang Zhanguo Chuzhujian

V, ed. Chengyuan Ma (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 2005), 307–21.40. Ma, ed., Zhanguo Chuzhujian V, 316–20. While the point of the passage is clear, its

details are not. The translation follows Jinyan Cao, but for an alternate version, seeMingchun Liao, “Du ‘Guishen zhi Ming’ Pian Zhaji,” http://www.confucius2000.com/admin/list.asp?id=2250.

41. Ma, ed., Zhanguo Chuzhujian V, 306–7.42. The claim that tian is constantly with the good is made in chapter 79. Chapter 63 says

to repay anger with virtue (de) and chapter 49 says to be good to the good and the notgood. Chapter 74 is taken by many commentators as saying that tian is the executionerand that earthly rulers should not usurp its role.

43. For a fuller examination of these points, see the essay by Hui-chieh Loy in thiscollection.

44. “Gong Meng,” 461–62.45. In reference to the Mozi, Hansen writes, “The test of correct language is not that it

semantically states the actual or true principle of morality. (The test is certainly notwhether the language is an accurate picture of objective facts.) He does not literallyargue for believing in spirits any more than Confucius does! He points to the prag-matic benefits of speaking this way.” (Hansen, A Daoist Theory, 118.)

46. A. C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China(LaSalle: Open Court Press, 1991), 50.

47. Lun Yu, 12.5.48. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff, trans., Phaedrus 275e, in Plato Complete

Works, ed. John Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997), 552.49. Edward Shaughnessy has an excellent discussion of the formation and organization of

“books” based on his study of excavated texts. While not saying when the widespreadcirculation of texts on bamboos strips began, he does argue that at least the Shi Jing,the Books of Songs, had something near its definitive contents “no later than thefourth or even the fifth century BC.” (Edward Shaughnessy, Rewriting Early ChineseTexts [Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006], 55.)

50. Lun Yu, 11.22, which shows Kongzi giving opposite answers to the same questionwhen asked by different students, was probably inserted for this reason. Passage 7B24in the Mengzi functions similarly, pointing out the difference between what is deter-mined by ming and what a gentleman says is determined by ming. The form of theMengzi raises interesting comparisons with Plato. We know that some Ru werecomposing essays at least near the end of Mengzi’s life, so the short dialogue form ofthe Mengzi was not the only option.Was it a deliberate tactic for negotiating the limitsof writing, in the way that Plato’s choice to write dialogues seems meant to mitigatethe dangerous way that writing spreads ideas without context?


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