Episode 17: The Mohist State of Nature Argument

In this episode, we delve into the Mozi’s "state of nature argument," a vision of human life before political order and an explanation of how humans left that state. The Mohists were history’s first consequentialists and an important and influential classical school of thought. Were they right about the foundations of political society and government? Join us as we examine the Mohists' most influential moral and political ideas and explore how moral disagreement and self-interest shape political order.

Many thanks to The Hong Kong Ethics Lab for sponsoring this podcast series.

Want to continue the discussion? Need links to some of the sources mentioned? Go to the support page for this episode on Warp, Weft, and Way.

We thank Lena Li (LI La 李拉 ) for her expert editing and sound engineering. We also thank the blog Warp, Weft & Way for hosting the discussion for this episode.

Co-hosts:
Richard Kim's website
Justin Tiwald's website

Chapters

• 0:00 Part I -- Introduction
• 8:48 • Preface to today's topic
• 20:04 Part II -- Mohism and the state of nature
• 24:43 • First part of the Mohist state of nature argument: the diagnosis
• 28:42 • Second part of the Mohist state of nature argument: the solution
• 35:38 • Can disagreements about norms really account for the dissolution of families?
• 41:38 • Unifying norms
• 45:33 • Disharmony based in self-interest vs. disharmony based in ethical disagreement
• 52:55 • The Mohist understanding of human psychology
• 53:56 • How flexible are the Mohists about acceptable norms?
• 57:03 • Who chooses the Son of Heaven? The people of the world? Heaven?
• 1:12:43 • In addition to having norms that are unified, is there a basis for determining whether they are good or bad? What is that basis?