Are you proposing this as a new thing that few yet believe in, but many should, or as a description of the system that already sorta seems to exist?
I look up Mohism, and… it kinda seems like this is just “how all vaguely liberal nation-states downstream of the the enlightenment already run” basically?
Or at least if you accused them of NOT running this way (accusing them of being unethical, or not merit-based, or wasteful) they would already experience it as an attack?
Central elements of Mohist thought include advocacy of a unified ethical and political order grounded in a consequentialist ethic emphasizing impartial concern for all; active opposition to military aggression and injury to others; devotion to utility and frugality and condemnation of waste and luxury; support for a centralized, authoritarian state led by a virtuous, benevolent sovereign and managed by a hierarchical, merit-based bureaucracy… Mohist ethics and epistemology are characterized by a concern with finding objective standards that will guide judgment and action reliably and impartially so as to produce beneficial, morally right consequences. The Mohists assume that people are naturally motivated to do what they believe is right, and thus with proper moral education will generally tend to conform to the correct ethical norms. They believe strongly in the power of discussion and persuasion to solve ethical problems and motivate action, and they are confident that moral and political questions have objective answers that can be discovered and defended by inquiry.
Virtually the only thing missing here is voting on who the leader should be, and how that leader should be restricted to roughly a decade of service in the top role.
Also the ”...” was to cut out a bit about heaven and ghosts, although descriptively it does seem that the political operators in many modern nation states do give lip service to a confused mishmash of the best/shared parts of many religions, so maybe even that’s descriptively accurate?
The primary goal of this document is to articulate my personal moral philosophy, and I use the Mohism branding because it has strong corollaries to said moral philosophy, but otherwise I am reinventing it from scratch.
I do think that a lot of the core tenets are widely (if subconsciously) held. As for the ones that aren’t widely held, I personally think they should be. But, like any good Neo-Mohist, I’m willing to be convinced otherwise. ;)
The phrasing of this as a philosophy for others to adopt is mostly an aesthetic decision, a reframing to help me look at it more critically.
Are you proposing this as a new thing that few yet believe in, but many should, or as a description of the system that already sorta seems to exist?
I look up Mohism, and… it kinda seems like this is just “how all vaguely liberal nation-states downstream of the the enlightenment already run” basically?
Or at least if you accused them of NOT running this way (accusing them of being unethical, or not merit-based, or wasteful) they would already experience it as an attack?
Virtually the only thing missing here is voting on who the leader should be, and how that leader should be restricted to roughly a decade of service in the top role.
Also the ”...” was to cut out a bit about heaven and ghosts, although descriptively it does seem that the political operators in many modern nation states do give lip service to a confused mishmash of the best/shared parts of many religions, so maybe even that’s descriptively accurate?
The primary goal of this document is to articulate my personal moral philosophy, and I use the Mohism branding because it has strong corollaries to said moral philosophy, but otherwise I am reinventing it from scratch.
I do think that a lot of the core tenets are widely (if subconsciously) held. As for the ones that aren’t widely held, I personally think they should be. But, like any good Neo-Mohist, I’m willing to be convinced otherwise. ;)
The phrasing of this as a philosophy for others to adopt is mostly an aesthetic decision, a reframing to help me look at it more critically.