Study On Mohist School's Idea Of Equality

The early days of Qing Dynasty is a time when great social changes were happening in Chinese history. At that time, not only the society and economy developed rapidly in all regions, but also political and military conflicts broke out among five hegemonies and seven major states. Because of the emergence of the esquire class, who conformed to these great social and historical changes and advanced various opinions about how to save the country, a hundred schools of thought were formed and contending culturally among each other, represented by the schools of Confucianism, Jurist, Taoism and Mohist. Such a complexion demonstrated an unprecedented energy and vitality and admired by later scholars, resulting in everlasting longing and interest of studying.Legal thought is an important part of these different schools of thought. The author attempts to make a microcosmic analysis on the legal thought of Mohist School representing the interest of small-sized producers, hence set forth his own theoretical point of view, i.e., the legal thought of Mohist School is a thought of equality with a strong latter-day modern implication. This dissertation is based on such an idea.This dissertation consists of the foreword and main text. The main text has four chapters.The first chapter discusses the ways by which the Mohist School's legal thought of equality was manifested in three sections. By combining with the evolution of the concept of equality, the first section analyzes legal implication of equality; the second section illustrates the equal requirements in ancient china, point out the significance of the emergency of public authority to equality; based on these two sections, the third section mainly makes a microcosmic analysis on the legal thought of equality of Mohist School, which is the emphasis of this dissertation. It is held that such a legal thought of equality is embodied in Mozi's political and legal arguments concerning "Tianzhi", "Jianai", "Shangtong", "Shangxian", "Feigong", etc.By case studying, the second chapter makes probe into the source and developments of Mohist School's legal thought of equality in two sections. The first section begins with analyzing Mohist's source and continues to research about the source of its legal thought of equality. Various sources of those manifestations of such a thought are specifically referred to. The second section puts emphasis on the evolution of Mohist School's legal thought of equality, which was different from that of other schools. A historical fact is that, since the Qing and Han Dynasties, such a legal thought of equality has had not disappeared despite that Mohist School died away. It is suggested by the author that, this thought was absorbed by Confucianism's representative Mengzi, Xunzi and Jurist School's representative Shangyang, Hanfei, thus gaining its regeneration by blending with legal thoughts of Confucianism and Jurist School.The third chapter uses the methodology of comparison to contrast Mohist School with Confusicanism and Jurist in two sections. The first section compares the legal thought of Mohist with that of Confucianism not only from different manifestation of law, i.e., "Li"and "Tianzhi", but also from different spirits of law, i.e., "Renai" and "Jianai". In the second section, differences between legal thoughts of Mohist and Confucianism are distinguished from four aspects, which are opinions of origin of law, nature of law, role of law, value orientation of judiciary. It is concluded that Mohist put emphasis on equality while Confucianism and jurist stress legal thought of ranking.Another new opinion is stress in the fourth chapter, which is the undeniable modern implication and value of Mohist's legal thought of equality. In two sections, the main topic is discussed, beginning from introducing latter-day and modern studies on Mohist. As to its latter-day implication, it mainly analyzes the influence of Mohist's legal thought of equality on legal renovation movement happ...