Mozi (墨子) and the Caretaker Argument

The ancient Chinese philosopher Mozi (墨子) lived during the middle of 5th Century BCE. Not much is known about him, though the Records of the Grand Historian (史記), completed around 94 BCE, reports that he was an official in the state of Song around the time that Confucius (孔子) lived. He may also have been an artisan from the state of Lu, Confucius’s own home state.

Mozi was the first philosopher in history known to argue for a consequentialist theory of ethics. The Mozi, written by his followers, contains the ten main doctrines of Mohism, including a defense of “impartiality” over the Confucian doctrine that one should be more partial to those in one’s own family. Instead, Mozi advocated for a state version of consequentialism according to which the benevolent person should promote what is beneficial for all and eliminate what is harmful for all.

As far as we know, the Mohists were the first to introduce explicit argumentation into their philosophy in ancient China, including the use of thought experiments. In the so-called “Caretaker Argument”, Mozi asks: If you had to entrust your family to someone else’s care, who would you prefer, the partial caretaker or the impartial caretaker?

Learn more:

• Hannah Kim, Teaching Asian Texts through Bridge Concepts
• Chris Fraser, The Philosophy of the Mozi: The First Consequentialists

Maimonides and the Guide for the Perplexed

Maimonides or Moses ben Maimon (Rambam in Hebrew), a 12th century Jewish philosopher (1138–1204) of the Medieval period, was born in Cordoba, Spain. At the time, Spain was under Moorish rule, and Islamic philosophers like Averroes (also from Cordoba) clearly influenced Maimonides. Change in rulers led his family to flee Spain for North Africa, first to Morocco and later to Egypt (Cairo), where Maimonides settled. Maimonides’ first work, the Mishneh Torah, codified Jewish law, a singular achievement that continues to have an impact. His later work includes extensive medical writings.

Maimonides’ most famous philosophical work is The Guide for the Perplexed (1190). Styled as a letter to a student, it addresses the tensions between the knowledge gained from philosophy (from reason) and the theological knowledge derived through the figurative language of biblical texts (from revelation). 

In that work, he prioritizes the role of the intellect in discovering the reasons why things are as they are, whether that be causal relationships, the authority of the law, or the proper course of action. His intellectualism is paired with a commitment to free will, as that which enables us to pursue understanding, to apply that understanding to action, and to be held accountable both by ourselves and others for what we do.

Maimonides does maintain that our reason has limits, and in particular we cannot fully comprehend God intellectually. In the face of these limits, we rely on the imaginative and figurative language of religion.

The work was considered controversial as it seemed to undermine the authority of biblical texts.

Image credits: By Ambroz - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53017244 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mosh%C3%A9_ben_Maim%C3%B3n.jpg

Learn more:

• https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/maimonides/
• https://iep.utm.edu/maimonid/
• https://historyofphilosophy.net/maimonides
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARUWlEoHFG4&ab_channel=BBCPodcasts
• Tamar Rudavsky, Maimonides (Great Minds Series in philosophy) (Blackwell-Wiley Press: 2010).

Dionísia Gonçalves Pinto on women’s rights and men’s injustice

Brazilian poetess, writer and educator, Dionísia Gonçalvez Pinto (1810-1885) was born in Papari, a small town in Northeastern Brazil. The town later changed its name to Nísia Floresta, Dionísia’s pen name, in remembrance of Brazil’s first feminist.

Nísia Floresta was probably the first Brazilian woman with her own column in a local newspaper. Here she wrote about the unfair life of Brazilian women. At the age of 22, she published her first book, Direitos das Mulheres e Injustiça dos Homens (Women’s rights and men’s injustice), as a translation of Woman not Inferior to Man by Mary Wortley Montagu. In this, Nísia was one of the first Brazilian women to talk publicly about women rights. A few years later, she founded her own schools for teaching History, Mathematics, and even Latin to women, which at the time were considered scandalous.

In 1849, inspired by Chateaubriand, Nísia published her first poem, A lágrima de um Caeté (The tears of a Caete), which explored the degradation of Brazilian first natives through exploitation by white men. The poem mentions rapes, land appropriation, and cultural destruction. Her book also mentions the horror of one of many civil wars in a Brazil before the Republic.

Nísia gained the attention and respect of Brazilian liberals because she explored not only the suffering of all, not just women, during the Revolução Praieira.

Nísia eventually published 15 books, which were translated into English, Italian, and French. She travelled extensively in Europe, analyzing politics and commenting on women’s issues. Her collection of essays, Opúsculo Humanitário (Humanitarian Short Opus), defends women’s emancipation. In it, she posits that society’s progress can only be evaluated by how important women are within it.

Image credit: Edit - we've been told that this image is not Floresta so we're looking for a verified image to put in its place. By Unknown author - http://www.agendabh.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/nisia-floresta.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90965170

Further Readings: “Gender, Race and Patriostim in the Works of Nisia Floresta” by Charlotte Hammond Matthews  https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt3fgnb1