Ep. 313: Mozi's Political Ethics (Part Two)
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
Mark Linsenmayer
4.6 • 2.3K Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Continuing on the central Mohist text, with guest Tzuchien Tho.
We talk about Mozi's ideas about encouraging morality, preventing war, restricting music and elaborate funerals, plus the Will of Heaven, identification with one's superiors, and fatalism.
Get more at partiallyexaminedlife.com. Visit partiallyexaminedlife.com/support to get ad-free episodes and a supporter-exclusive part three to this discussion.
Sponsors: Check out the Continuing the Conversation web series by St. John's College at sjc.edu. Check out the Hermitix podcast at hermitix.net.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | We're going to be doing a live show in New York City on April 15th at 7pm, |
| 0:05.0 | discussing Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. You can purchase tickets either to come in person |
| 0:10.5 | or for our live stream at partialexaminalife.com slash live. |
| 0:23.2 | You're listening to Parts of the Exam in Life episode 313 Part 2, we'll be discussing |
| 0:28.5 | Motzu with Sushin Tohir. And I understand we have you at least for a part of this second half. |
| 0:34.8 | Let's get into it. I had a point that I thought was a key puzzle piece here which is this is actually |
| 0:40.9 | in the funerals section on page 70, which answers the question, how do people become evil? |
| 0:46.9 | Which is through deprivation, right? This funerals section is all about why should you not put |
| 0:52.6 | extraordinary amounts of money into funerals and take three years out of your life to mourn |
| 0:58.2 | when your parent dies and things like this? Well, it's because everybody needs to do their jobs. |
| 1:03.0 | We need to keep generating wealth for the state. If those in superior positions do not attend |
| 1:06.8 | at the fairs of government, disorder will results. If those in inferior positions do not pursue their |
| 1:10.9 | tasks, there will not be enough food and clothing. And here's the key point. And if there's not |
| 1:15.0 | enough food and clothing, then the younger brother seeking help from the older brother, |
| 1:18.2 | brother receiving none will feel no more love for his older brother, but instead will come to hate him. |
| 1:22.1 | Same with the son, the minister seeking help from his lord, but receiving none will become |
| 1:26.7 | disloyal. Then evil and it's in dogs living together. Then evil and immoral people with neither |
| 1:32.8 | clothing to go brought in nor food at home will be stung by shame in their hearts and will give |
| 1:37.8 | themselves up to uncontrollable evil and violence. Thus thieves and bandits increase in number and |
| 1:43.2 | law abiding persons grow few. So there you go. There is a material. It's not just like some people are |
| 1:49.1 | just evil or we just all have free will. It's people are driven to evil from death. He does include |
| 1:54.7 | that mechanism inside though. So it's the material conditions turn the heart evil. So he does have |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Mark Linsenmayer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Mark Linsenmayer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.