Mohists

[Jamie in Chile]

In What We Owe The Future by William MacAskill, he mentions that the collapse of the Zhou dynasty in the 6th century BC somehow led to a golden age of Chinese philosophy later known as the hundred schools of thought.

They were said to be altruistic consequentialists/utilitarians, 2000 years before they school of thought became popular in the West with the likes of Jeremy Bentham.

Eventually they lost out to Confucianism, which seems to be more about self improvement, traditions, families and authorities.

Shame the mohists didn´t win out maybe?

(Note I´ve only spent 15 minutes in total reading about this.)

[teo123]

I am not buying into Utilitarianism due to the "harvesting the homeless" paradox. State Utilitarianism is probably even worse than Individual Utilitarianism. I am more of a Deontologist. But not a Kant-like Deontologist. Unlike Kant, I think there isn't much wrong with egoism.