The Augustinian Concept of Love: From Hannah Arendt’s Interpretation to Impartial Love of Mozi

Abstract

Augustine and Mozi are doubtlessly two of the most important theorists about love in the Western and Chinese traditions. Augustine has made a sharp distinction between caritas and cupiditas, whereas Mozi proposes the theory of impartial love (jian’ai 兼爱). Hannah Arendt has made her irreplaceable contribution to the understanding of the Augustinian concept of caritas in her work with the title Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin, Versuch einer Philosophischen Interpretation (1929). She treats the central question of whether for Augustine love towards neighbors has an independent value. In the Chinese tradition, Mozi proposes the theory of impartial love as a remedy for disposing of the disorders of society on the one hand, but on the other hand to love others impartially comes ultimately from the divine command of tian or Heaven, and tian seems to be the final authority or standard for being morally good and righteousness. It needs explanation or clarification if Mozi commits an inconsistency by holding two different ethical principles. In this article, I will first concentrate on discovering the fundamental characteristics of caritas and cupiditas, and then turn to dealing with the problem of the instrumentalization of the others in the love towards neighbors if they are used as tools to ascend to God’s love. In the last part, I will discuss the impartial love of Mozi and compare it with that of Augustine to see their distinctions and similarities. We will see that through the comparison we can obtain a better understanding of the concept of love in different traditions.

1. Introduction: Caritas in Augustine and Impartial Love in Mozi

Augustine was the first philosopher to consider systematically the problem of free will and its driving force—appetitus. He developed two central concepts of appetitus: caritas and cupiditas, which manifest the basic structure of human appetitus. As Aixin Hu (2022) argues, the deepest problem of the Augustinian concept of love is how the different forms of love, the love of God, the love of neighbors, the love of the world, the love of oneself, etc., could be included in a single concept of love. I will not go into this problem here, but instead I will use Hannah Arendt’s interpretation to shed light on the Augustinian concept of caritas. Arendt thoroughly examined the nature of the two concepts in her doctoral dissertation. According to Arendt, caritas and cupiditas have completely opposite direction or structure, because what cupiditas desires is things, which cling to the world, but what caritas desires is the eternal and absolute future.1 The fundamental battle between rational desires and non-rational desires in Plato and Aristotle can be understood as the original picture or source for the Augustinian concept of cupiditas and caritas.2 Why do I feel inclined to use the interpretation of Hannah Arendt to approach to the concept of love in Augustine? Arendt sharply highlights the contradiction in Augustine’s concept of love by distinguishing between two concepts of caritas and cupiditas. Another reason is that she emphasized the problem of the instrumentalization of neighbors in love of God in Augustine, possibly due to her reflections on the equal relationships among individuals in politics. The positive comment of Nygren has shown that Arendt’s work is inspiring and challenging in understanding Christian love. When he reviewed her work in the early 1930s, he said that her work was excellent and had astonishing analytical depth (Nygren 1953).3 Another challenge which the Augustinian concept of caritas has to handle is the problem of the instrumentalization of the neighbors in love towards God. But if we look into the texts, we will find that the Augustinian caritas does not instrumentalize the neighbors, i.e., use the others merely as tools for one’s own ascent to the love of God.

Some other modern authors, such as Oliver O’Donovan, John Burnaby, Carol Harrison, etc., have also made their significant contributions to the discussion on the Augustinian concept of love in their works, and some might agree with the interpretative line of Arendt and some might not agree with this kind of sharp distinction between caritas and cupiditas or the entire dualism between agape and eros (O’Donovan 2006; Burnaby 2007; Harrison 2018). But what I want to highlight in this article is the question of how Arendt’s interpretation could help us understand the depth and the problems which the Augustinian concept of love has, without simultaneously devaluating or denying the contributions made by other authors. Arendt’s interpretation is proved to be only one approach and provides us only one perspective for understanding the Augustinian concept of love, even though her interpretation might seem to be problematic for some readers.

In the history of Chinese philosophy, Mohists and Confucianists represent the two leading and even conflicting interpretations of love. The theory of love of Mozi bears more similarities with the concept of caritas of Augustine and is more interesting and worthier of comparing with the latter. Mozi has developed a concept of jian’ai 兼爱, which can be translated as “impartial love or regard, universal love, impartial care, inclusive care”. If we look into the three chapters entitled by this term (chps. 14, 15, 16) and the chapters of “the Will of Heaven” (tianzhi 天志,chps. 26, 27, 28), then the problem of instrumentalizing the neighbors as stepping stones in the ascent to the love of God is not present in the Mohists’ theory of love, because for them the love of neighbors and the love of Heaven or tian are not potentially in conflict, and the two kinds of love are not two competitive elements at all. The Mohists treat the love of tian or Heaven and of neighbors equally, and there is no uti–frui distinction in Mohists. However, recent studies show another problem hidden in the theory of love in Mozi and his followers that they are inconsistent because they apparently hold two incompatible moral standards, i.e., the utilitarian standard and that of a divine command theory. According to the latter, the ultimate moral principle is grounded in the divine will of the Heaven but, according to the former, Mozi and his followers are utilitarian thinkers; to love others is right action because it benefits the others and the world. We will see that the tension between the love of neighbors and the love of God in Augustine takes another form in Mozi.

In this article, I will first concentrate on discovering the fundamental characteristics of caritas and cupiditas, and then turn to dealing with the problem of the instrumentalization of others in the love of neighbors because the neighbors are not loved for themselves but used as tools to ascend to God’s love. In the last part, I will discuss the impartial love of Mozi and compare it with that of Augustine to see their distinctions and similarities. We will see that through the comparison we can obtain a better understanding of the concept of love in different traditions.

2. Caritas in Contrast to Cupiditas

Why did H. Arendt choose Augustine specifically?4 I think one of the most important reasons was that Augustine was brought to the foreground by several philosophers of the 20th century. Husserl saw Augustine as an irreplaceable philosopher in many respects, especially in the theory of the time (cf. Husserl, Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness, 1905) and, in his Cartesian Meditations (1931), he even treats Augustine’s philosophy as a forerunner of phenomenology. Heidegger also dealt with Augustine’s philosophy in several of his works: Sein und Zeit (1927, Halle a. d. S.), Augustinus und Neuplatonismus (1921, summer semester, Freiburg), der Begriff der Zeit (1924, Marburg); Geschichte der Philosophie von Thomas von Aquin bis Kant (1926/27, winter semester, Marburg). Jasper and H. Jonas have both written works about Augustine.

Arendt’s doctoral dissertation consists of three parts, the first two parts contain three chapters each. The title of the first part is “Amor qua appetitus” (love as craving or desire) and the title of the second part is “Creator–Creatura” (love in the relationship between people or creatures, and creator); the title of the third part is “Vita socialis” (the social life). Love as craving anticipates the future, while love for the Creator deals with the remembered past. Of the three, dilectio proximi or caritas is perceived as the most fundamental, to which the first two are oriented—the second of the Great Commandments (or Golden Rule) “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”. Arendt tries to respond to and complement the philosophy of Heidegger in her works. She emphasizes natality or the philosophy of being born instead of “Sein zum Tod”; she highlights human togetherness or plurality instead of the existential solipsism of Jemeinigkeit (each-one-ness) of Heidegger; she replies with her amor mundi to his critique of Verfallenheit (helpless addiction) to the world of humanity; to his Lichtung (clearing), she responds by philosophically promoting the importance of the “public” (cf. Kerekes 2022, pp. 8–10).

The most excellent analysis of the Augustinian concept of love which Hannah Arendt made is her clear distinction between cupiditas and caritas. Arendt uses different forms of the Augustinian concept of love and these include amor, caritas and dilectio, which were used mostly as synonyms by Saint Augustine. Amor is appetitus (desire) that is normally understood as craving or longing, and represents the most general structure of love; dilectio refers to the love of self, neighbors and the world; caritas is the highest form of love; it is the love of God and of the Highest Good. The methodology which Arendt used in her Liebesbegriff bei Augustin is to determine the essence of caritas by finding out the most important characteristics of cupiditas and, only in contrast to cupiditas, do we obtain the right path to caritas.

Human beings exist in a factual sense, but the meaning of the existence of human beings is not yet evident. The question of what does it mean to live in the world or what is the human life for cannot be simply answered based on this factual existence. According to Augustine, there are three substantial categories to classify things in the world, esse, vivere and intellegere. In the sense of esse, the stone, trees and other kinds of natural things can also be called being, while the animals also live in the world like human beings. Only intelligence makes a difference between human beings and the other two kinds of things. The word intellegere means etymologically a kind of inter-reading, inter-choosing or inter-collecting, and it bears from the beginning a fundamental connotation of having a reference to or a connection with the whole of beings. Therefore, he searches for the meaning of his factual existence. In this sense we can say that one of the most important characteristics of intellegere is reflexive thinking, i.e., to make himself a question (quaestio mihi factus sum). Arendt uses the quaestio from Augustine (1991) ’s Confessions as the opening theme for her philosophical analysis. To ask this question is to begin a lifelong task of thinking through the human being’s fundamental relationships to the world, to God and to other human beings. Only in this background can we understand that Augustine was a questioner by being a problem maker, a bewildered wanderer (roamer), a truth-oriented searcher, an error-maker, etc.…

In Arendt’s reading of Augustine, appetitus is the existential bond between the fundamentally isolated individuals and the rest of reality in the world. Without appetitus, the human being who raises the quaestio and embarks on the transit out of the world would devolve into the Cartesian cogito, the non-material “thinking thing” staring at its own thoughts and disconnected from the world. Cupiditas and caritas prove to be the fundamental expressions of this inborn appetitus. Cupiditas and caritas have the same structure insofar as both are targeted or directed towards the desired things, but their desired objects (amatum) make the differences. On account of the different desired objects, they can lead to totally different destinations. Cupiditas was seen as a false amor, which clings or sticks to the world and thus is worldly, while caritas, which was called the right amor, is directed towards eternity and thus the absolute future.

Now, I will try to crystallize the basic characteristics of cupiditas and caritas. (1) The first feature of cupiditas is timor, fear. In cupiditas, we are constantly driven to desire a bonum extra me or outside me in the belief that by pursuing this we can reach our beatitudo. But, soon, cupiditas can revert to fear (metus), because we can lose it at any time. As long as we desire res temporales (temporal things), we stand constantly in this threat. Therefore, the cupiditas habendi can become metus amittendi at any time. Since the temporalia bona are in the flux of coming and passing away or generation and corruption, we do not have the power to take control. At the end, life itself is also threatened by death, which brings life to a finis. (2) The second feature of cupiditas is dependence or enslavement. Arendt understands cupiditas as the “Aufhebung” of the isolation of the individual. Isolatedness implies that the individual is still separated from their own bonum. They need to come out of this isolatedness through desiring a good which lies outside of themselves in the world and is also out of their control. Cupiditas is dependent on the bonum, which is extra me; just because of this, cupiditas falls short of its own bonum. In this sense one is deprived of independence; one is not self-sufficient (sibi sufficit). (3) The third feature can be called the dispersion (dispersio).5 The human being will be scattered into the world through desiring the things extra me or “Vielerlei”, which are out of their control. They desire today this and tomorrow that. This kind of dispersion is the actual flight from the true self; Augustine speaks of this dispersion sometimes as lostness (Verlorenheit), which is intimately connected with the expression of curiositas,6 a kind of curiosity for nothing useful.

From this we can draw the conclusion that cupiditas cannot bring the human being to beate vivere. Consequentially, we can say that the wish of beatum esse velle cannot be fulfilled by cupiditas; on the contrary, it makes the human being an inhabitant or even a slave of the world.7 But the beata vita should be a kind of life free from any fear and can never be lost.

Regarding caritas, it shows just the opposite features and directions. In Arendt’s reading, caritas was grounded on the reversion to him- or herself triggered by “quaestio mihi factus sum”. Augustine thinks that only through self-reversion can the human being discover God.8 Self-discovery goes together with God-discovery. God is loved by human beings as light, vox odor of the interior homo, of which the human being cannot be deprived in the transience of time, because the dimension of eternity (aeternitas) comes into play in caritas. In de lib. arb. II 26, Augustine argues that God is the summum bonum, which is not any arbitrary good, but the right correlate of appetitus, which desires one’s own good. God is the absolute aeternitas for the human being, and the absoluteness of the future cannot be dispersed but extended or stretched (non distentus sed extentus).9 In Arendt’s reading, this extentus implies the true inhaerere deo, and can be reached only in self-forgetting or self-overleaping: transcendere.10 This transcendere can happen only in so-called self-renunciation, “der transitus des Selbst als Vergessen des Selbst”. The reason for the self-renunciation lies in the knowledge that God is the absolute future. Arendt describes this as follows:

By anticipating eternity (the absolute future) man desires his own future self and denies the I-myself he finds in earthly reality. In self-hatred and self-denial [B:03 3155] he hates and denies the present, mortal self that is, after all, God’s creation. The criterion of right and wrong in loving is not self-denial for the sake of others or of God, but for the sake of the eternity that lies ahead.

(Arendt 1996, p. 30)

Self-renunciation is essentially related to the consciousness of being created. This is embedded in the fundamental framework of the relation of creator–creatura. The second feature of caritas is the frui—the enjoyment (das Genießen):

According to Augustine the consummation occurs in the act of seeing because he understands vision as the most perfect mode of possession. Only the seen object stays and remains present as it is. What I hear or smell comes and goes, and what I touch is changed or even consumed by me. In contrast, the act of beholding is pure "enjoyment" (frui) in which no change occurs as long as it lasts. In the absolute calm and stability of eternal life, the relation of man to God will be an eternally lasting, beholding “enjoyment”, and this, as it were, is the only adequate attitude of man to God.

(Arendt 1996, p. 31)

If we compare cupiditas and caritas, we can find that their structure is exactly contrary to each other. They have completely different destinations, and show different understanding about one’s true self, the good and the human life. The turning point for the transition from cupiditas to caritas is death. In cupiditas, the human being is always threatened by the fear of losing what they have reached in death.

For Augustine, the essential condition of caritas is the creation that God is the Creator, and we are his creature; therefore, God is the origin or source of the creature. This metaphysical understanding about our generation is the unshakeable foundation for caritas. The doctrine is that the human being is a creatum esse, they have their being not through themselves, but from God as the absolute and eternal being, as summe esse. How can this metaphysical understanding relate to our lives or our desires? Or what kind of consequence results out of this belief? This doctrine is connected with our lives in our desires of the beata vita through memoria. Because God is our origin, our desire of beata vita or beate vivere shows a kind of structure of memoria. The beata vita will be guaranteed through memoria, which brings us beyond this worldly past, because the beata vita cannot be found in our earthly life.

Since the “return to oneself” is an act of recollection, it is identical to a return to the Creator. Man loves himself by relating to God as his Maker. Just as desire, striving for the “happy life”, derives its meaning from a memory that recalls it, however vaguely, from a transcendent region, so the creature in its createdness derives its sense of meaningfulness from a source that precedes its creation, that is, from the Maker who made it. The source as Creator antedates the created object and has always existed. Since the creature would be nothing without this source, its relation to its origin is the very first factor establishing it as conscious entity. The very fact that man has not made himself but was created implies that the meaningfulness of human existence both lies outside itself and antedates it.

(Arendt 1996, p. 50)

The structure of our being is the fieri (being made) and mutari (being changed, Conf. XI 6); therefore, our being has a fundamental structure of dependence on the creator or the origin. Our being is determined through fieri, so they have a beginning; thus, they are subordinated to mutability.

3. The Dilemma of Augustinian Caritas in Arendt’s Liebesbegriff bei Augustin

Arendt revealed the hidden dilemma or the conflicts of different forms of love, especially between caritas (the love of God) and dilectio proximi (the love of the neighbor) and amor mundi (the love of the world).11 On the one hand, Arendt believes that the love of the neighbor springs from caritas, because it goes back to two basic relations: first, the love towards the neighbor is the commandment of God (to love one’s neighbor as God does, sicut Deus); second, one loves one’s neighbor as one loves oneself (tamquam se ipsum). Love is the essence of all the several commandments. In view of these two basic relations, we have to confront the question of the value and place of the love of neighbors and the problem of the homonymy of the concept of love in Augustine. Love is homonymous because it can refer to different forms: the human’s love of God, God’s love of the human being, the human’s love of neighbors and self. If all kinds of love spring ultimately from the caritas of God, then we will ask what kind of nature love has so that it can comprehend such different kinds of love in itself? What can guarantee the unanimity or unity of love. Arendt describes the dilemma very clearly in her book:

In accepting God’s love man has denied himself. Now he loves and hates as God does. By renouncing himself man at the same time renounces all worldly relations. He then views himself solely as created by God, rejecting whatever he himself has made and whatever relations he has established. In this way the neighbor loses the meaning of his concrete worldly existence, for example, as friend or enemy. For the lover who loves as God loves, the neighbor ceases to be anything but a creature of God. The lover meets a man defined by God’s love simply as God’s creation. All meet in this love, denying themselves and their mutual ties. … Because man is tied to his own source [God], he loves his neighbor neither for his neighbor’s sake nor for his own sake. Love of neighbor leaves the lover himself in absolute isolation and the world remains a desert for man’s isolated existence.

(Arendt 1996, p. 94)

Self-renunciation and estrangement from the world make the world a desert for people’s isolated existence. We can find many other places which could be seen as the proofs of the negligibility of actual self and particular neighbors. The threat is that, in Arendt’s understanding, the absolute centrality of God in caritas tends to eradicate the uniqueness and individuality of both self and neighbors, since God is the ultimate object of love and everything else, including the other persons around us, are worthy of being loved only because they were created beings, not because they are individual persons in themselves. Nygren noticed this in the review of Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin; he affirmed that Arendt has rightly seen the problem and the limits of Augustine’s understanding of neighborly love. He thought that the love of the neighbor in Augustine is not love “concerned with the neighbor in his concrete situation, but with his “nature” as created by God”. Both Arendt and Nygren think that the love of the neighbor was instrumentalized by the agent, because the agent treats the love of the neighbor merely as a stepping stone for attaining the love of God and fulfilling their own happiness. Nygren writes in his book “love to neighbor is the ladder on which we can mount up to God” (Nygren 1953, p. 552). It seemed that the love of neighbor was thought to be as a rung on the ladder of the human’s ascent to God.

According to Arendt, the love of the neighbor sacrifices the individuality of the other, and the neighbor or the other fellow human being is only relevant to me insofar as they can prepare one for the love of God or be thought of as an object of divine grace. The authentic way of being for a human being is amator Dei, not amator mundi. According to the criterion of frui–uti distinction, the world and our neighbor cannot be loved for themselves, for only the love of God can be enjoyed in itself, or only God can be loved for His own sake, but the love of neighbors and the world are supposed to be derivative and instrumental. Therefore, Arendt infers that the theological concept of neighborly love cannot be the foundation for the individuality and the importance of the others and is unable to establish the public vinculum (bond) in social life.

Scholars have tried to resolve the problem from different perspectives; Gunnar Hultgren in his work, Le Commandement d’amour chez Augustin (Hultgren 1939), has discovered two different attempts of ratio or two approaches to the problem of love in Augustine; one approach is the eudaimonistic scheme of the human’s longing for their own happiness, which is to be found mainly in De Beata Vita and Contra Academicos; the other approach is the ontological and ethical framework, which emphasizes that the love towards neighbors is to be understood as the eternal law, and the commandment of God is in accordance with the ordo rerum created by God who is summum bonum (cf. Hultgren 1939, pp. 31–50). With regards to the first eudaimonistic approach, human beings’ desire for their own happiness motivates them to love God, the Highest Good, but the problem is what motivates an agent to love their neighbors since the latter is not the ultimate goal of their eudaimonistic desire, which is to say, it is not the good to enjoy (frui). In this view, we can easily reach the conclusion that the value of the love of neighbors lies only in promoting the agent’s own love for God and in aiding them to attain happiness. Hultgren has argued that the love of the neighbor also has an important value in Augustine which aims at bringing benefits to neighbors by way of enhancing their love for God. However, the problem still remained unresolved because, according to Hultgren, the aim of the love of neighbors still lies in making the neighbor love God in one’s own manner and, hence, the love towards neighbors has no value per se. If we grant that there is no independent place for the love towards neighbors in the eudaimonistic framework, then we need also to deal with the ontological and ethical framework that the love towards neighbors is the commandment of God and thus in accordance with the order of things created by God.12

Raymond Canning has developed a very persuasive defense against the charge of instrumentalizing the love of neighbors afflicting the Augustinian concept of caritas in his article, “Love of Neighbor in St. Augustine: A preparation for or the essential moment of Love for God?” (Canning 1983). According to Canning, Augustine indeed treats the love for neighbors as a step (gradus) to the love for God in the period prior to 396 at least four times. The most quoted texts are those of De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae, in which Augustine takes the love for neighbors and the bond of love among people as steps to love for God (gradus ad amorem Dei, De Moribus. 1.26,48; 1.26,50). Canning argues, however, that the locus classicus does not intend to imply a relentless contempt for the good of others or a selfish instrumentalization of others, and “the step-image can be coherently reconciled with seeking others’ advantage” (see Canning 1983, p. 16). By drawing on the texts from De Quantitate Animae 34,78 (ML 32, 1078) and De Musica 6,14,46 (ML 32,1187), Canning understands the gradus as different levels of created reality having their own distinct goodness and beauty, and, in this sense, Augustine sees the gradus as actus, which brings beauty and goodness to their own level of creation in accordance with God’s will. Canning insists on the claim that the love for the neighbor also has an independent value in Augustine, and it is not simply a purely human step which is discardable once it has attained its goal of bringing the neighbor to God (see Canning 1983, p. 16).

Arendt dealt with the problem in the third part in her book where she claims that the ground for community of the faithful is not based on the fact that the individual internal experiences point to God as the same object but on the common fate of the faithful. The love of the neighbor can be justified only in the concrete common social and historical situations, in which the faithful are to each other just as companions in fate. The community of the faith is based on the double facts that humanity or humankind originates from Adam and has its common share in original sin. Arendt describes this situation in the following words:

This second fact is the common descent from Adam, the foundation of a definite and obligatory equality among all people. This equality exists because, as Augustine writes, “the human race was instituted, as if rooted [tamquam radicaliter], in Adam”. “Rooted” means that no one can escape from this descent, and in this descent the most crucial determinant of human existence has been instituted once for all. Thus, what unites all people is not an accidental likeness (simultudo). Rather, their likeness is necessarily founded and historically fixed in their common descent from Adam and in a kinship beyond any mere likeness! O This kinship creates an equality neither of traits nor of talents, but of situation. All share the same fate. The individual is not alone in this world. He has companions-in-fate (consortes), not merely in this situation or that, but for a lifetime. His entire life is regarded as a distinct fateful situation, the situation of mortality. Therein lies the kinship of all people and at the same time their fellowship.

(societas, see Arendt 1996, p. 100)

In Arendt’s view, the love towards neighbors is rooted or embedded in the origin of the human race and in the structure of human existence itself; in other words, what unites all human beings is not an accidental likeness or all people belonging to humankind; rather, their likeness is established in the very historical fact that all humankind originates from Adam. Hence, this kind of union or connection causes an equality of neither characters nor talents, but of situation that all share the same fateful situation, the situation of mortality (cf. Wang 2016, pp. 215–20). In dealing with the justification and the value of the love of the neighbor, especially in the view of the dualistic distinction between caritas and cupiditas, Arendt seems to fall into a dilemma. On the one hand, she believes that, according to Augustine, the escape into solitude or the forsaking of the love of the neighbor is sinful because it could deprive the other of the chance to change, and the divine grace gives a new meaning to human togetherness, namely the defense against the old world which is the foundation of the new city, the city of God (see Arendt 1996, p. 108).13 But, on the other hand, she thinks that the individual is in danger of being completely forgotten in the community of the faith or of Christ, because the individual has ceased to be anything but a member of the community of the faithful, and she understands this as the ultimate hyperbole. Arendt writes the following:

The community of Christ is understood as a body containing all individual members within itself. Each suffers with the others. Here lies the ultimate hyperbole of the idea that being is common to all. The individual is completely forgotten over this community. The individual has ceased to be anything but a member, and his entire being lies in the connection of all members in Christ. Mutual love becomes self-love, since the being of one’s own self is identified with the being of Christ, that is, with the being of the body in which it shares as a member. Augustine rarely uses this hyperbole in which the ambiguity of the human being in the world, expressed by the intermingling of the two cities, is eliminated. However, even if we disregard this hyperbole, the necessity of caritas is maintained against any tendency to isolate the believer altogether. This necessity no longer concerns one man or another who as such, in his worldly significance for the lover, may be good or bad. This necessity of caritas is concerned, in the explicitness of man’s own being, with the human being as a creature, that is, with the whole human race. Its sole determinant is what is common to all. This commonality alone is taken up in faith. What is common to all, as the common past of the human race, is sin.

(Arendt 1996, p. 109)

Here, Arendt mentions again the danger of being forgotten of the individuals in the community of the faithful, because their entire being depends on the communion of all members in Christ, and the individuals are not individuals per se, but seen only as members of the community and the being of their own self is tantamount to the being of Christ. The world fixes the past, the kinship is based on the common descent from Adam and sin, while the redemption means liberation from the common participation in original sin. Therefore, we can say that Arendt stresses the importance of love of neighbors based on the commonality of the same origin in the past and the community of the faithful, and only in the isolation of coram Deo (in front of God) does the other become a neighbor, but, on the other hand, he sees the danger of the neglect of the individuality of neighbors in mutual love, because questions about the other are not about the others’ worldly significance, but about the existence of others before God.

Canning has listed some other four possibilities which can prove that for Augustine neighborly love is to be categorized as a stepping stone to the love of God: love for the neighbor as a level in Augustine’s schemes of the spiritual life (1),14 as virtuous action cleansing the eye and the heart for contemplation (2),15 as destined to be rewarded by God (3)16 and love for neighbor as wings for rising up to God (4).17 Canning has clarified that each of them should not be read as a proof for the charge of instrumentalization of the others in the love of neighbors. He writes the following:

Close acquaintance with the five ascent contexts has led to the growing conviction that Augustinian love for neighbor may not be considered as a self-evident extrinsic condition that is of value only insofar as it prepares for and leads to love for God… Our analysis, however, has shown that it gives a false impression to view these texts as if they were simply the outcome of an eudaimonistic psychological approach, that is to say, as if the neighbor were just fuel to the fire of longing for love for God by which one acquired restful contemplation of wisdom. Almost invariably the psychological goes hand in hand with the ontological–ethical approach which stresses that God has ordered his creation in such a way that each level has its own proper; that, when in total submission to God’s law the beauty appropriate to a particular level is realized, man participates in God’s continuous creation; and that the highest act in the realm of our dealing with other creatures is love for neighbor.

(Canning 1983, pp. 46–47)

This is the argument from the perspective of a patristic philosopher, which Arendt has not considered in her work, because she was only interested in Augustine as a secular thinker. Arendt’s special contribution is that she makes the concept of caritas of Augustine known to the secular readers who are not specialized in patristic theology. Arendt tried to reflect on the problem of love within the scope of pure philosophical argumentation; therefore, we can say that the doubt from Brechtken as to whether Arendt has made a real contribution to the concept of love of Augustine is unnecessary (cf. Brechtken 1975, p. 185).

4. Impartial Love in Mozi

The concept of “impartial love” or “universal love” (jian’ai 兼爱) is mentioned not only in the three chapters (14–16) of the Mozi which contain the term in their title, but also in other chapters, such as “Standards and Rules” (chp. 4) and the “Will of Heaven” (chps. 26, 27, 28). Carine Defoort discovered that the triplet of “Impartial Love” evolved from Book I to II and to III (cf. Defoort 2013, pp. 35–68). If we look into the texts, we will find that jian’ai appears only once in the triplet, while another term jian xiang ai (inclusively loving or caring for each other) is used in all the three chapters. The basic doctrine of jian xiang ai is illustrated with another doctrine of jiao xiang li (benefitting each other). So, we can infer that the essential theme of the triplet of Impartial Love is jian xiang ai, and the theory of jian’ai is mainly discussed in the chapters of “The Will of Heaven”. We can observe a kind of developmental line from jian xiang ai to jian’ai: the former stresses the concrete implementation of impartial love in social practical contexts, while the latter emphasizes the universal validity of impartial love as moral rules (Ding 1999, p. 51). In this part, I will firstly examine the essential characteristics of the theory of impartial love of Mozi; then, I will face the problem of whether Mozi is inconsistent in holding both the divine will theory and the utilitarian theory; in the final step, I will compare the theory of love of Mozi with that of Augustine and see what we can learn from this comparison.

4.1. The Essential Characteristics of Impartial Love

Defoort is right insofar as we can find an evolution of the concept from “loving oneself” to “loving each other” up to an unconditional or universal type of loving everybody without any expectation of reciprocal reward from others, but she is not right in saying that the triplet of Impartial Love bears only the name without really dealing with impartial love. Indeed, the triplet of Impartial Love used jian’ai only once, but used jian xiang ai many times. But I think jian xiang ai emphasizes practical contexts or situations and concrete human relationships; thus, it functions as a preparation for the more abstract theory of jian’ai, which connotes the universal or unconditional love or care for everybody regardless of time and space. It is mainly thematized in the triplet of the Will of the Heaven (tianzhi 天志). Jian xiang ai gives us a basic description of impartial love. Firstly, impartial love is raised by Mozi as a strategy to deal with social disorders or as a remedy to face the dangers and limitations of “self-love”. Mozi says at the beginning of the first chapter:

The sages, being ones who made governing the world their task, could not but investigate the source of disorder. What did their investigation show the source of disorder to be? It arises from not loving others. Minister and son being disobedient toward lord and father is called “disorder”. The son, loving himself and not his father, therefore benefits himself to the detriment of his father. The younger brother, loving himself and not his older brother, therefore benefits himself to the detriment of his older brother. The minister, loving himself and not his lord, therefore benefits himself to the detriment of his lord. All of these are called “disorder”. When a father shows his son no affection, an older brother shows his younger brother none, and the ruler shows his ministers none, this is also what the world calls “disorder”. The father, loving himself and not his son, therefore benefits himself to the detriment of his son. The elder brother, loving himself and not his younger brother, therefore benefits himself to the detriment of his younger brother. The ruler, loving himself and not his ministers, therefore benefits himself to the detriment of his ministers. Why does this happen? All of this arises from not loving others.

(Knoblock and Riegel 2013, pp. 146–47)

In this passage, it becomes clear that the disorder and the harm arise from the lack of loving or caring for each other (xiang’ai 相爱), and Mozi enumerates three groups to show how it is so. The three groups are father and son, younger brother and older brother, and the minister and the ruler. According to Youngsun Back’s interpretation, caring for each other or mutual care refers to bidirectional care: one’s concern for oneself and one’s concern for others. The source of disorder comes from not caring for each other (bu xiang ai 不相爱), because one’s care is unidirectional only towards oneself (Back 2017, p. 1095). In order to care for each other, each individual should practice impartial care by giving equal weight to one’s well-being and to others’ well-being. We have to break the malign circle of self-centered concern and learn to care for others. The best therapy for governing disorder is to practice the universal mutual love that each person loves others just as they love themselves. In other words, this strategy can be called the principle of reciprocity; it is to treat the body of the other as one’s own, the house of the other as one’s own, the home and the country of others as one’s own. If everyone in the world can love others impartially, there would be order; if everyone in the world hates or harms others, there must be disorder. In the triplet of Impartial Love, Mozi does not ground his theory of mutual love in any higher normative ethical principle or law, he raises impartial love in the first place as a kind of necessary strategy or instrument to eradicate the disorder of society and to bring order and well-being to the people.

In the second chapter of the triplet of Impartial Love, Mozi discusses “inclusively caring for each other, mutually benefiting each other” (jian xiang ai, jiao xiang li 兼相愛, 交相利) and he tries to prove the practicability of inclusively caring for each other, mutually benefiting each other by relying on the authority of the ancient sages and wise rulers. Here, Mozi lists another reason for advocating impartial love, which could be called the principle of reciprocity:

He who loves others is certain to be loved in return. He who benefits others is certain to be benefited in return. He who hates others is certain to be hated in return. He who harms others is certain to be harmed in return. Why is it so difficult! The reason is simply that the ruler fails to make the impartial love of others a government regulation, and gentlemen fail to make it a principle of their conduct.

(Knoblock and Riegel 2013, p. 151)

Mozi takes it for granted that those who love others impartially will be certainly loved by others and those who benefits others will be benefited by others. In the same manner, those who hate and harm others will certainly be hated and harmed by others. Mozi does not concretely point out what the love and benefit refer to and what the hatred and the harm mean. With regard to this, Hui-chieh Loy divides the care or the love into three levels: benefiting, helping and not harming (Loy 2013, pp. 495–500). All the three levels of love correspond with the different duties or obligations toward different individuals or groups from family members to associates to strangers.18 In the third chapter of the triplet, Mozi advocates replacing exclusiveness (bie 别) with inclusiveness (jian 兼), and the root of the problem lies in exclusiveness, that is to differentiate one’s body, good, home and country from another’s body, good, home and country.

Secondly, in the triplet of the Will of Heaven (tianzhi 天志), impartial love is thought to be in accord with the divine command of Heaven. For Mohists, Heaven functions as the ultimate supreme moral authority which calls into being human beings and the world in which we live. All people owe it reverence for its nobility and wisdom and gratitude for its gifts. The Mohist concept of Heaven is different from the Judeo-Christian concept of God in several ways. One of the clearest differences is that, for Mohists, Heaven is not transcendental in the sense of existing outside time, space and nature. In fact, Nature with a capital N could be the alternative interpretation of Heaven and it is Nature personified. What is important for our theme is that Heaven has certain desires, intents and affective inclinations, in other words, it desires that people perform moral and right actions, and intends for people to love impartially and care for people. It can reward or punish people, if people do not care about each other inclusively and benefit each other mutually. Heaven desires that people do what is right and hates them when they do bad things:

That being so, what does Heaven desire and what does it hate? Heaven desires that people do what is right and hates it when they do what is not right. Thus, if I lead the common people of the world to carry out their moral duties, I am doing what Heaven desires. If I do what Heaven desires, Heaven will also do what I desire. That being so, what do I desire and hate? I desire good fortune and prosperity and hate misfortune and the calamities caused by evil spirits. If I do not do what Heaven desires and do instead what Heaven does not desire, then I will be leading the common people of the world to do things that will enmesh them in misfortune and the calamities caused by evil spirits.

(Knoblock and Riegel 2013, p. 224)

Heaven desires righteousness and hates unrighteousness. For Mozi, to love everyone in the world inclusively or impartially is the commandment of Heaven, and it is the intent of Heaven. Those who hold on to Heaven’s intent will be rewarded and those who do not hold on to it will be punished:

Those who obey Heaven’s intentions by impartially loving others and reciprocally benefiting others are certain to be rewarded. Those who oppose Heaven’s intentions by selfishly hating others and reciprocally preying upon others are certain to be punished. That being the case, who by obeying the intentions of Heaven received rewards, and who by opposing them received punishment? The teachings of our Master Mozi say: “Formerly, Yu, Tang, Wen, and Wu, the sage–kings of the Three Dynasties, were obedient to the intentions of Heaven and were rewarded. In the past, Jie, Zhou, You, and Li, the tyrannical kings of the Three Dynasties, opposed the intentions of Heaven, and were punished”.

(Knoblock and Riegel 2013, p. 226)

Mozi often speaks of tianyi 天意 (Heaven’s intent or will) as the standard of righteousness. If the actions, the words and the punishments of the kings, dukes and great men of the world are in accord with the intentions of Heaven, then they will be called good, and if they are contrary to the intentions of Heaven, they will be called not good. Thus, the intention of Heaven is established as gnomon to determine whether they are humane or not humane, just as one distinguishes black from white. The obedience to the intent of the will is the standard of being morally good:

This is why our Master Mozi says: “If the kings, dukes, great men, and nobles in office in the world today in fact desire to follow the Way, benefit the people, and investigate to their roots the origins of humaneness and righteousness, then they must obey the intentions of Heaven. Obedience to the wishes of Heaven is the standard of righteousness”.

(Knoblock and Riegel 2013, p. 240)

Thirdly, the impartial love of Mozi should face the criticism of Mengzi, who argued against Mozi by saying that the impartial love of Mozi is without distinction; thus, it is like the animal’s ethics. Mengzi thought that Confucian love was “love with distinction”, from love of one’s own parents extending to the neighbors and all the others, whereas the Mohists’ love treats parents as strangers. Mengzi’s criticism has remained the leading interpretation of the Mohists’ love. David Wong uses the distinction between the “impersonal universalism” and the “particularism” which was made by C. H. Sommer to describe the differences between the Mohists’ love and Confucian love (see Wong 1989). Bryan v. Norden criticized that the Mohists’ loves are “agent-neutral” obligations (cf. Van Norden 2007, p. 179). The criticism of D. Wong and V. Norden points out that the impartial love of Mozi is only an abstract and general rule which is hardly useful for the concrete situations of actions because it is not directed to the particular individuals.

Some scholars have tried to respond to these reproaches based on Mengzi from different perspectives. Dan Robins argued that Mozi established impartial love not at the individual level but at the collective level for the whole society (cf. Robins 2012). Impartial care might be so general that it cannot be function as a concrete guideline in one’s own situations in dealing with different particularistic relations. Youngsun Back has recently argued that “Mozi’s jian’ai is a complex and multilayered system that promotes universal obligations and, at the same time, incorporates particularistic obligations into its own system” (see Back 2017, p. 1104). Back’s strategy for rebutting the criticism of Mengzi is to divide the impartial care of Mozi into three different levels: the first level of impartial care is concerned with taking care of different people by giving equal weight to another’s well-being as my own, and the second level of impartial care is extended or enlarged to a much broader scope which is based on two relationships that my relation to the well-being of the others is analogized with my relation to the well-being of my family members, while the third level of impartial care is applicable to those who aspire to rule the world such as the sage–kings, the Great Yu 禹 and King Wen 文. All the sage–kings give priority to the ten thousand people and put their own persons second. All the three levels of impartial care do not contradict the Confucian emphasis on fulfillment of the particularistic obligations such as filiality, brotherhood and loyalty.

It seems that the basic problem is that it is controversial if Mengzi rightly understood the meaning of impartial love. For Mozi, to love the parents of others as my own parents does not mean to love without distinction, because it is not about the content, but is concerned with general attitude towards others. Impartial love is proposed by Mozi as a kind of remedy for healing the disorder of society and the selfishness of human heart.

4.2. The Dilemma of the Theory of Divine Command and Utilitarianism

From the characteristics of Mozi’s impartial care or love, we can assume that Mozi proposes impartial love on two grounds: on the one hand, impartial love is the remedy for curing the disorder of society and the selfishness of the human heart, and it is only through divesting ourselves of the egoistic motives and turning to the impartial or unselfish love of others that we can secure the order and the prosperity of the society; on the other hand, impartial love comes from the divine demand of Heaven and Heaven seems to be the standard or measure for being righteous and good. But, recently, scholars have found that Mozi is committing a kind of inconsistency in holding the two ethical theories. Dennis Ahern has pointed out that Mozi seems to endorse two different ethical theories: both the divine command theory and the utilitarian theory. On the one hand, Mozi claims that actions, words and regulations are right if and only if they benefit the world and others; on the other hand, Mozi is insisting on the doctrine that Heaven or the will of Heaven is the ultimate ethical authority and standard, and impartial love comes from the divine command of Heaven. Therefore, Mozi is inconsistent in holding the two conceptually different ethical principles (Ahern 1976). Dirck Vorenkamp, however, challenges the claim of Ahern by arguing that Mozi is not inconsistent because the two different ethical principles are not actually in conflict. Vorenkamp claims that Heaven always aims or wills the benefit of the world, and obeying the will of Heaven leads naturally to the benefit of the world (Vorenkamp 1992). David Soles, however, argues against the view of Vorenkamp and claims that Mozi is thoroughly a consistent divine command theorist because Mozi evidently holds the will of Heaven as the ultimate authority of righteousness and being morally good. Kristopher Duda and Christopher Fraser endorse the utilitarian interpretation that Mozi uses the command of Heaven as an “epistemic criterion” to determine what is ethically good and right, but what is objectively right and good is independent of Heaven’s willing it or not (cf. Duda 2001; Fraser 2016). Xiufen Lu argues that neither the divine will theory nor the utilitarian interpretation of Mozi’s impartial love can be justified, because the two interpretations take their root in an inadequate understanding of the concept of Heaven (tian 天). Since we cannot ascribe to Mozi these two ethical theories, there must not be any inconsistency in the theory of impartial love (Lu 2006). According to Lu’s understanding, Mozi’s tian is not God in the Western tradition, and is not like a person who creates humankind and the world and gives laws, or a transcendental force which lies beyond the world and nature, but a much-naturalized force from nature because “following the will of tian and benefitting the world are co-extensive and not separated” (Lu 2006, p. 128). Indeed, the potential conflict between the divine command theory and the utilitarian theory originates from the dualist view of the divine being and nature or human beings, where they belong to two different and separate orders, namely one is the Creator and the other is the created. But Mozi is not a dualist, for he regards the benefit of the world or to love others impartially and following the will of Heaven as the same thing. Lu sees the will of Heaven not as that of a personal God but as “nature’s self-rectifying mechanism” or “the natural process or force to maintain the universal harmony” (Lu 2006, p. 129). I think the strategy of Lu’s naturalization of the divine command of Heaven as a force of self-unfolding nature is not correct because it cancels the conflict by naturalizing the will of Heaven or equating it with the self-unfolding force of nature itself. However, if we look at the texts, Mozi speaks of the will or intent of Heaven very often and treats it as the independent source of moral order and the ultimate authority of righteousness. It is apparently clear that Mozi by no means identifies the will of Heaven with natural order itself. The apparent inconsistency in the text does exist, but it might not be a problem for Mozi but only for modern readers; it needs interpretation to understand the inconsistency. For Mozi, this kind of inconsistency will not make his ethical theory impossible, because to love others impartially benefits the world on the one hand and it is in accord with the will of Heaven on the other hand.

5. Comparison and Conclusions

Now I want to compare the Augustinian concept of caritas with the impartial love of Mozi from the following perspectives. First, if we compare both from the perspective of motivation, Augustine develops his theory of caritas primarily out of the theoretical concern of establishing the right order of love—only God is the true object of enjoyment (frui), and all other persons and things are loved for the sake of the love of God—while Mozi proposes his theory of impartial love primarily out of the practical concern of disposing of social disorders and evils and benefitting the world; that is the reason why, for Mozi, the order of love between different forms is not supposed to be a problem in the first place that needs explanation. But it does not mean that Augustinian caritas is not at the same time embedded in the eudaimonistic framework because he also believes that personal happiness is realized in love towards God and love towards neighbors. Once the order of love is established, the principle of moral life is also ensured according to Augustine; that is the reason why he does not pay much attention to the concrete ways in which one cares about or for others. But, conversely, Mozi emphasizes the concrete ways of carrying out one’s love towards others, namely, we should provide benefits to our family members and close friends; we should not injure strangers; and we should help people in need. Mozi says the following:

And those who possess the Way would diligently teach and educate others. Because of this, the aged who have no wives or sons would find someone to support and feed them so that they could live out their full span of life. The young children and orphaned youths who have no fathers or mothers would find someone on whom to rely for support so that they could grow to maturity. Were one to adopt impartial cooperation as the principle by which to govern, such would be its benefits.

(Knoblock and Riegel 2013, p. 158)

For this reason, Youngsun Back thinks that Mozi’s love is more material-oriented, while Confucian love is more emotion-oriented (cf. Back 2019, pp. 531–53). I think it is a correct remark because, for Mozi, the care or the love of neighbors is not only a general attitude towards others, but concrete actions performed in given situations. He concerns himself more with the practical implementation than the theoretical justification.

Second, from the perspective of the unity of love, Augustine made a sharp and fundamental distinction between cupiditas or concupiscentia and caritas, and he tries to integrate all the different forms of love into one by establishing caritas as the right source or the true fundamental for all the other forms of love. In Arendt’s reading, only caritas can lead us to true happiness or true good, because only caritas is the fulfillment of the absolute good, the summum bonum; in loving God, we love that which is the perfect, eternal and imperishable, and simultaneously leave all that is imperfect, changeable and transient. Conversely, cupiditas cannot bring the human being to beate vivere, because it makes the human being an inhabitant or even a slave of the world.19 Consequently, we can say that the wish of beatum esse velle cannot be fulfilled by cupiditas, and the beata vita should be a kind of life free from any fear and can never be lost.20 The backbone of this claim is that God is the creator and all other things are creatures. In loving God, we turn back to our true origin and, in this sense, we can say that only caritas can establish the right grasp of the ante, e.g., guarantees the right redire ad Creatorem. In Arendt’s view, cupiditas is identical with concupiscentia, which is characterized as the wrong understanding or grasp of the ante, because it takes the world as the eternal being, which can end one. Since God as creator is not only the Won-wo-aus (the source) but also the Worauf-hin (the end), the world as such or the human world as such cannot be the ultimate origin. But Mozi does not make any internal distinction between the different forms of love or care towards different particular others. For him, love towards family members, friends, strangers and those who are in need should all be included in impartial love, and, hence, for Mozi, love towards the world and external things and love towards tian or Heaven are not potentially in conflict. He harmonizes the different forms of love by claiming that the love of others and benefit to others are all in accord with the will of tian. Mozi argues primarily with the empirical observations, historical facts and social realities, and, thus, his theory of impartial love lacks a detailed moral psychological analysis, which is well-developed in the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions. Generally speaking, Chinese philosophy does not see a moral problem from the angle of body–soul dualism. Thus, we can understand why Mozi did not develop any kind of theory of moral psychology, because he did not have this theoretical tool or apparatus as the starting point for the argumentation. So, we can say that it is meaningless to ask whether love towards tian takes central place or not in the theory of impartial love in Mozi.

Third, from the perspective of their understanding of the place and value of the love of neighbors, Augustine has to face the challenge or the charge of instrumentalizing others or using others as mere stepping stones for the ascent to the love of God. Based on the uti–frui distinction, only God is the object of final enjoyment, and this is the frui character of the love of God, and all the other objects of love are only loved for the sake of God and by no means loved as the end itself, and this is the uti character of other forms of love. I have argued above that Augustine does not run the risk of instrumentalizing others in claiming God as the ultimate object of enjoyment, because, in the ontological hierarchy of being, each level has its own independent values and perfection proper to its nature. The love toward neighbors is not used as a mere stepping stone, but others are also being called into fellowship with God, and the love of others is not the result of obeying a universal ethical law or as a by-product of a believer’s duty to Christ. We have also seen that, both for Arendt and for other modern experts such as Nygren and Canning, Augustine’s caritas does not run the risk of instrumentalizing the love of neighbors as a step to the love of God because on the one hand each level of being has its own value and beauty which is proper to its nature, and, on the other hand, the love of neighbors is rooted or embedded in the origin of the human race and in the structure of human existence itself, which could be called human togetherness and all of us share the same fateful situation, the situation of mortality. But Mozi does not make any distinction between uti and frui because he does not see tian or Heaven as a personal deity as in Western tradition. Nevertheless, he insists that the intent or the will of tian or Heaven is the ultimate moral authority for being righteous, and to love others impartially comes from the divine command of Heaven. Thus, he has to face the criticism of committing a mistake of inconsistency by holding two ethical principles which are potentially in conflict. Mozi draws upon the ethical principles of both divine command theory and utilitarianism. And this is not a paradox for him because he speaks of impartial love at two different levels or from two different perspectives, namely the empirical and the transcendental level; only in impartial love can social disorders and evils be eliminated, and impartial love is also the commandment or the intent of Heaven. Although Mozi does not understand tian or Heaven as a personal deity as in Christianity, tian or Heaven still remains for him transcendental in the sense of being the ultimate ground for righteousness. Thus, it is not correct to say that Mozi identifies tian or Heaven with the natural order itself or the universal harmony itself. Mozi emphasizes that impartial love comes from the will of tian or Heaven:

What must we do to obey the will of Heaven? We may reply: Love impartially all the people of the world. How do we know that “loving impartially all the people of the world” is what Heaven wants? Heaven is universal in providing food for everyone impartially. How do I know that it is universal in providing food for them? From ancient times to the present, no matter how distant or remote states are… It is from this we know that [Heaven] is universal in its providing food for them (i.e., the people of the world). If it is universal in providing food for them, then it must be universal in loving them.

(Johnston 2010, pp. 265–67)

Because Heaven loves everyone by providing food impartially and inclusively, so, when we love others impartially and inclusively, we are carrying out what Heaven wants or desires. Even Mozi establishes Heaven as the Law or the Standards, because the justice of Heaven is vast and self-giving; Heaven benefits all without arrogance; Heaven lives long without decline. For Mozi, to love others impartially and inclusively is to emulate Heaven because Heaven possesses us all and feeds us all impartially and inclusively.

Unlike Augustine, Mozi develops his impartial love theory from the starting point of empirical observation and pragmatic intention because to love parents, children, etc. as one’s own is believed to be a necessary condition for eliminating social disorders and benefitting the world. Therapeutically speaking, impartial love is proposed by Mozi firstly as a remedy for curing the selfishness of the human heart and achieving the prosperity of society. The source of disorder comes from not caring for each other (bu xiang’ai 不相爱), because one’s care is unidirectional only towards oneself, and what Mozi advocates is bidirectional care, to love others as oneself. And to love others impartially and to benefit the world is also in accord with the will of Heaven, and for Mozi, the divine will of Heaven seems to be the final authority for being morally good.

This comparison is made based on Arendt’s interpretation of Augustine’s concept of love, which highlighted the conflict between caritas and cupiditas. Augustine and Mozi develop their theories of love in very different ways; the method of Augustine could be described as top-down or from the top to the bottom, and that of Mozi should be seen as bottom-up or from the bottom to the top. They, however, also share a commonality insofar as both of them take the will of Heaven or the command of God as the ethical and ontological basis for loving neighbors, and, for Augustine, he has to face the problem of instrumentalizing the love of neighbors for attaining the love of God. But, for Mozi, the love of neighbors does not enter the crisis of being instrumentalized, because the ultimate goal is not to love Heaven. Mohists and Augustine give us two different patterns for understanding love. For Augustine, the love of God takes central place and is the source or the origin for all the other forms of love, and, finally, all the other forms of love should be united by the love of God, while Mohists stress the immanent character of love, and, for them, the well-being of the human being is just what Heaven desires because to love everyone in the world is just the manifestation of the reverence or veneration of Heaven.