What Do the Ghosts Want? Or, Why Did Mozi Think that Belief in Ghosts Would Lead to Societal Order?

Abstract This essay explains why the Mozi 墨子 of the Core Chapters thought that belief in ghosts was necessary for societal order. Contra the predominant view in the literature, which holds that Mozi believed ghosts to be reliable and impartial executors of the will of Heaven, I argue that Mozi instead believed that ghosts only have a partial interest in morality, instead often being both self-interested and unpredictable. Because they are self-interested they intervene in the land of the living to take revenge for suffering when they were alive, and to ensure the provision of the sacrifices they require. And because they are moral they sometimes punish good and reward evil, as well as delivering perspicuous judgments on moral matters. The incidence of these interventions, however, is inconsistent and unpredictable, and so to be guaranteed must be courted by sacrifice. I establish this argument by setting Mozi’s views within the wider context of beliefs about ghosts in the Warring States period, an approach which allows for a more complete understanding of his conception of ghosts than previous attempts, which have typically treated his views as anachronistic and sui generis for the time period. I therefore present a more nuanced and complex picture of how ghosts ensure order in Mozi’s political philosophy, showing that they are more unpredictable and self-interested than scholarly literature has hitherto assumed.