Don Wyatt
Middlebury College
Peace Theory in a Time of War
The Mician Program in Ancient China
Thursday 27 March 2008
Campus Center 908, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Co-sponsored by the Psychology of Peace and Violence Concentration

Abstract

When reflecting philosophically on the phenomenon of war and peace in antiquity, we are challenged to find a more intriguing historical movement than the one presented by the followers of the fifth-century BCE Chinese philosopher Mwodz. The Mwoists were unique among Chinese and perhaps world theorists in the extent to which they contributed, not only as thinkers but also as actors, to the furthermost extremes of the war and peace spectrum. Without being true proponents, they were nonetheless among the foremost of classical China's practitioners of war. Yet, simultaneously, even while they were forced increasingly by circumstances to abandon the peace position, the Mwoists esteemed peace at all costs - even at the price of selflessly sacrificing their lives.

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