1. See Mencius 7A26 and shorter 3B9. See also Lau, D. C., Mencius (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), 187–88 and 114Google Scholar. All my references to primary sources, except when fragments are commonly recognized by a number (e.g., Lunyu 1.2; Mencius 3A9; Lü shi chunqiu 21/4.3), are from Lau, D. C., ICS Ancient Chinese Texts Concordance Series (Hong Kong: Commercial Press, 1995–)Google Scholar. The chapter number is given first, followed by a colon and then the page number and line number separated by a slash. I often refer to an existing translation (“see also”) without strictly following it.

2. Mozi 44: 92/20, Lü shi chunqiu, 21/4.1, and Lü shi chunqiu, 21/4.3 (also in Zhuangzi 28), all discussed further in this article.

3. See Chris Fraser's introduction of Graham, A. C., Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2003)Google Scholar, xvii.

4. See Vankeerberghen, Griet, “Choosing Balance: Weighing (quan 權) as a Metaphor for Action in Early Chinese Texts,” Early China 30 (2005–6), 47–89 Google Scholar. For the emergence of her interest in this topic, see Vankeerberghen, Griet, The Huainanzi and Liu An's Claim to Moral Authority (New York: State University of New York Press, 2001), 86–94 Google Scholar.

5. Angus Graham finds this philosophical subtlety lacking in Confucius' thought. See Graham, A. C., Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (Chicago: Open Court, 1989)Google Scholar, 59, 27.

6. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 15. Little historical information, if any at all, can be deduced from the few textual fragments referring to this Yang Zhu. For various opinions, see Cheng Yifan 程一凡, “Shui shi Yang Zhu?—Ting Shi Huaci de” 誰是楊朱——聽史華慈的, Shi Huaci yu Zhongguo 史華慈與中國, ed. Jilin, Xu and Zhenghui, Zhu (Changchun: Jilin 2008), 214–41Google Scholar, esp. 223–24.

7. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 16, referring to the idea of “inborn nature” (xing 性) as a novel philosophical foundation. This idea sometimes occurs on the reflexive part of the stories that I will analyze below.

8. A clear example is Huainanzi “Shuo lin xun” 說林訓: “Yangzi faced a crossroad and lamented it because he could go south or north. Mozi faced raw silk and lamented it because it could be made yellow or black” 楊子見逵路而哭之,為其可以南可以北. 墨子見練絲而泣之, 為其可以黃可以黑. (Huainanzi, 17: 184/16–17) In some sources the wailing at the crossroad is attributed to Mozi, not Yang Zhu, or the concern is only indirectly related to making choices. The crossroad metaphor is not always used to express the difficulty of choice, but also to give expression to related concerns such as the major consequences of minor mistakes.

9. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 46.

10. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 281 reads A22–28 all as related to the “individualists.”

11. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 45–46, referring to A2 and EC 7–9.

12. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 320–21, referring to A 75 (in Mozi 42) discussed below.

13. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 46–47.

14. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 47.

15. Guanzi 46: 112/15–16; see also Rickett, Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China, vol. 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 160–61Google Scholar. Rickett, Guanzi, vol. 2, 153 dates this chapter in the early Qin, probably in the first half of the third century b.c.e.

16. Guanzi 67: 157/29–30; see also Rickett, Guanzi, vol. 2, 161. Rickett, Guanzi, vol. 2, 154 dates this chapter around the first century b.c.e. The same point is made in Hanfeizi “Ba shuo” 八說 where it is not distinguished from what Vankeerberghen identifies as quan B. See Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 68.

17. In Guanzi, “Kui duo” 揆度, the use of law to strictly measure people's promises against their actual realizations is promoted as “the method of light and heavy” 輕重之法. See Guanzi 78: 177/1–3. Rickett, Guanzi, vol. 2, 430 dates this chapter in the latter half of the second century b.c.e.

18. Mozi 44: 92/17; see also Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 252–53, EC8. Like much of the “Mobian,” this passage is corrupt. For various translations, see also Johnston, Ian, The Mozi: A Complete Translation (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2010), 580–81Google Scholar and Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 67.

19. Mozi 42: 86/30; see also Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 387–88, B25. This fragment is also very corrupt. For various translations and discussions, see also Johnston, The Mozi, 496–97, and Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 51.

20. This is also confirmed by the Later Mohist definition of “seeking”: “To weigh light and heavy among things to be done in practice, is what we call ‘seeking’” 於事為之中而權輕重, 之謂求. Mozi 44: 92/28, see also Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 251–52, EC7.

21. Mencius 1A7; see also Lau, Mencius, 57.

22. For quan C, Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 79 suggests switching to another weighing device, which resembles both the scales and the steelyard. I see no benefit in making this switch, because (1) archeology has shown that before the Eastern Han dynasty the ordinary scales rather than the steelyard prevailed in China; (2) sticking to the same image makes the differences in their functioning more visible. For the archeological evidence, see Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 54.

23. Mencius 4A17; see also Lau, Mencius, 124.

24. See Mencius 6B1; see also Lau, Mencius, 171. This case about eating (shi), sexual lust (se 色), and twisting a brother's arm (bi 臂) seems to indicate an interest in life and the body shared by the authors of the weighing dialogues. So does the option of saving one's sister-in-law. In both cases Mencius' answer to the defenders of health seems to consist in the notion of proportionality: only when life is really at stake does it temporarily outweigh ritual. Or, as Nicolas Standaert has pointed out to me, Mencius may have believed that the specific gravity of “ritual” outweighed that of “life.”

25. Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 80. The distinctions between the three types of weighing as well as a number of examples adduced by Vankeerberghen for one type of quan call for further discussion, but that is not the focus of this article.

26. These six chapters (Mozi 40–45) are generally dated from the late fourth or third centuries b.c.e. See, e.g., Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, xi. Chris Fraser dates them in the third century b.c.e.; see his introduction to Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, xviii.

27. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 254.

28. These fragments—one from Mozi 47 “Gui yi” 貴義 and one from Liezi 7 “Yang Zhu” 楊朱—do trade in body parts. They seem to be variations or adaptations of the original trope. I discuss them in a forthcoming article dedicated to the memory of A. C. Graham.

29. This definition is quoted above under quan B. Like much of the “Mobian,” this passage is corrupt. For various translations, see also Johnston, The Mozi, 580–81, and Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 67.

30. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 252 has a character here that I have not been able to identify, but it means something like bi 腕 arm. For other options here and in two following notes, see Johnston, The Mozi, 580–81.

31. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 253, n. 35 replaces 指 by 腕 to follow the sequence of the argument.

32. Mozi 44: 92/20; see also Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 253; Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 67; Johnston, The Mozi, 580–81.

33. Only once elsewhere in the book Mozi is quan literally but indirectly related to matters of life and death: the author invites his opponent to imagine that he has to leave his family behind and go to war “without quite knowing the outcome of life and death.” 死生之權未可識也 (Mozi 16: 28/6). Here quan is the “tilting balance,” hence the “outcome.” In the book Mozi, zhong 重 (consider weighty, valuable, important) occurs more often than qing 輕 (take lightly) in a metaphorical sense.

34. For this use of xuan see also Xunzi, “Zheng ming” 正名, quoted in Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 320, n. 194.

35. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 320, n. 195 reads an unknown graph as shān 蔪 (exterminate), being similar to duàn 斷 (cut), as in “to cut off a finger to preserve an arm” 斷指以存睕 (Mozi 44: 92/20). Johnston, The Mozi, 438, reads it here as yang 養 (to preserve) as in Mencius 6A14 “If to preserve his finger, one neglects his shoulders and back” 養其一指而失其肩背. Johnston, The Mozi, 439 translates: “If you desire to preserve your finger and reason does not know this to be harmful, this is reason's fault.”

36. Mozi 42: 83/6–9; see also Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 320–21.

37. On the corruptions, especially chapter 44 “Da qu,” see Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 101–2 and Johnston, The Mozi, 372–73.

38. Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 67, 70, 82. This tends to correspond with their literal weight, although the Later Mohists might also have allowed literally smaller organs (such as the eyes) to outweigh heavier body parts (such as the flesh on one's bottom) because of their vital function in the quality and length of one's life.

39. Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 71.

40. Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 71.

41. Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 71.

42. Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 69. An example is Xunzi's warning about the undesirable aspects of desirable options, or the potential harm of perceived benefit. Therefore, “one should weigh them together and carefully account the results. Only then can one decide among what to desire or hate, to choose or reject” 而兼權之,孰計之. 然後定其欲惡取舍. (Xunzi 3: 12/7)

43. The similarities in phrasing are so striking that they must have quoted each other or a common source. Graham, A. C., Chuang-tzu: The Inner Chapters (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1986)Google Scholar, 224, believes that the Zhuangzi quoted the Lü shi chunqiu. Xiaogan, Liu, Classifying the Zhuangzi Chapters (Michigan: University of Michigan, 1994), 57–61 Google Scholar is convinced of the opposite. Roth, Harold, A Companion to Angus C. Graham's Chuang Tzu (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2003)Google Scholar, 205–6 suggests the possibility of a third source.

44. Graham, Chuang-tzu, 221 suggests the Qin-Han interregnum (209–202 b.c.e.) and only identifies the first part of this chapter as Yangist (transl. pp. 224–31), and the second part as ideas detested by them (transl. 231–33). The light-heavy metaphor only occurs in the former part. Roth, A Companion, 206, 208–9 considers this whole chapter a collection of narratives for use in disputation against others (incl. Yangists), created by a Primitivist at the court of Lü Buwei in the latter part of the third century b.c.e. Esther Klein pointed out that our dating of the Zhuangzi chapters is tentative. See her “Were There ‘Inner Chapters’ in the Warring States? A New Examination of Evidence about the Zhuangzi ,” T'oung Pao 96 (2011), 299–369 Google Scholar. Chapter 28 “Rang wang” is not explicitly mentioned in the Shiji.

45. My selection does fit into a larger set of texts variously labelled by various scholars as “Yangist,” “Yang Zhu xuepai” 楊朱學派, “individualist,” “egoist,” or “hedonist.” This label roughly refers to some shared content—the defense of health, physical integrity, and longevity—or the use of expressions such as “keep intact one's inborn nature” 全性, “preserve the genuine” 保真, “do not allow one's body to be ensnared by things” 不以物累形, “nurture one's life/inborn nature” 養生/性, do not “harm” 害/傷 it, “value oneself” 貴己 and, perhaps less favorably, do things “for oneself” 為我. The last expression occurs in Mencius 3B9 and 7A26 and in Liezi “Yang Zhu”. The other expressions come from Huainanzi, “Fan lun xun” 氾論訓 (13:123/21) and from titles of chapters in Lü shi chunqiu or Zhuangzi. See Cheng Yifan, “Shui shi Yang Zhu?”, 237, presenting a summary of various views.

46. Lü shi chunqiu 21/4.3; see also Knoblock, John and Riegel, Jeffrey, The Annals of Lü Buwei: A Complete Translation and Study (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar, 558. This story also occurs, with minor variations, in Zhuangzi 28. See Watson, Burton, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 311–12Google Scholar.

47. To complicate matters, the hypothetical inscription quoted by Zihuazi first proposes sacrificing the right hand 右手 and then the left hand 左手 for grabbing with the remaining hand the inscription that promises the possession of the world. Even though he does not invite the marquis to choose between those two hands, they might perhaps also be seen as an act of weighing between two body parts. See also below on the (secondary) weighing between two body parts in these stories.

48. Lü shi chunqiu 21/4.4; see also Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei, 558–59.

49. Lü shi chunqiu 1/2.5; see also Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei, 66.

50. Lü shi chunqiu 21/4.2; see also Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei, 557. Further in the story the “light versus heavy” metaphor does not coincide with “dismiss versus prefer,” but rather with “treat as trivial versus take seriously.” “If today they receive their ancestors' rank and emolument, they certainly find it terrible to lose these. The provenance of life is (much) further, but they treat its loss as trivial. How confused is that!” 今受其先人之爵祿，則必重失之. 生之所自來者久矣，而輕 失之. 豈不惑哉! (Lü shi chunqiu 21/4.2; Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei, 557–58). The Zhuangzi parallel ends as follows: “But in the sight of profit, they make light of losing their body. How confused is that!” 見利輕亡其身. 豈不惑哉！ (Zhuangzi 28: 81/28; see also Watson, The Complete Works, 311.

51. Lü shi chunqiu 2/2.4; see also Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei, 81–82. A similar case (but without the explicit weighing metaphor) is about prince Sou resisting rulership because he fears the ill consequences for his health. Therefore, “he could be said not to harm his life with his state.” 不以國傷生矣 (Lü shi chunqiu 2/2.4; see also Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei, 81).

52. Zhuangzi 28: 82/20–21; see also Watson, The Complete Works, 312–13.

53. I exclude “hair” (毛 or 毫) from this list because it does not occur in the stories. I believe that this item was, at least originally, the stock example used by critics of those who defended the primacy of health over other things. See also Cheng Yifan, “Shui shi Yang Zhu?”, 224–25, 235.

54. Lü shi chunqiu 1/2.2; see also Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei, 65.

55. Exceptionally, “things” are listed on the side of “life.” In Lü shi chunqiu 1/3.1, a “finger,” “azure bi jade insignia and irregular pearls,” and “my life” are all three put in the same category, but the point there is that they belong to me and not to others. In Lü shi chunqiu 2/2.6, a “pearl” is on the side of one's “life,” but here the dominant opposition is between, respectively, means and ends.

56. In the corpus of received early Chinese texts more broadly, the metaphors of “light” and “heavy” in relation to preserving life do not always have this meaning. They sometimes mean “(not) giving enough weight to.” See, e.g., Laozi 69 about “not taking the enemy seriously” (輕敵) and Laozi 75 about “not taking death seriously” (輕死).

57. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 16. The reflection often contains technical vocabulary such as the terms “light” (qing) and “heavy” (zhong) for perceiving or setting priorities. This weighing imagery is not combined with other metaphors such as root versus twig (ben mo 本末) or the establishment of a chronological sequence (xian hou 先後). Oppositions that sometimes accompany the heavy–light contrast are benefit and harm (li hai 利害), big and small (da xiao 大小), noble and vulgar (gui jian 貴賤), and thick versus thin (hou bao 厚薄). Neither the term quan nor any other weighing device (xuan 縣/懸, chen 稱, heng 衡) is part of these reflections.

58. This spontaneous reaction is perhaps not only caused by the physical urge to remain unharmed, but also by people's natural “loss aversion.” Daniel Kahneman, the 2002 Nobel prize for economics winner, has argued that our hatred of losing what we have, outweighs by far the desire to gain what we do not have. See Kahneman, Daniel, Thinking, Fast and Slow (London: Penguin, 2011)Google Scholar, 284.

59. Lü shi chunqiu 21/4.1; see also Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei, 556–57.

60. Zhuangzi “Rang wang” is mostly such a collection of abdication stories. The three last stories, which Graham, Chuang-tzu, 231, considers anti-Yangist, defend the refusal of the throne for reasons of morality and honor, not health. They do not contain the weighing metaphor.

61. This is in the parallel story in Zhuangzi 28: 81/9; see also Watson, The Complete Works, 309.

62. Lü shi chunqiu 2/2.2; see also Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei, 80.

63. For instance: a fragment in Mozi 47 “Gui yi” 貴義. Mencius also shares the notion of “the inborn” (性), the reflection in terms of body parts (ti), combining (jian 兼) things, weighing, etc. See, e.g., Mencius 3B9, 4A17, 6A14, 6B1, and 7A26.

64. Hanfeizi also expressed his disdain for rulers who let themselves be impressed by men refusing to go into battle because “they would not for the great benefit of the world trade one hair on their shin” 不以天下大利易其脛一毛. (Hanfeizi 50: 151/9–10). See also Liao, W. K., The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu. 2 vols. (London: Arthur Probsthain, 1959)Google Scholar, 301. A less explicit example is in “Wu du” 五蠹 about Emperor Yu toiling for the world “till his thighs had no down and his shins grew no hair” 股無胈脛不生毛 (49: 145/29/30). Perhaps the argument from Hanfeizi “Liu fan” 六反, about sacrificing hair when taking a bath, is also an implicit reference to the “one hair.” See Vankeerberghen, “Choosing Balance,” 68.

65. Also in Liezi “Yang Zhu,” which contains a fragment that Graham considers representative of the Mohist weighing act. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 254.

66. The question whether to li 利 others means to “benefit them” or “benefit from them” is another, ambiguous matter. For the ambiguity of li (benefit), see Defoort, Carine, “The Profit That Does Not Profit: Paradoxes with lì in Early Chinese Texts,” Asia Major 21.1 (2008), 153–81Google Scholar. In Hanfeizi, “Xian xue” 顯學, it is clearly “benefit from the world”; in Mencius 7A26 it is “benefit the world.”

67. I elaborate these ideas in a forthcoming paper dedicated to the memory of Angus Graham.