 A critic might charge that this doctrine commits the Mohists to a counterintuitive split between the level of treatment we provide to others and the degree to which we care about their welfare. A more natural approach, the critic might argue, would be to allow the degree of care to vary with the closeness of the relationship, with the proviso that even distant strangers be the object of at least a minimal degree of care. This approach might allow individuals to perform the social roles of government official, subject, parent, child, and so forth more effectively, thus promoting the welfare of all. One might also question whether the costs of training everyone to maintain an equal degree of care for everyone else would not be too high, and whether it would even be psychologically feasible for us to devote more time, attention, and assistance to those closest to us without also caring more about them. In the Mohists’ defense, however, we might argue that by “care” (ài 愛) they seem to be referring primarily to a social attitude of moral regard or consideration, not one of individual, affective concern or attachment. For they see equal care as compatible with filial devotion (xiào 孝) and parental compassion (cí 慈), virtues normally associated with special affective concern for one’s parents or children, and they tie the absence of care to utter disregard for others (Mozi, Books 14–16). If in fact “care” here corresponds to moral consideration, then the Mohists may be on firm ground in advocating equal care for all. On the other hand, if “care” does refer primarily to an affective attitude, the doctrine of “relation ranking” could easily be modified to allow different degrees of care on the same consequentialist grounds that justify different degrees of benefit: doing so would better promote the welfare of all. Alternatively, the Mohists could recast the doctrine of equal care as a doctrine about moral justification: Institutions and practices are to be justified on the grounds that they reflect equal concern for the welfare of all. Educating people to think of justification in this way would probably be feasible; indeed, it might correspond largely to what we think of as commonsense moral education. 