 The term “killing” is ordinarily thought of as an extensional verb. It is a matter of some controversy, but the Mohists apparently felt that the combination of the ideographs sha (killing) and dao ren (robbers) formed an idiom that was recognized as a distinct, unanalyzable unit of common speech, carrying with it connotations of justified execution. This was not discerned in the semantics of “killing people”, which probably more simply indicated an act of murder. Indeed, the Mohists explicitly prohibited the latter in connection with their espoused doctrine of universal love (cf. NO17 from Graham’s translation (2003 [1978])). Not unlike many Western philosophers, the Mohists seem to have felt that careful attention to semantical nuances can have an important bearing on moral issues.