  Having objected to taking parents as a fundamental moral model, the passage next rejects teachers (or “learning”) and rulers on the same grounds: We cannot be sure that all teachers and political leaders are benevolent (ren). The text concludes that “of these three, parents, teachers, and rulers, none is acceptable as a model for order.” An objective standard is needed, one that is not morally fallible in the way that any particular individual role model or cultural tradition might be. The Mohists propose that we can find such a standard by considering the attitudes of an ideally impartial, benevolent, and reliable moral agent: Tian (Heaven, nature, the sky), whom they revere as a quasi-personal god.