 Significantly more so than other major philosophers of the Warring States Period, the Mohists believed that proper ethical conduct, and the uses of language essential to its realization, could be determined by the ability of the common citizen to distinguish, independently of government authority and by rational means, real similarities and differences in the nuances of ethical action. Zhuangzi’s skeptical arguments called much of this belief into question, but left little in its place to placate the demands of effective governance and orderly rule. The Confucian philosopher Xunzi of the late Warring States Period sought to reestablish ethics on positive, constructive foundations, but without succumbing to the frustrating Daoist rejoinders that put so much of Mohism in doubt.