  This communitarian focus is a major point of contrast with Western social contract theories and utilitarian political theory. Utilitarians and social contract theorists (excepting perhaps Rousseau) typically treat individuals’ interests as primary and construct social good out of individual good. The state is justified because it promotes individuals’ rights and interests better than any alternative. For the Mohists, by contrast, the state is instrumentally justified because social order (zhi) is an intrinsic good, sought by all, and government by a hierarchy of moral leaders is needed to achieve it.