  The priority of the third standard is a striking feature of the Mohist theory, for it entails that in at least some circumstances, they advocate applying a utilitarian criterion to resolve not only normative questions but descriptive ones as well. One explanation for this extraordinary view is that they see all judgments — descriptive, prescriptive, or otherwise — as a matter of distinguishing “this” (shi) from “not” (fei). They use this pair of pronouns to refer to right and wrong in an extremely general sense, without distinguishing between different notions of correctness and error as they bear on describing, ordering, recommending, permitting, or choosing, or on issues that to us fall into areas as diverse as science, politics, ethics, prudence, and etiquette. We might say that the Mohists are applying a very basic, primitive conception of correctness, of which truth, obligation, permissibility, and other notions are species. The crucial point is probably that their main theoretical focus is not descriptive truth, but the proper dao (way) by which to guide social and personal life. This focus on dao leads them to run together the empirical question of whether ghosts exist with the normative question of whether we should act on and promulgate the teaching that they do. The doctrine of the three models thus reflects the pragmatic orientation of their thought, in particular the assumption, common to many early Chinese thinkers, that the primary purpose of language and judgment is to guide action appropriately, rather than to describe facts.