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MENTAL MODEL · M9922

Won't Pluck a Hair to Benefit the World

Won't Pluck a Hair to Benefit the World
CultureHigh supportChinese Philosophy
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Updated 2026-08-22

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INTRODUCTION

English translation pending.

CORE DEFINITION

The line is attributed to Yang Zhu, the Warring States thinker whose doctrine of keeping one's own nature intact stood against Mohist universal love and Confucian duty. Read literally it is radical egoism; read in context it is a claim about boundaries, that if no one may demand a small involuntary sacrifice, no one may escalate to a large one. The qualification is that the saying is a rhetorical extreme rather than a full political program, and later tradition read it as an argument for protecting life and refusing coerced service.

SCAFFOLDING EFFECT

psychology

Reduce cognitive load

- Test the boundary: ask whether the small sacrifice being requested is voluntary or coerced. - Watch the escalation: treat a granted forced inch as precedent for a demanded mile. - Argue by extreme: use the position as a limit case to clarify where legitimate obligation begins.

anchor

Anchor fast decisions

Obligations to the collective are usually argued one increment at a time, and each small request looks reasonable in isolation. Making the smallest unit non-negotiable blocks that sequence at its first step, so the argument never reaches the large demand. The position also forces the requester to justify coercion rather than merely to invoke the common good. Its cost is that the same logic, applied without qualification, forbids any collective action, which is why it works best as a boundary marker rather than a governing principle.

MINIMUM ACTION

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Source support: Explicit

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    zh.wikipedia.orghttps://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AD%9F%E5%AD%90ZH · Explicit
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