Mohist philosophy went into sharp decline with the beginning of the Qin dynasty (as Emperor Qin Shihuang disapproved of some philosophical schools, such as the Mohists), since the emperor burned many of their books and persecuted this school.
The later Mohists had sought to derive their moral authority less from sages or heaven (like Daoists and Confucians) than from verbal argumentation about the meanings of words.
These debates came to end under the Qin dynasty.