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Chinese Ethical Philosophies during the Classical Period
This essay examines how Qin Penal Laws reflect the main elements of Legalism and why such beliefs were significant to the Classical Chinese society during the Classical Period. Ideally, Legalism reached its pinnacle in the late 3rd century during the era of the First Emperor of China, when King Zheng of Qin ended the subjugation of “All under Heaven” and formed the First Chinese Empire in 221 BCE (Andrea and Overfield, 2001). King Zheng forced a uniformity of law in the entire empire, which was administered by a bureaucracy that was accountable to the central authority. Visualizing an empire that would exist for centuries, King Zheng majestically styled himself as the Qin Shi Huangdi. The
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Individuals assigned the responsibility of overseeing prisoner activities supervised such workers. The workers were forbidden from entering the market and were to use alternative routes as opposed to passing through the market. During the period when offenders worked for the government, female convicts were given one and a half bushels of grain while the men received two every month. Convicts who were not working were not given anything. Other workers were given bushels of grains, according to the stipulated policies by the administration.
Legalism led to unrestricted government authority, where the ruler needed to be strong and consider the right of the people (Lockard, 2010). The main objective of the Legalists was to maintain stability and unity. Although the Legalists maintained a long-term impact on the politics of China, the Chinese always offset its effects with more humane ideas of the Daoists and the Confucians. During the Classical Era, the Chinese did not follow the philosophy of one concept to the exclusion of others. Legalism became the last major political philosophy to develop during the Classical period in China (Stearns, 2014).
There are little to no direct accounts of how individuals’ lives were a couple thousand years ago in Ancient China. With a wealth of information on the rise, decline, and fall of empires, Michael Loewe, a sinologist who specializes in oriental studies and theology, writes an imaginary story about a hero named Bing set around 70 BCE. Bing: From Farmer’s Son to Magistrate in Han China is Loewe’s fictional portrait of life during the Han Empire. It is by no means a comprehensive historical account of Han times, in fact, it was written with those readers who are not familiar with Chinese in mind, however through the life of Bing we can gage how the lives of laborers, those involved in military service, merchants, and government officials might
In by reading the Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee, I gained a perspective of the people and culture of China. This book showed the analysis of Chinese saw and the background of Chinese history.
P’u shamelessly addresses the fact that despite preaching honor and virtue, the nobility were the most lawless, yet only an idealized account would be recorded in history, as has always been. The author mocks this relinquishment in his own stories, as the moral is driven to immorality as rebels receive little to no punishment for their flagrant abuse of others and adultery against virtue. He describes the turmoil as “the ways that misery spawned recklessness and sudden, unreasoning violence that were almost impossible to deal with” (Spence 79). Laws themselves proved to be as wicked and depraved as their creators. For example, a horrific clause even encouraged men to take advantage of widows for profit. While the peasant class resisted their struggled by simply trying to survive, the upper nobility fought their problems by making the existence of those below them harder to bear. Enforced laws were done so with no due process, yet were made flexible by their own creators. Therefore, Spence exhibited the lawlessness and the government and its constant effort to contain this disorder. By hand-selecting the sources and settling on rural China, Spence felt the format effectively depicted his purpose. He effectively detailed history in relation to the average person of 17th century China and created a personal perspective that imbued the historical events with meaning. He most fully and accurately captures the greed, vision of morals, unaltered by elite preference and ironically one can draw parallels to our modern times. His purpose results in a richness of detail seldom observed in Chinese history. The principles of the time are captured through the poverty within the peasant class as every moment of their lives was set forth
It has been said that Legalism takes after Daoism, borrowing some of its well-known ideas such as non-action or the usefulness of being empty. Though Legalism is typically grouped with the other early Chinese philosophers, it is actually quite a different system. Han Feizi’s Basic Writings, an exemplary text of Legalism, is aimed at how to successfully run an empire, and caters to one person in particular: the ruler. On the other hand, writings like the Dao de Jing are aimed more towards the individual and are personable. Still, it’s interesting to note that both texts talk about what it takes to be a good leader. In examining relations between Laozi’s Dao De Jing and Hand Feizi’s Basic Writings, one can extract both similarities and differences between Legalism and Daoism when it comes to how a leader should govern. Daoism and Legalism are similar in the fact that they both believe the leader should practice non-action and emptiness, believe that there should be a natural
Timothy Brook’s book, The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China is a detailed account of the three centuries of the Ming Dynasty in China. The book allows an opportunity to view this prominent time period of Chinese history. Confusions of Pleasure not only chronicles the economic development during the Ming dynasty, but also the resulting cultural and social changes that transform the gentry and merchant class. Brook’s insights highlight the divide between the Ming dynasty’s idealized beliefs, and the realities of its economic expansion and its effects. Brook describes this gap through the use of several first hand accounts of individuals with various social statuses.
During and after the Warring States period of Chinese history, many different philosophies were developed. One of these such philosophies is Legalism. In Legalism, people believe that no one can be trusted, and that everyone is selfish and evil. It teaches that the only way to get work done is with strict laws and harsh punishments. On the complete opposite side, in Daoism (a.k.a. Taoism), people believed that you don’t really need much of a government. Even the ruler doesn’t really do anything much. They just let the people live. The entire point of Daoism is to achieve “oneness with the Dao,” which is the path, or road to living in harmony with the world and nature. Another philosophy, Confucianism, is all about living in harmony with other people. It basically teaches you to respect your elders, people with more power than you, and people who have more knowledge and experience than you. By following any one of those philosophies, people try to live a good life by changing their
After starting the Chinese Empire, Shihuangdi based the empire on a harsh law system called legalism and was also influenced by Confucianism. Since Shihuangdi was the only ruler of the empire, the government was considered a strong central monarchy. When the Chinese empire had a good start, they expanded their territories to northern Vietnam, Korea, and the northwest steppes. Shihuangdi believed the harsher the empire the more respected, so he invested heavily into a strong military army a...
Huang outlines to reconstruction of the court under Wan-li came into power at the death of his father and the seemingly insignificant actions taken by the emperor, from his marriage to the redecorating of the court. Within the scope of this discourse, Huang is able to disclose the excesses of the emperor, and consider the implications of the bureaucratic system that he devised as an extension of this excess (13).
Respect and education will make the community good, which will eventually lead to expanding the Empire and having more cutting edge ideas. In the other hand, Legalism will only make people have little to no information about how to enhance their environment, and live in the constant fear caused by the rulers brutal ways of dealing with unlawful acts. Though we do not live in a community like this nowadays, it is crucial to notice the way this rationalism works, since it will help create new and revamped forms of government, which will eventually help the human kind move forward. Learning from old mistakes and taking in everything that works can make the world a better place, and Confucianism is a great philosophy apply, develop and learn from since it is not
It is thus rational for us to question the validity of preconditions upon which these ideas were acquired and the legitimacy of the ideas; and later but more importantly, how did the Legalists become the only classical thoughts had its teaching adopted as the sole official doctrine of a regime ruling all China and bring about the unification of China; and lastly, the association of the all-too-soon collapse of the ephemeral Qin Dynasty and the Legalists thoughts.
There are certain categories of legal tradition that differentiate by country or time. These legal traditions are shared by a certain groups of individuals or whole systems in and of themselves. In other words, you have to understand the legal tradition, and which legal system it is affiliated with, to understand the whole picture of how disputes and conflicts are handled. I think in our modern times, it would be challenging to find one legal system that is without influence from other legal systems (Different Legal Traditions, 2012). Legal traditions tend to incorporate different elements from other cultures and legal systems. Most legal traditions have derived from a common origins, similar institutions, and shared concepts from regarding
Confucian culture has persistence, so it does not disappear with the annihilation of the old system. Confucian culture, formed under two thousand years of feudal autocratic rule, not only exists for a long time, but also still has important influence on Chinese contemporary political life and political culture with its strong vitality. The theme of moderation is to educate people consciously to self-improve, self supervise, and self educate, and train themselves have the ideal personality. Fundamentally, the Confucian thinks that the root of governing revolution lies in the will of people, therefore, it should govern from the will of people if it wants to achieve the social governance, which has its profound meaning (Chan, Cho, 2014). The emergence of a lot of social problems, in the final analysis, is due to the lack of governance...
Legal Pluralism is the presence of various legal systems within a single country or a geographical area. Legal Pluralism is omnipresent although it is generally assumed to exist in countries only with a colonial past. This is because in most countries with a colonial past, colonial laws co-exist alongside indigenous laws. However, if we look at the expansive definition of legal pluralism, it can be said that every society or country if legally plural. The modern definition of legal pluralism also deals with the issues of relation between state and non-state legal orders. It shows the dichotomy that exists between customary legal norms and state law. The judiciary of India has upheld this principle of pluralism in many cases by showing that
Legal codes were simplified to pave the ways for the abolition of extra-territoriality. If the reform were given enough time to carry out, it could successfully tackle the problems the Qing government faced. Economi... ... middle of paper ... ... nalists at the highest level.”
Legal realism defines legal rights and duties as whatever the court says they are. Out of all the legal theories we have examined in class, I personally believe that this is the one that best exemplifies the purpose of law and would best suit and benefit society. The Dimensions of Law textbook defines legal realism as “the school of legal philosophy that examines law in a realistic rather than theoretical fashion; the belief that law is determined by what actually happens in court as judges interpret and apply law.”