Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
by the people of Sung. Now those who try to rule the people of the
present age with the conduct of government of the early kings are all
doing exactly the same thing as that fellow who kept watch by the
stump.
(de Bary et al. 1960, 130)
The Legalist ruler is not to be benevolent or loving or practice ren in
dealing with his subjects because this will only spoil and ruin them; peo-
ple are motivated to act only by threat of force and by laws specifying
rewards and punishments. Li Si, another Legalist who continued in this
vein, urged the application of extremely harsh punishments for intellec-
tuals who would not conform to the wishes and programs of the state.
Legalism was, then, completely amoral and highly unphilosophical.
It eventually became the official ideology of the state of Qin, which
defeated all other states and unified China under its rule in 221 B.C.
It assumed that people could not be taught but only compelled or
enticed. Legalist law was not natural law; that is, it did not claim to
be modeled after the world of nature. Nor was it divine law, because
it did not pretend to derive of divine sources or dispensations.
Unabashedly man-made, it made no references to unchanging stan-
dards of right and wrong. People were recruited into government ser-
vice not on the basis of their moral qualities or broad learning but their
proven administrative expertise. Officials who accomplished what the
government wanted were promoted and rewarded; those who did not
were demoted and punished.
If Legalism can be called the rule of law, it certainly was not a democ-
racy. Laws came from the whims of the ruler, not from the consent of the
governed or the expressed popular will. Legalists held a very dim view
of their subjects; they could not trust a populace they regarded as stupid
and self-serving to formulate their own laws. Taoists deplored this
viewpoint because laws are in and of themselves indications that the
government had lost its “way.” Confucian scholars also found Legalism
particularly revolting because the laws often seemed coldly arbitrary
and did not accommodate any moral or ethical considerations. They
concluded that the rule of law was not nearly as good as government
by benevolent men who understood li and possessed ren.
MINORSCHOOLSOFTHOUGHT
Confucianism, Taoism, and Legalism are commonly (and correctly)
thought of as the most important of the Eastern Zhou schools of
thought. There were, however, other schools as well, and the reasons
the Chinese rejected them are interesting and illuminating.
