HIST 11A Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Zichan, Shang Yang, Filial Piety
Document Summary
Legalism: legalists believed law is the only way to create orderly society. Believed that laws can work automatically without need for wise rulers. Law manipulates population to serve interest of state: successful in gaining patronage of rulers, unlike confucians. Law ( : law within the book of documents, emphasis on crime of filial piety. Worse than murder and treason, reflects principles of patrimonial state: failure to carry out justice jeopardizes the right to rule, suggests heaven did not make law, but was intimately concerned with justice. Ritual ( : code of honor distinguishes nobility, no need to threaten punishment to keep them in line, early zhou ruled by ritual, rather than law. Did so by appealing to sense of honor: nobility separated from commoners nobility followed rituals, law reserved for commoners, early zhou: widespread aversion to rule by penal law.
