On People-oriented Spirit in Confucian Legal Thought

Confucian legal thought, from the basic direction, is people-oriented.

In China's traditional legal thought, there is a people-oriented concept of "people are the foundation of the state". Confucianism believes that "the people's livelihood is the foundation of the monarch, and the people are also considered" [1] and Confucianism has practiced the concept of heaven in primitive religion for the people, raising the people to the status of god. For example, Confucianism believes that "the sky is smart and people are smart." I am afraid of the dawn, and I am afraid of the people. "[2] Another example is" Heaven regards himself and others, and Heaven listens to himself and others. " [3] Another example is "people, the Lord of God" [4] and "people, then God's blessing". "[5] also known as" what the people want, what the heavens do. "Therefore, in Confucianism, the status of the people represents the qualifications of heaven and god. Standing on the rulers and attaching importance to the people constitute an important aspect of Confucian humanistic tradition, or people-oriented thought constitutes a major feature of Confucianism.

On the one hand, the Confucian people-oriented thought shows its concern and attention to the people, and advocates "attaching importance to the people", "loving the people" and "people-oriented"; On the other hand, it is manifested in their demands on the rulers' morality and morality, and advocates the implementation of "rule by virtue" and "benevolent government". What they highlight and pay attention to is not the majesty of nobles, but the will of civilians; It is not the right of nobles, but the fate of civilians. Specifically, the Confucian people-oriented thought is manifested in:

First of all, the ruler must think of the people, care about the people and care about their interests. Mencius once said: "Civil affairs cannot be delayed." [6], in view of the suffering brought by tyranny to the people, he called on the rulers to "save the people from fire and water" [7]. He asked the rulers to implement "rule by virtue" and "benevolent government", be cautious in punishment, and be lenient in dealing with the relationship between the monarch and the people, so that "the people are the most important, the country is the second, and the monarch is the least." [8], even think that "the weather is not as good as the geographical position, and the geographical position is not as good as people." Tyrants and corrupt officials oppress the people, which Confucianism does not recognize.

Secondly, destiny is human life, and the will of the people is the only basis for the legitimacy of rulers. People have the right to choose their favorite monarch. For example, after attacking Yan, he asked Mencius if he wanted to annex this neighboring country. Mencius took the people's wishes and interests as decisive conditions. He said: "Those who are pleasing to others take it, and those who are unhappy don't take it." [9] This shows that rulers must pay attention to listening to the opinions of the people, rather than acting arbitrarily.

Third, Confucianism believes that the people's will determines whether the ruler wins or loses the world. Therefore, the ruler must win the hearts of the people in order to win the world. Rulers should not use force against the people, but should love and protect them, not intimidate them. Only with the voluntary support of the people can the rulers rule effectively and the country maintain long-term stability. As the saying goes, "The world is the king who is not convinced, and nothing happens" [10]. As a ruler, we should "have enough food, enough soldiers and people's trust", and the most important thing is people's trust. "Since ancient times, people have died, and people have no faith." [1 1] "People who are persuaded by strength are not convinced, and their strength is not enough." [12] An important law in Confucianism is: "Those who win the hearts of the people win the world, and those who lose the hearts of the people lose the world." Therefore, "winning the hearts of the people" is a far more important factor in the ruling strategy than legal procedures.

Comparatively speaking, western society takes Christianity as its guiding ideology. On the other hand, Christianity is centered on the personified God, who created man and therefore enjoys absolute authority over man. Therefore, the vertical relationship between God and man is the first concern of Christianity. Confucianism has no corresponding personified god, and there is no corresponding god or religion, so people's thinking concerns transcend god and directly enter the horizontal relationship between people. In sharp contrast to Christianity's concern for the afterlife, Confucius often adopts a relatively indifferent secular attitude towards supernatural things. As he said, "If you can't handle people, how can you handle ghosts?" ? If you don't know life, how do you know death? "[13]. Because man has established his actual advantage over heaven prematurely, man has become a more active factor in the trinity of heaven and earth. In Shangshu. "Tai Jia" has "Heaven commits iniquity, which is still a violation; You can't live if you do it yourself. "Statement [14].

In the view of traditional Confucianism, the god above the monarch, the country on which the monarch lives and the monarch itself exist for the people. It can be said that god, country and monarch are all political empty posts, and the people are the entities.

It should be said that people-oriented Confucianism is a more rational and precocious way of thinking, but this precocious culture, for a nation that is immature in many aspects, liberates people from the fear of God or the supernatural prematurely, and the result may breed unrestrained desires. Without the intervention and restraint of external authority, people may act as authority unscrupulously and strive for power and profit. This will ultimately fail to achieve the goal of loving the people. In addition, although the view of "God's will is public opinion" confirms theoretically that the will of the people is the basis for the rulers to exercise their power, it is a political factor that cannot be ignored. However, in feudal society, because there is no popular election system, any conqueror can call himself "God's will" after killing for profit. After the reunification of the country, people have no possibility of free choice, and the expression of "public opinion" has become a problem. Rulers can make such a circular theory: those who represent "providence" will succeed, and successful people will inevitably represent "providence"; Since "providence is public opinion", it must represent "public opinion", and "public opinion" has become the object that can be raped.

It takes a while for both individuals and human beings to enter civilization. For a long time, people's self-restraint has not been fully developed, and the authority of the outside world is essential. If there is no religion to provide this authority, then there must be secular authority to replace it. If there is no fear of God, there must be fear of people. Therefore, it is inevitable to deify individuals and create a human god in China. Therefore, although Confucius and Mencius advocated loving, valuing and people-oriented; Advocate sage politics, benevolent governance and rule by virtue; Although he thinks that when the king misbehaves, the people can uphold justice for heaven, Confucius and Mencius' people-oriented thought cannot be equated with modern western democratic thought. People-oriented and democracy are different, but their meanings are far from each other. The difference between people-oriented and democracy lies in: firstly, people-oriented thought does not need to demonstrate the power source or the way of power generation of rulers, which is an unavoidable fundamental problem of democracy. Although people-oriented thought also mentioned that people can do justice for heaven at some time, it is not a rational and democratic way to generate procedural power. Therefore, the Confucian people-oriented thought can only alleviate the poison of tyrants and corrupt officials in history and paint a gratifying prospect for the peaceful and prosperous times of mankind, but it has not really solved the problem of tyrants and corrupt officials, nor can it escape the historical cycle tragedy of "one rule and one chaos".

In the history of China, the ruling dynasty overthrew the rule of an old dynasty under the banner of doing justice for heaven, but the dynasty they later established did not establish any democratic system, which is an example. Because the people-oriented thought frames the people in the existing political power and takes the survival of the political power as the basic reference, it does not regard the people as the decisive force of social development at all, nor does it deeply communicate the economic relations, political relations and historical development behind them through the "people", thus revealing the internal basis for the people to become the foundation of politics; It only regards the people as the object of passive acceptance of Enshi, understands the relationship between the monarch, the government and the people according to the model of parents and children, and takes meeting the basic needs of the people in material and services as the upper limit. Therefore, compared with democratic thought, people-oriented thought may truly respect people's basic values and rights, and it is impossible to evolve people-oriented and empowering content. In a word, people-oriented thought contains the meaning of "the people are the masters of the country", and democratic thought contains the meaning of "the people are the masters of the country". Secondly, people-oriented thought always tries to find ways for the governed from the standpoint of the ruler, always solves social problems from the standpoint of the ruler, and rarely thinks and solves problems from the standpoint of the governed. "Development", "charity" and "economy" are of a top-down nature, and the people are always in a passive position. This is in obvious contrast with the democracy and rule of law promoted from the bottom up in the modern west and resisted by grassroots civil society. Western democratic legal thought is based on "my consciousness". My consciousness is that everyone has the right to exist independently, and everyone has personal freedom for others, especially for rulers. They are based on the natural law of "everyone is born free and equal" and the contract theory agreed by both parties. Natural law and contract theory are the premise or means for everyone to fight for their rights. Therefore, the first step of western democratic thought is to fight for individual rights, delimit individual rights and restrict the exercise of rulers' power. After defining the rights, the second step is to stipulate the responsibilities that everyone should do. Because rights and rights must have clear boundaries and a certain scope, order can be maintained, so the third step of western legal development is the rule of law, which is inseparable from democracy.

Of course, the people-oriented principle in Confucian legal thought still has its reasonable core. To treat Confucian people-oriented doctrine, we should pay attention to cultivating the democratic quality of the whole people, let the people really have the power to stop the rulers from doing whatever they want, and let "people-oriented" become a democracy in which the people stand out for themselves. In this way, China's democracy and rule of law can get a higher foundation because of the revival of Confucian spirit, and Confucianism can also be revived because of the establishment of democracy and rule of law.

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Precautions:

[1] Xunzi. Rough "

[2] Shangshu. Hao Tao Hume "

[3] "Thai oath"

[4]' Zuo Zhuan'

[5] "Mandarin. Zhou Yu

[6] "Mencius. On Teng Wengong "

[7] Mencius. Under the rule of Teng Wengong. "

[8] Mencius. Dedicated "

[9] Mencius. Liang Xia

[10] Mencius. Under the rule of Li Lou. "