How do Confucius, Mencius and Laozi view the relationship between politics and law?

In Confucius’s ideological treasure house, it only touches on legal phenomena and legal technical aspects at best. In terms of legal values, it not only does not pay attention to the law, but also advocates using morality to cancel the law, that is, "removing punishment with virtue." The ultimate concern of Confucius' thought is to become a saint and a king, a saint within and a king outside, and the way to realize this ideal is to "reverse self-cultivation and cultivate oneself". Confucius's transcendent qualities of human nature and pan-moralistic teachings are far from modern legal thought. Confucius said: "Hearing a lawsuit, I am a human being. It must be so that there will be no lawsuits! This is an important manifestation of Confucius's idea of ??using virtue to punish punishment. Obviously, Confucius here is asking people to improve their moral cultivation so that they will not be punished. If a person violates the criminal law, there will be no litigation, and there will be no need for the existence of the criminal law.

Mencius said in "Exerting the Heart": "Keep your heart and nourish your nature, so you serve heaven." "It is to maintain people's kindness and cultivate their nature. This is the way to deal with destiny. It is believed that "obtaining the world's talents and educating them" is one of the "three joys" of a gentleman's life. He also said: "The words of benevolence are not as good as the sound of benevolence." People's hearts are deep, and good governance is not as good as good teaching to win over the people. Good governance will be feared by the people; good education will be loved by the people. Good governance wins people's wealth, and good education wins people's hearts. "An important content of benevolent government is to strengthen the etiquette and moral education of the people, and at the same time reduce the use of force and punishment to suppress, so as to achieve the kingly rule of "building peace and peace" with less use of coercive measures and punishment. Rulers are also taught that "If you use the lost way to make people work, you will not complain even if you work; if you use the way of life to kill the people, even if they die, you will not complain about the killer." "It means that if you serve the people based on the principle of making them comfortable, the people will not feel resentment even if they work hard; if you kill someone based on the principle of making the people live a better life, the person will not resent the person who killed him even if he is killed. Although There seems to be merit in good intentions, but in a society where unjust imprisonments and deaths were everywhere, it was too naive. "Tengwen Gongshang" proposed: "Set it as a school in Xiangxu to teach. ... The three generations of learning have been developed, and they are all based on the understanding of human relations. Human ethics are clear at the top, and the people at the bottom are close to each other. When a king rises, he will come to learn the Dharma. This is the teacher of the king. "And clearly requires: "Teaching human relations, father and son have kinship, monarch and ministers have righteousness, husband and wife have distinction, elder and younger have a relationship (preface), and friends have trust. "The "Five Ethics" etiquette and hierarchical norms are still the first choice for moral education.

At the same time, it emphasizes caution in punishment. "To the Heart" believes that "it is not benevolent to kill someone without guilt." "The King of Liang Hui II" warned the monarch: "Only those who are not fond of killing people" can unite the world. "If there is someone who is not fond of killing people, all the people in the world will look up to him." It is true that when the people return, they are like water flowing down. Who can control it? "It is also proposed that "the guilty will not be imprisoned", that is, the punishment will only affect the criminal himself, not his wife and children. "Gongsun Chou" even said: "To do an injustice, to kill an innocent, and to gain the world, do not do it. . "These thoughts on caution in punishment are equivalent to slogans, and there is basically no consideration of how to implement them and lack practical value. In "The King Hui of Liang", Mencius said: "Everyone on the left and right says it is okay to kill, but don't listen; all the officials say it is okay to kill, don't listen. Listen; people in the country say they can be killed, and then they look at them and see if they are killable, and then kill them. Therefore, it is said that the people of the country will kill him. In this way, you can become a parent. "Although it shows that Mencius attaches great importance to the approval of public opinion in the use of capital punishment, it is just a judicial fantasy without any operability.

Laozi

"Government by doing nothing" Mainly refers to "doing nothing for nothing" and "doing nothing without ruling". "Doing nothing for nothing" is the method of governance, which requires the ruler to do nothing; "doing nothing for nothing without governing" is the ruling strategy, that is, only the method of "doing nothing" can achieve the goal of governance. Purpose; "Doing nothing without governing" is a ruling strategy, that is, only using the method of "doing nothing" can achieve the purpose of ruling. In summary, there are two aspects: one is to persuade the rulers to do less; the other is to make the people "ignorant and have no desires." . To this end, it puts forward the principles of "three eliminations" (elimination of extremes, elimination of extravagance, and elimination of Taipei) and "three eliminations" (elimination of sage and wisdom, abandonment of benevolence and righteousness, and abandonment of skill and profit). For the rulers, the specific manifestations are: opposing high taxes and advocating low taxes; opposing tyranny and harsh punishments, advocating reduced penalties; opposing war and advocating peace. The "three absolutes" are relative to the ruled people. The policy of obscuring the people eliminates the people's pursuit of material and spiritual life and thus loses the social conditions for "progress".

The legal concept and legislative and judicial thoughts of "Laozi" are also guided by "governing by doing nothing". This is mainly reflected in the emphasis on "following only the right" and opposing the reliance on specific laws and regulations to govern the country; advocating secrecy and opposing the formulation and promulgation of statutory laws; advocating "benefit without harm" and opposing indiscriminate executions. In addition, the strategic principle of "governing by inaction" advocated by "Laozi" of using softness to overcome hardness and using the weak to defeat the strong is also the basis for its analysis of political and legal issues.

To sum up, the political and legal view of "Governing by doing nothing" in "Laozi" is not only a strategy used to rule the people, but also contains the people's character against tyranny and exploitation; it has both The factors of legal non-ism end up in more ingenious legal coercion. What "Laozi" seeks is not to completely abolish politics or abolish laws