The Sage of Confucianism and Taoism

Chapter 2571 Good Laws and Bad Laws

"In fact, the other schools envy the Legalists." Yan Yukong said.

Everyone nodded.

After everyone discussed for a while, Fang Yun continued: "I want to say that everyone understands this truth, but everyone wants to wait for others to say it, so they wait and wait, endlessly. Today, I will say this truth. From now on, if you say this truth again, you don't have to worry about being attacked by the crowd and let them come to us."

Many people smiled kindly.

Fang Yun said: "We can think about it simply. We are all human beings. People must have selfishness. Different people must have different concepts of life. Different people have different concepts of looking at the world. Different people have different concepts of judging everything. Even the saints have their own wishes. Therefore, in this world, there is actually no absolutely fair and just law. Even the Legalists will not object to this, right?"

Millions of people nodded in unison. This is common sense.

Fang Yun said: "So, in the matter of making laws, or in any government affairs, there are two extreme points of being public and being private. However, being public sounds good, but it is not necessarily perfect. Because many selfless situations will harm individuals. For example, in the distribution of food in primitive society, for the development of the tribe, more food should be given to young and middle-aged people, and less food should be given to the old and young. For the entire tribe, this is good, but for those vulnerable old and young people, it cannot be said to be good. We can't say that this food distribution is wrong, we can only say that this method is not perfect."

"Is there a perfect law? There may be, but we don't discuss it, because if it is perfect, there is no value in discussing it. Is there a perfect legal family? There may be, but most of them are not. Therefore, we imperfect people pick out imperfect laws and divide them into two categories, one is a more just law, and the other is a more unjust law."

"Some people may be surprised, why are there unjust laws? We are People are not perfect saints, so they will eventually make some decisions that may be incorrect, or, in other words, make unjust laws because of unjust reasons. "

"Justice and injustice are called in a special way. I said before that the law is deeply influenced by morality. So, we, as individuals, and even most people, often judge whether the law is just by moral standards. If a law is closer to the moral standards of the public, then in the eyes of most people, this law is more just. So, we think it is good and can be called a good law. "

"What is an unjust law? According to the previous words, it can be concluded that it is a law that is far from the moral standards of the public. "

"Let's take a very simple example. In some ancient laws, everything of the servants belonged to the owner of the house, and the owner could kill them without caring. In our current view, this kind of law violates morality, is bad, is evil, and is unjust. We can call it an evil law. "

"Many people are interested when they hear this statement for the first time.

Instead, all the legalists showed disgust. In their hearts, the standards set by the legalist semi-saints were correct. Any statement that was not made by the legalist Confucian scholars or semi-saints was a fallacy and was backward and ignorant.

They hated the officials of the Miscellaneous Hall of Rites for treating the legalists in this way, but they treated Fang Yun in the same way.

Fang Yun continued: "In fact, the meaning of good and bad laws is different with different legal standards. We are now only following the public standards of the Shengyuan Continent. We talked about who should make the law before, and the answer has been given. Because scholars are better, it should be decided by scholars, especially legal scholars who focus on law. However, because the legalists are a minority after all, we have to consider more human races, so in fact, the laws of the human race are still jointly made by the whole human race, but scholars have more say than non-scholars. At least on this point, we have reached a consensus here."

Fang Yun laughed after he finished speaking, and the people in the venue laughed too.

Because everyone here is a scholar, no one will throw away the power they have obtained.

After Fang Yun finished laughing, his face quickly turned cold, and he said, "Why didn't anyone try to oppose me just now?"

Many people's smiles froze on their faces, and the atmosphere in the meeting suddenly dropped to the freezing point.

Some scholars of low literary status felt a little scared, after all, the one who spoke was a virtual saint, the first person under the semi-saint.

Fang Yun's expression slowly eased, and he said, "Your performance just now proves a very realistic truth, everyone has selfishness. Everyone present thinks that since we have become scholars, we naturally have power and privileges different from non-scholars, and no one thinks it is wrong. In fact, if we look at the world, we will find a truth, whether it is human race, monsters, alien races, aquatic races, birds and beasts, flowers, birds, fish and insects, they are all selfish in their bones. Except for a few ancient Mo family members, even Confucianism has to distinguish between distance and thickness. This is human nature and the instinct of all living beings."

Many people failed to understand the purpose of Fang Yun's sudden words.

"Then, the law makers, in the process of making laws, often influence the laws because of this selfish instinct. I have been studying the law these days and found that there is a very interesting trend in the laws of the human race over the years. When the law maker is the monarch, all officials who embezzle money are punished very severely, and even the death penalty is imposed. However, as scholars gradually gain more power and begin to influence the law, the punishment for the crime of embezzlement is constantly decreasing."

"At least so far, most of the legalist punishments are to punish criminals, but why are the sentences reduced for the same crime? It has always been said that taking a person's life is the heinous crime, otherwise, as long as no one is killed, the death penalty should not be imposed. However, those officials who embezzle money will inevitably lead to the destruction of some families and the poverty of more people, thus reducing their life expectancy. The number of people they kill and the number of lives they reduce are far more vicious and cruel than one Murderers. Their damage to society is far greater than that of murderers, so why are their punishments often so low? "

"Even, we all know that the main reason why real middle-level and high-level officials are sentenced is never greed for money. You may think that I am criticizing them, no, I am just using this bloody fact to tell you that people who can influence the law will inevitably find ways to use the law to protect themselves, and then use the law to gain benefits for themselves. "

"Many of the scholars present are not officials, and it seems that they cannot influence the law, but in fact, as a large group, the moral standards of the masses formed can still influence the law to a considerable extent. However, there are different groups in the world, so are the moral levels of the masses of different groups close? Not so! "

In order to avoid a certain degree, some words in this book may be different from idiomatic expressions, such as greed and flower building. This is also helpless, please understand.