confucianism+resonse+Sejin+Paik



In class we have gone over the three religions and philosophies of Ancient China. Those were Confucianism, Daoism and Legalism. The interesting fact about these philosophies is that the practices and thoughts were used at similar periods and the three influenced each other. At the same time, they were so different that there were many conflicts against which one was better to use for the government or to rule the country. First off, Taoism stated that human nature is pure and that it is natural. People should do as the nature flows and go with the harmony of life. There does not need to be stress or strong push on the people, but people should learn on their own. The inner nature is harmonious and people should follow their inner beliefs. Daoists also emphasize that we should not learn knowledge, and our minds should be blank and left hanging. Daoism is also spiritual and the law is not based on moral code. On the other hand, Confucianism strongly bases their authority on moral code. Confucianism explains about the importance of relationships and especially when ruling a society, the relationship between a king and its subject is important. If the moral code is followed there could be political stability and people can follow the principles of Confucius teaching. In Legalism, people were born evil and needed to be controlled. More specifically, they used strict laws to enforce the society in order for people to be settled and calm. The whole point of Legalism was to have a stable and social order. A role for the ruler was to have chastisement and commendation in order to keep his/her position. Since people do not like getting punishments and like getting rewards, if the ruler is strong in that sense, people will do good deeds to get rewards rather than punishments. Some key comparison between Confucianism and Daoism is how they perceived their government. In Daoism, the ruler did nothing; they had no action because they believed men had no restrictions. If there was an oppressive ruler they were put to death. The fact is, Daoism government said that by putting in no action, order will be prevailed. Daoists also influenced ignorance. Opposing to Daoism, Confucianism needed morality for everything and there should be a ruler that conducts laws upon the people. It was not as strong Legalism, however, Confucianism still stressed a big authority on people. Confucianism then needed to have relationships amongst elders and class. To sum up, there are countless numbers of differences between these extreme different philosophies, however, they have been impacted during China’s instability and it has helped tremendously for China to prosper.