The Nature of the Legalism and Its Significance :: essays research papers

In contrary to its contemporary antagonist philosophical schools, who advocate the practices of humanity and the rightness and put ideal of the past, the Legalists, in their complete rejection of the traditional ethics, embraces the power of political power and uph honest-to-goodness a society of laws and punishments. As the old feudal grounds decayed and the smoke of endemic warfare suffused, the need for a more rational government that can afford greater centralised power so as to strengthen a state against its touch on increased substantially among the Warring States. Such a rising chirk up necessitated the emergence of the Legalists and further predetermined the Legalists inherent nature realistic, totalitarian and problem-solving which, with the acknowledgement of its significance and duty in the stream of history, finds its hegemonic character as well. In function, the Legalist is more of a powerful and influential government consultative direction than a philosophic al school. In practice, they openly advocate war as a means of state expansion and transforming deal into more grovelling and loyal or inversely, a way for its people to server the state they conceive a political structure where all government apparatus and social institutions reside under an absolute monarch, who has the ultimate power and association his foundation in an elaborately self-contained, austerely impartial and severely tyrannical legal machinery the state would also find no existence of the rather schools of thoughts if not their total annihilation loyalty to their emperor and weakened minds among people would prevail, bringing about social stability enabling intensive and cost-effective farming. It is thus rational for us to question the validity of preconditions upon which these ideas were acquired and the legitimacy of the ideas and later on but more importantly, how did the Legalists become the only classical thoughts had its teaching adopted as the sole o fficial doctrine of a regime rule all China and bring about the unification of China and lastly, the companionship of the all-too-soon collapse of the ephemeral Qin Dynasty and the Legalists thoughts.As for the precondition of the Legalists thoughts, there are a few fundamental premises or judgments that we can find from the texts. As an independent school of thoughts in order to distinguish itself among all Hundreds of Schools and set aside all past ideals and standards, the Legalists, first of all, believed in the inevitability of a constant change in society. As noted by Han Fei (d.