Abstract
This paper analyzes the origin of Chinese legalism, its major propositions and characteristics. It compares the difference between Chinese legalism and other Chinese philosophies including Confucianism, Taoism and Mohism. It also discloses the difference of Chinese legalism and Western legalism in relation with morality. Western legalism defended the rule-of-law but argued against the morality of law. In contrast, Chinese legalism, especially in the early Pre-Qin era, did not separate morality from law. However, the fidelity to law in Chinese legalism was interpreted as the fidelity to the monarch, and thus being different from the Western rule-of-law.
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Peng He, Ph.D candidate in law (University of Edinburgh), is a lecturer at School of Law, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law. Her major research covers jurisprudence, legal history and comparative law. Her representative works include: 梁启超的法学贡献及其法律思想特征(The Contributions and Characteristics of the Legal Works by Liang Qichao, 2009); 中华民国宪法之父与民国宪政之梦的幻灭(The Father of Constitution in the Historical Republic of China and the Disappeared Dream of the Constitutional Political System, 2009).
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He, P. The difference of Chinese legalism and western legalism. Front. Law China 6, 645–669 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11463-011-0148-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11463-011-0148-y