Legalism vs. Morality

Ancient China had a number of intellectual schools which vied for political influence. The Confucian Schools sided with Morality, the idea that people should be encouraged to appreciate an intuition regarding what is Righteous and what is not, and then to abide by what they thought to be Right. The Legalists, on the other hand, complained that Morality was too subjective, that goodness dodged rigorous classification… who could definitively decide what was right or wrong? The Legalists rather proposed that laws be legislated as regards to social and political utility. In this sense morality would be replaced by codified ethics. No shades of grey but the black and white of thing either being legal or illegal.

The Moralists insisted that while no strict definitions could be asserted that could entirely encompass what was meant by Righteousness, still, many hundreds or even thousands of particular examples could be put forward which could provide people with a sufficient idea of how Righteousness worked in real world practice. By being acquainted with a sufficient lexicon of Righteousness it could be expected that people would be good, for all practical purposes, even if not perfectly so. Confucian Literature gives us an example of numerous anecdotes of goodness while not attempting any precise moral definitions.

The Legalists thought that their Legal Codifications would eliminate the moral uncertainty, and people would only have to worry about obeying the Law. This approach proved then, and still proves now, to be very naïve. Today every Secular Society in the World depends upon Legalist Institutions – legislating ethics while hoping or assuming that these laws would be automatically obeyed. But in practice the Legalistic Institutions rely upon saturating their societies with observers and enforcers – spies and police. The Legalistic States resolve into Police States. In America today there are more police than nurses, and more lawyers than doctors. No wonder there is no national health care. Incidentally, there are nearly more prison guards than teachers, and mostly they are paid better.

Today’s secularists suppose that the worst evils known to the World must of course source from Societies convinced of Religious Morality, but it must be admitted that to the degree in which the people are convinced of Religious Morality, the need for spies and police are far diminished. The people are good because they are self-motivated to be good, and not because they are afraid they might be caught breaking some law or another.

Ancient China was a special case in that the choices between Morality and Legality were intellectually evaluated and discussed in depth. Today that is not always the case, and so we have people doing all sorts of contradictory crap. We have Believers in Religious Morality who would legislate their Morality into Legality. This would not really be the best of both worlds, but the worst. Both Christian and Islamic Fundamentalists, ignorant farmers in both cases, wish to impose a Religious Morality by Legalistic means. This gives us situations where violence and duress are being utilized to advance essentially Religious Morality, which really should pose a contradiction in more minds than just mine.

Now, yes, Legalistic Institutions where they regard only practical and pragmatic details of social commerce – speeding laws, taxes and such – have their place. So also it is useful to have laws regarding the protection of property rights and public safety. But issues of morality should be matters of social indoctrination. If left to Legality then it would be necessary that every second person in Society be either a policeman or somebody who squeals to policemen.

But to be intellectually honest, today, where Information Technology could really possibly monitor every person, everywhere, twenty-four hours a day, we must concede that a totally Legalistic Society could become a more and more practical consideration. An All Knowing Information Technology can very much become an All Knowing Secular God. But still, it would not so much be a Society full of Goodness, as simply devoid of Crime. People would refrain from evil for fear of certainly getting caught. But there would still be no positive incentive for doing Good unless Society also encouraged positively Moral Institutions.