Confucius And Mencius’s Thoughts Of Power Restriction And Its Modern Enlightenment

Confucius and Mencius raised many conclusions of power. Although these claims were based on the feudal government in the purpose of strengthening the imperial power which did not fully represent the public interests, some claims like "governing with morals","politics get in public support" had epoch-making significance. And these thoughts have a very important practical significance for the study of modern power restriction in public administration. Confucianism focuses on ethics and morality. Therefore Confucianism also advocates a moral constraints model in power restriction question. Confucianism regards power from a macroscopic and humanistic point of view, puts power restriction in ethics system and emphasizes the self-discipline of the main body of rights. Confucian pin their hope on morality of the rulers, hoping through the moral guidance and improvement to realize the justice nature of power. In two thousand years of imperial politics, the supreme position of Confucianism has never fundamentally shaken. The govern strategies based on Confucian ethics were complied with by the later rulers of various dynasties. And these strategies became the basic means to straighten official management. This article is based on the historical value of the Confucian politics orientation, analyses the Confucius and Mencius thoughts of power restriction, and discusses the reference and enlightenment on today’s power restriction system.This article has five parts. First part, introduction, including research backgrounds, research importance, research status, research perspective, research method, research thinking, framework and the innovations. Second part, I discuss Confucius and Mencius’ view of power from different respects, including starting point and purpose of the view of power, main body of power and power legitimacy, the operational procedures of power. In the third part, I discuss the Confucius and Mencius’view of power restriction and summarize in three aspects:1. restricting power through moral,2. restricting power through public,3. decentralization. These proposals can be summed up in one spot, which is the "benevolence". And "benevolence" is the main route to restrict power advocated by Confucius and Mencius. In the fourth part, I discuss the historical value and limitations of Confucius and Mencius’view of power restriction. In the final part, I propose the enlightenment of Confucius and Mencius’view of power restriction from two perspectives, restricting power through moral and restricting power through public.Confucius and Mencius’thoughts of power restriction are different from Legalists, Taoists and western theory. These thoughts provide ethical guidelines to improve the power restriction system. However, power restriction system could not rely on a single model, but should form a diverse model. Restricting power not only through the moral and legal ways, but also rely on public ways and decentralization. Each part plays its role and form integral resultant force.