Research On The Legalization Of Filial Piety Ethics During Han Dynasty

Filial piety usually refers to devotion to one’s parents, an idea that did not come into existence until the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. But the concept of filial piety was already widely accepted in the Western Zhou dynasty when it was limited to ancestor worship and offspring reproduction.During the Spring and Autumn period, people’s morals were shattered by dramatic social changes in an unprecedented way, with the country divided by competing warlords and culture and ethics falling apart. In this context, Confucius, based on the rite and music system of Western Zhou, proposed his theory of "benevolence", with filial piety as an integral part of it. From then on, filial piety gradually evolved from a sentimental perception generated from blood ties to a sort of ethic and moral discipline. Later, its connotation was continuously enriched by social, political, economic and cultural factors and its denotation kept expanding. In Han dynasty, filial piety was used to explain the meaning of loyalty and the attainment of both loyalty and filial piety was emphasized. Though the ethics of filial piety already appeared in law before the Han dynasty, the legalization was not complete. For example, Qin dynasty made the violation of filial piety a crime, but it does not mean the legalization of the ethics of filial piety. The reason is because Qin was dominated by the legalist philosophy:it valued the application of severe law as advocated by legalists but neglected the role of morals in cultivating its people. Making filial impiety a crime was only a punishment for behaviors of filial impiety. Qin still tried to govern its people with severe law and bring them to obedience with the restraining power of law; it did not recognize the role of ethics of filial piety in cultivation, or try to bind its people with ethics and morals or teach them reverence for their parents or loyalty to the emperor. Therefore despite legal punishment for behaviors of filial impiety before the Han dynasty, the legalization of filial piety was not complete then.The legalization of filial piety did not occur until the Han dynasty because:first, ethics of filial piety was held in extreme reverence, which was decided by the economic basis and social structure at that time. The more important reason was that, in Han dynasty, the connotation of filial piety was elevated from devotion to one’s parents at home to loyal to the emperor and respect for one’s teachers. Thus the scope of the concept was extended from the parent-child relationship to the junior-senior and common people-monarchy relationships. In Han dynasty, filial piety was used to explain the connotation of loyalty and loyalty to the rulers was equal to piety to one’s parents, which was what the ruler needed to govern the country. The ruler needed some means to bring its people to wholehearted obedience to his rule. The other reason is that the legal thinking was changed by the neo-Confucian philosophy advocated by Dong Zhongshu in Han dynasty. Earlier rulers of Han worshiped the thoughts of Yellow Emperor and Laozi, but by the time of the reign of Emperor Wu, the neo-Confucian philosophy was favored to meet the needs for social progress. At that time, since Han inherited some of Qin’s government system, it was still under the influence of legalist thought, but drawing experience from Qin’s fall, rulers of Han did not want to resort to severe punishment and law as its predecessor did, so the legal thinking that combined Confucian and legalist thoughts, and stressed moral cultivation while downplaying penalties arose to the occasion. Guided by this legal thinking, more and more Confucian thoughts were incorporated into laws, and in this context it was natural for ethics of filial piety, the core of the Confucian theory and advocated by rulers, to enter the law so that its promotion could be guaranteed via law enforcement to help the ruler safeguard feudal monarchy.As far as legislation is concerned, the legalization of ethics of filial piety in Han dynasty concerned both criminal law and non-criminal law in order to punish filial impiety and promote filial piety at the same time. For instance, the criminal law not only punished behaviors of filial impiety, but also allowed close relatives to cover up for each other in criminal offense, sympathized with elderly criminals and forgave revenges; the non-criminal law made filial piety a key indicator for selecting court officials, rewarding filial sons, providing preferential treatment to the elderly and protecting patriarchy.The legalization of ethics of filial piety had significant impacts on future generations. First, it helped cultivate common people and maintain family stability; second, it helped protect the centralized monarchy; third, it laid the foundation for the rule by filial piety in later generations. However, it also led to the extremism of filial piety in Han dynasty, the rise of revenge, the prevalence of lavish funerals and the clinging to the old system in the society.