Research On Dong Zhongshu's Thought Of Morality And Punishment And Its Contemporary Value

Dong Zhongshu was a famous thinker in the Western Han Dynasty and one of the important representatives of the Confucian school.His thought inherited Confucius and Mencius and inspired Zhu Xi,which had an important influence on the feudal society of our country.In the early Western Han Dynasty,the brutal rule of the Qin Dynasty had just ended,and the establishment of the upper regime was not mature enough.Dong Zhongshu learned the lesson of the demise of the Qin Dynasty and was fully aware of the harm of severe punishment under the brutal rule.Dong Zhongshu clearly put forward the idea of "virtue dominates punishment" on the basis of inheriting the Confucian thought of rule by virtue in the pre-Qin Dynasty and the Confucianism in the early Han Dynasty.The connotation of his thought of moral principle and punishment is "Yang morality Yin punishment","Moral education does not allow punishment","morality and etiquette is thefoundation,and political punishment is the use".This paper mainly discusses Dong Zhongshu's thought of morality and punishment from three parts.The first part mainly discusses the background and ideological origin of Dong Zhongshu's thought of morality and punishment.The background of the times mainly includes three aspects: economic,political and cultural;economically,although the policy of "recuperation" has led to an increase in social wealth,there is a wide gap between the rich and the poor,and wealth is mainly concentrated in the strong hands of the landlords.The broad masses of farmers are still living in poverty,and the society presents the current situation of "the country's wealth and the people's famine".Politically,the county system and the enfeoffment system coexisted,the princes were powerful,and the vassal states were "enfeoffment separatists" for a long time,threatening the centralized rule.Culturally,there has been a phenomenon of "a hundred schools coexist and various factions struggle".All factions hope that the new regime can take its own theoretical proposition as the thought of governing the country,so all factions have also launched a fierce struggle.In terms of ideological origin,his thought of rule by virtue mainly comes from the thought of "Ming virtue and careful punishment" in the Western Zhou Dynasty,the thought of "virtue" and "propriety" of Confucianism in the pre-Qin Dynasty,and the thought of "rule by virtue" in the early Han Dynasty.The second part discusses the main contents and characteristics of Dong Zhongshu's thought of morality and punishment.The main contents are summarized into three aspects,demonstrating his thought of "virtue dominates punishment and auxiliary punishment" from the view of Yin and Yang and his thought of "virtue without punishment" on the basis of Confucian rule of virtue.Finally,the relationship between virtue and punishment mainly includes the relationship between virtue and punishment.The relationship between morality and punishment is based on politics and punishment.The characteristics mainly start with the analysis of the differences between Dong Zhongshu's thought of moral punishment and other thinkers' thought of rule by virtue,including demonstrating the rationality of "virtue dominates punishment" from the point of view of Yin and Yang.The key point of moral education lies in three aspects: the coordination between "Zhengjun","human relationship" and "legal principle".The third part mainly discusses the historical value and contemporary enlightenment of Dong Zhongshu's thought of moral punishment.In the early Western Han Dynasty,Dong Zhongshu's thought of morality and punishment on the one hand alleviated the class contradiction,solved many historical problems left over by the Qin Dynasty,consolidated the rule of the early Han Dynasty,and provided a good theoretical basis for later generations to deal with the problems of the rule of virtue and the rule of law.However,this idea also has its limitations,it is fundamentally for the maintenance of feudal rule and service,with the progress of society,it is bound to be eliminated.Under the background of the new era,there arestill many problems to be solved in the development of our society,such as moral construction,the construction of democracy and the rule of law,and the transformation of the governance system to modernization,which can be solved by learning from Dong Zhongshu's thought of morality and punishment.