The content and significance of bright virtue and prudent punishment in the Western Zhou period

One of the guiding thoughts of the legislation of the Western Zhou. The so-called bright virtue is to advocate virtue and respect for virtue, it is the guiding ideology and guarantee of prudent punishment. The so-called prudent punishment is that the criminal law is moderate and does not punish the innocent or kill the innocent.

"Virtue and prudent punishment" as part of the traditional thinking of Confucianism, there is its not in line with the needs of modern social development, should be abandoned. However, we can not deny it completely, we should see its positive value, while many effective measures to govern the country, it is also worthwhile to summarize and learn from.　Firstly, it emphasizes the moral cultivation of state officials. The Western Zhou emphasized the ruler's "self-cultivation", but there is no such thing as a ruler in today's society, so does this article have no meaning? Of course not! Although the state workers are different from the rulers of the ancient society, but the two have a very important **** the same point - are in possession of a strong national public power, there are corruption possibilities and convenient conditions. Therefore, the emergence of a large number of today's corruption phenomenon, so that the people's trust in the government has declined, although the government in the legislative, judicial, administrative and other areas have increased efforts to combat, but the results are very little, which also shows that the phenomenon of corruption is not a purely rely on the law or the system can be solved by the social problems, but also need to start from the ideological, because there is no absolutely perfect law or system, not to mention that even more perfect laws and systems need to be implemented by someone. Laws and systems also need people to implement, from this aspect, emphasize the national staff "self-cultivation" to improve is in any case not excessive. The author believes that this requires the establishment of a set of national managers class **** have the "moral" concept to improve their own cultivation, for example, the concept of service, thrift, law-abiding concept and so on.　Second, emphasize the important role of civic moral education. Under the impact of the tide of economic construction, the overall moral standard of China's nationals has shown a clear downward trend, more obvious in the youth population. Patriotism complex disappeared, the socialist concept of honor and shame did not open into, the crime rate is rising are the best examples. This situation is only rely on the legal system is not pointed to improve, must rely on strong, effective civic moral education to change. Now we are carrying out the socialist concept of honor and shame education is to pay attention to the important role of civic moral education is an example.　Third, the rule of morality must be complemented by the rule of law, moral rule is not omnipotent "virtue and prudent punishment" that is, "virtue", "punishment" is the best interpretation of the use of both. No matter when, in that case, we should adhere to the criminal law is not omnipotent, punishment is not the ultimate goal of the point of view. Just as Zhou recognized that the purpose of punishment is to encourage the people to establish virtue, our criminal punishment is for the purpose of rehabilitation, and the purpose of rehabilitation is to stop endangering society. Traditional thought tells us that punishment is to punish evils before they occur, while virtue is to prohibit evils before they occur. Since moral norms are not backed up by state coercion, we must have laws to sanction behaviors that fail to avoid endangering society and others, and to provide relief to victims. At the same time, we should also advocate the rule of morality to reduce the occurrence of behaviors that harm society and others.