An overview of the concept of lawlessness in ancient China

Confucianism was absolutely dominant in ancient Chinese society, and the cultural concept of "noble and neutral, noble and neutral" characterized traditional Chinese legal culture. According to historical evidence, Confucius, as the founder of Confucianism, was the founder and advocate of the theory of "no lawsuit". At the same time, he once declared his goal of ruling: "To hear litigation, I am like a human being, and I will also make no litigation." [1] In addition, Confucian texts record that the era of Yao and Shun was a world without lawsuits, and Shun himself was a master of quelling lawsuits and stopping disputes. [2] At the same time, the Qing people have said: "the two disputes, will be to the situation, the saint of its own, to help not to blame people for the dispute, but litigation of its straight and narrow." [3] can be seen, the ancient Chinese indifference to litigation, they believe that litigation is the result or performance of moral corruption.

Confucianism, while positively proclaiming the benefits and beautiful scenarios of being litigation-free, created a negative opinion that litigation is harmful. For example, "Litigation, the end is evil", "Litigation should not be organized in vain", and "Litigation should not be prolonged". [4] Thus, litigation is inauspicious should be appropriate to stop, healthy litigation will be bad. Ancient Chinese people advocate the concept of litigation, praised the litigation-free society, and strive for a better world without litigation and harmony, but inevitably brought about by the aversion to litigation, cheap litigation, so litigators a kind of profession, there is no soil for survival in ancient China, for the people of the country despised. For example, the "Deng Jian incident" during the Spring and Autumn Period is one of the earliest evidence of cheap lawsuits in China. Deng analyze, the earliest lawyer in China, was criticized for teaching lawsuits and charging fees for his work: "not lawful to the former king, not doing rituals and righteousness, but good to rule the strange sayings ...... to hold the reason, the words are reasonable, enough to deceive the fools and confuse the masses",[5] and thus ultimately was sanctioned. Until the end of the Qing Dynasty, no litigation, cheap litigation is still widespread.