Legalism Vs Confucianism

During the Warring State period of China, there were many philosophers who had different views of the governmental system. Legalism, argued by Han Feizi during the Warring State period of China, originated from the idea that humans must be governed by some strong external governmental power. On the other hand, Confucianism put more importance on living by virtue rather than the law itself. Thus, the view of humans of whether they can be trusted or not to govern themselves can hugely affect the governing style of a country. Even though countries are no longer run by certain philosophical ideas, the diverse views on humans or citizens play crucial roles in deciding the ways to attain an unprejudiced society for everyone, the foundation of law;

Plato and Freud have proposed the triple nature of the human soul. The white horse and the superego represent a lover of honor and modesty and temperance, and the follower of true glory in human nature. The black horse and the id are crooked; they are the mate of insolence, pride, and usually deaf. It represents a strong drive for sex, food, safety and passion of humans. The charioteer and the reason are the ones that attempt to find balance between one’s passion and spirit. Therefore, Plato has concluded that the capacity for knowledge is present in everyone’s mind as no human is any less than a human; everyone has the ability to reason and can cultivate it to attain the goal of understanding the truth. However, according to Plato, the reason people sometimes avoid enlightenment is because the strong light painfully blinds their eyes. In Plato’s cave allegory, the outer world of the light symbolizes the world of spirit, which anyone can achieve by breaking the chains that tie them. The blinding of their eyes symbolizes the difficulty of denying the material world and accepting their own ignorance after knowing the reality. Hence, there will be people who avoid leaving the cave, because they don’t have enough courage or maturity to face the pain, nonetheless everyone will be capable of doing

Plato has claimed that the guardians should be the one who drags people out of the cave. This is completely the opposite of the materialists’ idea, as the government is keeping the people in the cave instead of leading them out like the guardians. Also, if humans cannot be trusted to govern themselves, what gives the government officials the power or right to control other people? How would people know if the leaders are leading the country the right way if they are not even given the chance to enlighten themselves? It seems unreasonable to select government officials under the premises of human nature from the view of the materialists. What makes the leaders so special that they would be exempt from the fundamental distrust on humans? Even if the people have voted for the leaders, how would they trust the leaders and the governments? They’re humans too. They can be corrupt even more with power. Of course, because there are different types of people all around the world, not everyone is going to follow the rules, and because of that, conflicts or crimes will always arise. However, the fact that humans commit crimes does not qualify as an evidence that human nature cannot be controlled without outside forces. Even though the government enforces the strictest laws in the world, there