QuestionsWhat is a just society?Govern by virtue and ritual rather than by fear
What is a just society?Virtue and harmony

Govern by virtue and ritual rather than by fear

Confucius c. 551 BC · c. 479 BCBecoming human through learning, ritual and benevolence.
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What it claims

It is better to govern first by virtue and ritual than by laws and fear of punishment. The good ruler is like the pole star: he stays in his place, and everything turns around him.

Why

Ruled by punishment, people avoid wrongdoing out of fear but feel no shame; they imitate virtuous example and learn shame.

In short

"Govern by virtue and ritual rather than by fear" is an argument by Confucius (Analects 2.3, 12.19, 2.1) on the question "What is a just society?" (answer: virtue and harmony). Its claim: It is better to govern first by virtue and ritual than by laws and fear of punishment. The good ruler is like the pole star: he stays in his place, and everything turns around him. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P4). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 2 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Analects 2.3, 12.19, 2.1
Valid with an implicit premise

A minister suggests to Confucius putting wrongdoers to death to make the people better. Confucius refuses: a people led by fear obeys without becoming good. He does not want to abolish laws or penalties (he only asks that they be fair), but they cannot be the heart of government. The P1..P4 → C form is our reconstruction from reported sayings.

P1Led only by laws and punishments, the people avoid wrongdoing out of fear, but feel no shame: they do not become better.
P2The people imitate those who govern them: the ruler's virtue is like the wind, the people's like the grass, which bends under the wind.
P3Since they imitate, a people led by the example of virtue and by ritual learns to be ashamed of wrongdoing and becomes good.
P4 · implicit premiseThe aim of government is a good and trusting people, not merely an obedient one: between two ways of governing, we must prefer the one that makes the people good.
Therefore it is better to govern first by virtue and ritual than by laws and fear of punishment. The good ruler is like the pole star: he stays in his place, and everything turns around him.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, the computer finds a case where laws do not make the people good and example does, yet example is still not preferred: for instance if all one seeks is order, whatever is in people's hearts.
All four premises are essential. P4 is not written as such, but Confucius assumes it: he says elsewhere that a state can give up weapons and even food, but not the people's trust. The real debate is about P2: do people really imitate their rulers? The Chinese Legalists and Machiavelli answer no: people follow their interest and their fear.
Analogy. A teacher who controls the class only with detentions gets silence, but the pupils cheat as soon as he turns his back. A teacher the pupils respect hardly needs to punish.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

H
Han Fei and the Legalists 240 BC · attacks premise 2

People obey force and self-interest, not example. Confucius, the greatest sage, had only seventy disciples; a mediocre prince, because he holds power, is obeyed by a whole people. Clear laws, sure rewards and punishments govern better than virtue, which is rare.

Confucius replies
summary: their text is not yet in our corpus
Confucius What the Analects say about the ruler (Han Fei wrote over two centuries later)
If the ruler is himself virtuous, the people will do their duty without being ordered. If he is not, he may give orders, but the people will not follow.
The debate goes on (our summary) Han Fei would reply that everything rests on that "if": a virtuous ruler is rare, whereas the state must work with ordinary rulers. Clear laws work with any ruler, virtue only with a sage. And history first proved him right: it was the state of Qin, governed by laws and punishments, that unified China in 221 BC (the empire collapsed fifteen years later, and the Han who followed kept many of its laws behind a Confucian front).
Laozi (Daodejing) attacks premise 3

Ritual does not make people good: it is only the husk of loyalty and sincerity, and the beginning of disorder. When humaneness and justice have to be taught, the great Way is already lost.

Confucius replies
Confucius Confucius' reply to those who reduce ritual to appearance (Laozi is not named)
A man without humaneness, what can he do with ritual? A man without humaneness, what can he do with music?
The debate goes on (our summary) Laozi would reply that this is precisely the problem: a virtue that has to be cultivated and put into ritual is no longer spontaneous virtue. The sage does not think about his virtue, and that is why he has it.
Machiavelli 1513 · attacks premise 2

People are ungrateful and fickle: they forget a kindness faster than a threat. A prince who wants to be good in everything among so many who are not will come to ruin. It is better to be feared than loved, if one cannot be both.

no reply
summary: their text is not yet in our corpus
No reply possible: objection raised in 1513, after the author's death (-479).