Confucius preached to act with virtue, while Lao Tzu wanted people to have virtue without necessarily presenting it. He believed it should be a state of mind and a natural occurrence in the mind. Because of these two clashing view points, it is apparent that Lao Tzu would respond negatively towards
57). If leaders of government imposed regulations on the people, he believed this would hamper society’s growth and the people would not maintain the highest level of happiness. This demonstrates a good leader should empower the people to become more independent and to instill trust in the people to make the right choice. Machiavelli, a totalitarian thinker, believed that a leader should maintain a dictatorship rule with complete power by any means necessary without regard to the people’s expectations. He states, “Hence it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge or not to use it according to necessity” (38, ver.
Xunzi, on the other hand, says that humans are naturally bad and “lack any inborn guide to right conduct” (p. 256). A heavy emphasis is placed on learning, because according to Xunzi virtue is attained (and bad nature is fixed) through learning, ritual, and nurture (pp. 258-259). Without these rituals and teachings, chaos and violence would arise (p. 298). While Mencius says almost nothing about ritual, Xunzi has clear beliefs and expectations of it.
Another area of his thinking is that government is symbolic of a ‘machine’, and man should commit non-violent disobedience to ‘gain access to the machine’. Otherwise, the machine will keep on grinding or producing its bad product. These philosophies were part of the foundation of Gandhi’s and Kings’ opinions. Mahatma Gandhi is thought of as leading the pacifist movement to get the British out of his country, India. Many people thought that Gandhi’s philosophy was passive, but he actually refrained from violence towards his oppressors, knowing that he and his followers would receive violence from the oppressors.
The Unjust of Just law Ethics 110 22 Jun 2010 In a democratic state it is in never within our rights to break the law. Breaking the law leads to lawlessness and disobedience from the democracy that we have worked, or have been born into. If the law is unjust, then it might be fair to break that law as long as you are willing to suffer the consequences of punishment set aside for that particular unjust law. Failure to adhere to the punishment is unjust as well, for failure to adhere to the punishment of the law is a statement that you do not respect the laws of your society. Martin Luther King Jr. states “Oppressed People cannot remain oppressed forever.” (Cahn, 2009 p. 387) As we have seen throughout history, this is a true statement.
Nietzsche says, in his second essay, the primary objection to ascetic ideals is that ascetic priests must deny the value of this life; he portrays it as a link to the next life, rather than appreciating life as an end in itself. An objection to this claim, being unselfish, caring for the weak, loving one’s neighbor, submitting to “god,” might be better for the health of the community and may even have evolutionary benefits, even though in nature it does seem like the weak get “chosen”. As far as a moral life, they are at the same time a weak people because they have denied life for so long. In the long run the ascetic
In his book he specifies that ‘’if every does what he or she does best, the society as a whole would become more productive’’. Engels, on the contrary, wrote the book “The Communist Manifesto”, believed strongly in communism. A weak link in communism is that consumers are unable to obtain what they desire since the government decides what each individual acquires. And so, communism is always bound to fail because it stands for equal sharing of resources, in this case grinding individual rights to powder and then using it to build its idol of absolute sovereignty. Communism signifies a classless society that doesn’t see a difference between the rich and the poor.
Touchstone is a character who has an individual opinion on the idea of love. His idea is unromantic, but practical. This can be seen in the following quote, “ by how much defence is better than no skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to want.” In this quote, touchstone implies that it is better to be cheated on rather than to have no woman at all and go on unsatisfied. This shows his practicality and also shows how he is quite selfish when it comes to love. “ he is not like to marry me well and, not being well married it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife” , this quote illustrates his unromantic portrayal of love, as he is willing to go through great measures to avoid being tied down to one woman.
He cites the existence of unjust laws and declares that we as citizens should not be obligated to follow them. The basis for this argument is that the government is run by a majority with the most power, not the most valid perspective. This is the reason why Thoreau advises citizens to follow what they believe to be right and not embrace what the government says. Thoreau states that is not a man’s duty to pledge to eradicate all wrongs from his country but that it is one’s duty to “wash his hands” of it and to not support the wrong in anyway (page 183 para13). He continues to tell a story of how he used this method to protest the Mexican American War which was being waged at the time the essay was written.
In Confucianism they believe people will follow their leader. On the contrary, Legalism, believes that people should not be given the choice to do good because if they have that choice it’s very unlikely they will try to do good. The law has to prevent people from doing any bad, and the consequences were very harsh, so that people will do the right thing. As you can see, they both have very different beliefs. But one thing they have in common is that they both want people to do good, and do the right thing.