Answer:
Step-by-step explanation:
Confucianism
Towards the end of the Zhou Dynasty, as feudal lords fought over land, there was a scholar and government minister by the name of Kong Fuzi—later latinized as Confucius by sixteenth-century Jesuits. Confucius gained students and followers as he taught the classics: the ancient Zhou-era Book of Documents, the Book of Odes, and The Book of Changes."
Detail from a wall fresco in a Han Dynasty tomb, depicting Confucius.
Detail from a wall fresco in a Han Dynasty tomb, depicting Confucius.
Detail from a wall fresco in a Han Dynasty tomb, depicting Confucius. Image credit: Wikimedia.
Confucius was concerned generally about the class of leaders and their ethical and intellectual cultivation. As a low aristocrat himself, Confucius also wanted to rethink notions of status, class, and hierarchy in society.
The texts that Confucius taught were already ancient in Confucius' time. The respect that Confucius gave to them is perfectly in-line with his philosophy of filial piety—respect for your parents or elders. In this way, Confucianism is a philosophy of respect for the past and its traditions. Many of the ideas attributed to Confucius had likely already been in circulation in Chinese society for many years.
While little of Confucius’s original thoughts survives, The Analects of Confucius—which means "the collected sayings of Confucius"—was composed by his students and followers based on conversations they had with him.
In the Analects, we get a sense of what proper social behavior, including filial piety, looked like to Confucius. Here's a snippet from Book One of the Analects:
The Master said: When the father is alive, observe the son’s intent. When the father dies, observe the son’s conduct. One who does not alter his late father’s [way] for three years may be called filial.
Confucius urged ethical and upright behavior, framing responsible government as a moral duty similar to parenthood. He believed providing a good example of moral conduct to the people would spur them to act within the confines of the law:
The Master said: Guide them with policies and align them with punishments and the people will evade them and have no shame. Guide them with virtue and align them with li [ritualized etiquette and ceremonies] and the people will have a sense of shame and fulfill their roles.
Confucianism emphasized the idea that people could be made to be good if they followed moral instruction and performed rituals that venerated the gods and honored the ancestral dead. In a time of social upheaval and war, the Confucianists believed only careful maintenance of the old traditions could uphold societal unity.
Many Chinese rulers drew upon Confucian principles. For example, Emperor Wu of Han promoted hierarchical social structures based on Confucian principles, which he believed would bring about greater social harmony throughout Chinese society.
What role does shame, as Confucius terms it, play in motivating behavior? What does it have to do with running a city, or a country?
Legalism
During the Warring States Period of Chinese history, from 475 to 221 BCE, what we now think of today as China was divided into seven competing nations. The fiefs that had grown in importance during the end of the Zhou Dynasty had now become states of their own.
One of those seven states was the state of Qin, whose young ruler, King Zheng, would later become Qin Shi Huangdi, the first ruler of the Qin Dynasty, in 221 BCE. The Qin Dynasty is often credited as the first dynasty to unify China. But let's rewind the tape to about a century and a half earlier to understand a key influence on the Qin Dynasty: Legalism.
Legalism promotes the notion of strict law and order and harsh, collective punishments, ideas that influenced Qin Shi Huangdi's despotism and centralized rule. If we want to understand Legalism, we have to go back to Shang Yang, a reformist statesman from the state of Qin. Lord Shang's understanding of humanity was profoundly different from that of Confucius.