The Similarities and Differences between the Legal Thought of the Qin Dynasty and Machiavelli

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-126-5_5How to use a DOI?

Keywords

The legal thought; The Qin Dynasty; Machiavelli

Abstract

In developing the Qin Dynasty from a weak borderland state to a vast empire, its founding thought—Legalism, had a decisive impact on the content of its law. The Warring States Period before the establishment of the Qin Dynasty and the Renaissance period in which Machiavelli lived were the social transformation of China and Europe, respectively. There were similarities and differences between the Qin Dynasty’s legal thoughts and Machiavelli’s. The embodiment of Machiavelli’s legal thought in Qin’s economic and social laws includes the combination of force and law, the emphasis on the people, and the generation of virtue by law. The difference mainly lies in the attitude toward people’s rights, such as property rights, status, the monarch’s role in ruling by law, and the ideal regime of a state governed by law. This essay holds that the fundamental reasons for the fall of the Qin Dynasty are too much oppression of the people, an excessive belief in the effect of punishment and abuse of heavy punishment, the dictatorship of the monarch who overrode the law. This essay shows the advance of Machiavelli’s legal thoughts compared with those of the Qin Dynasty and all the feudal dynasties in China: the protection of people’s rights, the emphasis on the importance of the people, the opposition to dictatorship, and the affirmation of the supreme status of law. It also reflects the difference between feudal and capitalist law: the former affirms the relationship of personal attachment, maintains the absolute monarchy, and the monarch is superior to the law; The latter protects individual rights, opposes absolute monarchies, and the law is unique to the monarchy.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yixin Ling
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/10/31
TI  - The Similarities and Differences between the Legal Thought of the Qin Dynasty and Machiavelli
BT  - Proceedings of the 2023 7th International Seminar on Education, Management and Social Sciences (ISEMSS 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 28
EP  - 41
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-126-5_5
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-126-5_5
ID  - Ling2023
ER  -