• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.147
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• pp.333-356
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• 2018

Shang Yang was a person who, as a representative of the former School of Law, not only had an effect of thought on Han Fei Tzu, but also put a cornerstone of Qin Shi Huang's great universal unification by placing small and weak Qin Dynasty in a border area in the rank of a newly rising powerful nation. He is especially regarded as a person who valued laws and established the theoretical framework of legalist thought of School of Law systematically. To begin with, this writing examines the contents of the enforcement of legal reforms relevant to the prerequisite of Shang Yang's legal thought in historical archives, and confirms that Shang Yang succeeded in accomplishing legal reforms twice and that the aim of the legal reforms was to realize national prosperity and military power for the universal unification. This writing also takes notice of the fact that Shang Yang's legal thought went through specific steps for unifying the legal authority and the power of the monarch. Especially this writing focuses on applying the three-step theory of norms that was presented in the western social and political norm theory to Shang Yang's legal thought and on examining the characteristic and meaning explicitly. In short, the social and political norms go through emergence, cascade, and internalization. This writing aims to confirm that Shang Yang's legal thought also went through these three steps and was specified. Specifying this critical mind, this writing is a result which discusses that Shang Yang's legal thought went though the steps of the selective prescriptivism of emergence, the monarchical absolutism through sever punishment, and the internal monarchism for national prosperity and military power, and that the thought was systemized. Finding that the contents of Shang Yang's legal thought correspond to the three-step theory of norms and produce the individual meaning is the independent characteristic of this writing. It is the aim of this writing that the system and meaning of Shang Yang's legal thought will be confirmed more explicitly through this contextual examination.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.38
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• pp.126-152
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• 1999

The social welfare system in modern world is generally recognized as the most effective measure against the social problems in capitalist societies. When a social welfare program is introduced to solve a social problem, however, it used to cause another new problem at the same time. In order to overcome this circularity, we need to consider not only quantitative but also the qualitative aspect of social welfare. In line with this problematic, this thesis tries to examine the social welfare thoughts in Confucianism in order to rethink the meaning of social welfare. In contrast to the modern social welfare as a social right, the social welfare in Confucianism was basically regarded as the grace of a king whose purpose was to legitimate his domination. But it was also based upon Confucian humanism and institutionalized into the Confucian govern mentality. It was practiced through the Confucian communality whose basic concept lies in the traditional family system. The social welfare in this society was to be fulfilled automatically by promoting the production and by consolidating the solidarity of the community. The social intervention, therefore, was principal1y indirect and preventive rather than direct and postfactum. The social welfare supports in Confucian societies included not only the material but also the psychological. In these senses, it sounds like that the Confucian welfare system reached the very high standard. Although the real practice should be cautiously differentiated from its ideal state, we may find interesting implications from the social welfare thoughts in Confucianism.