Debate night revelations.

[clay dube]

A quick note - it's entirely possible, of course, for good ideas to have multiple places of origin. I'm not prepared to argue that the Romans borrowed from Han Fei and other Legalists. In what is now India, Ashoka, at about the same time that our debate was set, was ordering that his edicts / laws be posted widely. Here's a useful reference from the Constitutional Rights Foundation: http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-14-4-b-the-edicts-of-asoka

[Anonymous]

In modern day China it appears that its current leader and President Xi Jinping subscribe to some of the principles of legalism along with Confucianism. Its also important to note the ideology of Communism is not as influential in the lives of most Chinese. China's current laws provide it a structure that is easier to understand and communicate to its citizenry. Xi Jinping is focused on overhauling the economy and to build a transparent legal system.

[Anonymous]

I think that ruling with some of the components from each of the philosophies a country could have equilibrium when ruling. The problem is that people tend to place more emphasis on one of the philosophies and that creates tensions with its constituents.

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

Some of my immediate observations were:
1. The legalist idea of having the laws written and posted is often attributed to the Romans.
2. Mencius' idea of humans being basically good and Sun Zi's belief that humans are basically good, relates directly to the enlightenment thinkers Locke and Hobbes.
It seems that in addition to the many inventions and societal constructs that the European nations adopted from Africa and the middle east, ideas from Asia were coopted as well. Of course people in isolated locations come up with ideas based on necessity, however so much of the philosophical underpinnings noticeable is western society are not given proper recognition for their origins. Juxtapose that with the tendency of western cultures to criticize the philosophical foundations of those same nations on which their society's laws are based.

[Author]

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