"In fact, the other schools of thought envy the Legalists," Yan Yukong said.
Everyone nodded.
After everyone discussed for a while, Fang Yun continued: "I want to say that everyone understands this truth, but everyone wants to wait for others to say it, so they wait and wait, endlessly. Today, I will tell you this truth. From now on, when you say this truth again, you don't have to worry about being attacked by everyone and let them come to us, Fang Yun."
Many people smiled kindly.
Fang Yun said: "We can simply think about it. We are all human beings. We are all selfish. Different people must have different perspectives on life. Different people have different perspectives on the world. Different people have different perspectives on everything. Even the saints have their own aspirations. Therefore, in this world, there is actually no absolutely fair and just law. Even the legalists will not object to this, right?"
Millions of people nodded in agreement. This is common sense.
Fang Yun said: "So, in the matter of making laws, or in any government affairs, there are two extreme points: the most public and the most private. However, the most public sounds good, but it is not necessarily perfect. Because many selfless situations will harm individuals. For example, in the distribution of food in primitive society, for the development of the tribe, more food should be given to young and middle-aged people, and less food should be given to the old and young. For the entire tribe, this is good, but for those vulnerable old and young people, it cannot be said to be good. We can't say that this kind of food distribution is wrong, we can only say that this method is not perfect."
"Is there a perfect law? Maybe there is, but we don't discuss it because if it is perfect, there is no value in discussing it. Are there perfect legal people? Maybe there is, but the vast majority are not. Therefore, we, the imperfect people, pick out the imperfect laws and divide them into two categories: one is more just laws, and the other is more unjust laws."
"Some people may wonder why there are unjust laws. We are human beings, not perfect saints, so we will eventually make some decisions that may be incorrect, or, in other words, make unjust laws for unjust reasons."
"Justice and injustice are somewhat special names. I have said before that the law is deeply influenced by morality. So, when we, as individuals, or even most people, judge whether a law is just, we often use moral standards to judge. If a law is closer to the moral standards of the public, then in the eyes of most people, this law is more just. Therefore, we think it is good and can be called a good law."
"So what is an unjust law? According to what I said before, it is a law that is far from the moral standards of the public."
"Let's take a very simple example. In some ancient laws, everything a servant owned belonged to the master of the house, and the master could kill him without caring about anything. In our current view, such laws are immoral, bad, and unjust. We can call them evil laws."
Many people were interested when they heard this statement for the first time.
Instead, all the Legalists showed expressions of disgust. In their minds, the standards set by the Legalist semi-saint were correct. Any statement that was not made by a Legalist scholar or semi-saint was a heresy and was backward and ignorant.
What they hated most was that the officials of the Zajia Lidian treated the Fa family in this way, but they treated Fang Yun with the same attitude.
Fang Yun continued, "In fact, using different legal standards, the meanings of good laws and bad laws are also different. We are now only discussing the public standards of Shengyuan Continent. We talked about who should make the laws before, and the answer has been given. Because scholars are better, it should be decided by scholars, especially legal scholars who focus on law. However, because legal scholars are a minority after all, we still have to consider more human beings. So in fact, the laws of the human race are still jointly formulated by the entire human race, but scholars have more say than non-scholars. At least on this point, we have reached a consensus here."
After Fang Yun finished speaking, he laughed, and everyone in the venue laughed along with him.
Because everyone here is a scholar, no one will throw away the power they have obtained.
After Fang Yun finished laughing, his expression quickly turned cold, and he asked, "Why didn't anyone try to oppose me just now?"
Many people's smiles froze on their faces, and the atmosphere in the conference hall suddenly dropped to freezing point.
Some scholars of low literary rank felt a jolt in their hearts and a trace of fear. After all, the one who was speaking was a Virtual Saint, the number one person below the Half Saint.
Fang Yun's expression gradually eased, and he said, "What you have done just now proves a very realistic truth: everyone has selfish desires. Everyone present here believes that since we are scholars, we naturally hold power and naturally have privileges different from non-scholars, and no one thinks it is wrong. In fact, if we look at the world, we will find a truth: whether it is humans, monsters, aliens, aquatic creatures, birds, beasts, flowers, birds, fish, or insects, they are all selfish in their bones. Except for a few ancient Mo family members, even Confucianists have to distinguish between the near and the far. This is human nature and the instinct of all living things."
Many people failed to understand the purpose of Fang Yun's sudden words.
"Then, the lawmakers, in the process of making laws, often influence the laws because of this selfish instinct. I have been studying the law these days and found that there is a very interesting trend in the laws of the human race over the years. When the lawmaker was the monarch, all officials who embezzled money were punished very severely, and even sentenced to death. However, as scholars gradually gained more power and began to influence the law, the punishment for the crime of embezzling money was constantly reduced."
"At least so far, most of the legalist punishments are to punish criminals. But why is the sentence lighter for the same crime? Some people have always said that taking someone's life is the most serious crime. Otherwise, as long as no one is killed, there should be no death penalty. However, those officials who are greedy for money will inevitably lead to the destruction of some families and the poverty of more people, thus shortening their lifespans. The number of people they kill and the number of lives they lose are far more vicious and cruel than that of a murderer. The damage they cause to society is far greater than that of a murderer. Why are their punishments often so low?"
"We all know that the main reason why middle-level and high-level officials are sentenced is never because of greed. You may think I am criticizing them, but no, I am just using this bloody fact to tell you that people who can influence the law will inevitably find ways to use the law to protect themselves, and then use the law to gain benefits for themselves."
"Many of the scholars present here are not officials and may not be able to influence the law. But in fact, as a large group, the moral standards formed by the masses can still influence the law to a considerable extent. However, there are different groups in the Ten Thousand Worlds. So, are the moral standards of the masses in different groups similar? Not at all!"
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.In order to avoid certain errors, some words in this book may be different from idiomatic expressions, such as "greedy" and "flower building". This is also helpless, and we hope you can understand.