西周“明德慎罚”新证

New Evidence for“Illustrious Virtue and Cautious Punishment”of Western Zhou Dynasty

一直以来,学术界多数学者将西周“明德慎罚”界定为“崇尚道德,慎用刑罚”,这种观点在某种程度上几乎成为定论。近年来,少数学者开始对这一主流观点予以质疑。大量的周代出土金文为揭示“明德慎罚”的内涵提供了有利条件。从出土金文和传世文献可以看到,对周王而言,“明德”就是彰显上帝对文王、武王的赏赐,进而激励后代周王做出与文王、武王相同的政治行为;对于西周贵族而言,“明德”就是彰显周王对贵族先祖的赏赐,并激励贵族做出与先祖相同的政治作为。“明德”并没有“崇尚道德”之意。“慎罚”是“慎中厥罚”之缩语,其含义就是小心使刑罚符合“中”的要求,轻罪轻罚、重罪重罚,没有“慎用刑罚”之意。从西周到春秋战国,“明德慎罚”的含义经历了三个阶段的变化,到春秋至战国时期,“明德慎罚”才开始具有“崇尚道德,慎用刑罚”之意。“明德慎罚”含义的演变为汉代“德主刑辅”的出现提供了思想资源,对后世两千多年的法制建设产生了重要影响。

The majority of scholars argue that the connotation of“illustrious virtue and cautious punishment”of Western Zhou Dynasty is“focusing morality and cautious punishment”.But in these years a few scholars doubt that argument.Many inscriptions of Western Zhou Dynasty have been unearthed,which are useful to solve this problem.With the comprehensive research on inscriptions and classics,we can find that to Zhou King,illustrious virtue means magnifying the gift from God to the Wen King and Wu King so as to encourage the later kings;to the noble of Western Zhou Dynasty,it means magnifying the gift from the King to the ancestors for the noble and encourage the descendants of the noble.Illustrious virtue does not mean focusing morality.Cautious punishment is the abbreviation for cautious punishment with the middle standard,which does not mean cautious use of punishment.From the Western Zhou Dynasty to Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period,“illustrious virtue and cautious punishment”has gone three changes in terms of meaning,and then meant“focusing morality and cautious punishment”from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Warring States Period.Meaning evolution of“illustrious virtue and cautious punishment”has provided the idea resource for“important morality,unimportant criminal punishment”in Han Dynasty,which is of essential significance for legal construction in the two thousand years later.