Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-6bb9c88b65-fsdjw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-07-23T23:20:28.166Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - The Institution of Penal Prudence

from Text 7b - Toward a Well-Regulated Review of Death Sentences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2025

Timothy Brook
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Lianbin Dai
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Get access

Summary

The section titled “Institutions of Penal Prudence” (“Shenxing xian”) has established Qiu Jun’s reputation as a legal thinker in China, Korea, and Japan. After a brief review of this section, the chapter focuses on three issues on which Qiu showed fairly innovative thinking. First, he gave the most erudite and systematic exposition of moderation in the application of legal punishments. The Ming Code provided an array of inflexible sentences for an ever-growing amount of crimes, which caused discomfort among sensitive magistrates. Confucian Classics were mobilized in order to legitimize a more sparing use of the punitive arsenal, for which Qiu Jun provided the model argumentation. Second, he was instrumental in the insertion of judicial precedents in the Code to complement the statutes, which daringly braved the Ming founding emperor’s interdiction of changing the Code. Lastly, he pleaded for a better regulation of the death sentences review by the Assizes.

Information

Type
Chapter
Information
Chinese Statecraft
Political Theory and Administrative Practice in Ming China
, pp. 118 - 130
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge-org.demo.remotlog.com is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×