Judge Dee: Confugalist extraordinaire

Judge Dee Goong An is the Magistrate of Chang-Ping. He is responsible for upholding the Emperor’s laws and being the mother and father of the people in his appointed area. Judge Dee is responsible for the conduct of the people under his jurisdiction. Judge Dee is a good Magistrate because he is a good Confucian, a good Legalist, and is also able to blend the two different schools of thought together for a greater whole.

As a good Confucian, Judge Dee takes respect for one’s ancestors and elders very seriously. It is important for Judge Dee to be a good follower of Confucius because his work as a Judge is based on the different relationships and activities of the people under his jurisdiction. He is responsible for the conduct of the people in his town and area, and on ensuring peace and justice. To be a judge, Dee has to have a very strong moral code to follow, and Confucianism was the most common, and most widely believed to be just, moral code for the time in which he lived. Two major aspects of Confucianism are filial piety and the class system. In the case of Mrs. Djou, the murderess and adulteress, Judge Dee, after having solved the case, tells her:

…it is stipulated in the Code that a criminal who still has an old parent to support, may be treated with special leniency…When you have confessed, I must, or course, propose the capitol punishment for you. But I shall add a recommendation for clemency, in view of the fact that you still have an old parent to support…(199).

While it may seem that Judge Dee is showing unjust favoritism to Mrs. Djou by ‘cutting her slack’ in terms of her punishment, by the standards of the times in which he lived he was being perfectly fair. As a good Confucian, it was Mrs. Djou’s responsibility to look after her mother-in-law, and so it was Judge Dee’s responsibility, as a good Confucian, to do all in his power to allow Mrs. Djou to do so. Implied in his Confucian beliefs is the idea that should he fail to at least recommend clemency for Mrs. Djou, the injustice done her mother-in-law would transfer from Mrs. Djou to Dee because he was the reason she could not care for her murdered husband’s mother.

Judge Dee also reveals himself to be a good Confucian through his respect and deference to Doctor Tang, a scholar of great renown and reputation. Judge Dee tells Doctor Tang, “If I were to interpret the provisions of the Code strictly, I could have you severely punished as an accessory. But in deference to your great achievements in the field of scholarly researches, I shall free you with this public reprimand…” (208). Judge Dee, as a good Confucian, does not punish Doctor Tang to the full extent of the law because Doctor Tang is a Scholar, the highest class according to the doctrines of Confucianism, and so deserves the highest respect and treatment of any person.  Though his mercy is given for different reasons, both the cases of Mrs. Djou and Doctor Tang show the preferential treatment dictated by Confucian beliefs.  While it may seem biased, the fact is that in the times of Judge Dee it was expected, just as today those who are physically or mentally handicapped are sometimes given preferential treatment.  It may seem unfair, but in the times of Dee it was perfectly acceptable. 

Judge Dee is also a good Legalist. He is not malicious, but is willing to ‘get his hands dirty’ to get the job done. Throughout the story torture is used as a means to extract information and confessions from the suspects. While this may seem cruel and evil to us today, Judge Dee, as a Legalist, was acting in accordance with Legalist beliefs. By torturing the suspects for confessions, Judge Dee sent a very clear message to all the other people in his area: do not break the law, as well as perhaps gaining valuable clues. Legalists believed that punishing people harshly for seemingly small crimes would discourage greater crimes from occurring. Warden Pang, though he moved the corpses of the two murdered men from the original spot of their murder, did not commit any greater crime. Before Judge Dee knew of this, he had “[Warden Pang] beaten with the heavy bamboo, and then [questioned] under torture” (15). Warden Pang receives one hundred lashes from the bamboo. Judge Dee was not overstepping his bounds and authority in having Warden Pang beaten for a confession without proof. Under a Legalist system, the state, and its laws, are more important than any individual. Because of this, Judge Dee was perfectly justified in having Pang beaten. If the Warden had confessed to the murder, justice would have been served, and the law would have been upheld. Warden Pang was irresponsible in his duties, and so the beating served as a reminder for him not to stray from his duties again. Officials of Legalistic beliefs punished wrongdoers very harshly for small crimes, and as a good Legalist, so did Judge Dee, in perfect accordance with the standards of his community.

Though Judge Dee is a good Confucian and a responsible Legalist, his strength as a good judge lies in his ability to blend those two different schools of thought together in such a way as to make the end result greater than the two parts. A prime example is, again, the example of Mrs. Djou. As a good legalist, Judge Dee had Mrs. Djou tortured for her crimes, but as a good Confucian Dee granted her clemency in order to allow her to continue to look after her elderly mother-in-law. Judge Dee seamlessly blended together Legalism and Confucianism into a completely new school of thought: Confugalism. This can also be seen in Judge Dee’s treatment of Doctor Tang. As Dee said, he could have had Doctor Tang “severely punished as an accessory” (208), but instead he only told Tang that he was “strictly forbidden ever again to engage in the teaching of young students” (208). As a strict Confucian, Judge Dee had the option to assign little or no punishment to Doctor Tang in light of his high social standing. As a strict Legalist, Judge Dee could have given Tang the same punishment as Hsu Den-tai (Mrs. Djou’s lover and Doctor Tang’s student), as an example to others in similar positions. Because of his dual belief system, Dee was able to gracefully lighten Doctor Tang’s punishment in light of his social position, but still punish him for his irresponsibility in watching over the moral activities of his students.

Judge Dee, though he gave special consideration to different people in his solving of the different cases presented to him, did not at any point act outside his authority. Everything Judge Dee did was perfectly justified, and in the end he solved all his cases in excellent fashion. Though his methods are sometimes biased and brutal by today’s standards, Judge Dee, by the Chinese standards of his own time, was a magnificent Judge and Magistrate. Through his beliefs of Confucianism and Legalism, Judge Dee was a great Magistrate. His ability to blend the two schools together into a formidable combination made him a legendary one.

*Confugalist n. One who is both a Confucian and a Legalist