Laozi
民不畏死，奈何以死懼之？ 若使民常畏死，而為奇者， 吾得執而殺之，孰敢？ 常有司殺者殺。 夫司殺者，是大匠斲； 夫代大匠斲者，希有不傷其手矣。
James Legge
The people do not fear death; to what purpose is it to (try to) frighten them with death? If the people were always in awe of death, and I could always seize those who do wrong, and put them to death, who would dare to do wrong?
There is always One who presides over the infliction death. He who would inflict death in the room of him who so presides over it may be described as hewing wood instead of a great carpenter. Seldom is it that he who undertakes the hewing, instead of the great carpenter, does not cut his own hands!
Victor H. Mair
If the people never fear death, what is the purpose of threatening to kill them? If the people ever fear death, and I were to capture and kill those who are devious, who would dare to be so? If the people must be ever fearful of death, then there will always be an executioner. Now, To kill in place of the executioner Is like Hewing wood in place of the master carpenter; Few indeed will escape cutting their own hands!
C. Spurgeon Medhurst
Why use death as a deterrent, when the people have no fear of death?
Even supposing they shrank from death as from a monster, and by playing on their terror I could slay them, should I dare? [^1]
There is one who inflicts sentence of death. To usurp his functions and to kill would be to assume the role of the Master-Carpenter. There are few who can act as master-carpenter without cutting their hands. [^2]
Dr. Hartmann, of Leipzig, comments as follows on this chapter in the Lotusbluthen: “The death penalty as a deterrent measure is a legacy from an ignorant generation. That which incites men to action cannot be killed. The evil inclination toward crime when driven from the body by execution is only thereby made still more generally harmful, because it again influences others, and leads them to perform similar deeds to those for which the execution took place. Moreover, through suffering the wrong of execution desires for retaliation are aroused in the soul of the executed, and in this way he is made more dangerous than before. What is the use of destroying the tool, while the ringleader is beyond reach? It will be easy for him to find another instrument. What is the use of banishing the evil from the house, when it can readily find another dwelling? Better endeavor to reform the criminal, by bringing him to a better conception of things, and in this way transform the evil into a good spirit.”
[^1] Mr. Thos. Kingsmill’s translation is illuminative—“With folk who have no fear of death, what object is there in making its apprehension a deterrent? How should we dare to apprehend and to execute people who dread death as the greatest terror?”
[^2] Cf. chap. 30.
Cf. a saying by Confucius; he is expounding the fundamental principle of all Chinese law, the veneration of the inferior for the superior, an idea which bas strong affinities with the philosophy of the ancient Greeks. “Why when governing, depend on capital punishment? Seek righteousness and the people will be righteous. The relation between the rulers and the ruled is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows across it.” Confucian Analects, xii, 19.
Ursula K. Le Guin
When normal, decent people don’t fear death, how can you use death to frighten them? Even when they have a normal fear of death, who of us dare take and kill the one who doesn’t? When people are normal and decent and death-fearing, there’s always an executioner. To take the place of that executioner is to take the place of the great carpenter. People who cut the great carpenter’s wood seldom get off with their hands unhurt.
Note UKLG: To Lao Tzu, not to fear dying and not to fear killing are equally unnatural and antisocial. Who are we to forestall the judgment of heaven or nature, to usurp the role of “the executioner”? “The Lord of Slaughter” is Waley’s grand translation.