Legalism (Chinese philosophy)

For other uses, see Legalism (disambiguation).

Legalism
Statue of pivotal reformer Shang Yang
Chinese	法家
Literal meaning	School of Standards
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Fǎjiā Gwoyeu Romatzyh Faajia Wade–Giles Fa3-chia1 IPA [fà.tɕjá] Wu Romanization [Fat平 ka平] Error: {{Transliteration}}: transliteration text not Latin script (pos 9) (help) Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Faatgāa Jyutping Faat3-gaa1 IPA [fat̚˧.ka˥] Southern Min Tâi-lô Huat-ka

Fajia, often termed Legalism is one of six classical schools of thought in Chinese philosophy. The "Fa school of thought" represents several branches of what Feng Youlan called "men of methods"—statesmen or theoreticians often compared in the West with political realism—who contributed greatly to the construction of the bureaucratic Chinese empire. Although lacking a recognized founder, the earliest persona of the Fajia may be considered Guan Zhong (720–645 BCE), while Chinese historians commonly regard Li Kui (455–395 BCE) as the first Legalist philosopher. The term Fajia was identified by Sinologist Herrlee G. Creel as referring to a combination of Shen Buhai (400–337 BCE) and Shang Yang (390–338 BCE) as it's founding branches.

Sinologist Jacques Gernet considered the "theorists of the state" later christened fajia or "Legalists", to be the most important intellectual tradition of the fourth and third centuries BCE. With the Han dynasty taking over the governmental institutions of the Qin dynasty almost unchanged, the Qin to Tang dynasty were characterized by the "centralizing, statist tendencies" of the Fa tradition. Leon Vandermeersch and Vitaly Rubin would assert not a single state measure throughout Chinese history as having been without Legalist influence.

Dubbed by A. C. Graham the "great synthesizer of 'Legalism'", Han Fei is regarded as their finest writer, if not the greatest statesman in Chinese history (Hu Shi). Often considered the "culminating" or "greatest" of the Legalist texts, the Han Feizi is believed to contain the first commentaries on the Dao De Jing. Sun Tzu's Art of War incorporates both a Daoist philosophy of inaction and impartiality, and a Legalist system of punishment and rewards, recalling Han Fei's use of the concepts of power (勢, shì) and technique (術, shù). Temporarily coming to overt power as an ideology with the ascension of the Qin dynasty, the First Emperor of Qin and succeeding emperors often followed the template set by Han Fei.

Though the origins of the Chinese administrative system cannot be traced to any one person, prime minister Shen Buhai may have had more influence than any other in the construction of the merit system, and might be considered its founder, if not valuable as a rare pre-modern example of abstract theory of administration. Creel saw in Shen Buhai the "seeds of the civil service examination", and perhaps the first political scientist.

Concerned largely with administrative and sociopolitical innovation, Shang Yang was a leading reformer of his time. His numerous reforms transformed the peripheral Qin state into a militarily powerful and strongly centralized kingdom. Much of Legalism was "the development of certain ideas" that lay behind his reforms, helping lead Qin to ultimate conquest of the other states of China in 221 BCE.

Taken as "progressive," the Fajia were "rehabilitated" in the twentieth century, with reformers regarding it as a precedent for their opposition to conservative Confucian forces and religion. As a student, Mao Zedong championed Shang Yang, and towards the end of his life hailed the anti-Confucian legalist policies of the Qin dynasty.

Historical background

Further information: Warring States period

The Zhou dynasty was divided between the masses and the hereditary noblemen. The latter were placed to obtain office and political power, owing allegiance to the local prince, who owed allegiance to the Son of Heaven. The dynasty operated according to the principles of Li and punishment. The former was applied only to aristocrats, the latter only to commoners.

The earliest Zhou kings kept a firm personal hand on the government, depending on their personal capacities, personal relations between ruler and minister, and upon military might. The technique of centralized government being so little developed, they deputed authority to regional lords, almost exclusively clansmen. When the Zhou kings could no longer grant new fiefs, their power began to decline, vassals began to identify with their own regions. Aristocratic sub-lineages became very important, by virtue of their ancestral prestige wielding great power and proving a divisive force. The political structures late Springs-and-Autumns period (770–453 BCE) progressively disintegrated, with schismatic hostility and "debilitating struggles among rival polities."

In the Spring and Autumn period, rulers began to directly appoint state officials to provide advice and management, leading to the decline of inherited privileges and bringing fundamental structural transformations as a result of what may be termed "social engineering from above". Most Warring States period thinkers tried to accommodate a "changing with the times" paradigm, and each of the schools of thought sought to provide an answer for the attainment of sociopolitical stability.

Confucianism, commonly considered to be China's ruling ethos, was articulated in opposition to the establishment of legal codes, the earliest of which were inscribed on bronze vessels in the sixth century BCE. For the Confucians, the Classics provided the preconditions for knowledge. Orthodox Confucians tended to consider organizational details beneath both minister and ruler, leaving such matters to underlings, and furthermore wanted ministers to control or at least admonish the ruler.

Concerned with "goodness", the Confucians became the most prominent, followed by proto-Daoists and the administrative thought that Sima Tan termed the Fajia. But the Daoists focused on the development of inner powers, with little respect for mundane authority and both the Daoists and Confucians held a regressive view of history, that the age was a decline from the era of the Zhou kings.

Western reception as Realists

As presented by Athur Waley (1939), Realist interpretation of the subject in part represents an early critique of Legalist interpretation, which took Fa by its modern definition of law. Understood modernly to have been broader than law and punishment, represented most prominently in the 1928 translation of the Book of Lord Shang, Waley says that "they held that law should replace morality... (but) apart from their reliance on law and punishment, their demands may be summed up in the principle that government must be based upon the actual facts of the world as it now exists. Rejecting all appeals to tradition and supernatural guidance, the term Realist seems to me to fit the general tendency of their beliefs better than school of law." Although itself having used the term Legalism, Fraiser of the Oxford still considered Realism a more accurate label.

Positive moral interpretation is elaborated for the subject modernly, but that "government must be based upon the actual facts of the world as it now exists" was reiterated by A.C. Graham (1989) as the first political philosophers in China to "start not from how society ought to be but how it is." To its point, Graham quotes his relevant contemporary Benjamin I. Schwartz. Contrary to common comparisons of Han Fei with Machiavelli, Schwarz observed that Machiavelli taught an art rather than a science of politics, while the so-called Legalists "seem closer in spirit to certain 19th- and 20th-century social-scientific 'model builders'". Schwarz "finds in China more anticipations of contemporary Western social sciences than of the natural sciences", with Shen Buhai's 'model' of bureaucratic organization "much closer to Weber's modern ideal-type than to any notion of patrimonial bureaucracy."

In the Realist vein, A.C. Graham's "Disputers of the Tao" titled his Legalist chapter "Legalism: an Amoral Science of Statecraft", sketching the fundamentals of an "amoral science" in Chinese thought largely, Goldin notes in a criticism, based on the Han Feizi, consisting of "adapting institutions to changing situations and overruling precedent where necessary; concentrating power in the hands of the ruler; and, above all, maintaining control of the factious bureaucracy."

Nonetheless, Eirik Lang Harris of The Shenzi Fragments (2016) echoes the view of "starting not from how society ought to be but how it is" as a commonality between the fajia's four most prominent figures. Although himself following a line of impartial justice for the Fajia, Tao Jiang's modern basic statement of formulation for the Fajia reiterates Graham: With Fa as their key notion, the Fajia hold in common a focus in the institutionalization of political power, and a questioning of the moral values of the Confucians, disputing an assumed connection between personal virtue and political authority. Graham says: "they have common ground in the conviction that good government depends, not as Confucians and Mohists supposed on the moral worth of persons, but on the functioning of sound institutions."

Modernly, Yuri Pines of the Stanford's "fa tradition" still takes the realist principle as a foundation for the tradition. While Legalist interpretation has been criticized modernly, Pines takes Realism as having been defended to be more or less still legitimate, although as with Tao Jiang accepts Legalist interpretation as still having explorative value. Noting them as "generally devoid of overarching moral considerations", or conformity to divine will, Pines terms the members of the Fa tradition as "political realists who sought to attain a 'rich state and a powerful army' and ensure domestic stability", only displaying "considerable philosophical sophistication" when they needed to justify departures from conventional approaches.

Although taking the thinkers as realists, as a matter of discipline, Pines suggests the Fa tradition as a more suitable category, with fa itself representing not oppression but transparency. Pines qualifies against a perception of them as totalitarian, as stated by "not a few scholars", including Feng Youlan (1948), Creel (1953) as prior to some of his more prominent work on Shen Buhai, and Zhengyuan Fu's 1996 The Earliest Totalitarians. Although (the Shang Yang-Han Fei's branch's harsh laws or administrative rules) and "rigid control over the populace and the administrative apparatus" might seem to support totalitarianism, apart from exposing the fallacies of their opponents, the Fa tradition has little interest for instance in thought control, and Pines does not take them as "necessarily" providing an ideology of their own.

Three Elements view

Receiving little literary attention in his time, a three elements view of the subject was early elaborated Liang Qichao. Misinterpreting Han Fei's critique of Shen Dao, chapter 40, he takes Shen Buhai and Shen Dao as earlier rival currents, with true Legalists rejecting the former and following Fa. It's early discussion may be seen as evidence against the idea that, unlike India, China lacked a tradition to fall back on in modern reform. However, while Liang Qichao is discussed on other fronts, as including his rule of man vs rule of law, no one holds his three elements view in the west, refuted by Chinese scholars long ago. As opposed to Liang Qichao's antagonist three elements, Feng Youlan (1948) introduced a three elements view of the subject to the west with Han Fei as synthesizer.

Feng Youlan presented shi as power or authority, shu as the method or art of conducting affairs and handling men (statecraft), and Fa as law, regulation or pattern, connecting Fa with Gongsun Yang, Shu with Shen Buhai, and Shi with Shen Dao, with each supposed to have a group preceding Han Fei. Although Hansen would later take Shen dao as relevant for the Daoists, Creel saw no evidence of a political Shen Dao following. While Shu represents a variety of Fa, Shen Dao is also taken as focused on Fa. Chinese law expert Randall Peenrenboom takes a three elements view of the subject as having been considered simplistic before the turn of the century; Zhenguyan Fu's popular literature, The Earliest Totalitarians, includes it for the sake of the reader, with one chapter per theme. The three elements are elaborated here as at least suitable to a basic introduction.

Although Feng Youlan is discussed elsewhere in it's work, Sinologist Chris Fraiser of the Oxford does not for instance reference Feng Youlan or three groups as preceding Han Fei. With Creel and Graham as primary references, Fraiser presents Fajia as a misnomer, with it's men interested in a range of methods, not all emphasizing fa. Fraiser says: "The Legalists proposed a number of keys to successful government, which Han Fei draws together into a coherent system. He credits his predecessors with articulating three crucial concepts in particular." Fa (standards,laws), for Shang Yang; shu (arts, techniques) for Shen Buhai; and shi (position,power) for Shen Dao. Han Fei criticizes the shortcomings of all three men while "showing how their common ideas can be combined into a cogent, unified theory." It's three concepts here summarized:

Fraiser takes Han Fei's fa as including clear, explicit, specific, publicly promulgated standards with criteria encompassing laws, job performance, military and bureaucratic promotion, and regulation of the general population. Fa Eliminates differences in treatment amongst the population. Reiterating Hansen, objective standards prevent deception of the ruler; their transparency, exactness and promulgation limit official power, preventing bending, violation or official corruption and abuse.

Fraser defines Han Fei's shu as "managerial arts or techniques", constituting undisclosed and uncodified methods. They include merit-based appointment, strict accountability in relation to job titles, and the employment of reward and punishment ensuring the performance of duties. Officials are assigned duties according to their administrative proposals, whose doctrine under Han Fei is called xingming. Reiting Graham, Shu is in part an inheritance of the Mohist's doctrine of promoting the worthy, and the Confucian rectification of names shared with the Confucians and others.

Fraser elaborates shi as institutional power or advantageous position, wielded to implement Fa standards, administrative techniques to manage the administration, and the handles of life and death. Favoring the average ruler, it contrasts with the Confucian ideal of rule by moral worth and moral authority, which Han Fei sees as "foolishly unrealistic", condemning the state to constant misgovernment awaiting a sage king. Power and position can accomplish the rule and control of a large number of people, while charisma and moral worth cannot.

Creel's branches of the Fajia

Probably never an organized or self-aware movement, the Fa-school or Fajia would only be considered a school starting in the Han dynasty, with Sima Tan and Sima Qian essentially inventing the Fajia in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji). Reiterating Creel, the Oxford takes them as disparate statesmen with no unified doctrine. Sima Tan does not name anyone under the schools. Inclusion is purely arbitrary and ideological; The Han History lists Li Kui, Shang Yang, Shen Buhai, Han Fei, Shen Dao, and Han Fei under the School of Fa (Fajia), to which is often added the much earlier Guan Zhong. Less well defined than Confucianism and Mohism, what would be termed the Fajia may not have been considered a coherent ideology until Han Fei's compilation, as received by Li Si, elder advisor to the first Emperor.

Sinologist Herrlee G. Creel (1970, 1974) presented Han Fei as largely responsible for synthesizing the various tendencies that would be grouped together under what Sima Tan termed the Fajia. These stem primarily from what Creel considered to be two disparate contemporary thinkers, Shang (Gongsun) Yang and Shen Buhai. Han Fei at least portrays himself as combining the two. The "combined reference", Creel explains, is what would commonly become known as the Fajia, with continued influence after the fall of the Qin dynasty.

Although Han Fei's status as "grand synthesizer" would generally be accepted by scholarship, Creel only considered its combination very imperfect. Because, historically, despite the presentation of their opponents, those advocating policies derived of Shang Yang or Shen Buhai did not endorse each other's views, Creel advised that the Shen Buhai group be called "administrators", "methodists" or "technocrats". Not without its subsequent categorical dissent, neither Shen Buhai or his successors, Creel said, can be understood as Legalist by the English definition of the term. It's viewpoint is reiterated by Sinologist Goldin (2011), credited by Stanford Encyclopedia's Yuri Pines (2023) as root for his view of the subject.

A view of Han Fei as grand synthesizer dates back to at least Feng Youlan (1948). With Creel's distinctions not at that time widely accepted, although accepting it's lens, Michael Loewe of the Cambridge History of China Volume 1 (1986) had reservations. Taking Han Fei as the greatest of all Legalist theoreticians, Loewe instead argues for their complementarity, with life in the Qin Empire more reasonable, and government more sophisticated, than if it had been based on the dogma of the Book of Lord Shang (Shangjunshu) alone. Han Fei called both branches "the instruments of Kings and Emperors", and Li Si praises them equally, finding no contradiction between them. Published shortly thereafter, Han Fei as grand synthesizer is reiterated by A.C. Graham (1989) and Chris Fraiser of the Oxford (2011).

Although discussed elsewhere, Creel's 1974 Shen Pu-Hai: A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century B. C. remains the only major publication on Shen Buhai, with Tao Jiang (2021), Pines says, notably devoting a chapter to him, including a summary reference to the material covered here. As a rare example of verbatim usage, S. R. Hsieh's 1995 introductory recap followed Creel to the letter, calling them "Legalists/Administrators", while Karyn Lai's dedicated 2008 Introduction to Chinese Philosophy still relied heavily on Creel and Benjamin Schwarz. Emphasizing Creel's heavy utilization of other works, Tao Jiang takes his Shen Pu-hai as still "very useful for understanding fajia thought more generally."

Han Fei says, with a more modern translation;

Now Shen Buhai spoke about the need of Shu ("Technique") and Shang Yang practices the use of Fa ("Standards"). What is called Shu is to create posts according to responsibilities, hold actual services accountable according to official titles, exercise the power over life and death, and examine into the abilities of all his ministers; these are the things that the ruler keeps in his own hand. Fa includes mandates and ordinances promulgated to the government offices, penalties that are definite in the mind of the people, rewards that are due to the careful observers of standards, and punishments that are inflicted upon those who violate orders. It is what the subjects and ministers take as a model. If the ruler is without Shu he will be overshadowed; if the subjects and ministers lack Fa they will be insubordinate. Thus, neither can be dispensed with: both are implements of emperors and kings.

Although their topics are not as narrow as Han Fei presents, and despite Han Fei's inclusion of power over life and death under his own Shu, there is no basis to suppose that Shen Buhai advocated Shang Yang's doctrine of reward and punishments. Creel notes six works as identifying Shen with bureaucracy; none identify him with penal law when spoken of by himself, and none pre-Han. Only when he is paired with Shang Yang is penal law attributed to them together in the Han dynasty. Representing a private managerial variety of Fa, his doctrines, called shu, are described as "concerned almost exclusively" with the ruler's selection of ministers. Historically, as with Shen himself, Shen's so-called Shu "branch" largely ignored Shang Yang and penal practice, sometimes even opposing punishment.

In contrast to the limited body pertaining to Shen Buhai, censured under Han dynasty Confucian influence, Creel notes an "impressive body" of early works unanimously testifying Gongsun Yang's doctrines as described by Han Fei. That is, his doctrine being called fa, as including penal law, rewards and punishments, and lacking shu. Apart from general mutual surveillance and holding ministers to the public Fa, he advised no method to control and supervise ministers. Most historical works posthumously emphasize his use of harsh penal law. Although part of his Fa also concerns ministerial control, no work indicate concern for organization or control of the bureaucracy.

Recalled by Tao Jiang, Creel mostly leaves the Legalist interpretation of him alone, accepting it as ancient China's Legalist school or branch. However, despite portrayal, the Han dynasty's penal reception, and Duvendak's early primary translation of law, in reviewing the Shangjunshu, Creel also saw Gongsun as sometimes using Fa in an administrative sense. The Book of Lord Shang, Goldin says, still engages statutes more from an administrative standpoint, as well as addressing many other administrative questions. Pines's 2017 translation of the Book of Lord Shang uses law where appropriate, but considers it's Fa to have impersonal administration as its second most common meaning.

The scholar Shen Dao (350 – c. 275 BCE) covered a "remarkable" quantity of Legalist and Daoistic themes, and there was a time speculating a third "branch" (e.g. Feng 1948), but Creel saw no evidence of a Shen Dao school; he lacked a recognizable group of followers. Despite Han Fei's association, Xun Kuang references Shen Buhai rather than Shen Dao for the origin of the doctrine of power. Not mentioning Shen Dao in relation to it, he goes as far as to call Shen Dao "beclouded" by Fa, i.e. focused on it. Han Fei sidelines him, basing himself more in Shen Buhai's method of administration. He is remembered for shih because Han Fei incorporates him into the Han Feizi in Chapter 40 for his themes on Shi as "power" or "situational advantage", for which he is also incorporated into The Art of War. Despite shih's necessity, and although seeking to improve its argument, Han Fei says that he speaks on Shi "for mediocre rulers", emphasizing institution. Although more theoretical, Han Fei may have otherwise derived shi from the Book of Lord Shang.

Recalling Creel

Recalling Creel, and opposing Han Fei, Goldin presents Shen Buhai and Shen Dao as focused on Fa, rather than for instance shu or shi, with Shang Yang's reforms as broader than simply Fa. Goldin's essay primarily criticizes the Fajia and Legalism as categories, for which Tao Jiang would take him as antagonist. Tao Jiang takes Goldin as espousing a three elements critique of the category, but apart from an attempt to diversify Gongsun Yang, Goldin does not otherwise dissuade from Fa as key notion. Stanford's Yuri Pines cites Goldin as preferences for the Fa tradition as a neutral term.

Published some months prior the Oxford, Goldin takes a tendency to "extol Han Fei as the great synthesizer" at the expense of other ancient Chinese political philosophers as tracable to a self-serving depiction by Han Fei of Shen Dao, Shen Buhai, and Gongsun Yang as authors of single political concepts, with only Han Fei combining them into a coherent philosophy. He compares it's syncretic maneuver to that of Sima Qian. Han Fei attributes Shu to Shen Buhai but Shen Buhai uses Fa quite often. To Han Fei's credit, as Creel notes, while Han Fei attributes Shu to Shen Buhai, he does also reference him as using Fa.

Goldin says: "Creel’s objection to translating fajia as “legalism” is still valid today and deserves to be repeated." Goldin's quotation, in summary: Sima Tan... was clearly aware that the school had two emphases, with fa meaning both “law” and “method.” It sometimes means both simultaneously, even in the Shangjunshu. “Method” is the sense in which Shen Buhai used fa, in all of it's quotations. The Han Feizi 韓非子 quotes Shen as saying: “What is called ‘method’ (fa) is to examine achievement [as the ground for] giving rewards, and to use ability as the basis upon which to bestow office.”

Goldin says: "if anyone deserves to be recognized as a member of fajia, it is Shen Dao, who was criticized by Xunzi for being 'beclouded by fa'". Asserting it as inappropriate to confine Shen Dao's fa to “law", Shen Dao uses the term fa "in a sense akin to 'law' when the circumstances warrant." As a gloss more in the direction of Shen Dao, Goldin compares Shen Dao's Fa with Shen Buhai as an "impersonal administrative technique of determining rewards and punishments in accordance with a subject’s true merit".

Recalled by Tao Jiang, Chinese scholar Soon-Ja Yang (2010) similarly considers Shen Dao's focus to be Fa, not Shi. Soon Ja Yang says: "Han Fei quotes Shen Dao not because Shen Dao focused on the concept of shi, but because it is Shen Dao who pointed out that political power or authority takes precedence over individual capabilities in achieving political control." Tao Jiang recalls Creel with Fa as coming to represent law, administrative method, and even managerial technique (Shu) as covering the bulk of their thought.

Goldin and Creel take xingming (as equivilent to ming-shih) as Shen Buhai's "most important administrative recommendation", comparing an official’s performance (xing) to the duties of his title (ming). Directly quoting Han Fei, Han Fei frequently uses fa in the same sense as Shen Buhai:

An enlightened ruler employs fa to pick his men; he does not select them himself. He employs fa to weigh their merit; he does not fathom it himself. Ability cannot be obscured nor failure prettified. If those who are [falsely] glorified cannot advance, and likewise those who are maligned cannot be set back, then there will be clear distinctions between lord and subject, and order will be easily [attained]. Thus the ruler can only use fa.

Earlier classification as Daoist

Sima Qian

Sima Qian originally claimed Shen Dao, Shen Buhai, and Han Fei as having studied the teachings of his own faction, "the Teachings of the Yellow Emperor and Lao-tzu" (Huang-Lao), synonymous with daojia ('school of Dao', early Daoism). Although modernly included under early Daoism, it would not have meant Daoism as understood modernly. With pre-Han Daoists also more an informal network than an organized school or movement, Daojia first appears in the Records, and is also taken as retrospective.

Regardless, texts commonly classed Guan Zhong and Shen Dao under Daojia before Fajia. Associated with the much earlier Guan Zhong, the Guanzi, with its proto-daoist texts, was classed as Daoist in the Han bibliography. The lack of distinction between Daojia and Fajia would not suggest that the distinction existed prior to the Han.

Given it's precedent, with formal similarities between the texts and Daoism as including Han Fei's advocacy of wu wei (so-called "effortless action") or reduced activity by the ruler, the theorists were often supposed by the Chinese and early scholarship to have studied Daoism. Modern scholarship does not take the Daodejing to be as ancient. Incomplete versions date back to the fourth century B.C., while the earliest complete written editions of the Daodejing only date back to the early Han dynasty. No pre-Han records discuss it.

By Creel's time, few critical scholars believed Laozi to have been a contemporary of Confucius. Although incomplete versions of the Daodejing may have been contemporary to Shen Buhai's time, Creel did not find Shen Buhai, as Han Fei's predecessor and prior prime minister of their native Hann state, to be influenced by Daoist ideas, lacking metaphysical content. Shen Buhai quotes the Analects of Confucius, in which Wu Wei can also be seen as an idea.

As had generally already been accepted by scholarship at the time, Creel did not find the Han Feizi's Daodejing commentary to have been written by Han Fei. A.C. Graham would reiterate that Han Fei does not appear to make effective use of it. The Han Feizi is most similar to the Shen Buhai fragments. Evidences for Daoist influence on the Han Feizi remain lacking outside of a few tertiary chapters.

The final chapter of the Zhuangzi does not regard Laozi and Zhuangzi as having been part of a Daoist school. the Outer Zhuangzi's history includes Confucians, Mohists, Shendao, Laozi, and Zhuangzi, effectively leaving the Mohists as a primary influence. The Daodejing does not specifically suggest direct exposure to their subsequent school of names, although its discussion of "names that cannot be named" place it within the same milieu as a reaction to Mozi; Huang-Lao similarly bares its mark.

However, while others of the Fajia are left out, the Zhuangzi takes Shen Dao as Daoistic, preceding both Laozi and Zhuangzi. Based in Graham, Hansen of the Standford's Daoism would take Daoist theory as beginning in the relativist discussions of Shen Dao. He still considers Shen Dao's theory foundational for a Daoist favoring of Dao, as meaning guide, over Heaven, a narrative shared with the late Mohists in that an appeal to Heaven justifies thieves as well as sages.

Although modernly more often given to contrast and comparison with the Mohists, comparison and attempts to root the Han Feizi in proto-Daoist attitudes or naturalism can be still seen within scholarship. Creel did not exclude the possibility that Daoist ideas influenced the fajia before they were written down in the Zhuangzi and Daodejing, or for instance influence by Yang Zhu and the Yangists, but his evidences suggested Huang-Lao as not existing during Shen Buhai's time. Writing at the turn of its discussion, John Makeham (1990) still considered some of the Han Feizi's most typifying chapters as being of distinctly Daoist quality, not considering, at least, the dividing line between the two as having ever been particularly clear.

Mohist predecessors

Between Mozi's background as an engineer and his pacifist leanings, the Mohists became experts at building fortifications and sieges.

Following earlier scholarship, as including his own work on the subject a decade later, Fraiser roots fa in the easily applied standards and models of the Mohists, with law as a kind, but conceptually closer to performance standards represented by tools providing shape, weight and length. The Mohists, of Mozi (c. 470 BC – c. 391 BC), a school of political-religious engineers and logicians, are of particular importance to understanding Fa, meaning "to model on" or "to emulate".

Compared by Fraser of the Stanford with Socrates, the hermeneutics of the Mohists contained the philosophical germs of what Sima Tan would term the "Fa-School", initiating philosophical debate in China, positing some of its first theories, and contributing to the political thought of contemporary reformers. Finding the values of tradition and Confucian li (ritual) unconvincing, they took universal welfare and the elimination of harm as morally right, arguing against nepotism in favor of objective standards (Fa) to unify moral judgements.

Advocating thrift over extravagance, the Mohist's social goals included economic wealth in the form of bare minimums, population growth, and social order. Taking social order as a paramount, universally assumed good, the Mohists advocated a unified, peaceful, utilitarian (or earliest consequentialist) ethical and political order, with an authoritarian, centralized meritocratic state, led by a virtuous, benevolent sovereign. To this end, their austere, disciplined groups were devoted to education, training, advocacy, government and sometimes, generally defensive military service.

Fa in Mohism and Confucianism

Small seal scripts were standardized by Li Si after the First Emperor of China gained control of the country, evolving from the larger seal scripts of previous dynasties.

The 12 characters on this slab of floor brick affirm that it is an auspicious moment for the First Emperor to ascend the throne, as the country is united and no men will be dying along the road.

Fa primarily refers to models, standards, norms, and patterns. Described with reference to the square, compass or plumb-line, Mozi used fa in the sense of models and standards for copy and imitation in action. Developing towards political technique, as in Confucianism, Mozi's ruler is intended to act as fa for the nobles and officials.

Although Confucianism does not much elaborate on the Fa tradition, Fa would be illustrated in the Confucian canon using the idea of a circle as standard or identifier for other circles, adopting fa as a standpoint for administrative appointment. Illustrated by the scale, grain-leveler and ink and line, together with a benevolent heart, Mencius's ruler will not achieve effective results without fa.

Although the Fa thinkers themselves paint with a broader brush, apart from models, exemplars and names, amongst other categories Mencius's Fa includes more specific examples of statistics such as temperatures, volumes, consistencies, weights, sizes, densities, distances, and quantities. Xun Kuang's notion of Fa arguably derives from Confucian li as applied to the regulation of human behavior.

With a vision based on Warring States period society, Mark Edward Lewis takes the Rites of Zhou as closely linked to the major administrative reforms of the period. He and Michael Puett compare its system of duties and ranks to the "Legalism" of Shang Yang. The Great Appendix or Ten Wings of the book of changes, added by Confucian scholars during the Western Han dynasty, defines Fa as "to institute something so that we can use it."

Invention of the Fa School

As for Fajia, Sima Qian says:

The fajia are strict and have little kindness, but their alignment of the divisions between lord and subject, superior and inferior, cannot be improved upon. … Fajia do not distinguish between kin and stranger or differentiate between noble and base; all are judged as one by their fa. Thus they sunder the kindnesses of treating one’s kin as kin and honoring the honorable. It is a policy that could be practiced for a time, but not applied for long; thus I say: “they are strict and have little kindness.” But as for honoring rulers and derogating subjects, and clarifying social divisions and offices so that no one is able to overstep them—none of the Hundred Schools could improve upon this.

With the Han Feizi as syncretic precedent, the Records generalize Shang Yang (Gongsun), Shen Buhai and Han Fei as adherents of the doctrine of xingming 刑名. The First Emperor lists xingming amongst his accomplishments. As a doctrine of Han Fei earlier originating in Shen Buhai, xingming involves personnel selection through the usage of proposals to establish offices (names), comparing them with results. Creel argued for it's popular translation of “performance and title”, although for it's function in this regard Makeham later argued that "title" or ming "name" refers more simply to speech. Although not very well understood, Xing literally means "form" or "standard"; Makeham takes it as referring to a commission's result as a component of Han Fei's description.

Prior to its penal incorporation it is possible that xingming already more specifically connoted punishment, but both Creel and Makeham considered this unlikely; it was still often used in the sense of form during the Eastern Han dynasty, and the texts which use it in a penal sense would appear to have originally used it in the earlier sense. Emperor Wen, noted for xingming, was also noted for reducing punishments and making capital punishment rare.

For Creel and Makeham, the shift of perception for the Fajia and xingming is not simply a grouping of the thinkers under the Fajia, but that of xingming from an administrative to penal association. Although harsh, the punishments of the Qin themsleves were not harsh for their time, having been reduced from the time of Shang Yang. Creel elaborates the shift within a context of syncretism and subversion, but notes that the administrative was always more developed than the legal, with the culture not favoring resolution by lawyers or ministers. Extended to the population as an adjunct to li ritual, Fa in this regard functions as a mechanically geared application of punishment to named wrongs.

Although Sima Qian groups him under xing-ming, the administration of Gongsun Yang, remembered posthumously for harsh punishments, is not known for the administrative method of Shen Buhai and Han Fei. Shen Buhai practiced an earlier, less automated version lacking Han Fei's emphasis on punishment, termed ming-shih, as more generally associated with the Mohist school of names. Xing-ming is only called the "method of Shen Buhai" by extension, as it would be by Liu Xiang (scholar).

While Shang Yang would be relevant to early reform by the Qin, his high emphasis on agriculture would eventually be abandoned by the Qin. With continued relevance for the Han dynasty's institutions, as including the civil service examination, Creel took what he saw as Shen Buhai's branch as primary; hence it's narrative of subversion through association with Shang Yang.

A commentator on the Hanshu considered xingjia another moniker for the fa thinkers, with mingjia connotating the school of names. Xingming can refer back to the school of names, but although a Shen Buhai - Han Fei practice, in some contexts xingming would be used in reference to Han Fei and Shang Yang. It is not stated how this occurs. As Makeham says however, xingming already has more specific connotation than ming-shih.

Creel credits Han Fei for an original inadvertent association of Shen Buhai with Shang Yang within what would become the Fajia. Han Fei includes Shen Buhai under his own doctrine of Shu (technique) alongside his own avocation of harsh punishments, for which Gongsun Yang is known. Pairing Gongsun Yang and Shen Buhai, Sima Qian names reformers like Jia Yi as an advocate of Shen Buhai and Gongsun Yang. Advocating for reform, Jia Yi wrote the Disquisition Finding Fault with the Qin, and as Creel says was probably not an advocate of Gongsun Yang. Nonetheless, Jia Yi is exiled to the southern Changsha Kingdom under factional pressure, although still tutoring a son of the Emperor.

The historiographer Liu Xin (c. 50 BCE – 23 CE), as a kind of follow up work, assigned the schools as having originated in various ancient departments, a view adopted by later Chinese scholars even into the later 1700s. Maintaining a lack of distinction between officers and teachers among the Zhou until its disintegration, it portrays the Fajia as having originated in what Feng Youlan (1948) translates as the Ministry of Justice, emphasizing strictness, reward and punishment. Although considering its social indications as not without merit, Feng Youlan did not accept this theory.

With the Han dynasty shifting favor from Huang-Lao to Confucianism, the orthodox interpretation of the fajia becomes Confucian and more critical. It would "be quite popular and respectable to oppose the harsh use of penal law", and apart from disliking the managerial controls of xingming itself, those otherwise disliked by the Confucian orthodoxy, with some philosophical association, would also often be slurred as fajia, like the otherwise Confucianistic reformers Guan Zhong and Xunzi, and the Huang Lao themselves.

Although Sima Qian appeared to be aware of the differences between Shen Buhai and Gongsun, Creel suggests that this would seem to disappear among scholars as early as the Western Han dynasty. Although its proponents were often of the Shen Buhai branch, and Gongsun Hong, who founds the civil service examination, studied xingming, it becomes known as penal law within the administration. Administrative methods, Shen Buhai moderates and even otherwise Confucians are all slurred as Fajia depending on factional interests, becoming known as such. Han Fei, Gongsun, and Shen Buhai are censured, apart from fragments the work of Shen Buhai disappears from history, and Legalists, or otherwise more moderate practical administrators are recruited under Confucian syncretism.

Creel's emphasis on Shen Buhai would be disputed by Loewe in the Camrbidge, and more modernly, Tao Jiang, but adopting Shen, Loewe takes life as more reasonable than could be expected of the Shangjunshu, while Tao Jiang promotes Gongsun as a bureaucratic pioneer. Sinologist Yuri Pines of the Stanford primarily addresses the Fa thinkers as political realists seeking to attain “a rich state and a powerful army”, as an openly stated, explicit Shang Yang - Han Fei line. Acknowledging the temporary relevance of his reforms, he accepts Creel's evaluation of the thinker's lasting contribution as being in bureaucratic organization.

Fajia and the fa tradition

Even the early scholarship of Feng Youlan (1948) considered it incorrect to associate the thinkers with jurisprudence, describing them as teaching methods of organization and leadership for the governing of large areas. Shen Buhai being then notoriously difficult to translate, and the Mozi only translated later, Joseph Needham's (1956) Science and Civilization instead took the "central conception" of Fa as "positive law", which it took as expounded with "great clarity by Gongsun Yang in the Shangjunshu". Arguing against an amoral perception for Han Fei, Kenneth Winston (2005) takes Peerenboom 1993 as Legal positivism's late notable argument, taking the clarity and promulgation of Fa as law divorced from morality.

Having prior used the popular term "Legalist", Pines (2023) of the Stanford Encyclopedia and translator for the Book of Lord Shang (2017), modernly characterizes them as the "fa tradition" and "fa thinkers". The term is shared by the as yet unpublished multi-authored work, the Dao Companion to China's Fa Tradition. As stated by their publisher, the Dao Companions aim to provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date introductions to various aspects of Chinese philosophy.

Tao Jiang (2021), un-cited by Pine's but taken as major achievement in his multi-authored review, Tao Jiang on the Fa Tradition, prior argued for the legitimacy of Fajia as a historical category with Fa in common between the thinkers. Pine's review lauds the work as "engaging the thinkers as theorists rather than mere statesmen, immersed in a dialog with earlier thinkers and texts." Pines shares the terminology of Thinker with Tao Jiang, but had already made prior use of it; Creel also called them "Fajia thinkers".

Pines connects Legalism to a common focus in earlier scholarship comparing the tradition to a modern rule of law, potentially undercutting it's depth. Although taking law to be a correct translation for Fa in many contexts, Pines and Tao Jiang reiterate that it often refers to standards, models, norms, methods, regulations, or (as a verb) to follow. Simply translating it as law, Tao Jiang says, does not do justice to "how the term is used and what it encompasses in the texts involved."

Pines credits Goldin for a preference of the Fa tradition over Legalism, which he argued against as his essay's "most important obligation", saying that "Creel’s objection to translating fajia as 'legalism'" is "still valid today and deserves to be repeated"; even if one wishes to take Shang Yang, whose standpoint is administrative, as more Legalistic, Shen Buhai, who compare offices and performances, does not "presuppose a legal code or any legal consciousness whatsoever." Guan Zhong would not generally be taken as Legalist either. Goldin compares Shen Dao with Shen Buhai. Even in imperial China fa still tended to mean something more like "government program" or "institution" than law, with the 青苗法 (Green Sprouts Policy; Qīngmiáo fǎ) being Wang Anshi's 王安石 (1021–1086) "attempt to establish a government credit bureau."

Goldin's critique of Fajia primarily considers it "partisan and anachronistic"; it was coined by Sima Tan to "urge his particular brand of syncretism as the most versatile world view for his time." While one might call oneself a Ru (Confucian), or pre-imperially a Mo (Mohists), no one ever actually called himself a Fajia, no Fa school actually existed, and no lineage actually existed. Pines considers it misleading as implying a self-aware, organized intellectual current commensurate with the followers of Confucius (551–479 BCE) or Mozi (c. 460–390 BCE), whereas no early thinker identified himself as a member of the Fajia, or 'school of fa'.

As opposed to this, Tao Jiang emphasizes their political prominence as unusual among classical thinkers, standing "at the beginning of a top-down political revolution that would radically transform the subsequent political history of China." Tao Jiang recalls Sinologist Ivanhoe, the fifth reference of the Oxford, who "defends the traditional Chinese use of jia to group classical thinkers by pointing out that jia (家) literally means 'family', whose intellectual families did not require relation by blood.

Although characterizing fa thinkers as political realists, as defended modernly to be more or less legitimate, Pines takes its usage as a designation to give the impression that "the opponents of fajia were mere idealists, which was not the case."

Deng Xi

The Logician Deng Xi (died 501 BCE), a contemporary of Confucius, is cited by Liu Xiang for the origin of the principle of xingming. Deng is regarded as the first proponent to advocate following the li, or pattern of things. A term which refers to the processing of jade, it would be utilized by the neo-Mohists as the term identifying the logic and history of a thing in the growth of a proposition.

Serving as a minor official in the state of Zheng, Deng is reported to have drawn up a code of penal laws. Associated with litigation, he is said to have argued for the permissibility of contradictory propositions, engaging in hair-splitting debates on the interpretation of laws, "legal principles and definitions. But the purpose of his concept of bian is specifically to examine and distinguish categories so as to prevent hindrances or disturbances. Inferences are then made categorically.

However, he distinguishes great and small bian ethically rather than logically, as Xun Kuang would later (although the Mohists also had ethical discussions). Under the influence of the Mohists, Xun Kuang suggests that categorization is a key to understanding things.

Shang Yang

Terracotta Army

Hailing from Wei, as Prime Minister of the State of Qin, Shang Yang (390–338 BCE) engaged in a "comprehensive plan to eliminate the hereditary aristocracy". Drawing boundaries between private factions and the central, royal state, he took up the cause of meritocratic appointment, stating "Favoring one's relatives is tantamount to using self-interest as one's way, whereas that which is equal and just prevents selfishness from proceeding."

As the first of his accomplishments, historiographer Sima Qian accounts Shang Yang as having divided the populace into groups of five and ten, instituting a system of mutual responsibility tying status entirely to service to the state. It rewarded office and rank for martial exploits, going as far as to organize women's militias for siege defense.

The second accomplishment listed is forcing the populace to attend solely to agriculture (or women cloth production, including a possible sewing draft) and recruiting labour from other states. He abolished the old fixed landholding system (fengjian) and direct primogeniture, making it possible for the people to buy and sell (usufruct) farmland, thereby encouraging the peasants of other states to come to Qin. The recommendation that farmers be allowed to buy office with grain was apparently only implemented much later, the first clear-cut instance in 243 BCE. Infanticide was prohibited.

Shang Yang deliberately produced equality of conditions amongst the ruled, a tight control of the economy, and encouraged total loyalty to the state, including censorship and reward for denunciation. "Law" as such was what the sovereign commanded, and this meant absolutism, but it was an absolutism of Fa (administrative standards) as impartial and impersonal, which Gongsun discouraged arbitrary tyranny or terror as destroying.

Emphasizing knowledge of the Fa among the people, he proposed an elaborate system for its distribution to allow them to hold ministers to it. He considered it the most important device for upholding the power of the state. Insisting that it be made known and applied equally to all, he posted it on pillars erected in the new capital. In 350, along with the creation of the new capital, a portion of Qin was divided into thirty-one counties, each "administered by a (presumably centrally appointed) magistrate". This was a "significant move toward centralizing Ch'in administrative power" and correspondingly reduced the power of hereditary landholders.

Shang Yang considered the sovereign to be a culmination in historical evolution, representing the interests of state, subject and stability. Objectivity was a primary goal for him, wanting to be rid as much as possible of the subjective element in public affairs. The greatest good was order. History meant that feeling was now replaced by rational thought, and private considerations by public, accompanied by properties, prohibitions and restraints. In order to have prohibitions, it is necessary to have executioners, hence officials, and a supreme ruler. Virtuous men are replaced by qualified officials, objectively measured by Fa. The ruler should rely neither on his nor his officials' deliberations, but on the clarification of Fa. Everything should be done by Fa, whose transparent system of standards will prevent any opportunities for corruption or abuse.

Evolutionary view of history

What Pines terms the evolutionary view of history was regarded by the early scholarship of Feng Youlan (1948) as a commonality between Gongsun Yang and Han Fei. Discussed in our Realism introduction, Graham (1989) less radically formulates its philosophy as starting "not from how society ought to be but how it is", into which the tradition can be fitted more broadly. Graham adds to the two the Guanzi, which to the current's benefit is a text which may have been written even after the Han Feizi.

However, Creel did not epouse the more evolutionary progressivism we discuss here as a view of Shen Buhai. In contrast to Shang Yang, Shen's fragments take no issue in quoting the Analects. If taken as an extension of the subject, we cannot yet suggest Creel's Shen Bhai "branch" or post-Qin figures as noted for it.

While a changing with the times paradigm was common apart from the Confucians regardless, the difference has been taken more to be more matter of emphasis, and the elucidation in particular of a view held in the Book of Lord Shang. Even adding additional figures we can only present the more "progressive" variation of this tendency as more along the lines of the Shang Yang current or Qin-influenced figures.

Feng Youlan took the Legalists as fully understanding that needs change with the times. Admitting that people may have been more virtuous anciently, they maintained that this was due to material circumstances. Han Fei believes that new problems require new solutions. Although a view of history as a process of change may be common modernly, Feng Youlan suggests it contrasted with the beliefs of Ancient China.

In what Graham calls a "highly literary fiction in a stilted parallelistic style", the Book of Lord Shang opens with a debate held by Duke Xiao of Qin, seeking to "consider the changes in the affairs of the age, inquire into the basis for correcting standards, and seek the Way to employ the people." Gongsun attempts to persuade the Duke to change with the times, with the Shangjunshu citing him as saying: "Orderly generations did not [follow] a single way; to benefit the state, one need not imitate antiquity."

While Xun Kuang's doctrine held human nature to be bad, noting the existence of differences with regards Shen Buhai, Graham compared the "Legalists", Han Fei in particular, with the Malthusians, as "unique in seeking a historical cause of changing conditions", namely population growth. Human nature is a Confucian issue. The statesmen acknowledge that an underpopulated society only need moral ties. The Guanzi text sees punishment as unnecessary in ancient times with an abundance of resources, making it a question of poverty rather than human nature. Graham otherwise considers the customs current at the time as having no significance to them.

Hu Shih (fl. 1919–1962) calls Xun Kuang, Han Fei and Li Si "champions of the idea of progress through conscious human effort," with Li Si abolishing the feudal system, and unifying the empire, law, language, thought and belief, presenting a memorial to the throne in which he condemns all those who “refused to study the present and believed only in the ancients on whose authority they dared to criticize."

Hu Shih quotes a song by Xun Kuang.

You glorify Nature and meditate on her:

Why not domesticate and regulate her?
You follow Nature and sing her praise:
Why not control her course and use it? … … … …
Therefore, I say: To neglect man’s effort and speculate about Nature,

Is to misunderstand the facts of the universe.

As a counterpoint, Han Fei or Shen Dao do still employ argumentative reference to 'sage kings'; Han Fei claims the distinction between the ruler's interests and private interests are said to date back to Cangjie, while government by Fa is said to date back to time immemorial. Tao Jiang takes Han Fei's statements in this regard seriously, with Han Fei considering the demarcation between public and private a "key element" in the "enlightened governance" of the former kings.

Anti-Confucianism

While Shen Buhai and Shen Dao's current may not have been hostile to Confucius, Shang Yang and Han Fei emphasize their rejection of past models as unverifiable if not useless ("what was appropriate for the early kings is not appropriate for modern rulers"). Han Fei argued that the age of Li had given way to the age of Fa, with natural order giving way to social order and finally political order. Together with that of Xun Kuang, their sense of human progress and reason guided the Qin dynasty.

Intending his Dao (way of government) to be both objective and publicly projectable, Han Fei argued that disastrous results would occur if the ruler acted on arbitrary, ad-hoc decision making, such as that based on relationships or morality which, as a product of reason, are "particular and fallible". Li, or Confucian customs, and rule by example are also simply too ineffective. The ruler cannot act on a case-by-case basis, and so must establish an overarching system, acting through Fa (administrative methods or standards). Fa is not partial to the noble, does not exclude ministers, and does not discriminate against the common people.

Linking the "public" sphere with justice and objective standards, for Han Fei, the private and public had always opposed each other. Taking after Shang Yang he lists the Confucians among his "five vermin", and calls the Confucian teaching on love and compassion for the people the "stupid teaching" and "muddle-headed chatter", the emphasis on benevolence an "aristocratic and elitist ideal" demanding that "all ordinary people of the time be like Confucius' disciples". Moreover, he dismisses it as impracticable, saying that "In their settled knowledge, the literati are removed from the affairs of the state ... What can the ruler gain from their settled knowledge?", and points out that "Confucianism" is not a unified body of thought.

In opposition to Confucian family sentiment, Tao Jiang (2021) notes Han Fei's analysis of family dynamics as based entirely on the position of the ruler, requiring structural solutions rather than Confucian education or moral cultivation. According to the Liji, an "important early Confucian canon", penal laws should not be applied to high officials. As a major source of political corruption, ministers shielded family members from penal measures in the name of Humaneness and others moral justifications. Only those without connections are subject to the law. Although noting an opposition between politic and morality, Tao Jiang takes Han Fei's opposition in this as clearly pointing to a moral dimension in his vision of political order. In what Tao Jiang takes as one of Han Fei's "most powerful condemnation of the gross injustice suffered by the commoners", Han Fei says:

Judging from the tales handed down from high antiquity and the incidents recorded in the Spring and Autumn Annals, those men who violated the laws, committed treason, and carried out major acts of evil always worked throughsome eminent and highly placed minister. And yet the laws and regulations are customarily designed to prevent evil among the humble and lowly people, and it is upon them alone that penalties and punishments fall. Hence the common people lose hope and are left with no place to air their grievances. Meanwhile the high ministers band together and work as one man to cloud the vision of the ruler. (Watson trans. 2003, 89)

Recalling the Qin empire

In contrast to more recent western views of the subject as not constituting a major school or movement, Vitality Rubin, a contemporary of Creel in the Soviet Union, took Legalism to be Imperial China's first ideology, and a major competitor to Confucianism, based in the Qin unification as a major event. Despite Han Fei's imprisonment and suicide, Graham took Han Fei as "the most immediately relevant to his times of all Chinese thinkers, the theoretician of the policies by which the First Emperor and Li Ssu united China and laid the foundations of the bureaucratized empire which replaced Zhou feudalism."

Taking Creel as antagonist with regards a magnification of Shen Buhai, and proposing a greater historical impact that might be supposed by Sima Qian for Gongsun Yang, professor Tao Jiang recalls Francis Fukuyama's Origins of Political Order (2011) in regarding China under the Qin as the first Weberian modern state. Tao Jiang counts the Fajia, with Gongsun as a pivotal figure, as instrumental in bringing about a "new model of powerful states, drastically changing the trajectory of Chinese and world political history."

Primarily a comparative with Xijinging, Shiping Hua in Chinese Legality still passes over Gongsun to grant the role to Han Fei as advocating law and the elimination of aristocratic privileges, leading to a strengthened Qin's eventual defeat of the other six rival kingdoms.

Shen Buhai

Han state bronze candle holder

Creel considered Shen Buhai (400–337 BCE), a past Chancellor of the Han state for fifteen years (351–337 BCE), whose philosophy he dubbed administrative, to have played a greater, if not "outstanding role in the creation of the traditional Chinese system of government", with the "immensely important contribution" of the ruler's role stemming "principally" from him, and not at all from Shang Yang. Apart from Shang Yang's doctrine of penalties, mutual spying, and denouncement among ministers, Han Fei recommends the ruler protect himself through the careful employment of doctrines that had been recommended by Shen Buhai.

The Huainanzi states that Han's officials lacked coherence, leading to the creation of the 'Books on Xing-Ming.' Han Fei criticizes Shen for not unifying Fa, reward or punishment, but what Shen appears to have realized is that the remnants of feudal government, or merely "getting together a group of 'good men'", could not be mixed with the control of a qualified bureaucracy.

Shen's "cardinal principle" is selecting officials based on their abilities and achievements (xingming). The "routine functions"(Shen) of government business are carried out "entirely by the officials", and Shen insists that ministers "must have nothing to do with functions that were not assigned to them.", according to Creel

Unlike Shang Yang, Shen sees the ruler abstractly, as simply the head of a bureaucracy, and who need not necessarily be the monarch. Creel's modernizing interpretation sees Shen's ruler as a "majestic arbiter" with a "team" of ministers, firmly but unobtrusively controlled by a number of techniques. The ruler does not often speak, act, or flaunt power, with Shen himself apparently sometimes declining to give opinions on important matters of state. The ruler occupies himself with larger matters, principles or policies. Shen emphasizes a discreet, informed, independent evaluation of ministers and their reports, using the same operational method (Fa) as others of the Fajia to measure and categorize information.

Well aware of the possibility of the loss of the ruler's position, and thus state or life, from said officials, Shen says:

One who murders the ruler and takes his state ... does not necessarily climb over difficult walls or batter in barred doors or gates. He may be one of the ruler's own ministers, gradually limiting what the ruler sees, restricting what he hears, getting control of his government and taking over his power to command, possessing the people and seizing the state.

Creel elaborates that unlike Han Fei, Shen still required a strong ruler at the center, emphasizing that without impeding his ministers he must neither trust nor allow any one minister to gain too much power. Ideally, Shen's ruler had the widest possible sovereignty, was intelligent (if not a sage), had to make all crucial decisions himself, and had unlimited control of the bureaucracy.

Following after proposals

Han Fei calls the doctrine of Shen Buhai Shu, or Technique, and describes it as concerned "almost exclusively" with selecting and governing capable ministers, checking performances, and holding power "in his own hands". However, the fragments do not use the term, using (Shu) numbers instead. Hence, Creel believed Shu term originally had the sense of numbers, as in statistical or categorizing methods, with record-keeping in financial management measuring of accomplishment. Command of finance is generally held by the head of government from the beginning of the Zhou dynasty dating to 800 BCE. The practice of annual accounting solidified by the Warring States period and budgeting by the first century BCE.

With Han Fei and Sima Qian as precedent, Liu Xiang wrote that Shen advised the ruler of men use Shu ('technique') rather than punishment, emphasizing the scrutinizing of achievement to give reward and select capable ministers. He describes describes Shen's doctrines as concerned almost exclusively with personnel management and the monopolization of power, namely the "ruler's role and the methods by which he may control a bureaucracy", controlling relations between ruler and minister, which he characterized as Wu Wei, leaving ministerial duties to ministers.

Liu Xiang says that "Shen Buhai's book says a ruler of men ought to use technique rather than punishment, relying on yin hsun to 'supervise and hold responsible' (tu tse) his ministers and subordinates; his holding responsible is very strict. Therefore his doctrine is called shu (method)." And another translation; "Master Shen writings say that the lord of men should grasp shu and do away with punishments, and yinxun in order to supversive and hold responsible his vassals and subordinates."

Literally meaning "to follow after" or imitate, Creel (1970) translates yin hsun (modern: yinxun) as relying on going along with, but confusingly shortens it to relying on persuasion. Goldin quotes Shen as famous for the dictum, "The Sage ruler relies on method (Fa) and does not rely on wisdom; he relies on technique, not on persuasions." Yinxun, Goldin says, is classically associated with Shen Buhai:

The Zhushu (Shu or Techniques of the ruler), or ninth chapter chapter of the Han dynasty Huainanzi, describes Yinxun as "to follow and comply, and delegate responsibilities to one's subordinates." In line with Shen, its primary subject is refraining from the utilization of one's own abilities to co-opt those of the populace, utilizing their eyes and ears instead of his. Completely unmoving, he recognizes the particular talents of his subjects, retaining control over the earth.

Shu (later narratives)

In the Guanzi the artisan's Shu is explicitly compared to that of the good ruler. The History of the Han (Han Shu) lists texts for Shu as devoted to "calculation techniques" and "techniques of the mind", and describes the Warring States period as a time when the shu arose because the complete Dao had disappeared.

The Han dynasty Lunheng says: "People themselves posses the knowledge to decieve others, but when they are to persuade rulers they need a special art (shu) to motivate the superiors--just as super men (commanders) themselves posses a powerful braveness that inspires awe in others."

Another example of Shu is Chuan-shu, or "political maneuvering". The concept of Ch'uan, or "weighing" figures in Legalist writings from very early times. It also figures in Confucian writings as at the heart of moral action, including in the Mencius and the Doctrine of the Mean. Weighing is contrasted with "the standard". Life and history often necessitate adjustments in human behavior, which must suit what is called for at a particular time. It always involves human judgement. A judge that has to rely on his subjective wisdom, in the form of judicious weighing, relies on Ch'uan. The Confucian Zhu Xi, who was notably not a restorationist, emphasized expedients as making up for incomplete standards or methods.

One of the narratives or sayings of Shen Buhai is the ruler being an axis causing the ministers to advance like the spokes of a wheel, so that no one minister gains supremacy. The ruler must be able to access all senior ministers, and not trust any single minister. The general cultural relevance and political connection with the axis and wheel is astronomy related; "Imperial majesty corresponded, not to a legislating creator, but to a polar star, the focal point of universal ever-moving pattern and harmony not made with hands, even those of God." In Confucianism the Emperor, serving as a bridge between heaven and earth, is compared to the pole star, who remains motionless while all others move around him.

Zhuangzi calls "the view from nowhere" the "hinge of daos", or dao-shu, a nonpurposive perspective preceding language, or "view from the axis of daos"(Hansen) from which anything can be said. Speech then leads to particular daos. Hsu Kai (920–974 AD) calls Shu a branch in, or components of, the great Dao, likening it to the spokes on a wheel. He defines it as "that by which one regulates the world of things; the algorithms of movement and stillness". Mastery of techniques was a necessary element of sagehood.

Xing-Ming/Ming-shih

"The Way of Listening is to be giddy as though soused. Be dumber and dumber. Let others deploy themselves, and accordingly, I shall know them."

Right and wrong whirl around him like spokes on a wheel, but the sovereign does not complot. Emptiness, stillness, non-action—these are the characteristics of the Way. By checking and comparing how it accords with reality, [one ascertains] the "performance" of an enterprise.

Han Fei

Detail of The Spinning Wheel, by Chinese artist Wang Juzheng, Northern Song Dynasty (960–1279)

In the Han Dynasty secretaries of government who had charge of the records of decisions in criminal matters were called Xing-Ming, which Sima Qian (145 or 135 – 86 BCE) and Liu Xiang (77–6 BCE) attributed to the doctrine of Shen Buhai (400 – c. 337 BCE). Liu Xiang defines Shen Buhai's doctrine as Xing-Ming, as Sima Tan and Sima Qian had (less accurately) for the Fajia more generally before him. Its meaning was so completely lost as to have previously been translated as criminal law by JJL Duyvendak, translator for the 1928 Book of Lord Shang.

With Shen's fragments quoted as saying the ruler practices Xing-Ming while lacking punishment, and an apparent absence of the doctrine or practice of uniform reward and punishment in his state, Creel found it highly unlikely that Shen was employed them. Liu Xiang and Creel associate its practice in Qin and Han times as denoting a "system for the organization and control" of official corps, comparing title and performance, and "emphasizing the high position of superiors"(Creel), or as Liu Xiang says, ""honoring the ruler and humbling the minister, exalting superiors and curbing inferiors."

Shen actually used an older, more philosophically common equivalent, ming-shi, (simplified Chinese: 名实; traditional Chinese: 名實; pinyin: míngshí) linking the "Legalist doctrine of names" with the 200-year name and reality (ming shi) debates of the school of names – another school evolving out of the Mohists. But the earliest literary occurrence for Xing-Ming, in the Zhan Guo Ce, is also in reference to the school of names.

Ming-shi discussions are prominent in the Han Feizi, and Dong Zhongshu's writings on "personnel testing and control" still use Ming-shi instead of Xing-Ming, in a manner "hardly distinguishable" from the Han Feizi,(Creel) although advocating against punishments.

Ming ("name") sometimes has the sense of speech – so as to compare the statements of an aspiring officer with the reality of his actions – or reputation, again compared with real conduct (xing "form" or shi "reality"). Two anecdotes by Han Fei provide examples: The Logician Ni Yue argued that a white horse is not a horse, and defeated all debaters, but was still tolled at the gate. In another, the chief minister of Yan pretended to see a white horse dash out the gate. All of his subordinates denied having seen anything, save one, who ran out after it and returned claiming to have seen it, and was thereby identified as a flatterer.

Shen Buhai's personnel control, or rectification of names (such as titles) worked thereby for "strict performance control" (Hansen) correlating claims, performances and posts. It would become a central tenant of both Legalist statecraft and its Huang-Lao derivatives. Rather than having to look for "good" men, ming-shi or xing-ming can seek the right man for a particular post, though doing so implies a total organizational knowledge of the regime.

More simply though, it can allow ministers to "name" themselves through accounts of specific cost and time frame, leaving their definition to competing ministers. Claims or utterances "bind the speaker to the realization a job (Makeham)." This was the doctrine, with subtle differences, favoured by Han Fei. Favoring exactness, it combats the tendency to promise too much. The correct articulation of Ming is considered crucial to the realization of projects.

Suggesting an earlier, fifth century origin for the Sunzi, Robin Yates suggests Xing-Ming derives from the use of military flags and pennants in war, as in a "concrete method" of military organization. If his dating is correct, it places the origin of Xing-Ming more in the military, only later being adopted by the officials. Not presently addressing the matter, Tao Jiang defers to the consensus view placing the Sunzi in the mid fourth century B.C.. He does suggests that chapter 10 of the Shangjunshu has the Sunzi in mind, although differing considerably in views.

Wu wei (inaction)

Zhaoming mirror frame, Western Han dynasty

Further information: Wu wei

Sinologist Chad Hansen characterizes Shen Buhai's Shu or techniques as primarily Wu Wei, aimed at "preventing the usual drain and flow of the ruler's power to ministers", and secondarily a rectification of names for personnel control. What Creel noted as Wu Wei's Confucian variation meant that ministers carry out all the functions. The (qualified) non-action of the ruler ensures his power and the stability of the polity, and can therefore, Roger T. Ames says, be considered his foremost technique.

Although less antagonistic than his Han Fei, Shen still believed that the ruler's most able ministers are his greatest danger, and is convinced that it is impossible to make them loyal without techniques. Shen Buhai argued that if the government were organized and supervised relying on proper method (Fa), the ruler need do little – and must do little, portraying the ruler as putting up a front to hide his dependence on his advisors.

Aside from hiding the ruler's weaknesses, Shen's ruler, therefore, makes use of method (Fa) ("Shu") in secrecy. Even more than with Han Fei, Shen Buhai's ruler's strategies are a closely guarded secret, aiming for a complete independence that challenges "one of the oldest and most sacred tenets of Confucianism", that of respectfully receiving and following ministerial advice.

Creel explains: "The ruler's subjects are so numerous, and so on alert to discover his weaknesses and get the better of him, that it is hopeless for him alone as one man to try to learn their characteristics and control them by his knowledge ... the ruler must refrain from taking the initiative, and from making himself conspicuous – and therefore vulnerable – by taking any overt action."

Shen Buhai solves the problem of defining the terms of a job through Wu wei, or not getting involved, making an official's words his own responsibility, saying, "The ruler controls the policy, the ministers manage affairs. To speak ten times and ten times be right, to act a hundred times and a hundred times succeed – this is the business of one who serves another as minister; it is not the way to rule."

Creel considers the "conception of the ruler's role as a supreme arbiter", who maintains power while leaving details to ministers, to have a "deep influence on the theory and practice of Chinese monarchy". Playing a "crucial role in the promotion of the autocratic tradition", what is termed wu wei (or 'inaction') would become the political theory of the fajia (or "Chinese Legalists"), if not becoming their general term for political strategy.

Following Shen Buhai strongly advocated by Han Fei, during the Han dynasty up until the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, rulers confined their activity "chiefly to the appointment and dismissal of his high officials", a plainly Legalist practice inherited from the Qin dynasty.

Lacking any metaphysical connotation, Shen used the term Wu wei to mean that the ruler, though vigilant, should not interfere with the duties of his ministers, acting through administrative method. Shen says:

The ruler is like a mirror, reflecting light, doing nothing, and yet, beauty and ugliness present themselves; (or like) a scale establishing equilibrium, doing nothing, and yet causing lightness and heaviness to discover themselves. (Administrative) method (Fa) is complete acquiescence. (Merging his) personal (concerns) with the public (weal), he does not act. He does not act, and yet as a result of his non-action (wuwei) the world brings itself to a state of complete order.

Though espousing an ultimate inactive end, the term does not appear in the Book of Lord Shang, ignoring it as an idea for control of the administration.

Yin (passive mindfulness)

Shen's ruler plays no active role in governmental functions. He should not use his talent even if he has it. Not using his own skills, he is better able to secure the services of capable functionaries. However, Creel also argues that not getting involved in details allowed Shen's ruler to "truly rule", because it leaves him free to supervise the government without interfering, maintaining his perspective.

Adherence to the use of technique in governing requires the ruler not engage in any interference or subjective consideration. Sinologist John Makeham explains: "assessing words and deeds requires the ruler's dispassionate attention; (yin is) the skill or technique of making one's mind a tabula rasa, non-committaly taking note of all the details of a man's claims and then objectively comparing his achievements of the original claims."

A commentary to the Records of the Grand Historian quotes a now-lost book with Shen Buhai saying: "By employing (yin), 'passive mindfulness', in overseeing and keeping account of his vassals, accountability is deeply engraved." The Guanzi similarly says: "Yin is the way of non-action. Yin is neither to add to nor to detract from anything. To give something a name strictly on the basis of its form – this is the Method of yin."

Yin also aimed at concealing the ruler's intentions, likes and opinions. Shen advises the ruler to keep his own counsel, hide his motivations and conceal his tracks in inaction, availing himself of an appearance of stupidity and insufficiency.

If the ruler's intelligence is displayed, men will prepare against it; If his lack of intelligence is displayed, they will delude him. If his wisdom is displayed, men will gloss over (their faults); if his lack of wisdom is displayed, they will hide from him. If his lack of desires is displayed, men will spy out his true desires; if his desires are displayed, they will tempt him. Therefore (the intelligent ruler) says "I cannot know them; it is only by means of non-action that I control them."

Said obscuration was to be achieved together with the use of Method (Fa). Not acting himself, he can avoid being manipulated.

Despite such injunctions, it is clear that the ruler's assignments would still be completely up to him.

Legacy of the Shu branch

Creel elaborates a number of figures as potentially influenced by Shen Buhai, including Emperor Qinshihuang, Han figures Jia Yi, Emperor Wen of Han, Emperor Jing of Han, Chao Cuo, Dong Zhongshu, Gongsun Hong, and Emperor Xuan of Han. Emperor Wen of Sui is recorded as having withdrawn his favour from the Confucians, giving it to "the group advocating Xing-Ming and authoritarian government." Although a Confucian-oriented minister, Zhuge Liang is noted (by others) as attaching great importance to the work of Han Fei and Shen Buhai.

Michael Loewe considered Creel correct to distinguish between the stands of Legalism, but questions the thrust of tracing lineages between the personas as a historical method. Loewe characterizes them as sympathizers of imperial government over that of the small states, endeavoring to permanently establishment imperial government without the dangers that destroyed the Qin.

Emperor Qinshihuang erected an inscription naming himself as taking control of the government and for the first time establishing Xing-Ming, a retroactive terminology for Shen Buhai's method utilized by Han Fei. Although Han Fei may be noted as relevant to the Emperor, Shen Buhai has his own historical relevance.

As mentioned previously, Sima Qian names Jia Yi as an advocate of Shen Buhai and Shang Yang, even though Jia Yi would not seem to be not an advocate of Shang Yang. With the encouragement of the Emperor Wen of Han, who the Shiji and Hanshu both regard as being basically fond of Xing-Ming, Jia Yi drew up "complete plans for revising the institutions of government and reorganizing the bureaucracy", which Emperor Wen put into effect. Although exiled by Emperor Wen under factional pressures, Jia Yi was sent to tutor one of Wen's sons, Liu Yi/Prince Huai of Liang.

Bringing together Confucian and Daoist discourses, Jia Yi describes Shen Buhai's Shu as a particular method of applying the Dao, or virtue. He uses the imagery of the Zhuangzi of the knife and hatchet as examples of skillful technique in both virtue and force, saying "benevolence, righteousness, kindness and generosity are the ruler's sharp knife. Power, purchase, law and regulation are his axe and hatchet."

Heir successor Emperor Jing of Han also had two mentors in the doctrines of Shen Buhai, and appointed another Legalist, Chao Cuo. Chao Cuo is regarded by the Hanshu as a student of the doctrines of Shen Buhai, Shang Yang and Xing-Ming. Unlike Jia Yi, he does appear to take interest in Shang Yang.

Following the Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms, Emperor Jing reformed criminal penalties to reduce injustices and punishments.

An advocate for the civil service examinations, Dong Zhongshu's writings on personnel testing and control use the terminology of Ming-shih, another (older) term for the method of Shen Buhai, in a manner "hardly distinguishable" from the Han Feizi,(Creel) but unlike Han Fei, advocate against punishments. Dong's advocacy aside, the civil service examination did not come into existence until its support by Gongsun Hong, who wrote a book on xingming. Thus, Creel credits the origination of the civil service examination in part to Shen Buhai.

The Emperor Xuan of Han was still said by Liu Xiang to have been fond of reading Shen Buhai, using Xing-Ming to control his subordinates and devoting much time to legal cases

Shen Dao

Iron weight dated from 221 BCE with 41 inscriptions written in seal script about standardizing weights and measures during the 1st year of Qin dynasty "Where there is a scale, people cannot deceive others about weight; where there is a ruler, people cannot deceive others about length; and where there is Fa, people cannot deceive others about one's words and deeds." Shen Dao

Mold for making banliang coins

Graham characterizes Shen Dao (350 – c. 275 BCE) as a theoretician of centralized power. He argued for Wu wei in a similar manner to Shen Buhai, saying

The Dao of ruler and ministers is that the ministers labour themselves with tasks while the prince has no task; the prince is relaxed and happy while the ministers bear responsibility for tasks. The ministers use all their intelligence and strength to perform his job satisfactorily, in which the ruler takes no part, but merely waits for the job to be finished. As a result, every task is taken care of. The correct way of government is thus.

Shen Dao also espouses an impersonal administration in much the same sense as Shen Buhai, and in contrast with Shang Yang emphasizes the use of talent and the promotion of ministers, saying that order and chaos are "not the product of one man's efforts". Along this line, however, he challenges the Confucian and Mohist esteem and appointment of worthies as a basis of order, pointing out that talented ministers existed in every age.

Taking it upon himself to attempt a new, analytical solution, Shen advocated fairness as a new virtue, eschewing appointment by interview in favour of a mechanical distribution ("the basis of fairness") with the invariable Fa apportioning every person according to their achievement. Scholar Sugamoto Hirotsugu attributes the concept of Fen, or social resources, also used by the Guanzi and Xunzi, to Shen, given a "dimensional" difference through Fa, social relationships ("yin") and division.

If one rabbit runs through a town street, and a hundred chase it, it is because its distribution has not been determined ... If the distribution has already been determined, even the basest people will not go for it. The way to control All-under-Heaven and the country lies solely in determining distribution.

The greatest function of fa ("the principle of objective judgement") is the prevention of selfish deeds and argument. However, doubting its long-term viability Shen did not exclude moral values and accepted (qualified) Confucian Li's supplementation of Fa and social relationships, though he frames Li in terms of (impersonal) rules.

The state has the li of high and low rank, but not a li of men of worth and those without talent. There is a li of age and youth, but not of age and cowardice. There is a li of near and distant relatives, but no li of love and hate.

For this reason he is said to "laugh at men of worth" and "reject sages", his order relying not on them but on the Fa.

Linking fa to the notion of impartial objectivity associated with universal interest, and reframing the language of the old ritual order to fit a universal, imperial and highly bureaucratized state, Shen cautions the ruler against relying on his own personal judgment, contrasting personal opinions with the merit of the objective standard, or fa, as preventing personal judgements or opinions from being exercised. Personal opinions destroy Fa, and Shen Dao's ruler therefore "does not show favouritism toward a single person".

When an enlightened ruler establishes [gong] ("duke" or "public interest"), [private] desires do not oppose the correct timing [of things], favoritism does not violate the law, nobility does not trump the rules, salary does not exceed [that which is due] one's position, a [single] officer does not occupy multiple offices, and a [single] craftsman does not take up multiple lines of work ... [Such a ruler] neither overworked his heart-mind with knowledge nor exhausted himself with self-interest (si), but, rather, depended on laws and methods for settling matters of order and disorder, rewards and punishments for deciding on matters of right and wrong, and weights and balances for resolving issues of heavy or light ...

The reason why those who apportion horses use ce-lots, and those who apportion fields use gou-lots, is not that they take ce and gou-lots to be superior to human wisdom, but that one may eliminate private interest and stop resentment by these means. Thus it is said: "When the great lord relies on fa and does not act personally, affairs are judged in accordance with (objective) method (fa)." The benefit of fa is that each person meets his reward or punishment according to his due, and there are no further expectations of the lord. Thus resentment does not arise and superiors and inferiors are in harmony.

If the lord of men abandons method (Fa) and governs with his own person, then penalties and rewards, seizures and grants, will all emerge from the lord's mind. If this is the case, then those who receive rewards, even if these are commensurate, will ceaselessly expect more; those who receive punishment, even if these are commensurate, will endlessly expect more lenient treatment... people will be rewarded differently for the same merit and punished differently for the same fault. Resentment arises from this.

Although Sinologis. Creel (1970:63) believed that Shen had the same sort of administrative idea denoted by Shen Buhai's Xing-Ming, he does not use the term.

Doctrine of position (shi)

The people of Qi have a saying – "A man may have wisdom and discernment, but that is not like embracing the favourable opportunity. A man may have instruments of husbandry, but that is not like waiting for the farming seasons." Mencius

Used in many areas of Chinese thought, shi probably originated in the military field. Diplomats relied on concepts of situational advantage and opportunity, as well as techniques (shu) involving secrecy, long before the ascendancy of such concepts as sovereignty or law, and were used by kings wishing to free themselves from the aristocrats. Sun Tzu would go on to incorporate Taoist philosophy of inaction and impartiality, and Legalist punishment and rewards as systematic measures of organization, recalling Han Fei's concepts of power (shi) and techniques (shu).

Henry Kissinger's On China says: "Chinese statesmanship exhibits a tendency to view the entire strategic landscape as part of a single whole ... Strategy and statecraft become means of 'combative coexistence' with opponents. The goal is to manoeuvre them into weakness while building up one's own shi, or strategic position." Kissinger considers the "manoeuvring" approach an ideal, but one that ran in contrast to the conflicts of the Qin dynasty.

Gernet considered the "merit" of the Legalists to be the understanding that the power of the state resides in social and political institutions. Their "originality" lies in their aim to subject the state to them. Similarly, Graham (1989) concludes that Legalism marks a shift from the "man-to-man relations of feudalism." 'Legalism' is lacking on discussions on De, or awe-inspiring personal potency. Power shifts to simply occupying institutional positions.

Like Shen Buhai, Shen Dao largely focused on statecraft (Fa). Confucian reformer Xun Kuang discusses him in this capacity, never referencing Shen Dao in relation to power, which he attributes to Shen Buhai. Shen Dao was remembered for his theories on shi (lit. "situational advantage", but also "power" or "charisma") because Han Fei references him in this capacity. Modern scholarship is critical on the point of recalling him simply in it's capacity.

Xun Kuang views military science as expressions which can be worked out rationally and systematically, albeit framing them as cultivated rituals. But in explanation as to why talent and worth do not find success, he has a saying; "If the right person does not meet with the right time, then will even one who is talented be able to succeed?"; Sinologist John Makeham suggests the earliest version of this particular line may be taken from the Analects; "The noble man is firm in hard times; when the lesser man falls on hard times, he becomes dissolute."

The thrust of Han Fei's argument is negating Confucianist discussions of rule by moral worth versus rule by power, which might include brigands. Neither will do the job, nor do they rule together. As quoted of Han Fei, Shi, or what Graham translates as the power-base, is not intended to refer to any single doctrine. It may have innumerable variations. It refers to power acquired spontaneously, and political order as such is not based on it, anymore than it is based on moral order. Singular men cannot institute power. Political order is not based on power. Political order is based on order, like clearly defined "laws." Power and position will at least enable the ruler to enact these.

In the words of Han Fei,

The reason why I discuss the power of position is for the sake of ... mediocre rulers. These mediocre rulers, at best they do not reach the level of [the sages] Yao or Shun, and at worst they do not behave like [the arch-tyrants] Jie or Zhou. If they hold to the 'law' (Fa) and depend on the power of their position, there will be order; but if they abandon the power of their position and turn their backs on the 'law', there will be disorder. Now if one abandons the power of position, turns one's back on the law, and waits for a Yao or Shun, then when a Yao or a Shun arrives there will indeed be order, but it will only be one generation of order in a thousand generations of disorder ... Nevertheless, if anyone devotes his whole discourse to the sufficiency of the doctrine of position to govern All-under-Heaven, the limits of his wisdom must be very narrow.

Shen Dao on shi

Searching out the causes of disorder, Shen Dao observed splits in the ruler's authority. Shen Dao's theory on power echoes Shen Buhai, referenced by Xun Kuang as its originator, who says "He who (can become) singular decision-maker can become the sovereign of All under Heaven." Shen Dao's theory may have been borrowed from the Book of Lord Shang, if he received any portion of it. It may otherwise have originated in Shen Dao's abandonment of a singular Fa, or Standard, as correct.

For Shen Dao, "Power" (勢 shi) refers to the ability to compel compliance; it requires no support from the subjects, though it does not preclude this. (shi's) merit is that it prevents people from fighting each other; political authority is justified and essential on this basis. Shen Dao says: "When All under Heaven lacks the single esteemed [person], then there is no way to carry out the principles [of orderly government, li 理]. ... Hence the Son of Heaven is established for the sake of All under Heaven ... All under Heaven is not established for the sake of the Son of Heaven ..."

Talent cannot be displayed without power. Shen Dao says: "The flying dragon rides on the clouds and the rising serpent wanders in the mists. But when the clouds disperse and the mists clear up, the dragon and the serpent become the same as the earthworm and the large winged black ant because they have lost what they ride." Leadership is not a function of ability or merit, but is given by some process, such as giving a leader to a group. "The ruler of a state is enthroned for the sake of the state; the state is not established for the sake of the prince. Officials are installed for the sake of their offices; offices are not established for the sake of officials ..."

While moral capability is usually disregarded by the fajia, Shen Dao considers it useful in terms of authority. If the ruler is inferior but his command is practiced, it is because he is able to get support from people. But his ideas otherwise constitute a "direct challenge" to Confucian virtue. Virtue is unreliable because people have different capacities. Both morality together with intellectual capability are insufficient to rule, while position of authority is enough to attain influence and subdue the worthy, making virtue "not worth going after".

Han Fei on Shi

Like Shen Dao, Han Fei seems to admit that virtue or charisma can have persuasive power even in his own time. However, he considers virtue instrumental, and Wu-wei, or nonaction, as its essence. Furthermore, he criticizes virtue as insufficient; power should be amassed through "laws" (fa), and unlike Shen considers government by moral persuasion and government by power (shi) mutually incompatible.

The ruler's authority (shi) should depend neither on his own personal qualities or cultivation, or even upon Shen Dao's position or power, but on Fa (law or checks and balances), a more vital source for his authority. Shang Yang and Han Fei's rejection of charisma (shi) as ineffective underwrite their rejection of the Confucian ruler. Han Fei does stress that the leader has to occupy a position of substantial power before he is able to use these or command followers. Competence or moral standing do not allow command.

For Han Fei, in order to actually influence, manipulate or control others in an organization and attain organizational goals it is necessary to utilize techniques (shu), regulation (fa), and rewards and punishment – the "two handles".Reward and punishment determine social positions – the right to appoint and dismiss. In line with Shi, these should never be relegated. The ruler must be the sole dispenser of honors and penalties. If these are delegated to the smallest degree, and people are appointed on the basis of reputation or worldly knowledge, then rivals will emerge and the ruler's power will fall to opinion and cliques (the ministers). Allowing him to prevent collapse by combating or resolving ministerial disagreements and ambitions, the rulers exclusive authority outweighs all other considerations, and Han Fei requires that the ruler punish disobedient ministers even if the results of their actions were successful. Goods may not be considered meaningful outside of his control.

"Monarchic discourse"

As in the Analects, as quoted by Shen Buhai, the period expected mediocre rulers expected to delegate. On the other hand, the period effectively expected a true or sage monarch to ensure perfect universal order and compliance. The Qin empire would appropriate the "monarchic discourse" of the preceding period, which took an unrivaled, all-powerful, universal ruler as necessary for peace. Although itself victorious through military campaign, the Qin promoted that their unification had brought the Warring States period to an end.

Pines takes monarchic discourse as represented in particular in Xun Kuang. Generally taken as Confucian, as the purported teacher of Han Fei he is nonetheless often associated with the Fajia for his acceptance of punishment with Fa as adjunct to ritual.

Han Fei

Han Fei's (280–233 BCE) theory is more interested in self-preservation than formulating any general theory of the state. Sinologist Daniel Bell considers Han Fei's work a "political handbook for power-hungry rulers... (arguing that) political leaders should act like rational sociopaths" with "total-state control" strengthened by rewards and punishments.

Nonetheless, Han Fei inheres to the tradition of Fa, or objective "public standards guiding performance", sometimes stressing public proclamations with "measurement-like precision" linking performance with reward or punishment. Considering coherent discourse essential for the functioning of the state, Han Fei's analysis of the problem of rulership is that "people naturally incline to private interpretation"(Chad Hansen). Differentiating his theory from that of the Confucians through the objectivity and mass public accessibility of fa, he considers measurement (fa) the only justification for adopting an explicit code, rather than leaving matters to tradition and elite conceptions of virtue (de). As with Shen Buhai and most of the School of Names he takes the congruence between name and reality as a primary goal.

Public, measurement-like standards for applying names (administrative standards or job contracts) can "plausibly make it hard for clever ministers to lie, (or) for glib talkers to take people (or the ruler) in with sophistries ... [They make it possible to] correct the faults of superiors, expose error, check excess, and unify standards ... Laws, by themselves, cannot prevent the ruler from being fooled or deceived. The ruler needs Fa." Han Fei's arguments for "rule by law" (would not have as much persuasive power as they do if not for Fa, without which its objectives cannot be achieved. He rejects Confucian li, scholarly interpretation and opinion, worldly knowledge, and reputation: models must be measured, dissolving behaviour and disputes of distinction into practical application.

Considering politics the only means of preserving the power of the state, he emphasizes standards, preventing disputes in language or knowledge, as the ruler's only protection. Providing reward and penalty automatically, Fa strictly defines state functions through binding, general rules, removing from discussion what would otherwise only be opinion, and preventing conflicts of competencies, undue powers or profits. To this end, Han Fei's high officials focus solely on definition through calculation and the construction of objective models, judged solely by effectiveness.

Wu wei

Devoting the entirety of Chapter 14, "How to Love the Ministers", to "persuading the ruler to be ruthless to his ministers", Han Fei's enlightened ruler strikes terror into his ministers by doing nothing (wu wei). The qualities of a ruler, his "mental power, moral excellence and physical prowess" are irrelevant. He discards his private reason and morality, and shows no personal feelings. What is important is his method of government. Fa (administrative standards) require no perfection on the part of the ruler.

Sinologist Hansen views Han Fei as "playing an important role in furthering the authoritarian distortion of Daoism", which would later be inherited by Neo-Confucianism. Although Han Fei's use of Wu-Wei may have been derivative of Daoism, he references Shen Buhai for it, and its Dao emphasizes autocracy ("Tao does not identify with anything but itself, the ruler does not identify with the ministers"). Randall Peerenboom argue's that Han Fei's Shu (technique) is arguably more of a "practical principle of political control" than any state of mind. Han Fei nonetheless begins by advising the ruler to remain "empty and still".

Tao is the beginning of the myriad things, the standard of right and wrong. That being so, the intelligent ruler, by holding to the beginning, knows the source of everything, and, by keeping to the standard, knows the origin of good and evil. Therefore, by virtue of resting empty and reposed, he waits for the course of nature to enforce itself so that all names will be defined of themselves and all affairs will be settled of themselves. Empty, he knows the essence of fullness: reposed, he becomes the corrector of motion. Who utters a word creates himself a name; who has an affair creates himself a form. Compare forms and names and see if they are identical. Then the ruler will find nothing to worry about as everything is reduced to its reality.

Tao exists in invisibility; its function, in unintelligibility. Be empty and reposed and have nothing to do-Then from the dark see defects in the light. See but never be seen. Hear but never be heard. Know but never be known. If you hear any word uttered, do not change it nor move it but compare it with the deed and see if word and deed coincide with each other. Place every official with a censor. Do not let them speak to each other. Then everything will be exerted to the utmost. Cover tracks and conceal sources. Then the ministers cannot trace origins. Leave your wisdom and cease your ability. Then your subordinates cannot guess at your limitations.

The bright ruler is undifferentiated and quiescent in waiting, causing names (roles) to define themselves and affairs to fix themselves. If he is undifferentiated then he can understand when actuality is pure, and if he is quiescent then he can understand when movement is correct.

Han Fei's commentary on the Daodejing asserts that perspectiveless knowledge – an absolute point of view – is possible, though the chapter may have been one of his earlier writings.

Performance and title (xingming)

Han Fei was notoriously focused on what he termed 刑名; xíngmíng. Possibly referring to the drafting and imposition of standardized terms xingming functions through binding declarations (ming), like a legal contract. Verbally committing oneself, a candidate is allotted a job, indebting him to the ruler. "Naming" people to (objectively determined) positions, it rewards or punished according to the proposed job description and whether the results fit the task entrusted by their word, which a real minister fulfils.

Han Fei insists on the perfect congruence between words and deeds. Fitting the name is more important than results. The completion, achievement, or result of a job is its assumption of a fixed form (xing), which can then be used as a standard against the original claim (ming). A large claim but a small achievement is inappropriate to the original verbal undertaking, while a larger achievement takes credit by overstepping the bounds of office.

Han Fei's "brilliant ruler [...] orders names to name themselves and affairs to settle themselves".

If the ruler wishes to bring an end to treachery, then he examines into the congruence of the congruence of hsing (form/standard) and claim. This means to ascertain if words differ from the job. A minister sets forth his words and on the basis of his words, the ruler assigns him a job. Then the ruler holds the minister accountable for the achievement which is based solely on his job. If the achievement fits his job, and the job fits his words, then he is rewarded. If the achievement does not fit his jobs and the job does not fit his words, then he will be punished.

Assessing the accountability of his words to his deeds, the ruler attempts to "determine rewards and punishments in accordance with a subject's true merit" (using Fa). It is said that using names (ming) to demand realities (shi) exalts superiors and curbs inferiors, provides a check on the discharge of duties, and naturally results in emphasizing the high position of superiors, compelling subordinates to act in the manner of the latter.

Han Fei considers xingming an essential element of autocracy, saying that "In the way of assuming Oneness names are of first importance. When names are put in order, things become settled down; when they go awry, things become unfixed." He emphasizes that through this system, earlier developed by Shen Buhai, uniformity of language could be developed, functions could be strictly defined to prevent conflict and corruption, and objective rules (fa) impervious to divergent interpretation could be established, judged solely by their effectiveness. By narrowing down the options to exactly one, discussions on the "right way of government" could be eliminated. Whatever the situation (shi) brings is the correct Dao.

Though recommending use of Shen Buhai's techniques, Han Fei's xingming is both considerably narrower and more specific. The functional dichotomy implied in Han Fei's mechanistic accountability is not readily implied in Shen's, and might be said to be more in line with the later thought of the Han dynasty linguist Xu Gan than that of either Shen Buhai or his supposed teacher Xun Kuang.

The "Two Handles"

A modern statue of the First Emperor and his attendants on horseback

The two August Lords of high antiquity grasped the handles of the Way and so were established in the center. Their spirits mysteriously roamed together with all transformations and thereby pacified the four directions. Huainanzi

Though not entirely accurately, most Han works identify Shang Yang with penal law. Its discussion of bureaucratic control is simplistic, chiefly advocating punishment and reward. Shang Yang was largely unconcerned with the organization of the bureaucracy apart from this. Han Fei connects his own rewards and punishments under his theory of shu ('managerial technique') in connection with xingming ('correlating performances to titles').

As a matter of illustration, if the "keeper of the hat" lays a robe on the sleeping Emperor, he has to be put to death for overstepping his office, while the "keeper of the robe" has to be put to death for failing to do his duty. The philosophy of the "Two Handles" likens the ruler to the tiger or leopard, which "overpowers other animals by its sharp teeth and claws"(rewards and punishments). Without them he is like any other man; his existence depends upon them. To "avoid any possibility of usurpation by his ministers", power and its "handles" of reward and punishment must "not be shared or divided", concentrating them in the ruler exclusively.

In practice, this means that the ruler must be isolated from his ministers. The elevation of ministers endangers the ruler, with which he must be kept strictly apart. Punishment confirms his sovereignty; eliminating anyone who oversteps his boundary, regardless of intention. Fa "aims at abolishing the selfish element in man and the maintenance of public order", making the people responsible for their actions.

Han Fei's rare appeal (among Legalists) to the use of scholars (method specialists) makes him comparable to the Confucians, in that sense. The ruler cannot inspect all officials himself, and must rely on the decentralized (but faithful) application of laws and methods (fa). Contrary to Shen Buhai and his own rhetoric, Han Fei insists that loyal ministers (like Guan Zhong, Shang Yang, and Wu Qi) exist, and upon their elevation with maximum authority. Though Fajia sought to enhance the power of the ruler, this scheme effectively neutralizes him, reducing his role to the maintenance of the system of reward and punishments, determined according to impartial methods and enacted by specialists expected to protect him through their usage thereof. Combining Shen Buhai's methods with Shang Yang's insurance mechanisms, Han Fei's ruler simply employs anyone offering their services.

Appendix

Early reception as Legalists

Varying between interpretation and translational convention, the various Sinologists, particularly older one's like Arthur Waley (1939 Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China), but also more modernly A.C. Graham (1989 Disputers of the Dao), may employ Legalism or Realism in reference to the thinkers the Chinese traditionally termed Fajia; "Realists called in Chinese the Fajia, School of law... we might call Amoralists"(Waley) or "when Sima Tan classified the philosophers under his Six Schools he grouped the teachers of realistic statecraft under a 'School of Law' (Fa chia), for which the current English abbreviation is 'Legalists'"(Graham)". This is not to say that either were not respected major scholars, let alone that Graham has nothing to contribute.

Still considering Legalism to have explorative value, professor Tao Jiang (2021) regards part of Creel's work (1970/1974) as the differentiation of Shen Buhai, Fa and the Fajia from Legalist interpretation. Creel saw Legalism to "contrast strangely" with Han Fei blaming Shen Buhai, as the opposite of his doctrine from Shang Yang, for concentrating all of his attention on administrative technique and neglecting law.

Making a study of the Shen Buhai fragments, seeing remarkable similarities between the Han Feizi and the fragments, noting imperial China as never fully accepting the role of law and jurisprudence, taking the managerial Shen Buhai branch as predominantly influential, and seeing the Shangjunshu as also sometimes using fa administratively, in Creel's opinion, while one might say that the members of the fajia played a great role in the basic establishment of traditional Chinese government, one cannot say that Legalists did. Moreover, their branches often had different interests historically, with Shen's branch often opposing penal punishment.

Often having been translated as law or statue, the Cambridge History of China Volume 1 (1986) explained Fa as primarily referring to models and norms, or recalling Bodde (1981), model, pattern and standard. Noting that there is "hardly a legal rule to be found" in the "voluminous writings" of the "Legalists", Bodde and Loewe take Fa's application to law as more procedural as in the imposition of standards, while it's abstract model patterns guide penal application. As dating back to the Qin unification, the body of statutes and its major articles would called Lu rather than Fa, although its term is also indicative of administration and measurement. Xing rather than Fa would come to encompass prohibitionist texts or "penal law".

Posthumously to his major work (1992), in an article on the subject, Sinologist Chad Hansen, the fifth of the Oxford's references, reiterated Legalist interpretation, if applied too broadly, as located in translation; Chinese characters are held to change meaning more often than words in other languages. The political thought of the Fajia have been said to resemble something like Legal positivism. Those who know Chinese, armed with a dictionary, translate it as law. When any of the others schools use Fa, it refers to measurement standards and exemplars. Han Fei says: "If the ruler has regulations based on fa (measurement standards) and criteria and apply these to the mass of ministers, then he cannot be dupped by cunning and fraud." Hansen suggested that laws cannot generally prevent deception. The meaning shared with the other schools can, measuring to determine standards, and comparing measurements against standards.

While despite preceding scholarship by the Cambridge, Graham took Fa as shifting towards law, Creel did not; while Fa "develops logically", it represents a spectrum. With Creel as the first of it's references, the Oxford (2011) presented the term Legalism as having interpreted the Fa primarily as law, where anciently it did not specifically represent law. With law as a kind, it is taken as conceptually closer to performance standards represented by tools providing shape, weight and length.

With an emphasized commonality between Shang Yang and Han Fei, a critical reference by Goldin (2011) with regards an essay by Scott Cook (2005) defines Legalism for the two as a "similar set of tenets concerning the rule of law and strict application of rewards and punishments." In this vein, Goldin takes Graham's Legalism as referring to little more than a realist take on the philosophy of Han Fei, to the guided exclusion of related currents. Although the Guanzi is by extension generally included among the Fajia, it is not generally taken to be a Legalist text, such that Goldin would not be sure who Legalism includes apart from, supposedly, Han Fei. Pine's Stanford cites Goldin for his preference for the Fa tradition.

A late example, Haig Patapan (Chinese Legality 2022), in a preamble for comparison with Xijinping, would still suggest a preference by Han Fei for extreme authoritarianism and a legal positivist ruler "unconstrained by conventional, ethical, or legal limitations". Considering Han Fei ambiguous, he doesn't argue the point. In fact, Haig takes Fa as law as advancing the general good, aiming at plain comprehension, broad public dissemination, consistency, stability and enforcement, albeit in Han Fei's case advising heavy punishment. Here essentially reiterating Winston with regards Fa as law, to quote Haig, Han Fei says that law (fa) "prevents the strong from attacking the weak, the majority from oppressing the minority, allows the old to live in peace, the young to have a chance to grow, and to secure peaceful borders."

Primary of power in earlier scholarship

Arthur Waley (1939) recounted shi as "power automatically derived from the mere fact of being king", while his discussion the ruler recounts shu as institution and anti-ministerialism. On the other hand, Waley presented a focus in the ruler's interest in connection with an early view of wu-wei, taking harsh legal punishments as allowing for relaxation by the ruler. However, Creel would take wu wei in the Shen Buhai fragments as intended more to allow rule in the first place, reviewing ministerial duties rather than interfering with them.While it may or may not allow for relaxation, it is not connected in Shen Buhai with punishment, while that of Han Fei's is connected with the Xing-Ming component of Shu as another concept.

A focus in the what Hansen terms "the ruler's point of view" as distinctive, in connection with power or shi depending, is prior represented in Wing-Tsit's 1963 encyclopedia, Roger T Ames (1983) Art of Rulership (1983), and later, Zhengyuan Fu's legal positivist popular literature, The Earliest Totalitarians (1996). Wing-tsit Chan (1963) described Legalism as the most radical of the schools, primarily interested in power, subjugation, uniformity, and force, recognizing no authority apart from the ruler. Han Fei calls the method he recommends to sovereigns the Way of the Ruler, and echoing Wing-tsit, Professor Roger T. Ames (1983) took Legalist political philosophy as "government of the ruler, by the ruler, for the ruler", involving control in the interests of "absolute power, stability, personal safety, military strength, wealth and luxury", although keeping in mind the strife giving rise to its "totalitarianism."

Hansen characterizes Han Feizi as the first Zi (master) from the ruling nobility. Eschewing ethics in favour of strategy, it is taken for granted that the goal of the ruler was conquest and unification of all under heaven. Although focused on Fa, and relegated as secondary by Han Fei as Shen Dao's doctrine of power or situationist authority (shi), Hansen takes Shen Buhai, Shang Yang, and Han Fei as all motivated "almost totally from the ruler's point of view". Hansen considered this as constituting a key difference between the Han Feizi and Western law, Confucianism, or the more universal social standpoint of Mohism, despite having an otherwise Mohist conceptual framework.

Fraiser would consider a primary difference between Mohist and Legalist Fa to be its arbitrariness in suiting the purposes of the ruler.

On the other hand, as Pines notes, although "the fa thinkers in general and Han Fei in particular are often condemned as defenders of 'monarchic despotism'", Graham viewed Han Fei's system as making sense only “if seen from the viewpoint of the bureaucrat rather than the man at the top."

Shi as represented in Graham, as a contemporary directly discussed in Hansen's Han Feizi chapter, takes Han Fei's argument pertaining to shi as aiming at the ruler's irrelevancy, with the throne as institution. Legalism, Graham says, is lacking on discussions on De, or awe-inspiring personal potency; power shifts to simply occupying institutional positions. Graham says: "(Han Fei's) essay on Shen Dao's doctrine of power concludes that what is needed is not morality (as an adjunct to power) but law (fa)... what matters is whether the power-base itself is fully ordered; if it is, it will continue to impose orderly government throughout the Empire irrespective of the moral worth of the ruler. Both Shen Dao and the Confucian have been using shi 'power-base' in its common sense of a natural position of advantage in relation to others; but the strength of a throne depends on institutions made by man."

Soon-Ja Yang (2010) vacilitates against the idea that Han Feizi and the other ancient Chinese Legalists support absolutism, autocracy, despotism or tyranny, or that they sacrifice the people's interests for that of the ruler. He argues that Han Feizi even advocates ren 仁 (humanity), yi 義 (rightness), and li (propriety), otherwise modeling himself after nature, with Shu technique preventing a ruler from abusing their power and to put laws into practice with justice.

Chinese scholar Peng He (2014) argued that, although stressing the necessity of strengthening the ruler's force, they still emphasized the ruler's legitimacy, differing it therefore from western legal theories based on coercion. Although figures like Cao Cao and Sun Quan had force requiring obedience, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms prefers the blood-related Liu Bei whose laws are depicted as producing just behavior. Ruler-centric monarchical legitimation itself includes values beyond that of a pure consequentialism. Western monarchical legitimacy, Peng He recalls, similarly precedes western legalism, with Chinese Legalism not accomplishing its transformation as an ancient philosophy. But its laws, if taken as a bad, are still intended to produce a good, stressing rather that "ethical norms and morality should remain in the realm of family and private fields."

Realist commentaries

In contrast to what he takes as the "simple behaviourism" of Schwarz and Graham, Sinologist Chad Hansen (1992) took Han Fei as more sociological. The ruler should not trust people because their calculation is essentially based on their position, regardless of their past relationship. A wife, concubine or minister all have positional interests. Hence, the ruler engages in calculations of benefit rather than relation. Ministers simply interpret moral guidance in ways that benefit their position. The ruler exclusively uses Fa measurement standards for calculation to reduce possible interpretation. The enemy of order and control is simply the enemy of objective standards, draining power by twisting interpretation through consensus evaluation of clique interests.

Ross Terrill's 2003 New Chinese Empire viewed "Chinese Legalism" as "Western as Thomas Hobbes, as modern as Hu Jintao... It speaks the universal and timeless language of law and order. The past does not matter, state power is to be maximized, politics has nothing to do with morality, intellectual endeavour is suspect, violence is indispensable, and little is to be expected from the rank and file except an appreciation of force." He calls Legalism the "iron scaffolding of the Chinese Empire", but emphasizes the marriage between Legalism and Confucianism.

Leadership and management in China (2008) takes the writings of Han Fei as almost purely practical. With the proclaimed goal of a “rich state and powerful army”, they teach the ruler techniques (shu) to survive in a competitive world through administrative reform: strengthening the central government, increasing food production, enforcing military training, or replacing the aristocracy with a bureaucracy. Although typically associated with Shang Yang, Kwang-Kuo Wang takes the "enriching of the state and strengthening of the army" as dating back to Guan Zhong.

Contrary Graham, Goldin (2011) would not regard Han Fei as trying to work out anything like a general theory of the state, or as always dealing with statecraft. Noting Han Fei as also often concerned with saving one's hide, including that of the ruler, the Han Feizi also has one chapter offering advice to ministers "contrary to the interests of the ruler, although this is an exception... The fact that Han Fei endorses the calculated pursuit of self-interest, even if it means speaking disingenuously before the king, is not easily reconcilable with the reconcilable with the notion that he was advancing a science of statecraft."

Pines page has taken the goal of a “rich state with powerful army” as a primary subject since 2014. In this vein, Pines takes human nature to be a "second pillar" of fa political philosophy, as eschewing its discussion. The "overwhelming majority of humans are selfish and covetous", which is not taken to be alterable, but rather "can become an asset to the ruler rather than a threat." In this regard, Han Fei is an addendum to Gongsun Yang, with Shen Dao contributing.

Kenneth Winston emphasizes the welfare espoused by Han Fei, but while Han Fei espoused that his model state would increase the quality of life, Schneider (2018) reviews this as not being considered this a legitimizing factor, but rather, a side-effect of good order. Han Fei focused on the functioning of the state, the ruler's role as guarantor within it, and aimed in particular at making the state strong and the ruler the strongest person within it.

Adventures in Chinese Realism (2022)

Sources and further reading

• Pines, Yuri (2023), "Legalism in Chinese Philosophy", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 28 January 2022
• Garfield, Jay L.; Edelglass, William. The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy. 2011
• Creel, Herrlee Glessner. What Is Taoism?: And Other Studies in Chinese Cultural History (1982)
• Creel, Herrlee Glessner. Shen Pu-hai: A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century B.C. (1974)
• Creel, Herrlee G. (1953), Chinese Thought from Confucius to Mao Tsê-tung, University of Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0-226-12030-0.
• Creel, Herrlee Glessner, 1974 Shen Pu-Hai: A Secular Philosopher of Administration, Journal of Chinese Philosophy Volume 1.
• Schwartz, Benjamin I. (1985), The World of Thought in Ancient China, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-96191-3.
• Graham, A.C., Disputers of the TAO: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (Open Court 1993). ISBN 0-8126-9087-7
• Hansen, Chad. A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought: A Philosophical Interpretation (1992/2000)
• Hansen, Chad. Philosophy East & West. Jul94, Vol. 44 Issue 3. Fa (standards: laws) and meaning changes in Chinese philosophy
• Bodde, Derk (1986). "The State and Empire of Ch'in". In Twitchett, Denis; Loewe, Michael (eds.). The Cambridge History of China Volume I: Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C. -- A.D. 220. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521243278.
• Barbieri-Low, Anthony, trans. The Standard Measure of Shang Yang (344 B.C.) (2006)
• Eno, Robert (2010), Legalism and Huang-Lao Thought (PDF), Indiana University, Early Chinese Thought Course Readings
• Goldin, Paul R. (March 2011). "Persistent misconceptions about Chinese 'Legalism'". Journal of Chinese Philosophy. 38 (1): 88–104. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6253.2010.01629.x. See also
  • Goldin, Paul R. (2011), "Response to editor", Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 38 (2): 328–329, doi:10.1111/j.1540-6253.2011.01654.x.
  • Cheng, Chung-ying (2011), "Editor's discussion", Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 38 (2): 330, doi:10.1111/j.1540-6253.2011.01655.x.
• Harris, Eirik Lang, Legalism (Oxford Bibliographies Online) (Oxford University Press, 2018).
• Lai, Karyn L. (2008), An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-139-47171-8.

External links

• Chad Hansen's Chinese Philosophy Pages
• "Chinese Legalism (In Our Time, 10/12/15)"
• The Han Feizi
• Book of Lord Shang
• The Shenzi