Talk:Legalism (Chinese philosophy)/Archive 4

Assorted materials with some under review.FourLights (talk) 15:54, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

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. However, while it was added to the Han dynasty imperial library by Prince Liu De (劉德; d. 130 BC), it was only first edited by Liu Xin (c. 50 BC – AD 23). 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."

Rule of law
As opposed by Hansen in his much earlier argument against legal positivism, Fraiser of the Oxford keeps law as a kind of Fa, but since the law is ultimately up the ruler, the objective standards may or may only suit his purposes. Winston points out that Han Fei advocates welfare, which doesn't simply serve the ruler, while Schneider states that he doesn't consider it a legitimizing factor.

Pines notes that fa law still arbitrarily serves the ruler, but the ruler "should strictly observe them" and not alter them whimsically. The culture takes the ruler's interest as the public interest, but in practice they are different.

Texts which advocate the ruler to have the final say also suggest he "never interfere in everyday political matters." The ruler should "eschew any expression of personal emotions, cast away personal desires, avoid manifestations of favoritism, and not trust his personal abilities."

The view is epitomized in the Han Feizi. The sage ruler follows objective standards.

Recalled by Pines as provocative, Graham takes the ruler as having no functions that cannot be performed by a simple elementary computer, as to question whether it is the ministers who rule. As Pines states, Han Fei hopes for worthy ministers, but considers them his worst enemy.

The ruler's power
Mozi’s most strikingly novel aspect is his emphasis on the concentration of power in the hands of the Son of Heaven. Being the supreme moral exemplar and the ultimate source of uniform morality, the Son of Heaven (and those he chooses to fill the lower levels of the state hierarchy) becomes the pivot of the sociopolitical order. By uniformly imposing his views and norms on his subjects, the monarch prevents transgressions and ensures universal prosperity. (Pines) FourLights (talk) 07:57, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Tao Jiang 2021. p443
 * Pines, 2009, 33

Ivanhoe
One place we find precedents in the thought of Mozi for important parts of Hanfeizi’s philosophy is in the fundamental stance or perspective of their political philosophies. Both began their philosophizing from the point of view of the good of the state, rather than the interests of the individuals who might happen to live in or desire to move to their ideal states. In addition, both insisted that in order to succeed in establishing and maintaining a successful state, a ruler needed to articulate and implement a set of clear, objective, and publicly known criteria as the basis for choosing and promoting as well as disciplining, demoting, or dismissing those who worked in government.
 * Tao Jiang 2021. p233
 * Ivanhoe 2011, 32

Comparatives
What the Shenzi shares with the Mozi and other Warring States writings on statecraft is a healthy respect for fa-law. The underlying power of fa lies in the fact that they uphold public, impartial, and objective values, not private or partial concerns. So the entire discourse concerning the usefulness and importance of laws is based in an understanding that they are the tools by which the public or common good (gong) can be established in place of private and biased desires, benefits, and rewards. In these writings, gong, in essence, comes to represent not merely a ruler’s power or official prerogative, but a sense of objective fairness linked to the vast workings of the heavens and seasons, which is to be implemented through an idealized state and ruler and to benefit everyone universally.
 * Tao Jiang 2021. p281-282
 * Brindley 2013b, 25

Events within scholarship (outdated)

 * Schwarz 1985 presents law as inaccurate in many cases, discussing it's origins
 * Graham 1989 builds on Schwarz 1985 but engages in a Legalist evolutionary interpretation
 * Hansen 1992 is a response to Graham 1989 building on Graham's theory of the Mohists and Confucians as the only conscious schools. Although Fa is accepted modernly as dealing in categories broader than law, if it can be identified with it (which Hansen rejects) or if ancient China can referred to as having law in the first place (Qin legal codes show it to be administratve), Hansen represented the far-end of Mohist-only administrative interpretation.
 * The Mohists as setting precedent can be seen within a variety of scholarship, but I haven't reviewed the entire field.
 * Hansen 1994 may taken as a rebutal of 1993 Peerenboom and Legal Positivist interpretation more generally. If the Fajia are compared with Legal Positivism, as was the occurrence even in early modern scholarship, then this has to be compared with it's rebuttals. I don't personally consider this as being necessary to the article, but I am open minded, albeit there are more important things to do at the moment.
 * Henrique Schneider 2013 may be taken as a rebuttal of Kenneth Winston 2005 The Internal Morality of Chinese Legalism as a moral backing for a legislative rule of law, not that the latter isn't without it's contributions to the subject.
 * Comparing Fa with roman law, Chinese scholar Huang Kejian (2016) concludes that Fa "has no recognizable connection to the modern concept of law."
 * Legalist argumentation involves comparisons with modern western theories. They may be characterized as counter-argument. Essentially analysis as such does not require it's comparisons, but may include them as rebuttals. Although I can ultimately put something together comparing all these positions, back here if nothing else, I cannot as such interpret it for instance as an equally valid or dominant interpretation. It involves comparisons as opposed to purely dealing with it's subject as such, and it's presentation here or there would involve a variety of comparisons as opposed primarily to statements of it's subject.FourLights (talk) 09:26, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

A Reference Index (outdated)
Engineering manager Donald V Etz's Han Fei Tzu: Management Pioneer in the 1964 Public Administration Review reiterated Feng Youlan's view of three schools preceding Han Fei. Following Feng Youlan's lead, despite the continued Legalist reception that would follow Creel, Detz would take Han Fei's laws as representing, in more modern terms, regulations, expressing Han Fei's three principles as regulation, delegation, and motivation. Donald V Etz 1964. p37. Public Administration Review, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Mar., 1964), pp. 36-38

Ellen Marie Chen (1975) says: Han Fei's prince must make use of Fa, surround himself with an aura of wei (majesty) and shi, and make use of the art (shu) of statecraft. The ruler who follows Dao moves away from benevolence and righteousness, and discards reason and ability, subduing the people through Fa. Only an absolute ruler can restore the world, and orderly rule for all “All-under-Heaven” can be attained only under an omnipotent monarch. *Ellen Marie Chen, 1975 pp. 6–8, 10, 14 Reason and Nature in the Han Fei-Tzu, Journal of Chinese Philosophy Volume 2.

In Chinese Thought: An Introduction (1985), S. Y. Hsieh suggests a set of assumptions underlying the concept of (xing-ming): In a large community, a group of officials has to be responsible for a wide range of things to allow them to live together peacefully, with a leader that issues orders, and assigns responsibilities and awards corresponding to capabilities demonstrated by performance. Because it is necessary to recruit from the whole population, bureaucratic government marks the end of feudal government.

In Sinologist Chad Hansens (1992) view, with Fa at it's historical root indicating methods and categories of measurement, it does not necessarily indicate identity to a penal code even when applied to one. In fact, it doesn't change meaning. It only indicates identity if you believe that the meaning has changed from that of the Mohists at the time of writing, what Hansen (1992) calls the meaning change hypothesis. Graham holds the meaning of Fa to have changed to law prior to Qin unification, Hansen doesn't. For instance, the Qin dynasty coined a new term for their legal code, so unlike the Confucians they didn't necessarily equate (or obfuscate) Fa with penal law (even if their code is rather Fa-like.)

With reference to a theory by Graham identifying the Mohists and Confucians as the only self-aware schools of the time period, Hansen identifies the so-called fajia statemen as their ideological satellites, rejecting Fa as law, Legalist interpretation, and comparisons with western law. Penal codes exist at the time, but Fa refers to a Mohist instrument of measurement until it's obscuration during the Han dynasty. While Fa's base root meaning are not law, as noted by both Schwarz and Graham, I don't know the degree to which a Mohist-only theory is predominant in scholarship.

Sinologist Chad Hansen's (1994) Fa (Standards: Laws) and Meaning Changes in Chinese Philosophy locates the Legalist interpretation in translation; Chinese characters are held to change meaning more often than words in other languages. The political thought of the Fajia are 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 the he cannot be dupped by cunning and fraud." Hansen suggests that laws cannot generally prevent deception. The meaning shared with the other schools (and Shen Buhai) can, comparing measurements against standards.

This text may even be in part a response to Peerenboom.

Mark Edward Lewis 2000. Mentioned here as an older background for the rectification of names of the Han Feizi, Mark Edward Lewis (1999) and Shiga Shuzo (reference) consider the "most important features of archaic law" Pre-Qin as including oath, covenant, curse, and mutilating punishments. Administrative documents are cultic. Writing finds it's origin in the recording of religious activities by scribes beginning as religious specialists; covenants invoke the ancestral gods and spirits in writing as judges, and the "power of rulers" ultimately derives from them. The spirits are charged with protecting the noble lineages, linking the two and generating political authority.

The covenants tie persons not otherwise bound by kinship or political subordination, and included rules of conduct and stipulations of punishment. Covenants form one foundation for the imposition of codes of rules. The storage of the covenants leads to the creation of state archives, bureaucratizing the state.

Phenomenon, especially as unknown, are handled by naming them prior to the expulsion of spirits. The Sage Yu in the Classic of Mountains and Seas names the spirits when he recreates the world following the flood. The Zuo Zhuan espouses the idea of hereditary offices for clouds, fire, water, dragons, and birds. The disappearance of dragons and other spirits is explained as resulting from the neglect of the official posts. Confucius is portrayed as a ""master of occult names" in the Guoyu, identifying strange creatures, making lists of prodigies and associating them with the five elements as a component of handling them - a practice derivative of demonography.

Thus, the sage gains power over all creatures by naming them... And chronicles them and the results in a grimoire as it were, along with the results. The Chinese ruler - and the ruler of the Han Feizi - listens and reads. Identifying himself with the cosmic Dao, he then grants names and assignments, records them and compares results. Han Fei says:[77]

The Way is the beginning of all things and the guiding principle of judgments. So the wise ruler holds to the beginning in order to know the origin of all things, and regulates guiding principles in order to know the cause of failure and success. Empty and in repose he waits for the course of nature to enforce itself so that all names will be defined of themselves and all affairs settled by themselves. Empty, he knows the essence of fullness; reposed, he corrects all motion. Who utters a word creates himself a name; who undertakes 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 reverts to its reality.

Contrary Peerenboom, Kenneth Winston (2005) argues that Han Fei's law still connects morality and law, and can still be called rule of law legislatively rather than judicially. Han Fei's essays, although Realist, are practical rather than academic, and advocate a robust principled instrumentalism aimed at achieving a desirable political order. Han Fei is committed to making law as determinate and strictly applied as possible. His law is not merely the command of the ruler, is impersonal, uniform, and does not distinguish between persons.

The ruler might be anyone, but Han Fei addresses the enlightened, benevolent, or sage ruler who investigates chaos and promulgates clear laws to rescue all living beings. The enlightened ruler eliminates misfortune, prohibits exploitations and oppressions, and cares for the old, the infirm, the orphan, father and son, replacing private interests by men of integrity and public spirit. In contrast to John Austin, Han Fei is confident in "the abilities of ordinary people to be intelligent participants in legal order", and is "as close as any ancient Chinese legal theorist could possibly get to formulating the rule of law ideal." Han Fei says: the most enlightened method of governing a state is to trust measures and not men.

Winston is referenced and quoted in Tao Jiang's 2021 Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China.

Robert Eno 2010: Mohist thought The analogies and metaphors of the Mozi connect it with the artisan and soldier classes, forming tight paramilitary groups, trained in defensive warfare, in-order to oppose offensive warfare. https://chinatxt.sitehost.iu.edu/Thought/Mohism.pdf

Reviewer Song Hongbing notes Soon-ja Yang's (2010) New Studies of Han Feizi’s Political Thought as not relying on the traditional methodology of the three elements and three philosophers, instead presupposing dao as its highest concept, with Han Fei misunderstanding the concept. Soon-ja Yang compares Confucianism and "Legalism".

The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy (2011) characterizes "Legalism" as "amoral" or "realistic" in being "utterly unconcerned" with moral justification for their institutions, premised on the "brute" facts of behavior, and the political fact of numerous competing states, stating that "What linked these men is that all were theorists or practitioners of a realistic amoral brand of statecraft aimed at consolidating and strengthening the power and wealth of the state and its autocratic ruler. Their thought was realistic in being premised on what they took to be brute facts about how people actually behave ... It was amoral in that they were utterly unconcerned with whether the institutions and methods they advocated were morally justified." In contrast to the Confucian or Daoist regressive view of history, that of the "Legalists" was "purely descriptive", with the past being neither specifically better or worse than the present. In contrast to Xun Kuang, the supposed teacher of Han Fei, they do not necessarily believe that people are by nature wanton or unruly, only that people are many and resources scarce.(Oxford) Tertiary subtracted per guidelines given sufficient information

Erica Brindley, 2013 Of particular concern for the Fajia and the Mohists, the fourth century witnessed the emergence of discussions polarizing the concepts of self and private, commonly used in conjunction with profit and associated with fragmentation, division, partiality, and one-sidelines, with that of the state and "public", represented by the duke and referring to what is official or royal, that is, the ruler himself, associated with unity, wholeness, objectivity, and universality. The latter denotes the "Universal Way". Legalism and Mohism are distinguished by this effort to obtain objectivity.

Chinese scholar Peng He (2014) argues against consequentialism. Chinese history views the "just laws" of the royal-blooded Liu Bei more legitimately than the coercive laws of the illegitimate Cao Cao or Sun Quan. Although "Chinese Legalism" is ruler centric, and stresses the requirement of strengthening force, in contrast to force-only western legal theories, still defends the legitimate status of the ruler. Peng He argues for the diversity of norms among Confucianism, Legalism and Daoism, asserting a differentiation between Li (rules of propriety) and Fa as law even Pre-Qin. Legalism can be compared with Daoism and Mohism in believing that Dao should be applied to everyone. But rules, although they should be harmonious with Dao, are different norms. In contrast to the rights and duties of the Confucian family and society, Legalism distinguishes rules and the controlling function of law. It doesn't necessarily reject ethics, but views law as more of a necessarily evil producing a good.

Chinese scholar Huang Kejian (2016) discusses the differences between Fa and Roman law in the translated work, From Destiny to Dao (2016), in a chapter on The Different Implications of Roman Law and the Legalist Fa. Chinese Scholar Huang Kejian (2016) suggests the main difference, although considering it radical himself, between the Fa of the Mohists and that of the "Legalists" is that the Mohists took "Heaven" as their ethical/sociopolitical standard, while the Legalists are only concerned with consequences. The Fajia's standard, though measured, may be considered "arbitrary", a point Chad Hansen elaborates although otherwise considering their use identical.

While the "Legalists" might speak of Sages who governed their states, they dispose of the Confucian Sage, leaving a sage who only practices statecraft. Although its practice might be effective in a feudal state, it is assumed that good management only comes from strategies able to manage a majority, and the Fajia proper ignore the teaching of ethical conduct and other methods as impractical.

Essentially, Fa asks the results and not the motivation, de-emphasizing concepts like virtue. "Completely ignoring issues pertaining to an individual's existence", the scope of Fa will be limited; its emphasis on measurement to the exclusion of other considerations will reduce the potential development of law, and its "legal" usage does not tend to move beyond penal codes toward a system of civic regulation. This will tend to orient the usage of Fa towards Shu, or tact and method in managing a bureaucracy. Huang concludes that Fa "has no recognizable connection to the modern concept of law." An accessory to wealth and strength, it does not inspire or concern itself with a conception of rights, nor does "rectifying chaos" or correcting weights promise justice, a value Huang considers "intricately tied" to Roman law.

Guanzi
Hansen often makes reference to the Guanzi as backing for a view of the period. Along with the Mozi, Hansen says, the late Guanzi text believes that people will conform to precise administrative measures and a ruler-like attitude. Hansen emphasizes that the Guanzi advocates clear standards but not a "Western retributive rule of law." The intention is to fix appropriate punishments to names to reduce resentment on the part of criminals, but is intended to provide more in the way of warning than proportion. Given a variety of social codes, punishment by itself is not what backs regulation, as in Legal positivism. We take this latter point as also represented in Pines more modernly.

Impersonal administration and anti-ministerialism
Creel considered the "locus of authority to make policy" a basic difference between Confucianism and the Fajia, with Shang Yang as the more "Legalist" of them. The Confucians held that the ruler "should select wise and virtuous ministers", allowing them to govern as they saw fit.

Proposing a return to feudal ideals and propounding wisdom and virtue, Confucians sought authority to govern as they saw fit. By contrast, Shen Buhai and Shang Yang (Gongsun) monopolized policy in the hands of the ruler, and Qin administrative documents focused on rigorous control of local officials, and the keeping of written records. * Creel 1970. p107. What Is Taoism?

Han Fei holds every member of the elite to further their own interests by any means possible. In contrast to the Confucians, the Fa thinkers dismiss the possibility of reforming the elite, being the ruler and ministers, or driving them by moral commitment. Preserving and strengthening the ruler's authority against them may be considered their "singularly pronounced political commitment".

However, Tao Jiang suggests that the Fajia actually overestimated the willingness of bureaucrats to follow the rules, or to abuse them, with Gongsun being the blindest of them to it. However, noting that "Han Feizi sought to render the personal qualities of the monarch irrelevant to the impersonal operation of the impartial state", as opposed to Hansen, Tao Jiang considers the "singular focus" of the "Han Feizi’s fajia political theory" to be institutionalization and bureaucracy, as what distinguishes it from the "Mohist project." In this respect, Han Feizi was "much more of a statist than the Mohists."

Han Fei criticizes Gongsun for being "too focused on fa" at the expense of managing the apparatus, to which Han Fei pays primary attention. Pines quotes: “the sage orders the officials, not the people." However, although the Book of Lord Shang focuses less on ministerial control, it still makes early note of 'wicked officials' who exploit the populace.

Considering the power struggle between ruler and minister irreconcilable, and focusing on the prevention of evil rather than the promotion of good, the fa thinkers largely rejected Confucian rule of virtuous men. The clear parallels however, Pines says, between the Shangjunshu and the Han Feizi, amongst other works, is its "insistence on the advantage of impersonal administrative methods (Fa) over individual decision making by the ruler and his aides." Strongly emphasizing their differing interests, long sections of the Han Feizi provide examples of how ministers undermined various rulers, the ruler's need to protect himself against them, and how they can do so.

Qin note for checking
Rather than aristocratic fiefs, Qin territory came under the direct control of the Qin rulers, directly appointing officials on the basis of their qualifications. With the state of Qin conquering all the Warring States and founding the "first" Chinese empire in 221 BCE, the Legalists had succeeded in propelling state centralization and laying the foundations of Chinese bureaucracy, establishing "efficient and effective" codes that "became the pattern for Chinese politics for the next two millennia". The philosophies of the reformers fell with the Qin, but tendencies remained in the supposedly Confucian imperial government, and the Han Feizi would be studied by rulers in every dynasty.

Tao Jiang's state consequentialism
Modernly, Tao Jiang places the Fajia within a frame of Mohist state consequentialism. The Mohist's "primary object" is the collecttive. Being primarily form the lower class, the Mohists were concerned most with basic human needs, with early Mohism in particular concerned with concrete goods and harm avoidance, namely wealth, population increase and order. The Mohists are most concerned with their judicious distribution, namley to all people, with their moral teaching highlighting impartial care and universal justice. As quoted by Tao Jiang, Chris Fraiser notes them as only valueing a bare minimum. Tao jiang takes Han Fei as the "operationalization of state consequentialism", aiming at universal justice in the form of impartiality, within an "exclusively statist framework", in particular against powerful private interests.

Pines shangjunshu note
While Han Fei critiques Shang Yang as lacking shu, or personnel management, Pines translation still takes Fa as impersonal administration as the Shangjunshu's second most common usage. To paraphrase Goldin, addressing statutes along with a number of other questions from an administrative perspective, Gongsun and the Shangjunshu can be regarded modernly as administrative and more than merely Legalist.

Tao Jiang note
Tao Jiang (2021) takes Creel as primary for a dominant interpretation relegating the importance Gongsun Yang in favor of Shen Buhai. With Han Fei and Creel as divisional precedent, the subsequent section focuses in brief on a lack of Shu or managerial technique amongst early figures and the decline of the branch, as interpreted in part by Singaporean professor Huang Kejian (2016). Although we point out the existence of later reformers, Oxford regards "Legalism" as dying out in the Western Han dynasty for the totalitarian excesses of the Qin dynasty, albeit with continued use of the administrative methods. With limited work on the subject regardless, not wishing to exclude eastern views on the subject, Huang Kejian is included as an adjunct narrative to Creel, dissolving the early Legalists along Shu and moral lines.

Narratives of decline
Creel (1970) saw the difference between the Han Feizi and the Book of Lord Shang to be "striking". Its method for personnel control, let alone control of a bureaucracy, is very simple, consisting in mutual surveillance and reward and punishment, with an emphasis on promoting agriculture and war. Terming its ilk the Shang Yang "branch" or "wing", but not considering it as favored in China as that of bureaucracy, Creel only elaborated its branch as favored by Emperor Wu of Han. Michael Loewe (1978) notes the Qin as more sophisticated than would be suggested by the dogma of the Book of Lord Shang alone, while more modernly Pines notes the "simplistic emphasis on agriculture" and suppression of commerce as eventually abandoned by the Qin.

Presenting no reference pertaining to the direct subject, professor Huang Kejian is included as adjunct narrative. Huang Kejian contrasts figures like Li Kui, Wu Qi, and Shang Yang (Gongsun) as early Legalists. In line with Han Fei and Creel's division along Shu lines, the Early Legalists represent figures for Huang who did not yet realize the limited potential of Fa for law, and the significance of Shu, contributing to the downfall of some of its members as including Gongsun himself. Huang moreover regards Gonguns unification of reward, punishment, and education, as creating a culture shock. Taking an older three elements if not Legal positivist view of the subject, despite noting Fa's essentially Mohist roots, he only regards Fa as amoral law with a secondary anti-ministerial function.

Goldin quotes Han Fei as criticizing Zichan's method of rule as lacking Shu, "requiring many things", being uncanny ability, shrewdness, circumstances, and indeed Zichan's sensitive ear. Zichan's rule is talented and wise, and elevating criminology to an art form, requires a genius like Zichan to catch all villains. Han Fei is interested not in art but technique (Shu), being reproducible procedures performable by "common ministers without extraordinary skills."

In an account preceding but similar to that of Gongsun's agricultural and other reforms, Li Kui's reforms lead to wealth and strength in Gongsun's native Wei state. As a figure lacking Shu, Gongsun ultimately did not believe that the method of rule really mattered as long as the state was rich, and tried to dispense with the selection of exceptional men through insurance mechanisms while attacking moral discussion as empowering ministers. In contrast to Gongsun, though seeking at the motivation of his subjects, Han Fei is much more skeptical of self-interest despite also aiming to channel it in service of the ruler and state.

In contrast to Confucianism and Daoism, Huang Kejian takes the Legalist pursuit of profit and achievement, or devoting "not to virtue but to law", quite fatally. Essentially, Fa asks the results and not the motivation, de-emphasizing concepts like virtue. While effective in a feudal state, it "completely ignores issues pertaining to an individual's existence" such as individual rights.

Hence, the scope of Fa in this regard will be limited. With an emphasis on measurement to the exclusion of other considerations, its legal usage tends not to move beyond penal codes toward a system of civic regulation, orienting its development towards Shu, or tact and method in managing a bureaucracy. Huang concludes that Fa "has no recognizable connection to the modern concept of law"; an accessory to wealth and strength, it does not inspire or concern itself with a conception of rights, nor does "rectifying chaos" or correcting weights promise justice, a value Huang considers "intricately tied" to Roman law.

Tao Jiang and Pines
For Pines (2023), advocating harsh punishment for even minor transgressions, no other text matches the Shangjunshu for its "brazennes in exposing the perennial contradiction between society (“the people”) and the state." As opposed to Hansen, Pines consider the punitive system pivotal to Shang Yang's model, with mutual responsibility, tight residential control, and mandatory denouncements intended ensure the apprehension of every criminal. But the intention is actually to overawe the populace.

However, Pines reiterates that Fa is not primarily a tool of intimidation and suppression but a principle of transparency, with the importance of legal knowledge among the populace represented in chapter 26 (“Fixing divisions”) of the Book of Lord Shang. Combining transparency and fairness with harshness, the ultimate goal was to “eradicate punishments with punishments."

Despite Gongsun's simpler managerial technique, as a contemporary of Shen Buhai, his reforms may still be regarded as pioneering. Tao Jiang (2021) says: "Sima Qian recounts the strong resistance Shang Yang encountered in trying to implement new rules and regulations that would radically change the way the state was governed. He had to convince Duke Xiao repeatedly of the merits of the reform."

Emphasizing the "uniqueness and independence of the political domain" for the Fajia as underestimated by its opponents, Tao Jiang (2021) elevates Gongsun as aiming at a centralized, Fa-based bureaucratic system utilizing monarchical authority and credibility in the reliable and predictable enforcement of standards (Fa) as regulations, wherein "impartial and impersonal laws of reward and punishment were reliably enforced."

"When the sovereign holds the handles of name and benefit and is able to bring together merit and name, this is the method [of proper rule]. The sage examines [the nature of] authority to operate the handles; he examines the method to direct the people. The method is the technique employed by the ministers and the sovereign; it is the essential [matter] of the state. . . . Farming is what the people consider bitter; war is what the people consider dangerous. Yet they brave what they consider bitter and perform what they consider dangerous because of calculation [of name and benefit]."

Lede notes
Chinese philosophers regard Li Kui as the first Legalist philosopher. p166. (Oxford Studies in Early Empires) Dingxin Zhao - The Confucian-Legalist State_ A New Theory of Chinese History-Oxford University Press (2015) On Moral Capital - Page 170 China's Legalists: The Early Totalitarians. A Comparative Study of Chinese and Western Legal Language. p182.

Lack of recognized founder. To my knowledge, this is correct. I can add Robert Eno 2011.
 * Rubin, Vitaliĭ, 1976. p55. Individual and state in ancient China : essays on four Chinese philosophers

The western reception as Realists section establishes them as compared with Realism by noteable scholars for our subject, but I need to recheck Chen for additional content. Chen, Jianfu. p17.2015 Chinese Law: Context and Transformation: Revised and Expanded Edition. BRILL. ISBN 9789004228894 – via Google Books.

Chinese scholar Peng He obviously takes them as foundational rather than merely significant, and Tao Jiang considers Shang Yang for instance as pivotal, but Pines only takes them as having "contributed greatly." Creel considered the shu branch foundational, but while Creel remains higly legitimate, I currently accept significant for a more muted modern schoalrship. Apart from the war in Israel, I could ask, but I do not think Pines will mind if I adopt "contributed greatly", although I could recheck Tao Jiang and other modern figures for a better term. If I or others determine that other modern scholars place a higher emphasis, a more outstanding term could be used.
 * Peng He 2011. p646. The Difference of Chinese Legalism and Western Legalism

The lede should read that they are "often compared with Western concepts of "political realism." It should not read that they are "anaglous", that would require a broad consensus of comparison. The article follows a scholarly consensus in listing Western reception as Realists first in an apparent taking of Graham's reiterated principles as primary, but these are nowhere seen to attempt to establish that they are analgous in a comparison with western political realism itself.

The article maintains a separation of interpretation and subject. It should nowhere simply be assumed that the Fajia are simply analogous to western realism anymore than it should simply be assumed that they are analogous to Daoism or modern concepts of Legalism. Pines considers them political realists, but criticizes establishing it as a primary category i.e. to call them "China's Realists". With sufficient scholarly consensus, the section on the Fajia and Fa tradition could be listed first, but the work China's Fa tradition has not yet been released first.

The lede should read "who contributed greatly to the construction of the bureaucratic Chinese empire." It should not read "who played a significant part in constructing the bureaucracy of early imperial China." While Tao Jiang notably argues a more bureaucratic role for Shang Yang, and Pine's Grahamism incorporates him as an institutionalist, it would be far from established to simply call a figure like Gongsun Yang or Li Kui as predecessor, or the more simply Legalist-Confucian Zichan, as bureaucratists; Han Fei criticizes them for lacking bureaucratic method.

As noted by Goldin and Pines, even if I consider Goldin as critique questionable (I consider him positive content), Shang Yang's primary slogan is agriculture and war. Bureaucracy belongs primarily to the Shu branch. As much as Creel perhaps correctly emphasizes the Shu branch, it is incorrect to more broadly gloss the Fajia simply with bureaucracy, while it is quite legitimate to associate them more broadly as significant to the foundations of the Chinese bureaucratic empire. Although Gongsun Yang may have been outmoded, it would not mean that he was not pivotal for his time, nor that his reforms did not propel the Qin to conquest. These are administrative questions, but they are not all bureaucratic questions.

To play a significant role in the establishment of an empire may sound grander and more suspect than to establish a bureaucracy, but in fact, in the ancient world, China's administrative accomplishments were often greater, while many empires lacked such a sophistication, being based in a military conquest the likes to which Shang Yang contributed. It is more technically correct and not an overstatement to say that they contributed to the bureaucratic Empire. It is more questionable to downplay it. Without backing to Tao Jiang, to say that they all played an equally significant a role, par Han Fei, in bureaucracy, may be an overstatement. Guan Zhong was an early administrator, Zichan was an early Legalist, Li Kui and Shang Yang's reforms played pivotal imperial roles, Shen Buhai and Han Fei pivotal bureaucratic roles.FourLights (talk) 08:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)

Fa sandbox
Benjamin Schwarz (1985) saw the inaccuracy of law for Fa in many cases, translating it as model, standard, copy, imitation, with reference to the carpenter's square, compass and builder's plumb-line. The behavior of Mozi's ruler acts as Fa for the noble's and officials as in Confucianism, moving towards "prescriptive method or techne", describing craft and political technique.

Benjamin Schwarz (1985) Schwarz notes the inaccuracy of law in many cases, translating it as model, standard, copy, imitation, with reference to the carpenter's square, compass and builder's plumb-line. The behavior of Mozi's ruler acts as Fa for the noble's and officials as in Confucianism, moving towards "prescriptive method or techne", describing craft and political technique.

A.C. Graham (1989) takes particular note of the precedent of the Confucian Mencius, whose Fa, apart from models like exemplars and names, includes such physical relations in it as temperature harmonization, the natures of water and soil; characteristics, scales, volumes, transformations, statistics, consistencies, weights, sizes, densities, distances, and quantities.

Graham views Fa as shifting from persons to be imitated towards impersonal relations of bureaucracy, "contracting" standards towards law as paired with and backed by parallels of reward and punishment. Starting as "the old word for a model or standard for imitation", on the idea of gradual development from standards first being enforced by punishment since the 6th century BCE. He elaborates the "essential novelty of the Legalist position" with regards Fa to be a repudiation of the idea that it cannot work by itself.

He accepted Creel's distinction of Shen Buhai from "law", and elaborates historical examples of Fa's root meaning, but he views Fa as shifting towards law institutionally (in penal usage), with standards backed by punishments as early as 600bc, albeit piecemeal. Thus, he still often generalizes Fa (standards) as law. But as noted by Creel, Shang Yang also appeared to use Fa administratively some of the time. As noted by Graham's contemporary Benjamin I. Schwartz (1985), the interpretation of Fa as law can be seen to be inaccurate in many cases.

Outside of logical contexts Fa represents a standard or example to be imitated in action, but is still illustrated, Graham noted, geometrically - a basis for Sinologist Chad Hansen's argument that Fa does not in fact shift in primary identity toward law, retaining a broader primary context.273

Creel's broader analysis took Fa is in the Zuo Zhuan as law 'almost two thirds of the time', also using it in the sense of regulation, example, model and to imitate. The Zhan Guo Ce (Strategems of the Warring Stated period) has Fa as law a little more than half the time. In the Guoyu (book) (Discourses of the States) Fa occurs as law less than half the time. In the Mozi, it occurs as law rarely, representing model almost half the time, and method or technique three times more frequently than law, particularly in relation to military procedure. While during the Warring States period law became prominent, and "we might expect Fa as law would become also more prominent", it is 'not clear' that it did. Fa developed logically, but it is not a series of steps but "rather a scale of infinite gradations, like a spectrum."

Lack of spiritual dimension
In An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy, Karyn Lai characterizes the Fajia as singular in their rejection of "fundamental tenets of then contemporary life", rejecting bureaucratic influence, the importance of relationships in the public domain, institutional fostering of ethical awareness, and the idea of compassionate government.

The Fajia have widely been seen as a homogeneous anti-religious and authoritarian stream of thought. Julia Ching believed it was "utterly devoid of any religious belief, moral sense, or sensitivity to nature", and made the case that the ideal Chinese sage-king was seen as someone who should operate without excessive mysticism or bias favoring any one spiritual tradition by many political factions over thousands of years, explaining the problems various religions have faced in or because of dynastic courts.

Narrowly political by their nature, legalist writings rarely mentioned a divine or supernatural power, but Sor-Hoon Tan, a scholar who generally agreed with Ching's ideas, has mentioned that some Legalists have discussed Heaven and tried to be religious innovators. Legalist–Taoist syncretism has occurred, and a belief in Legalism that was quite influential was salvation if one followed or executed laws correctly.

Daoism Legalism notes
More modernly, Peter Moody suggests that western scholarship is more open to an affinity between Daoism and "Legalism" than it used to be. Openly or implicity, Chinese scholars, China located or not, did not necessarily accept the wests conclusions on Daoism, Legalism, and amoralism, although the west also modernly discusses positive morality for the tradition.

Mingjun Lu, Peng He, Soon-Ja Yang, Huang Kejian, and Tao Jiang all either assume or argue for Daoist influence, with Mingjun Lu based in Moody, or argue for Legalist interpretation or it's scholarly legitimacy. Unfortunately, Chinese scholar Peng He's Daoist argument simply references Sima Qian, and along with Huang Kejian their Legalism does not appear much discussed in the west.

Peng He argues against consequentialism in favor of monarchical legitimacy, and the separateness of rules as a social institution. She does not however argue that it is comparable to western Legalism. In fact, she argues the opposite of legal positivism: "Western legalism defended the rule-of-law but argued against the morality of law. In contrast, Chinese legalism, especially in the early Pre-Qin era, did not separate morality from law."

Zhengyuan Fu's Earliest Totalitarians of course is both Legalist, amoralist and negative, so we do not mean to imply a homogenous ethnic block, only that our coinciding scholars discussed here are Chinese, with Peng He as rare Legalist advocate following Winston. Tang Juni, a major reference by Hansen, argued that the Fajia all use Fa in exactly the same manner as Mozi. Bo Mou is the editor the Routledge. Although adopting a simply Legalist take on early figures, Huang Kejian's negative, amoralist interpretation favours the administrative branch; we put him alongside Creel in this regard.

Soon-ja Yang puts aside Han Fei's interpretation of Shen Buhai for a more Confucian interpretation, the Confucian rectification of names, for a more expanded "Legalist" practice based on a universal registry, with Shu as Standards rather than method/technique. Although not quite convinced of their arguments, in defense of Legalism's legitimacy within scholarship, Tao Jiang's work recalls Winston and Soon-Ja Yang as having explorative value.

While Hansen utilized Graham towards the discrediting of an early Daoism, with the addition of modern materials Tao Jiang's Daoist discussion utilizes him positively, although differing in opinion from him. Although not seeing influence of the Daodejing on Han Fei, so that it might be supposed to have had much influence or been written yet, Graham takes Zhuangzi as "in effect an anthology of writings with philosophies justifying withdrawal to private life, passing under the name of their greatest representative." Graham further suggests that "it is better to think of Yang Zhu as an intellectual movement called Yangism rather than a single thinker with that name." Suffice to say, the existence of a pre-Han Daoistic movement in the first place is relevant to its potential influence on the Fajia or tradition.

As with Hansen, Tao Jiang engages a dialectic between the thinkers, but with a stated object of reifying the Fajia and in particular Han Fei, Shang Yang, and Legalist interpretation, although it's Legalist discussion is modernist and aiming more at legitimacy. Countering Fraiser's own work on the Mohists, Tao Jiang elabortes a theory of Mohist state consequentialism as a root for the Fajia in the Qin unification, returning to Daoism as to suppose a greater conflux. As some of our latest scholarship, although some of Tao Jiang's points would appear influential on Pines, accepting them as a Fa tradition, Pines would not adopt them as constituting a school or movement on the order of the Mohists and Confucians.

Han Fei notes
Although Han Fei distinguishes Shen Buhai using the term Shu, and criticizes him as lacking Fa, Han Fei also references Shen as using Fa. Han Fei uses the term Shu to distinguish the managerial Fa of Shen Buhai from the more general, standard public Fa of Shang Yang. A.C. Graham (1989) suggested that the need for differentiation arose with the need for a private arcanum on the part of the ruler. Per the work of Sinologist Herrlee G. Creel (1970/1974), the Fa of Shen Buhai is commonly translated as method, and Sinologist John Makeham characterizes Shu as "the agency of several checking systems that together constituted Method (Fa)", whose central principle is accountability.

Although distinguishing the more standard or uniform usage of Shang Yang's reward and punishment across the population, from the more managerial practice of Shen Buhai, Han Fei connects his own practice of reward and punishments with Shu, that is, with management as derived of Shen Buhai, in which ministers are held to performance standards they set for themselves (Hansen 1992). Han Fei aims the three (Fa,Shu,Shi), Hansen argues, more at ministers than the populace.

Associated with the Mohists, being engineers and logicians, Fa denotes an entire philosophical-historical milieu of comparative hermeneutical functions of interpretation preceding the core of the Fajia. Beginning with an analysis of language, Fa measures to establish "objective" measurement standards, commonly but not necessarily physical, compares and categorizes them. The practice is carried over from the hermeneutics of interpreting the model persons and histories of Confucianism into ethics, physic, logic, and subsequently administration. Although translated in the 1928 Book of Lord Shang as law, and for the subject commonly included as (possibly one of a number) of interpretations, Fa need not necessarily be presupposed as including a conception of law even in the case of Shang Yang, or interpreted as so in all cases.

While the Shangjunshu was early translated, and Tao Jiang supposes a predominant influence of Shen Buhai modernly, Creel and Goldin take Han Fei's syncretism as having a contributed to a reinforcement of the Fajia and Legalist interpretation premodernly and modernly, combining Shen Buhai (or Shen Dao) with Gongsun Yang. While a focus on Han Fei for Realism goes without much additional saying, Hansen's argument against Legalism also openly focused on Han Fei, leaving Gongsun more an extension of argument as part of a philosophical tradition.

Huang Kejian's "mature Legalism" takes Han Fei as devoid of ethical teaching. Tao Jiang recalls several scholars as moral backing for Han Fei, himself contributing argument for Mohist Justice, and perhaps more conservatively Impartiality, whose argument is shared by Pines and earlier work. Despite Legalist comparative, Shiping Hua's Chinese Legality glosses over Gongsun in favour of Han Fei: Qin becomes rich after adopting reforms based on Han Fei's writings to ultimately unify China.

Shen Buhai notes
The concept of Wu Wei, or indeed concern for bureaucracy outside penal solutions, is "entirely absent"(Creel) from the Shangjunshu, and the Han Feizi attributes Wu Wei specifically to Shen Buhai. However, unlike Shang Yang and Han Fei, although considering ministers a great danger, Shen did not consider the relationship between ruler and minister antagonistic necessarily.

Also in contrast to Shang Yang, Creel regarded Shen Buhai as still espousing there to be one method of rule alone. Despite a lack of inclusion of Shen Buhai in materials pertaining to the evolutionary view of history, post-Creel scholarship does not appear to generally make note of the distinction.

With subtle allusion to Shen Buhai's writings, and recommendations that more or less square with his philosophy, the political theory of the early Han dynasty syncretic Huainanzi holds wuwei central to government, with one of it's chaptered entitled Zhushu, or the techniques of the ruler. Paul R Goldin's work with regards the Zushu is featured under the wuwei section.

Guan Zhong
Robert Eno of Indiana University considers that "If one were to trace the origins of Legalism as far back as possible, it might be appropriate to date its beginnings to the prime ministership of Guan Zhong (720–645 BCE)",[13] who "may be seen as the source of the notion that good government involved skilled systems design".

The reforms of Guan Zhong applied levies and economic specializations at the village level instead of the aristocracy, and shifted administrative responsibility to professional bureaucrats. He valued education. The Guanzi attributed to him, but written much later, lists seven kinds of Fa: principles of nature, models, measurement, tutelage, incentives and deterrents, units of calculation, and xinshu, or "techniques of the heart-mind." Only incentives or deterrents may be broadly applicable to a more "legalistic" practice, but our statesmen are not consigned to legalistic practice.

Pines Techniques of Rule
Arthur Waley recounts Shu as institution and anti-ministerialism. Pines takes shu's first component as "a variety of bureaucratic devices aimed at monitoring the officials’ performance." It's translation is virtually identical to Creel's, saying: "Technique is bestowing office on the basis of concrete responsibilities, demanding performance on the basis of titles, wielding the levers of life and death, and examining the abilities of the ministers."

Pines takes shu's second component as anti-ministerial. Han Fei says: "A sovereign who wants to suppress treachery must examine and match performance (or the form, xing 形) and title (or the name, ming 名). Performance and title refer to the difference between the proposal and the task. The minister lays out his proposal; the ruler assigns him the task according to his proposal, and solely on the basis of the task determines [the minister’s] merit."

Although it is framed "within the context of the ruler’s struggle against ministerial treachery and against cabals and cliques", Goldin, Pines notes, nonetheless compares the notion of “performance and titles” to a modern call for bids. Secrecy safeguards the ruler, but also just help him "perfect the bureaucratic mechanism." Pines highlights Han Fei’s tactics as some of his "most questionable recommendations to the ruler", but they only come in later chapters, and so are not central here.

The friction between fa's fairness and transparency, and the trickery and secrecy of shu's techniques, reflect, Pines quotes, "the dirty nature of political struggles, in which the fair and transparent norms of fa are not applicable". With ministers likely driven by profit, Han Fei compares them with ruler-devouring tigers. He nonetheless explains that: “when the application of laws and the punishments is reliable, the tigers will be transformed into humans, reverting to their true state."

In the final account, Pines says "ministers are human beings, and they can serve the ruler well." Considering their anti-ministerialism profound, Pines nonetheless considers the "overarching principle of the fa thought" to be "the insistence on the rule by impartial standards (fa) as advantageous over reliance on human factor in politics."

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.

Fa introduction
Mozi took the differentiation of "types" or "classes" the basis for cognitive thinking and sociopolitical practice. What Guan Zhong and later Mozi recommended were objective, reliable, easily used, publicly accessible standards, or models, called Fa, whose adherents would come to oppose what Sinologist Chad Hansen terms the "cultivated intuition of self-admiration societies", expert at chanting old texts.

Referring to an easily projectible standard of utility, the Mohists explain "Fa" as prototypes, exemplars, or (specific) analogies, as for example compasses or circles. What Fa made possible was the accurate following of instructions. With minimal training, anyone could use Fa to perform a task or check results.

At the time, this group was identified as Ru, and would come to be named after its most distinguished proponent, Confucius. The Confucians generally opposed Fa as authoritarian. But for Guan Zhong and Qin-era Confucian apologist Xun Kuang, Fa could complement any traditional scheme, and both use Fa alongside the more valued metaphysical Confucian Li (the unique principles or standards of things, being their determinant and differentiating them) without considering Fa, Hansen says, "an alternative form of social control."

Mohist hermeneutics (Fa) vs Confucian Li
Mohism or the thought of the Fajia is not based on entities, transcendentals or universals, but parts or roles ("names"), and are therefore relatable to the Confucian rectification of names, which arguably originates in Mozi's development of Fa. For the most part Confucianism does not elaborate on Fa (though Han Confucians embraced Fa as an essential element in administration), though the idea of norms themselves being older, However, the "core assumption" of Confucianism in rectifying names was that the ruler was supposed to use innate or developed intuition to "settle correct language use".

Rejecting the Confucian idea of parents as a moral model as particular and unreliable, the driving idea of the Mohists was the use of hermeneutics to find objective models/standards (Fa) for ethics and politics, as was done in any practical field, to order or govern society. These were primarily practical rather than principles or rules, as in the square and plumb-line. The Mohists used Fa as "objective, particularly operational or measurement-like standards for fixing the referents of names", or "determining the application of terminology", hoping that analysis of language standards (Fa) would yield some objective way (dao) of moral reform. For Mozi, if language is made objective, then language itself could serve as a source of information and argued that in any dispute of distinctions, one party must be right and one wrong.

Although socially basing it in the ruler (who may not in practice be the monarch), or at least superior, Fa is never merely arbitrary or the ruler's desire, nor does it aim at an intellectual grasp of a definition or principle, but the practical ability to perform a task (dao) successfully, or to "do something correctly in practice" — and in particular, to be able to distinguish various kinds of things from one another. Measuring to determine whether distinctions have been properly drawn, Fa compares something against itself, and judges whether the two are similar, just as with the use of the compass or the L-square. What matches the standard is then the particular object, and thus correct. This constituted the basic conception of Mohist's practical reasoning and knowledge.

"Legalism" also defined by effort to obtain objectivity

Mozi said, "Those in the world who perform tasks cannot do without models (Fa) and standards. There is no one who can accomplish their task without models and standards. Even officers serving as generals or ministers, they all have models; even the hundred artisans performing their tasks, they too all have models. The hundred artisans make squares with the set square, circles with the compass, straight lines with the string, vertical lines with the plumb line, and flat surfaces with the level. Whether skilled artisans or unskilled artisans, all take these five as models. The skilled are able to conform to them. The unskilled, though unable to conform to them, by following them in performing their tasks still surpass what they can do by themselves. Thus the hundred artisans in performing their tasks all have models to measure by. Now, for the greatest to order (zhi, also 'govern') the world and those the next level down to order great states without models to measure by, this is to be less discriminating than the hundred artisans."

Hansen: Mohist hermeneutics (Fa) vs law
In contrast to a more Western understanding of law, with penal law in particular backed by punishment, while other terms might denote mere command, the essential characteristic of the so-called Fajia's Fa (or "objective standards") is measurement, and even the Confucian Xun Kuang distinguished Fa from regulations and punishment in his usage. Even the late Warring States period Guanzi text advocates Fa, or objective standards, but not law. Aiming to control criminals and officials without resentment, the closest it comes to legal retribution would be the Confucianistic idea that punishments should be appropriate to the name of the punishment, a central theme of the Han Feizi. But this aims more at warning than proportion.

The Fajia do not contrast "penal law" with the Confucian Li, which may be described as elite, ancient, traditionalist, intuitive-moral, ritualistic. Rather, Shang Yang and Han Fei contrast the Confucian Li, and the "authority of traditional content" (Hansen), with the "publicity, objectivity and accessibility" of Fa, measurement standards, and their aim of maximizing the wealth and strength of the ruler and state. Contrasting Fa with private distortions and behavior, theoretically, the Fa of the Fajia exactly follows Mozi.

Applied to economy and institution, Shang Yang's Fa is anti-bureaucratic, calculating rank mathematically from adherence to standards (Fa) in the performance of roles (names or models), namely that of soldiers and (to a lesser extent) farmers. Shang Yang's systematic application of penalties increase the tendency to see it as penal, but arguably does not change meaning from that developed by the Mohists. Shang Yang's innovation was not penal law. Rather, Shang Yang's idea was that penal codes should be reformed to have the same kind of objectivity, clarity and accessibility as the craft-linked instruments. Shang Yang and Han Fei intended their "codes" be "self-interpreting" (Hansen).

Despite Gongsun Yang's reliance on harsh punishment, government by Fa is not enacted on the idea that punishment backs regulations as the "only viable motivation for people's obedience." As opposed to a varied legal system, it is hoped that with good order both crime and punishment will quickly disappear as to not strain the administration.

Han Fei shows no revolutionary insight into rules; objectively-determined "models" (Fa) or "names" (titles/roles), being measured against, replace intuitive guidance, especially that of the ruler. It is these that enable control of a bureaucracy. Carine Defoort of New York University explains: "Names are orders: by manipulating a network of names from his polar position, the ruler keeps everything under control. While his orders descend step by step through the official hierarchy to the furthest corners of the realm, performances ascend to be checked by him."

Because Fa is necessary for articulating administrative terms, it is presupposed in any application of punishment, and Han Fei stressed measurement-like links between rewards and punishments and performance. Applied through incentives and disincentives, Fa provided guidance for behavior, the performance of civil and military roles, and advancement.

Confucian precedent
Sinologist Chad Hansen (1992) does not consider the difference between the Fajia and the Confucians "as deep as the Western legal positivists contrast between law and morality." The Confucians, Mohists, and Han Fei all consider social order their goal. The Confucian scholar class engaged in a flexible interpretation of traditional codes, while others sought to fix a changeable code in the ruler. Although warning against punishments and practical measures, Confucius accepts and even praises Zhou loyalists like Guan Zhong who practice Fa as Confucians; it is the later Mencius who takes him as representing the first move toward realistic techniques of gathering power.

With regards it's status in the Han dynasty, Tao Jiang says: "Confucianism was fluid, heterogeneous, and context sensitive, all of which were critically important in accommodating the divergent needs of the vast Chinese state and society during the imperial era that would last over two thousand years... Confucianism, with its accommodationist philosophical disposition and partialist moral orientation, was best positioned... to deal with the universal state that was set up to operate on the fajia impersonal and bureaucratic framework under mostly mediocre and often deeply flawed rulers."

Shen Buhai and Shang Yang
Despite history's glossing of Shen Buhai with others of the Fajia, receiving him as a cryptic Daoist using terms like Wu Wei and Dao, Herrlee G. Creel considered Shen to still have more in common with the Confucians than the later Fajia. Apart from his influence by the Logicians, in contrast to Confucius, Shen never mentions virtue, and insists on constant vigilance over ministerial performance. But in contrast to Shang Yang, no text identifies him (by himself) with penal law, and like Confucius Shen still emphasizes the importance of selecting able officials. Gongsun Yang does not.

Shen likely predated the Dao De Ching or Zhuangzi. On the other hand, Creel notes the Analects of Confucius in advocating for a reduced activity on the part of the ruler, even if he considers Shen's Wu Wei drastically revised in practice. The Analects quote Confucius as saying: "Was it not shun who governed by means of Wu wei yet ruled well? What did he do? He merely corrected his person and took his proper position (facing south) as ruler." Apparently paraphrasing the Analects, Shen Buhai's statement that those near him will feel affection, while the far will yearn for him, stands in contrast to Han Fei, who considered the relationship between the ruler and ministers irreconcilable.

Soon-Ja Yang (2010) believes that Creel underestimates the Confucian influence on Shen, relating his doctrine of names (Ming-shih) more directly with the Confucian doctrine of names (Zhengming).

Although expressing anti-Confucian sentiment, Gongsun was supposedly taught by a Confucian syncretist, Shi Jiao, who, stressing the importance of "name" (rectification of names), connected it with reward and punishment. In contrast to the Han Feizi, though considering them to be "digressions of minor importance", Yuri Pines Legalism in Chinese Philosophy notes that the Book of Lord Shang "allowed for the possibility that the need for excessive reliance on coercion would end and a milder, morality-driven political structure would evolve."

The Han Feizi
While Shang Yang stresses transition towards a punishment-based state minimalism, Sinologist Chad Hansen considers Han Fei more Confucian, more Mohist, and more totalitarian in stressing both reward and punishment, which encourages virtue rather than just preventing wrongdoing, even if Han Fei doesn't believe in relying on virtue. The greater inclusion of reward indicates a state leadership with concerns which cover a "whole range" of behavior beyond Shang Yang's objects of war, agriculture, and reduction of ministers; to quote Han Fei, "carpenters have manual skill; physicians know how to prepare drugs; but, if men are ordered to take up these professions on account of their merits in beheading, then they do not have the required abilities."

Apart from his supposed teaching by Confucian Xun Kuang, which Hansen apparently finds plausible enough, Han Fei's theory of utilizing Fa to establish names for the settling of disputes would be recorded as supposedly drawn from Confucius' establishing of names by rites, the difference being that the Confucian ruler was supposed to use cultivated intuition to settle terms, while Shen Buhai and Han Fei place responsibility for settling the terms of a job on the minister. Although the tight, centralized control conflicts with the Confucian idea of the autonomous minister, Han Fei's Xing-Ming, or personnel control, is in line with both the Confucian and Mohist rectification of names, and is relatable to the Confucian tradition in which a promise or undertaking, especially in relation to a government aim, entails punishment or reward.

The Mozi and the Guanzi suggest that people will conform to standards from above if administration is precise, or even just a ruler-like attitude. Although Han Fei clearly favors punishment, it may nonetheless still be regarded as secondary; Han Fei's sociological theory merely substitutes the traditional authorities of Confucianism with the doctrine of situational authority (shi), or societal, authoritarian inculcation, that he would associate with Shen Dao, as a source of social conformity. Together with language authority guiding "role performance", they may be taken as derived more ultimately from Confucianism and Mohism.

Despite being "anathema" to some of the Fajia, Confucianism, with its social and moral values, coexisted "remarkably well" during the reign of the First Emperor, with one of his letters circulated in the commanderies extolling Fa as upholding Confucian values. Some Qin model patterns are seen to uphold filial piety.

Daoism notes
Along with the concept of Wu Wei, Shen Buhai and others of the "Fajia" would historically be supposed to have originated in Daoism, and earlier scholars like J. J. L. Duyvendak, Arthur Waley (1939) and Feng Youlan (1948) followed this assumption, with Waley considering the Fajia to "Seek a foundation in Daoist mysticism." However, this assumption was based on an earlier dating of the Daodejing, and few critical scholars believe for instance that a Lao Tzu was a contemporary of Confucius.>

"Just as the sun and moon shine forth, the four seasons progress, the clouds spread, and the wind blows, so does the ruler no encumber his mind with knowledge, or himself with selfishness. He relies for good government or disorder upon laws (Fa) and methods (shu); leaves right and wrong to be dealt with through rewards and punishments, and refers lightness and heaviness to the balance of the scale."

Feng makes a comparison with the Zhuangzi, but the Zhuangzi makes reference to Shen Dao and may have been written even after the Han Feizi, with criticism of the administrative methods of Shen Buhai as redundant apart from Wu Wei. The Zhuanzi says: "the rulers of old, although their knowledge spread throughout the whole universe, did not themselves think. Although their eloquence beautified all things, they did not themselves speak. Although their abilities exhausted all things within the four seas, they did not themselves act."

Since the bulk of both the Dao De Ching and the Zhuangzhi appear to have been composed later, Herrlee G. Creel believed that it may therefore instead be assumed that Shen Buhai influenced them rather than the other way around. Indeed, Creel says, a number of scholars view political Daoism as a reaction to the governmental controls of the Fajia. Though not a conclusive argument against proto-Daoist influence, Creel did not consider Shen Buhai's "Daoist" terminology to show evidence of explicit Daoist usage, lacking any metaphysical connotation; i.e. Confucianism also uses concepts like "Dao", or Wu wei, and Shen appears to reference them instead.

The Han Feizi has a commentary on the Dao De Ching, but references Shen Buhai rather than Laozi for Wu wei. Creel believed that Shen's correlation between Wu-wei, or the reduction of the ruler's activity, and ming-shi (Name and Reality, the Mohistic functions he used for personnel management), likely informed the Daoist conception of the formless Dao that "gives rise to the ten thousand things."

Given archaeological indication that the Daodejing of the Warring States era may have been in reverse, that is, with its political section first, Sinologist Chad Hansen goes as far as to conclude that what Han dynasty historiographers Sima Tan and Sima Qian established as the Fajia and the Daojia may not have been taken as separate ideologies by Warring States scholars. Although Han Fei has less interest in the Daodejing's theories on the limits of language, both the Han Fezi and the Laozi discredit the cultivated intuition of the Confucian scholars, and have an antipathy for education; with the Laozi advocating more for "natural" spontaneity, and the Han Feizi more for control as is in line with Confucian and Mohist quest for social order.

Hu Shih present's Han Fei's commentaries on the Daodejing as attempting to develop a different metaphysics from the historically accepted, interchangeable terms usage of Mencius, differentiating Dao from Lei, elaborating Mencius as using Lei in the sense of a common right and wrong. Han Fei only takes Lei to mean a cause of things. Historically, Dao would be interchangeable with Lei.

Although becoming known as "Legalist", the Guanzi was classed as Daoist in the Han bibliography.

R. P. Peerenboom still believes that Shen Buhai "shares many traits" with the Huang-Lao, but doesn't immediately go into details, and notes Shen as more pragmatic, lacking their metaphysical, naturalist or ethical content.

Referencing Jian Bozan, more modernly Chinese scholar Peng He takes "Legalism" as originating from a secondary branch of Daoism which argues for governance through less intervention by the ruler, with the "Legalist" Shen Dao accomplishing this through "legislation." Despite noting that Shang Yang (and therefore Shen Buhai) preceded Zhuang Zhou, who Peng takes as a founder of Daoism, along with Shen Dao, Peng still takes Shen Buhai and Shang Yang as having studied Daoism. However, although interesting as an example Chinese perspective, Peng does not present any evidence for these influences, or that Shen Buhai or Shang Yang studied Daoism, apart from referencing the partisan, daoistic or Huang-Lao Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian.

Fall


Guided by thought belonging to what would be called the Fajia, the First Qin Emperor Qin Shi Huang conquered and unified the China's warring states into thirty-six administrative provinces, under what is commonly thought of as the first Chinese empire, the Qin dynasty. The Qin document "On the Way of Being an Official" proclaims the ideal official as a responsive conduit, transmitting the facts of his locale to the court, and receiving its orders without interposing his own will or ideas. It charges the official to obey his superiors, limit his desires, and to build roads to smooth the transmitting of directives from the center without modification. It praises loyalty, absence of bias, deference, and the appraisal of facts.

The intrastate realpolitik would end up devouring the philosophers themselves. Holding that if punishments were heavy and Fa equally applied, neither the powerful nor the weak would be able to escape consequences, Shang Yang advocated the state's right to punish even the ruler's tutor, and ran afoul of the future King Huiwen of Qin (c. 338–311 BCE). Whereas at one point, Shang Yang had the power to exile his opponents (and, thus, eviscerate individual criticism) to border regions of the state, he was captured under a statute he had introduced and died being torn into pieces by chariots. Similarly, Han Fei would end up being poisoned by his envious former classmate Li Si, who in turn would be killed under a statute he had introduced by the aggressive and violent Second Qin Emperor that he had helped to take the throne.

As recorded in the Records of the Grand Historian and the Book of Han, the Han dynasty took over the governmental institutions of the Qin dynasty almost unchanged, but in its early decades it was not a centralized state, parcelling out the country to a number of relatives, who as vassal kings who ruled with full authority. The reputation of the Fajia suffered from association with the former Qin dynasty. Sima Tan, though hailing the Fa "school" for "honouring rulers and derogating subjects, and clearly distinguishing offices so that no one can overstep [his responsibilities]", criticized the Legalist approach as "a one-time policy that could not be constantly applied". Though different philosophically, the pairing of figures like Shen Buhai and Shang Yang along with Han Fei became common in the early Han dynasty, Sima Tan glossing the three as Fa Jia and his son as adherents of "xing ming" ("performance and title").

The syncretic Han Dynasty text, the Huainanzi records that "On behalf of the Ch'in, Lord Shang instituted the mutual guarantee laws, and the hundred surnames were resentful. On behalf of Ch'u, Wu Ch'i issued an order to reduce the nobility and their emoluments, and the meritorious ministers revolted. Lord Shang, in establishing laws, and Wu Ch'i, in employing the army, were the best in the world. But Lord Shang's laws [eventually] caused the loss of Ch'in for he was perspicacious about the traces of the brush and knife, but did not know the foundation of order and disorder. Wu Ch'i, on account of the military, weakened Ch'u. He was well practiced in such military affairs as deploying formations, but did not know the balance of authority involved in court warfare."

Han dynasty
Despite the fall of the Qin dynasty, the administration and political theory developed during the formative Warring States period would still influence every dynasty thereafter, as well as the Confucian philosophy that underlay Chinese political and juridical institutions. The influence of the Fajia on Han Confucianism is very apparent, adopting Han Fei's emphasis of a supreme ruler and authoritarian system rather than Mencius's devaluation thereof, or Xun Kuang's emphasis on the Tao.

Shen Buhai's book appears to have been widely studied at the beginning of the Han era, and is listed along with the Book of Lord Shang in the Book of Han. As protégé of a Han Dynasty Commandant of Justice that had studied under Li Si, Jia Yi was a student of Shen Buhai through them. His writings blame the fall of the Qin dynasty simply on the education of the second emperor, and he would draw up elaborate plans for reorganizing the bureaucracy, which Emperor Wen of Han put into effect.

Shen Buhai never attempts to articulate natural or ethical foundations for his Fa (administrative method), nor does he provide any metaphysical grounds for his method of appointment (later termed "xing-ming"), but later texts do. The Huang-Lao work Boshu grounds fa and xing-ming in the Taoist Dao.

The Discourses on Salt and Iron's Lord Grand Secretary uses Shang Yang in his argument against the dispersion of the people, stating that "a Sage cannot order things as he wishes in an age of anarchy". He recalls Lord Shang's chancellery as firm in establishing laws and creating orderly government and education, resulting in profit and victory in every battle. Although Confucianism was promoted by the new emperors, the government continued to be run by Legalists. Emperor Wu of Han (140–87 BCE) barred Legalist scholars from official positions and established a university for the study of the Confucian classics, but his policies and his most trusted advisers were Legalist. Michael Loewe called the reign of Emperor Wu the "high point" of Modernist (classically justified Legalist) policies, looking back to "adapt ideas from the pre-Han period". An official ideology cloaking Legalist practice with Confucian rhetoric would endure throughout the imperial period, a tradition commonly described as wàirú nèifǎ.

It became commonplace to adapt the theories associated with the Fajia by justifying them using the classics, or combining them with the notion of the "way" or "pattern of the cosmos" ("The Way gave birth to law" Huangdi Sijing). Some scholars "mourn" the lack of pure examples of Taoism, Confucianism and Legalism in the Han dynasty more generally. Han sources would nonetheless come to "treat Legalism as an alternative to the methods of the Classicists". During the decay of the Han Dynasty, many scholars again took up an interest in Legalism, Taoism and even Mohism, and a number of Confucians took up "Legalist" methods to combat the growing disregard for law.

Xing-Ming influences
The Records of the Grand Historian records Li Si as repeatedly recommending "supervising and holding responsible", which he attributed to Shen Buhai. A stele set up by Qin Shi Huang memorializes him as a sage that, taking charge of the government, established Xing-Ming.

In the early Han dynasty, Sima Tan's Taoist syncretism almost unmistakably uses the same sort of technique as Shen Buhai, saying:

"When the congregation of ministers has assembled, the ruler lets each do as he will (zi ming). If result coincides with claim, this is known as 'upright'; if it does not, this is known as 'hollow'."

The Huang–Lao text Jing fa says "The right way to understand all these (things) is to remain in a state of [vacuity,] formlessness and non-being. Only if one remains in such a state, may he thereby know that (all things) necessarily possess their forms and names as soon as they come into existence, even though they are as small as autumn down. As soon as forms and names are established, the distinction between black and white becomes manifest ... there will be no way to escape from them without a trace or to hide them from regulation ... [all things] will correct themselves."

The Records of the Grand Historian states that Emperor Wen of Han was "basically fond of Xing-Ming". Jia Yi advised Wen to teach his heir to use Shen Buhai's method, so as to be able to "supervise the functions of the many officials and understand the usages of government". Pressure groups saw Jia Yi's dismissal, but was brought back to criticize the government. Two advisors to Wen's heir, Emperor Jing of Han were students of Xing-Ming, one passing the highest grade of examination, and admonished Jing for not using it on the feudal lords.

By the time of the civil service examination was put into place, Confucian influence saw outright discussion of Shen Buhai banned. Xing-Ming is not discussed by Imperial University's promoter, the famous Confucian Dong Zhongshu. However, the Emperor under which it was founded, Emperor Wu of Han, was both familiar with and favorable to Legalist ideas, and the civil service examination did not come into existence until its support by Gongsun Hong, who did write a book on Xing-Ming. 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.

Regarded as being in opposition to Confucians, as early as the Eastern Han its full and original meaning would be forgotten. Yet the writings of Dong Zhongshu discuss personnel testing and control in a manner sometimes hardly distinguishable from the Han Feizi. Like Shen Buhai, he dissuades against reliance upon punishments. As Confucianism ascended the term disappeared, but appears again in later dynasties.

The Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing dynasty was also said to "xunming zishe", or "demand performance in accordance with title", a near-verbatim usage of the Han Feizi.

Post-Han
The Records of the Three Kingdoms describes Cao Cao as a hero who "devised and implemented strategies, lorded the world over, wielded skillfully the law and political technique of Shen Buhai and Shang Yang, and unified the ingenious strategies of Han Fei". Zhuge Liang also attached great importance to the works of Shen Buhai and Han Fei. The tendency toward Legalism is apparent in intellectual circles toward the end of the Han dynasty, and would be reinforced by Cao Wei. Dispossessed peasants were organized into paramilitary agricultural colonies to increase food production for the army, and penal legislation increased. These policies would be followed by the Northern Wei.

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". But Wen might be said to have already been steeped in a Legalist tradition followed by the aristocratic institutions of the northern dynasties, who concerned themselves with functional organization and social hierarchy. The Sui dynasty and Tang dynasty were largely based upon the Western Wei and Northern Zhou, refining pre-existing institutions and taking measures against the aristocracy.

Quoting Arthur Wright, Author Hengy Chye Kiang calls the Sui dynasty a "strong autocratic power with a penchant for Legalist philosophy", and its prime minister Gao Jiong "a man of practical statecraft" recalling the great Legalist statesmen. His influence saw the replacement of Confucians with officials of "Legalist" outlook favoring centralization.

Under Legalist influence, Li Gou and Wang Anshi emphasised seeking profit for the people. Deng Guangming argued that Wang Anshi was influenced by Warring States-era Legalism, with his emphasis on "enriching the state and strengthening the army" and Legalist ideas of law. His baojia system which survived until the end of Imperial China has been described as a Legalist device.

Ming dynasty
Li Shanchang (1314–1390), a founding Prime Minister of the Ming dynasty, studied Chinese Legalism. It is said that Li was the Emperor Hongwu's closest comrade during the war, and greatest contributor to his ultimate victory and thus establishment of the Ming Dynasty. Deeply trusted by the Emperor, Hongwu consulted Li on institutional matters. Li planned the organization of the "six ministries" and shared in the drafting of a new law code. He established salt and tea monopolies based on Yuan institutions, eliminated corruption, restored minted currency, opened iron foundries, and instituted fish taxes. It is said that revenues were sufficient, yet the people were not oppressed. Most of his other activities seem to have supported Hongwu Emperor's firm control of his regime. Mainly responsible for ferreting out disloyalty and factionalism among military officers, he used a reward and punishment system reminiscent of the Han Feizi, and may have had a kind of secret police in his service. At times he had charge of all civil and military officials in Nanking.

In 1572 Zhang Juzheng, a legalistic, prime-minister like figure of the Ming Dynasty, had the young emperor of the time issue a warning edict against China's bureaucracy with the reference that they had abandoned the public interest for their own private interests. It reads: "From now on, you will be pure in your hearts and scrupulous in your work. You will not harbor private designs and deceive your sovereign ... You will not complicate debates and disconcert the government." It suggests that good government will prevail as long as top ministers were resolute in administration of the empire and minor officials were selflessly devoted to the public good. It is said that the officials became "very guarded and circumspect" following its release. His "On Equalizing Taxes and Succoring the People" postulated that the partiality of local officials toward powerful local interests was responsible for abuses in tax collection, hurting both the common people and the Ming state.

Zhang Juzheng wrote that "it is not difficult to erect laws, but it is difficult to see they are enforced". His Regulation for Evaluating Achievements (kao cheng fa) assigned time limits for following government directives and made officials responsible for any lapses, enabling Zhang to monitor bureaucratic efficiency and direct a more centralized administration. That the rules were not ignored is a testament to his basic success.

Qing decline and reform in the 19th-20th centuries
In the midst of the decline of the Qing dynasty in the late-19th century, Confucianism turned towards practicality (the School of Practical Statecraft, substantial learning). For some reformist scholars the focus on Confucianism was eroded in favour of Legalist principles of bian-fa (state reform), fu-qiang (state wealth and power) and even shang-zhan (economic warfare). Albert Feuerwerker argues that this Legalist raison d'etat ultimately was connected to the reform proposals of the 1890s, such as the Hundred Days Reform, and thence the New Policies of the early twentieth century. Western science was integrated into the Confucian worldview as an interpretation and application of Confucian principles. Shang Yang's slogan of "rich country, strong army" was also reinvoked in nineteenth century Japan as a "formal ideological foundation of industrial and technological development".

Legalism was partly rehabilitated in the twentieth century by new generations of intellectuals. One, Mai Menghua (1874–1915), promulgated interest in Shang Yang's thought, comparing Shang Yang's view of history with the evolutionary ideas of Western theorists. The New Culture Movement leader, Hu Shi (1891–1962), hailed Han Fei and Li Si for their "brave spirit of opposing those who 'do not make the present into their teacher but learn from the past.

Republican era
Kuomintang leader Hu Hanmin (1879–1936) wrote the preface to a new edition of the Book of Lord Shang. Because the Fajia ignored differences among subjects, early twentieth century Chinese scholarship often viewed it within the context of Western "rule of law". One 1922 article, "The Antiquity of Chinese Law", attributes three legal theories to Han Fei, and referred to him as a "jurist". From the 1920s on it was viewed as being in a historical struggle with the Confucian "rule of men".

Liang Qichao's rule of man vs rule of fa
As a component of debate in early Republican China, Liang Qichao (1873–1929) differentiated "Fa thinkers" (Yuri Pines) and their Confucian rivals by the rule of fa (fazhi 法治) over the “rule of men” (renzhi 人治). The tension between the two may be seen, through this lense, as recurring since the Warring States period, particularly during times of crisis. Professor Professor Leigh K. Jenco (2010) charactizes the two as "virtuous, far-seeing individuals" versus the "well-designed, impartial institutions" first broached by the Warring States philosophers. After Mao Zedong, the concept plays a role in the late 1970s legal discussion following the Gang of Four, in which legal thinkers again used the term Fazhi in seeking a socialist rule by law.

Skeptical of Chinese people's readiness and capability for self-rule, together with his colleagues Du Yaquan and Wu Guanyin, Liang argued for moral reform from the rule of man position, against rule of law. The early incorporation of these discussions may be seen as an early modern evidence for their precedent in China prior to significant western influence, and against the idea that, unlike India, China lacked tradition to fall back on in modern reform.

Phrasings contrasting the rule of men and rule by law can occasionally be seen on the subject of Chinese Legalism. However, although relevant as a note on the early modern history of the subject, and a specifically Chinese lense of interpretation denoting issues that continue today, the subject event was largely ignored in historical literature. Moreover, despite the westernization of the name and their antithesis along lines of rule, if not other lines, the Fajia's legal (rather than administrative) component largely consisted of reward and punishment. Secondly, despite the theoretical antithesis often present between the two, the "Legalist" current still promoted values more similar to those within Confucianism than any modern liberal-democratic, 'impartial' rule of law, even if aiming at impartiality in theory.

Maoist era
The early Mao Zedong has been described as a "dyed-in-the-wool" Legalist or "Lord Shang-style 'sage ruler', who defined the law according to revolutionary needs". Communist intellectuals used the Fajia in their criticism of Confucianism, describing the conflict between the two as class struggle. In 1950, the PRC combined law with campaigns against political enemies, and appeals to the Fajia for solutions became common after the Great Leap Forward. Fazhi, another historical term for "Legalism", would be used to refer to both socialist legality and Western rule of law. Still contrasted with renzhi (or rule of persons), most Chinese wanted to see it implemented in China.

Dengist era, contrasting East and West
In "Globalization and State Transformation in China" (2004), a work included in Cambridge's Asia-Pacific studies, Yongnian Zheng invokes Chinese Legalism as a modern basis in a contrasting of Chinese rule by law with the Western rule of law, although with a "bureaucratic ethos" of Soviet influence from the 1970s.

Zheng references Richard Baum, differentiating China's rule by law as an instrument of state power, enabling the state to "rely on the gentry, family heads, and village elders to enforce local customs". This power was "transferred to the courts" in the more pluralistic West, and is contrasted as being intended to act as a delicately balanced "shield" against arbitrary state power. Sinologist Edward Epstein viewed law in China as still operating in the former vein, using rule by law to "uphold the socialist political order and perpetuate party domination."

However, although lacking rule of law proper, rule of law became a major subject and in the 3rd Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in 1978, and subsequent major sociopolitical aim. The congress proposed the sixteen-word formula, "you fa ke yi, you fa bi yi, zha fa bi yan, we bi jiu", or "there must be laws (fa) for people to follow, these laws (fa) must be observed, their enforcement must be strict, and law-breakers must be dealt with." The development of the legal system, and the development of democracy, were considered almost interchangeable, with law systematizing and defending democracy. On this, Zheng quotes Deng Xiaoping: "Democracy has to be institutionalized and written into law so as to make sure that institutions and laws do not change whenever the leadership changes or whenever the leaders change their views."

Zheng considers the Chinese leadership of the 1980s and early 1990s to have "given the highest priority" to "building a legal system", and "vigorously pursuing" a "legal state" as a "new and effective way of governance". With efforts to establish rule of law after the mid-1990s, being set up as a goal in the 15th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the growth of law might be said to outpace that of the Chinese economy.

Modern era
Two decades of reform, the Soviet Union's collapse and a financial crisis in the 1990s only served to increase the relevance of the rule of law, and the 1999 constitution was amended to "provide for the establishment of a socialist rule-of-law state", aimed at increasing professionalism in the justice system. Signs and flyers urged citizens to uphold the rule of law. In the following years, figures like Pan Wei, a prominent Beijing political scientist, would advocate for a consultative rule of law with a redefined role for the party and limited freedoms for speech, press, assembly and association.

Xingzhong Yu, Professor at Cornell University, describes the PRC through a framework of "State Legalism", and "Legalist" discourse is seeing a resurgence during the leadership of Xi Jinping, who is the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, with journalists reporting on his fondness for the Chinese classics, alongside Confucianism, including Legalist writers and in particular Han Fei, both of which Xi sees as relevant. Han Fei gained new prominence with favourable citations. One sentence of Han Fei's that Xi quoted appeared thousands of times in official Chinese media at the local, provincial, and national levels. A key phrase of Xi's reforms is "govern the state according to law", although focusing on enforcing discipline on party and government officials first.

Institutionalization of the ruler
While Hansen take's the ruler's interest as central, we nonethless find the ruler to some negated in practice. Graham takes Han Fei's ruler as "reduced to one component in the machinery of state." Resting empty, the ministers "have all the ideas and do all the work." The ruler simply checks "shapes" against "names" and dispenses rewards and punishments accordingly, which Graham takes as concretizing the Tao ("path") of Laozi into standards for right and wrong. A.C. Graham writes:

"[Han Fei's] ruler, empty of thoughts, desires, partialities of his own, concerned with nothing in the situation but the 'facts', selects his ministers by objectively comparing their abilities with the demands of the offices. Inactive, doing nothing, he awaits their proposals, compares the project with the results, and rewards or punishes. His own knowledge, ability, moral worth, warrior spirit, such as they may be, are wholly irrelevant; he simply performs his function in the impersonal mechanism of the state."

Xuezhi Guo's Ideal Chinese Political Leader (2002) contrasts the Confucian "Humane ruler" with the "Legalists" as "intending to create a truly 'enlightened ruler. He quotes Benjamin I. Schwartz as describing the features of a truly Legalist "enlightened ruler": "He must be anything but an arbitrary despot if one means by a despot a tyrant who follows all his impulses, whims and passions. Once the systems which maintain the entire structure are in place, he must not interfere with their operation. He may use the entire system as a means to the achievement of his national and international ambitions, but to do so he must not disrupt its impersonal workings. He must at all times be able to maintain an iron wall between his private life and public role. Concubines, friends, flatterers and charismatic saints must have no influence whatsoever on the course of policy, and he must never relax his suspicions of the motives of those who surround him."

The enlightened ruler restricts his desires and refrains from displays of personal ability or input in policy. Capability is not dismissed, but the ability to use talent will allow the ruler greater power if he can utilize others with the given expertise. Leadership and Management in China (2008)

As easily as mediocre carpenters can draw circles by employing a compass, anyone can employ the system Han Fei envisions. Laws and regulations allow him to utilize his power to the utmost. Adhering unwaveringly to legal and institutional arrangements, the average monarch is numinous.

Submerged by the system he supposedly runs, the alleged despot disappears from the scene.

Pines notes
The fa thinkers are devoted to the ruler as an institution, the sole guarantor of social and political order, but not necessarily to an individual sovereign, whose weaknesses they realize well. In Han Feizi in particular, this tension between an abstract and a concrete ruler attains truly tragic proportions.

Confucian argument
Chad Hansen explains Confucius' famous argument in the Analects as largely directed against punishment. Punishment rather than education fails to develop social conformity through shame, which while gradual might be stabler and more effective in the long term. Official coercion strengthens self-interest. "Confucius repeatedly disparages the rise of litigiousness, glibness, and cleverness" among people "governed by promulgated, public codes... formalized code can subjected to interpretive disputes", with "selfishness and glibness" threatening the natural social order. Confucians opposed the general accessibility of Fa as inviting mass "quibbling", with the notion that disputation should be restricted to the Confucian scholars as a task requiring Li (ritual) and Ren (humanity) and the development of intuition.

misc storage (mostly old)
perhaps one of Sinologist Chad Hansen's (1992) most salient points on the subject; namely, that if the Fa (Standards), or for that matter the statesmen, had their primary identity of meaning in penal codes, as opposed to retaining a broader administrative meaning with roots in the Mohists, it would not instead be listed here as the item which keeps the people safe from the ministers by limiting punishments. It's  object here is the control of ministers, as a primary focus of Han Fei.

In contrast to the 1928 translation, while Pines (2017) commonly`translates Fa as laws in the Book of Lord Shang (2017), specifically punitive laws, he notes and uses it's broader meanings throughout the work as "standards", "methods", and imitating or modeling oneself after another, as also involving "uniform standards of promotion and demotion, conferring ranks and offices." The primary emphasis of the Book of Lord Shang is state power, but power is also a primary focus of the other statesmen.

As a respected contemporary quoted by Graham, Benjamin Schwarz (1985) discusses the roots of Fa in the ethic and logic discussions of the Mohists, translating it as model, standard, copy, or imitation, with reference to the carpenter's square, compass and builder's plumb-line. As in Confucianism, in its original conception the behavior of Mozi's ruler acts as Fa (model) for the noble's and officials, moving towards what Schwarz called "prescriptive method or techne", describing craft and political technique.

Michael Loewe in the 1986 Cambridge History of China Volume I notes one example of excavated Qin laws as consisting of twenty-five abstractly formulated model patterns based on actual situations. They are pragmatic and eclectic, indicating an interest in "quantitative technique", and a "sophisticed political outlook." On the other hand, in the case of a father denouncing a son, the son is interrogated and found to be unfilial. It notes the ranks and wards of the persons, the accusations, and the desired outcome by the father for execution. The behavior is not listed, the behavior warranting the term unfilial is not listed, and the outcome of the case is not listed.

Taking note of Schwarz, A.C. Graham (1989) does not begin in a Legalist interpretation of the Fajia. He takes particular note of the precedent of the Confucian Mencius, whose Fa, apart from models like exemplars and names, includes temperature harmonization, the natures of water and soil; characteristics, scales, volumes, transformations, statistics, consistencies, weights, sizes, densities, distances, and quantities.

Starting as "the old word for a model or standard for imitation", Graham views Fa as shifting from persons to be imitated towards impersonal relations of bureaucracy, "contracting" standards towards law as paired with and backed by parallels of reward and punishment, with standards first being backed by punishment as early as the 6th century BCE, albeit piecemeal. He characterizes the "essential novelty of the Legalist position" with regards Fa to be a repudiation of the idea that it cannot work by itself.

Sinoloigst Chad Hansen (1992) acknowledges that Han Feizi has "a concept of public, prescriptive codes of behavior", but elaborates to the effect that Fa as a concept presupposes and remains distinct from regulations and punishments. Retaining the Mohist meaning of objective standards, Fa guides how terms in regulations and prescriptive discourse more generally should be applied. As stated by Goldin (2011), a statesman of Fa like Shang Yang engages statutes more from an administrative standpoint, as well as addressing many other administrative questions.

In distinguishing Shen's usage of Fa, Creel otherwise stresses that Li Si, as quoted by Sima Qian, references Gongsun only in connection with Fa (standards), and Shen Buhai only in connection with "the ruler's role and control of the bureaucracy." Creel considered Shen's administrative usage of Fa to be be the case for all Shen Buhai remnants. Creel What is Taoism 103 Li Si quote.

A teacher of Legalist Li Kui, the Confucian Bu Shang is cited for the principle of favouring talents over favouritism Viewed as within the domain of the Emperor and his officials, who were responsible for all alterations, the development of a legal profession would be illegal or otherwise unknown, with lawyers described as litigation tricksters, pettifoggers, tigers, wolves or demons. Confucians, on the other hand, left civil matters to custom, emphasizing "spiritual cultivation." This dualism may be compared to Roman continental law, which the late Qing dynasty and the Kuomintang used in their reforms, and which sought the security of the position of the Emperor and territorial integrity and was based on the two authorities of state over citizen and family over dependent.

Lacking modern resources, the Chinese did not distinguish law from administration even under the Maoists. Administrative justice was always an aspect of "executive", general administration. Moreover, even at the local level, and even if the cultural framework for much in the way of individual rights existed (it emphasized family), Fa, or its minimalist government, could not expected to administer much in the way of individual rights or social regulation, let alone from an imperial level. Chinese rulers believed that wise emperors governed their officials rather than their subjects.

Liang Qichao considers the inability to achieve a radical reform of the legislative authority to be the greatest failure of the Fa-Jia, with Shih and Shu, being a government by men, contradicting rule of law. In order to have a government of law, it has to proceed from something like a constitution. Modern Chinese often see the Fa-Jia as autocratic and otherwise lacking a substantial rule of law, though this must be qualified.

Historiographer Sima Tan's commonly cited criteria held that the Fa-Jia ignored differences and disregarded kinship, evaluating everyone equally according to Fa, saying that they "are strict and have little kindness, but their alignment of the divisions between lord and subject, superior and inferior, cannot be improved upon... Fajia does not distinguish between kin and stranger or differentiate between noble and base; all are judged as one." This equal treatment may be considered a "Fa-Jia" value, akin to Aristotle's value of freedom, but was intended to support the position, prerogatives and policies of the prince, though by definition Fa is never merely his will.

One recent Chinese scholar argued that "Han's legal vision is informed by an expansive view of not only ethics but also justice... defined as a moral choice between personal interests and public obligations..." One of Han Fei's primary notions, zhi emphasizes straightness and the notion of an unbiased heart, saying "What we mean by zi is that, in doing one's duty, to act always impartially and honestly with an unbiased heart." This notion of honest conduct with unbiased intention underlies Qin and Han penal law. Biased judgement, or purposefully handing down judgements in which the punishment is not appropriate to the crime, is defined as a serious crime called buzhi ("not straight"). It is clearly distinguished from mistakes in judging or punishing a crime. Buzhi officials were sent to build the great wall, or exiled to the frontier. A son might be considered crooked for reporting his father, as trying to gain a reputation of honesty at the expense of his father's. Shang Yang argued for Fa ("guided discourse") from the standpoint of the people's interest. "The multitude of people all know what to avoid and what to strive for; they will avoid calamity and strive for happiness, and so govern themselves."

The Fa-Jia emphasizes structuralism and utilitarianism. The Han Feizi may have been as a handbook for statecraft for his cousin, the King of Han.

The appendix to the Book of Changes defines Fa as "to institute something so that we can use it." Part of any institutional structure or process, Fa's basic meanings are "method" and "standard", and are much broader than "law", including rules, measures, codified books, models, technique, or regulation, often implying two or more at the same time. Fa, largely focuses on performance. More properly be understood as yardstick, contrary to the legal positivism (to which "Chinese Legalism" has sometimes been compared) of figures like John Austin in the west, Han Fei considers measurement, and not punishment and reward, to be the essence of law Fa.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Legalism_%28Chinese_philosophy%29&type=revision&diff=759014329&oldid=759007742 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.156.205.178 FourLights (talk) 19:31, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Though Han Fei considers people "naturally" self-interested, he suggests that "Once 'law'(Fa) and decrees prevail, the way of selfishness collapses."

The belief in the necessity of an absolute monarch for the attainment of stability and order is common to most political theorists of the Warring States period. Han Fei is not interested in questions like legitimacy, and does not justify his philosophy apart from references to the Dao (or "way" of government), but does hold that the populace fares better under a system of Fa than a Confucian system.

Han Fei stipulated the use of Fa for appointment, measurement, language and reward, as in the following: "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. Thus 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."

The syncretism of Han Fei more broadly defines Shu as "to bestow offices corresponding to [people's] abilities; to hold achievement accountable to claim (xing-ming); to grasp the handles of life and death; and examine into the abilities of the thronging ministers." Han Fei criticizes Shen's philosophy as lacking laws, but insists that the ruler use his technique to recruit ministers, and conversely criticizes Shang Yang as lacking Shu.

Shen was well aware of the possibility of the loss of the ruler's position, and thus state or life, saying:

"One who murders the ruler and takes his state," Shen says, "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.""

Liu Xiang attributes ten works in the Han imperial catalogue to the Fa Jia. Fragments of the two Shenzi books of philosophers Shen Buhai (400–337 BC), extant as late as the early eighteenth century, and Shen Dao (350-275 BC) have been recovered, but only two texts have survived to modern day intact, namely the earliest such text, Book of Lord Shang, and the more widely read and "philosophically engaging" Han Fei Zi. The most notable source for Shen Buhai is the Taiping Yulan. Another six later books stopped being circulated more than a millennia ago. Some of the recently translated Mawangdui Silk Texts are quite "Legalistic".

Emperor Wen favored four men who had connections to the Fa-Jia: Governor Wu of Honan, made Chief Commandant of Justice. Wu was a townsman of Li Si, and studied with him. Wu recommended Jia Yi. What is Taoism 106

Li Kui (403–387) wrote the Book of Law (Fajing, 法经) in the state of Wei, which was the basis for the codified laws of the Qin and Han dynasties, in 407 BC. His political agendas, as well as the Book of Law, had a deep influence on later thinkers such as Han Fei and Shang Yang, including the institution of meritocracy, and giving the state an active role in encouraging agriculture, purchasing grain to fill its granaries in years of good harvest to ease price fluctuations. The direct result of these pioneering reform measures was the dominance of Wei in the early decades of the Warring States era. He recommended Ximen Bao, credited as China's first hydraulic engineer, and Wu Qi as a military commander when Wu Qi sought asylum in Wei.

Widely regarded as China's first great general, the Wu-tzu text attributed to Wu Qi (440-381 BC), seriously considering "all aspects of war and battle preparation", has long been valued as one of the "basic foundations of Chinese Military thought." Passages from the Huainanzi suggest that Wu Qi "tried to implement typically Legalist reforms" in Wei. His "impressive administrative contributions" are often ranked with Lord Shang, who served as a household tutor four decades after Wu left.

Often compared with the modern social sciences, they have been regarded by the Chinese as having three tendencies, synthesized by Han Fei: the enforcement of law, the manipulation of statecraft, and the exercise of power,

Han Fei's essays (called the Han Feizi) are commonly thought of as the greatest of all "Legalist" texts, bringing together his predecessors ideas into a coherent ideology. This ideology attracted the attention of the First Emperor and it is believed that this school of thought laid the foundation for the Chinese bureaucratic empire that would surpass that of most other national governments until near the end of the eighteenth century.


 * Jay L. Garfield, William Edelglass 2011, p.59,64,66 The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy https://books.google.com/books?id=I0iMBtaSlHYC&pg=PA59
 * Chad Hansen, 1992 p.345 A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought https://books.google.com/books?id=nzHmobC0ThsC&pg=PA345 and generally arguing for fixed and transparent rules.

Though usually dismissed in the west on account of historical evidence of Legalist text preced, the "Legalist's" ruler or Fa has historically often been considered Taoist, that is, as following the Dao, and is still often analyzed in this capacity by Chinese scholars. But figures like Shen Buhai never attempt to articulate natural or ethical foundations for Fa, or provide any metaphysical grounds for appointment (xing-ming).

The philosophy of Shen Buhai would be partially obscured though it is likely similar to Han Fei. However, Creel called the latter a more sophisticated version of Shang Yang for it's emphasis on rewards and punishments. Huang-Lao might be considered similiar to Shen Buhai for it's emphasis on cooperation.

Gaining the people's hearts has no place in good government,

Shang Yang did say that "laws which are made without taking (the condition of the people) into consideration can not be implemented".

Han Fei is "without even Xun Kuang's residual need for a cosmos" in which man finds a place for himself through patternizing ritual.

Chen, Chao Chuan an Yueh-Ting Lee 2008 p. . Leadership and Management in China

On the basis of human selfishness the "Legalists" considered morality is hypocritical and useless. 4

Though not concerned with the legitimacy of human rights, this did have effect of affirming the legality of morality of individual self-interest. 4, 8 But it is much more amenable to collectivism. 8

Han Fei had no confidence in morality. Aiming for peace and stability, Han Fei believed in the separation of private and public interest, excercising what Chao Chuan and Yueh-Ting have called "fair and effective ways of excercising power", through laws and manipulation under the sovereignty of the emperor. Laws should be practical,enorceable and well publicized in-order to be effective. To be effective and fair, laws and regulations had to be objective and universally enforced.5, 8

Han Fei believed that rule by law is more effective in the running the state and promoting stability.8 Han Fei's Legalism did not challenge the social hierarchy of Confucianism, though it's individualism provided a philosophical foundation to do so. They designed different means of maintaining social hierarchy and order through laws, regulations, manipulation and control, not unlike Machiavelli. 10

Han Fei adopted many of his fundamental concepts of fa (law) from the Book of Lord Shang.111 Shang Yang emphasized strict control through harsh laws, encouraging agriculture and aggresive warfare, enriching the state within a short period of time. His lack of attention to the shu (ministerial manipulation) of Shen Buhai ultimately brought power to ministers at the expense of the state. Han Fei therefore advocated the necessity both Fa and Shu. 111-112 Legal contradictions (shen buhai) 112

Han Fei's theory of leadership is based on self-interest.113

114, 116 Fa (law) should be initiated by the ruler, but he should not establish it at his own will. Rather, he should work to realize the Dao in constructing rules, studying the operation of the state - which is based on fa (law) - carefully. 116 Rules should be constituted on the basis of ekuity, and therefore not engender complaint. To enable smooth interaction with suborinates and enable long-term profits, the ruler never expresses "malicious anger".117 Because Fa (law) is the standard of the state, it should be publicized and known to everyone, used as teaching materials by the officials.117

Law must be objective and equitable. Intellectuals enjoy no special privileges. It's main purpose is to eliminate private interest.117 If the ruler is unable to insist on the equitability of the law, intellectuals may propose biased arguments, the wise may strive for personal gain, superiors may do favors, inferiors may be dominated by selfish pursuits, and intellectuals may form cliques to incite ruors and incidents, reducing the whole organization to crisis and struggle between cliques and factions.117-118.

Laws should be simple, feasible and enforceable so that they can be carried out universally. Complicated doctrines should not be used, because they cannot be easily understood by ordinary people.15

Emperor Hsuan. Ch'ao Ts'o admonished Emperor Ching, saying "the feudal lords are the gaurdrails and props of the emperor. That subjects are to the ruler assons to the ather has been the rule rom antuity to the present. but now thge great states monopolize power and establish seperate government, not looking to the capital for orders." He was perhaps the chief author of the plan whereby the han eudal states were eventually destroyed. Dubs Han-shu I 292-297

Tung-Sun Hung and EMperor wu, Conucius, the man and the myth 234-242, 254-263. kung-sun tzu

Jixia Academy's Shen Dao (350 – c. 275 BC) emphasized that the head of state was endowed with shi, the "mystery of authority", commanding the respect and obedience of the people. The emperor's very figure brought legitimacy. In the philosophy of Shen Dao and other such philosophers, the establishment of order and the sovereign's restraining hold on the state generates the stability necessary for any rule at all. Shen Dao advised the ruler to monopolize authority in-order to prevent its abuse by feudal magnates and ministers. Shen Dao enjoined the ruler to make no judgements, instead relying on protocol to reward or penalize ministers according to their performance.

Shang Yang's economy was grain-based rather than money-based. Official recognition was given in the production of food and military service. The new elite was based neither on heredity nor wealth. Mutual spying and denunciation were required by law, and rewarded.(five and ten).

When Li Si gained audience with the young king he told him that "The small man is one who throws away his opportunities, whereas great deeds are accomplished through utilizing the mistakes [of others], and inflexibly following them up."

Accepting Shang Yang's earlier emphasis on the standardization of weights and measures, Qin Shi Huang would also accept Shang Yang's philosophy that no individual in the state should be above the law (by ensuring harsh punishments for all cases of dissent) and that families should be divided into smaller households. While there is reason to doubt Sima Qian's claim that Qin Shi Huang did in fact divide households into groups of ten, certainly the other examples of standardization and administrative organization undertaken by the First Emperor reflect the importance of philosopher's thought in Qin law. Reflecting the philosopher's passion for order and structure, Qin soldiers were only mobilized when both halves of tiger-shaped tallies (one held by the ruler and the other by the commanding general) were brought together. Likewise, all documents in the empire had to have recorded the year they were written, the scribe who copied them, and up to the exact hour of delivery.

By Han Fei's standards a good leader must not only accept the advice of loyal ministers when shown to be in error, but also extend courtesy to those beneath him or her and not be too avaricious. Stressing that ministers and other officials too often sought favours from foreign powers by abusing their positions, he urged rulers to control these individuals using the two handles of punishment and favour through Fa (methods, standards), preventing ministers and other officials from performing some other official's duties and punishing them if they attempted to blind the ruler with words or failed to warn them.(citation needed)

To aid his patron in preventing misgovernance, formalized the concept of shu, the bureaucratic model of administration. Shen Buhai argued that the ruler's most important asset was an intelligent minister. He advised that rulers should keep a low profile, hide their true intentions and feign nonchalance, limiting themselves to judging ministers’ performances. It was the minister's duty to understand specific affairs, which the ruler did not involve himself in. Theoretically, by cloaking both his desires and his will, the Emperors checked sycophancy and forced his subject to heed his dictates. Interestingly, according to the Han's Grand Historian Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BC), while the First Qin Emperor hid himself from the rest of the world (perhaps due to a desire to attain immortality) and thus maintained a low profile, he did not necessarily follow all of the philosopher's advice on the role of the ruler. Han Fei blamed him for concentrating all his attention on administrative technique, neglecting law.

"Huang-Lao thought", centering around the Jixia Academy is considered to have early emerged as part of an effort to develop solutions for the restoration of the feudal order. The Taoistic side of this later included texts like the Huainanzi, emerging as the ideological backdrop to the early Han Dynasty feudal court.

One early "Huang-Lao" text coming out of the Jixia academy, the Guanzi, whose traditional author was said to be Guan Zhong, was actually a compilation mostly of Jixia scholars. A number of its chapters chapters express what has been termed a blend of Legalist, Confucianistic, and Daoistc philosophy that may be considered "Huang-Lao". Taoism was thought by earlier scholars to have a considerable influence on Legalism. Creel later considered this view mistaken; there is no evidence that Taoism existed so early, for instance, as Shen Buhai, who makes considerable use of the term Tao, but not in the Taoist manner. Confucians also make use of the term Tao.

The ruler should fully utilize the repertoire of methods and techniques aimed at enhancing his power and at reining in his underlings. The ruler should be “enlightened/clear-sighted” (ming明)enough to avoid being duped by the members of his entourage and to determine real worth of his aides.

He should check his ministers’ reports, investigate their performance, and make it clear that only those who properly fulfill their tasks will be rewarded and promoted. Han Fei explains: A sovereign who wants to suppress treachery must investigate jointly the form and the name, the difference between the words and the task. The minister exposes his words; the ruler assigns him a task in accordance with his words, and determines [the minister’s] merit only according to his performance. When the merit matches the task, and the performance matches the words, [the minister] is rewarded; when the merit does not match the task and the performance does not match the words, he is punished. … Thus, when the enlightened ruler nourishes his ministers, the minister should not claim merit by overstepping [the task de fi nitions of] his of fi ce, nor should he present his words which do not match [his performance]. One who oversteps his of fi ce is executed; one who[se words] do not match [his performance] is punished;10 then ministers are unable to form cabals and cliques (Chen Qiyou 2000: 2.7.127)

The term Fa Jia would be introduced Chinese historiographer Sima Tan (c. 165 BC – 110 BCE) in his essay, "The Essential Implications of the Six Houses of Thought" (The other five schools being Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, the School of Names, and the School of Naturalists).

In his History of Chinese Philosophy, Feng Youlan divided the Legalists into three groups, one laying stress on the concept of shi (circumstantial advantage, power, or authority) as espoused by Shen Dao; the second on fa 法 (law, regulation or, standard) of Shang Yang; and the third on the shu 術 (methods or strategy) of Shen Buhai.


 * 'Shi' (, p 'shì', lit. "situational advantage"): It is the position of the ruler, not the ruler himself or herself, that holds the power. Therefore, analysis of the trends, the context, and the facts are essential for a real ruler.
 * 'Fa' (Chinese:, p 'fǎ', lit. "method" or "standard"): The law code must be clearly written and made public. All people under the ruler were equal before the law. Laws should reward those who obey them and punish accordingly those who dare to break them. Thus it is guaranteed that actions taken are systematically predictable. In addition, the system of law, not the ruler, ran the state, a statement of rule of law. If the law is successfully enforced, even a weak ruler will be strong.
 * 'Shu' (, p 'shù', lit. "technique" or "procedure"): Special tactics and 'secrets' are to be employed by the ruler to make sure others do not take over control of the state. Especially important is that no one can fathom the ruler's motivations, and thus no one can know which behavior might help them get ahead, other than following the laws.

Shen Buhai did not actually use the term Shu, he used Fa; Shu may have been invented to contrast Shen's doctrine with that of Shang Yang. Creel comments that Sima Tan, inventor of the term Fa-Jia, was "clearly aware that the school (and Fa itself) had two emphases", both "law" and "method".

Graham disputers of the Dao
275. The automatic function of Fa as the essential novelty of the 'Legalist' position

Chad Hansen 2000, A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought
346 ref invention fajia meaning change crituqe 350 Qin Lu new term for laws 350 Fa is any objective standard 351 Han Fei opposition to Confucians 357 ref Confucian-Mohist antecedent Confucius praises Guan Zhong 357 The Guanzi is likely later and has more in common with the Han Feizi 358-359 Shen Buhai is identified by Han Fei with Shu 358 ref confucian ante the closest the guanzi comes to retribution 358 ref confucian ante The Guanzi does not make great distinction between the social codes 358 The Guanzi makes a rare appeal to the value of Fa for the masses 358 ref from traditional authority The Guanzi and Mozi argue that people naturally conform to precise administration 359 The conflict between the Han Feizi and Confucian ruling styles probably had more to do with division of power 359 '''ref 1. historical background''' Confucians wanted ministers to control or at least admonish the ruler 359 ref Shen wu wei 359 The statesmen concentrated on techniques to preserve the ruler against the ministers 359 Shen Buhai, Wu wei, rectification of names, performance control 359 Shang Yang, Fa, Han Fei on Shang Yang, Shang Yang antibureaucracy and as a precursor to Han Fei's 360 '''Ref Power (Shih) Society as an authoritarian inculcator. Han Feizi's focuses on outcomes benefiting primarily the ruler and state power.''' 360 Han Feizi starts from the Confucian and Mohist theory of society 360 Mohist vs Han Fei's point of view 360 Ref Daoist section. Han Fei may not have been taken as separate from Daoism before the Han dynasty 360 Han Fei's political proposals are motivated by interpretive anarchy and his royal position 360 Han Fei Shih 360 Shu, the ruler cannot has his own judgements 361 Language and the Danger of Interpretive Anarchy 361 Han Fei's basis in Hermeneutics 361 Han Fei's theory of evil 362 Han Fei's sociological theory 362 The end of hermeneutics 362-363 Shi subsection 365 The ruler names people to positions 365 Ref Confucian ante. rectification of names placed on official 367 Fa is even more critical for the ruler than regulations 367 Ref Han Fei's elements Han Fei identifies his rewards and punishments as a subset of Shu

Yuri Pines. Legalism in Chinese Philosophy
Ref ruler-centered. Defining Legalism. Broader than Law Ref Terminology. Defining Legalism. Sima Qian glossed Shen, Gongsun and Han Fei as adherents of of “performance and title” (xing ming 刑名

Creel 1970, What is Taoism?
Creel, Herrlee Glessner 1970 What Is Taoism?: And Other Studies in Chinese Cultural History 51 Shen Buhai/Daoism/Huang Lao 69. wu wei absent from the Shangjunshu 69. Daoism as a reaction against the Fajia 81 Ref Shen Xing-Ming Hist. Creel finds it unlikely Shen used punishments. book fragments quoted as saying the ruler practices Xing-Ming lacking punishment 86 Ref Shen intro. The officials were at cross purposes. Used Huainanzi quotation. >>> 86 Ref Shen Xing-Ming Hist. Xing-Ming content. Liu Xiang Quotation. 86 Ref Imp China, Xing-Ming. Quotation pertaining to Qinshihuang stele establishing Xing-Ming 87 Ref Imp China, Xing-Ming. Emperor Xuan. Emperor Wen of Han "basically fond of Xing-Ming". Chao Tso? 88 Imperial examinations 90 Xing-Ming, Confucian disparagement, glossing of the general Fajia as Xing-Ming 90 ref Xing-Ming hist. Creel suggests Xing did not originally mean punishment 90 Ref name and reality. Dong Zhongshu 91 Xing-Ming significance and decline Creel, Herrlee Glessner 1970 What Is Taoism?: And Other Studies in Chinese Cultural History '''92-120 Creel Paper. The Fa-Chia, "Legalists" or "Administrators"?''' 92 "Not a few scholars have held that the concern of the Fajia was with administration" 92-93 Ref Han Fei's branches. The Fajia probably never a schoool, pulled together and expounded in the Han Feizi. diplomat hu shih ref 92-95 Ref Mo vs law. Creel paper int. 93 Outdated discussion of Fa and the Fajia 93 The term Legalism distorts and misconstrues it's role in Chinese history, giving Shang Yang undue prominence 94 Han Fei quote 95 Ref Introduction, Shen Buhai section intro, Branches of the Fajia. Branches, Shen Buhai, impact. Civ service exam. Shen Dao. 97 Ref Shen Buhai section intro. Quotation, "one who murders the ruler". Prevent single minister from gaining power. 98 Ref Shen Buhai section intro. Creel description of Shen Buhai's ruler, "majestic arbiter", not competing with team of ministers. 98 Poor Ref. Mohist hermeneutics vs Confucian Li. Correct or perverse words will ruin the state. Mirror quote. However, my memory serves there should be a better elaborated ref page, probably already in my references. Shen Buhai book, will try and correct soon. 98 Spokes of a wheel quote 99 Ref Shen Wu wei. Supreme arbiter. Han Wudi 99 Ref Confucian antecedent. Shen's use of terms like wu wei and Dao probably derived of Confucius 100 Ref Shen Buhai section intro. Shen's "immensely important contribution" to the role of the ruler. 101-102. Shang Yang 102 Ref Shang Yang branch. "Striking differences" between the Han Feizi and the Book of Lord Shang 102 Purchasable offices 103 Ref Branches of the Fajia. Creel on Li Si, Sima Qian quotation 104 Xing-Ming 105 Quotation pertaining to Qinshihuang stele establishing Xing-Ming 106 Ref Shen Buhai section intro. Unobtrusive 106 Emperor Wen 107 Confucian attitude to government, Authority to make policy, difference between the Fajia and the Confucians. I accept Creel's generalization here. 108 Jia Yi, Emperor Wen, Zhao Zuo 109 No "pure" Fajia or even pure other schools in Han times 109 Chao Tso 110 Ref Shu branch. Emperor Jing of Han. 110 Beginning of discrimination against Xing-Ming proponents 111 Emperor Xuan of Han 113.1 Ref Invention of the Fajia. Legalism as a slur 113.5 Ref Shen Buhai section lede 114 Han Fei criticizes the branches for lacking the other's element 120 Creel's denigration of the term Legalism

Creel 1974, Shen Pu-hai
'''Creel, Herrlee Glessner. 1974 Shen Pu-hai: A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century B.C.''' Page 2. Qin would go on to utilize Shen Buhai's philosophy Page 3. Shen's philosophy was absorbed by Confucianism without credit '''Page 11. Ref''' Shen intro. Selecting men according to ability was a cardinal principle for Shen Buhai. Unused quotation. Pages 10-12. Creel views Zichan as an antecedent to Shen Buhai. Page 15. Creel views Duke Wen as foreshadowing Shen Buhai Page 21-23. Dating information, elaborated on Shen Buhai page. Page 22. Shen Buhai falsely glossed as Huang-Lao historically Page 26. Shen Buhai timidness. Quotation, independence of the ruler '''Page 30. Ref''' Shen intro. Shen insists that ministers must have nothing to do with functions that were not assigned to them. Page 32. No basis to suppose Shen used punishments. Undetailed. Page 32. ref Xing-Ming hist. WITaoism 81 better page content Page 35. Ruler keeps his own counsel, the greatest danger comes from his ministers Page 35. Shen's book was widely disseminated during the beginning of the Han dynasty. Pages 92-120 I should go into this chapter's discussion of Fa to complement Chad Hansen

2011 Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy
59. Ref Invention of the Fajia. Using a reference like this would probably be redundant some places, but I think it does a good job here. 59. Not an actual movement. Disparate statesmen. 65. The Confucians and Daoists held a regressive view of history 65. The ruler should also conform to Fa 771. The Oxford discusses Emperor Wu Di in relation to the Fajia

Makeham 1994 Name and Actuality
'''John Makeham 1994, Name and Actuality in Early Chinese Thought 67 Han Fei's Xing-Ming thinking and Ming Shi 70 At time of writing, Creel's translation of Xing-Ming as performance and title was the most popular and enduring, but Makeham suggests this as discredited by D.C. Lau, and is otherwise considered as unnecessary by A. C. Graham. Instead, Makeham and Graham accept a more ordinary translation of "assume a fixed shape." I think what I've read and referenced from Makeham in the past on this subject pertained more to Han Fei, but there probably is more on this subject that I can talk about, ideally in a more formal way.

1978 Cambridge history of China Volume 1
26 the movement toward codified penal law per se began some decades before Shang Yang before it made it to Qin 27 It was not equally applied across the population. 74 Han Fei and Li Si sees no contradiction in utilizing both branches of the Fajia 74 Creel's attempt to distinguish Shen Buhai from Legalism was not widely accepted at the time of Volume 1 75 Excavation of the Qin model patterns, circulation of the Emperor's letter 783 All three schools may be characterized as Confucian in the late Han dynasty

2008 Leadership and Management in China
12 ref lede paragraphs Sunzi recalls Han Fei's measures of reward and punishment 12 ref position (shi) Sunzi recalls Han Fei's measures of reward and punishment 12 ref Anti-ministerialism institutional level, clear power structures, objective, consistent, and enforceable rules and regulations

Misc references
Goldin 2005. After Confucius 91 ref interpretations. What Legalism denotes is never clear 90,95. ref Shu Branch. Huainanzi Zushu

Persistent Misconceptions p1. ref Legalist reception. useless hermeneutic lens p2. Sima Tan/Sima Qian.

'''ref Power (Shi). Confucian-Legalist State p179.''' Chinese sociologist Dingxin Zhao views both Daoism and Legalism as "products of a war-driven rise in rationality." Views the term Legalism as inadequate, although he retains it. '''Zhenbin Sun 2015. Language, Discourse, and Praxis in Ancient China. sociopolitical practice''' Ref mo vs law. sociopolitical practice Ref Ming-shi. 200 years. Lüshi Chunqiu Ref Confucian antecedent. Intro, Feng Youlan

relevant possessed works (incomplete)

 * 1983 Roger T Ames. The Art of Rulership
 * 1985 Benjamin I. Schwartz. The World of Thought in Ancient China
 * 1989 A.C. Graham. Disputers of the Dao
 * 1992 Hansen. A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought
 * 1993 John Makeham. Name and Actuality
 * Stephen Angle 2003/2013. Encyclopedia of Chinese Philosophy
 * 2008 Karyn L Lai. An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy

Philosophy East and West 1951-1961
Suffice to say, not much mention for our subject from 1951-1961.


 * 1951-04: 1.1: Not in contents table
 * 1951-07: 1.2: Xunzi on terminology
 * 1951-10: 1.3: Not in contents table
 * 1952-01: 1.4: Not in contents table
 * 1952-04: 2.1: Not in contents table
 * 1952-07: 2.2: Not in contents table
 * 1952-10: 2.3: Not in contents table
 * 2.4: Book review: 1947. Three Chinese Thinkers
 * 1953-04: 3.1: Unrelated Creel article.
 * 1953-07: 3.2: Not in contents table
 * 3.4: Single irrelevant mention, re: early works Waley, Feng, Creel
 * 1954-04: 4.1: Not in contents table
 * 1954-07: 4.2: Not in contents table
 * 1954-10: 4.3: Not in contents table
 * 1955-01: 4.4: Not in contents table
 * 1955-04: 5.1: Not in contents table
 * 1955-07: 5.2: Not in contents table
 * 1955-10: 5.3: Not in contents table
 * 1956-01: 5.4: Not in contents table
 * 1956-04: 6.1: Hu shih
 * 1956-07: 6.2: Not in contents table
 * 1956-10: 6.3: Not in contents table
 * 1957-01: 6.4: Not in contents table
 * 1957:Vol 07:1-2: Not in contents table
 * 1958:Vol 07:3-4: Not in contents table
 * 1958:Vol 08:1-2: Mencius
 * 1958:Vol 08:3-4: Not in contents table
 * 1959:Vol 09:1-2: Chinese Legal and Political Philosophy. Not significant.
 * 1960:Vol 09:3-4: Not in contents table
 * 1960:Vol 10:1-2: Not in contents table
 * 1961:Vol 11 1-2: Wang-Yang ming
 * 1961:Vol 10 3-4: Review: Sources of Chinese tradition
 * 11.3 Book review: The 1960 translation of the Complete works of Han Fei Tzu

1960
Bulletin of the Korean Research Center: Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities
 * Problems of Communism Volume 9
 * Issues 12-15, Issues 15-17
 * Author: Han'guk Yŏn'guwŏn (Seoul, Korea)
 * Publisher	Korean Research Center, 1960
 * University of California, University of Michigan

1994

 * Researched 1994 which contains no additional relevant formal books