Mohist predecessors

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

Compared by Fraser of the Stanford Encyclopedia with Socrates, the hermeneutics of the Mohists, of Mozi (c. 470 BC – c. 391 BC), a school of political-religious engineers and logicians, contained the philosophical germs of what Sima Tan would term the "Fa-School", and are of particular importance to understanding Fa, meaning "to model on" or "to emulate". initiating philosophical debate in China, they posited some of its first theories, contributing to the political thought of contemporary reformers.

Finding the values of tradition and Confucian li (ritual) unconvincing, the Mohists took universal welfare and the elimination of harm as morally right, arguing against nepotism in favor of objective standards (fa) to unify moral judgements. Advocating thrift over extravagance, the Mohist's social goals included economic wealth, population growth, and social order. Taking social order as a paramount, universally assumed good, the Mohists advocated a unified, peaceful, utilitarian or consequentialist ethical and political order, with an authoritarian, centralized meritocratic state, led by a virtuous, benevolent sovereign.

Benjamin Schwarz (1985) took the Mohists as "in some ways preparing the ground for a full-blown 'theory' of Legalism", taking 'Legalist' utilitarianism as instead aiming at the immediate enhancement of state power. He took them as more rigorously logical and behaviorist. Taking fa as explicitly contrasted with elite intuition based on textual tradition, Sinologist Hansen (1992) criticizes however the idea of the fajia as more rational or consistent. Fraiser contrasts with Hansen's earlier work (1985) in considering the Mohists more concerned with truth than mere semantics.^[27]

However, an early ("slightly modified") quotation by Tao Jiang from the Lüshi Chunqiu highlights the Qin (although Han Fei is from the Hann state as at times conservative in comparison to the Mohists, containing both Mohist and Confucian instincts:^[28]

The Mohist leader Fu Tun resided in Qin. His son murdered a man. King Hui of Qin said, “You, sir, are too old to have another son, so I have already ordered that the officials not execute him. I hope, sir, that you will abide by my judgment in this matter.”

Fu Tun replied, “The law of the Mohist order says: ‘He who kills another person shall die; he who injures another shall be punished.’ The purpose of this is to prevent the injuring and killing of other people. To prevent the injuring and killing of other people is the most important moral principle in the world. Though your majesty out of kindness has ordered that the officials not execute my son, I cannot but implement the law of the Mohist order.” He would not assent to King Hui’s request and proceeded to kill his own son.

Fa (concept)

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

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

Karyn Lai's Introduction to Chinese Philosophy (2008) relied more on Creel and Schwarz. As recounted by Schwarz, Mozi used fa in the sense of models and standards for copy and imitation in action. As in Confucianism, Mozi's ruler is intended to act as fa (or example) for the nobles and officials, as developing towards political technique.

Although Confucianism does not much elaborate on fa, it would be illustrated in the Confucian canon using the idea of a circle as standard or identifier for other circles, adopting fa as a standpoint for administrative appointment. Mencius's fa includes more specific examples of statistics such as temperatures, volumes, consistencies, weights, sizes, densities, distances, and quantities.

Hansen, and Chinese scholar Huang Kejian more modernly, differentiate the fa "Standards" of the Fajia (Huang "radically") from that of the Mohists as suiting the ruling purpose, as opposed to the Mohist's general moral utilitarianism based on the idea of heaven. However, Huang still takes fa at basic as measurement, and Hansen still took them as otherwise using fa in exactly the same way as Mozi, whose interpretation he espouses as dating back to Chinese philosopher Tang Juni (1975).

Unfortunately, Pine's work in the Stanford Encyclopedia does not presently discuss the Mohists. Based on the archaeological discoveries represented in the Cambridge History (1986), the Qin empire's laws were primarily administrative, concerned with such items as weights and measures. They would distinguish the general body of law from fa under the term Lu, whose root meaning also relates with measurement (Loewe glossed it as fa; Lu is located in Derk Bodde 1981).

Nothing hardly a legal rule found amongst the writings of the "Legalists" themselves, Loewe accepted fa as primarily concerned with such items as weights and measures, primarily referring to such items as models, standards, norms and patterns. Only derivatively including penal law as adjunct to li ritual, fa as comparative model manuals in the Qin empire guided penal legal procedure and application based on real-life situations, with publicly named wrongs geared to punishments.^[29][30]

School of names

The School of Names (Xingmingjia) was a school of Chinese philosophy that grew out of Mohism during the Warring States period in 479–221 BCE. A contemporary of Confucius and the younger Mozi, Deng Xi (died 501 BC) is reported to have drawn up a code of penal laws. Xun Kuang early associates Deng Xi and Hui Shi, and Deng Xi is cited by Liu Xiang as the originator of principle of the xíngmíng (刑名), or ensuring that ministers' deeds (xing) harmonized with their words (ming). However, Xing-Ming as it would be understood in Han dynasty "Fajia" or "School of law" literature was introduced by Shen Buhai.

Many in the school of names, slurred as disputers even in the Warring States period, would also have been administrators, just as the Mohists more broadly had sought office. Although less accurately for Shang Yang, who is associated with a Names practice but lacks it's specific practice, Sima Qian originally classes Shang Yang, Shen Buhai, and Han Fei under the doctrine of xingming. Terminologically, Shen Buhai actually uses the earlier School of Names Ming-shi, or word and substance, while Han Fei uses Xing-Ming.

Often having been taken in the west as simply amoral, Chinese scholar Peng He positively associates Deng Xi with Chinese Legalism, which she defends in connection with the Chinese legal tradition. The categorical difference is that Fajia, coming to mean Legalism, is a posthumous invention of Sima Qian, who does not name anyone under the schools. More typically associated with it's Warring States figures, the Hanshu does not list Deng Xi, but association is posthumous and ideological.

John Makeham characterizes earlier school of names thinkers as more resembling the Confucian rectification of names. He takes Xun Kuang's Xing-Ming as Xing-Ming's second phase, and Han Fei's Xing-Ming its third. Hansen notes Han Fei as sometimes antagonistic towards language devices, while Makeham differentiates Han Fei's method from his school of names predecessors as representing an unprecedented mechanical advancement. However, he places less emphasis on his predecessor in Shen Buhai, who Kidder Smith does not believe would be differentiated if not for posthumous association.

Whether Shen Buhai much associated among their league or not, the importance of words and names to the period cannot be overstated, let alone for administration. Related at the general level, Makeham asserts that the school of names ought to be differentiated from Shen Buhai and Han Fei, but relies on an argument that their usage is more specific to functionaries, while that of the school of names concerns names and reality.

As stated by Kidder Smith, Logician Gongsun Long similarly enjoyed the support of rulers, while Hui Shi was, like Shen Buhai, a prime minister, but in the state of wei. One might think Gongsun Long's white horse paradox semantical, but Su Qin (380–284 BCE) considered it a component of Xingming administrative strategy. Commentary relating or contrasting the figures with the school of names is otherwise unfortunately lacking; Tao Jiang's work asserts the Fajia's category, and compares Han Fei with Mohism, but not the school of names. A white horse strategy is found in the later chapters Han Feizi, along with other similar strategies:

Once Tzu-chih, Premier of Yen, while seated indoors, asked deceptively, "What was it that just ran outdoors? A white horse?" All his attendants said they had seen nothing running outdoors. Meanwhile, someone ran out after it and came back with the report that there had been white horse. Thereby Tzu-chih came to know the insincerity and unfaithfulness of the attendant.

Once there were litigants. Tzu-ch'an separated them and never allowed them to speak to each other. Then he inverted their words and told each the other's arguments and thereby found the vital facts involved in the case. Canon VII.

Reportedly receiving the Han Feizi, the stele of the First Emperor list Xingming amongst his accomplishments.^[31]

Legal positivism

Even the early scholarship of Feng Youlan (1948) considered it incorrect to associate the thinkers with jurisprudence, describing them as teaching methods of organization and leadership for the governing of large areas. With other texts only translated later, Science and Civilization in China (1956) took the "central conception" of fa as positive law expounded with "great clarity by Gongsun Yang in the Shangjunshu", under a legal positivist interpretation.

Arguing against an amoral interpretation for Han Fei, Kenneth Winston (2005) takes Peerenboom 1993 as its late notable argument. The status of Shang Yang as a 'Legalist' is another question; here only that specific Legal positivist interpretation lacks modern argument. Moreover, while Winston's work is itself an argument for a legislative rule of law interpretation, Tao Jiang recalls him more in connection with his "underlying moral visions in the fajia", taking Han Fei as intending to link law and morality, as opposed to earlier Legal positivist interpretation.

While others have still used the term Legalism conventionally in recent times, Tao Jiang rejects it as a translation of Fajia modernly, in part as an effort to preserve both as categories of scholarship. Goldin takes the reasons for avoiding it as dating back to Creel, and Hansen (1992) notes most writers, namely Schwarz but even including Graham, as considering Legalism sometimes inaccurate even by his time. Although Graham used Legalism, and argued that fa "contracts" towards the western sense of law, he accepts fa as including "methods of regulating the bureaucracy" even among those "classed as Legalist".

Hansen denied that it contracts or changes meaning for a view that can otherwise be compared with Creel, and Pines modernly, in that regard, with Creel considering fa a spectrum. Hansen maintained that it should primarily be translated as Standards. Although Roger T Ames (1981) interpretation was still Legalist in the sense of listing law first and administration second, with the Cambridge History published in 1986, Graham 's Legalist argument would have already been against the direction of scholarship. Pine's Stanford Encyclopedia prominently remembers Graham (and Creel) with Graham's Legalism as an aside, not mentioning Hansen's explicitly iconoclastic work on the subject, which unfortunately lacks critique specific to the subject.^[32]

The Ruler's Interest

Contrasting with A.C. Graham, Pine's Stanford Encyclopedia states that "the fa thinkers in general and Han Fei in particular are often condemned as defenders of 'monarchic despotism' and absolute authoritarianism." However, he references a work from 1979, begging the question of who the view modrnly. Roger T. Ames (1981) held that 'Legalism' represented government of, by, and for the ruler, but does not elaborate.

In opposition to Legalist interpretation, Hansen (1992) may very well have been the most detailed exposition holding the Ruler's Interest as primary. This includes such ideas that the ruler ought to hold the power of life and death and not delegate it to the ministers, and that the meritocratic idea inherited from the Confucians and Mohists ought not to "undercut the ruling purpose." However, while Hansen provides a wealth of information to the broad and discerning reader, the work was openly iconoclastic and reductionist.

Although the Guanzi and Han Fei "also sometimes suggest that his policies will enhance the welfare of the people", Hansen dismisses this because they "pay scant attention to that goal and almost none to justifying his taking the ruler's interests as his prime concern." That is, Han Fei does not justify monarchism to the kings he seeks an audience with, or necessarily hold welfare as primary in the era of the ancient Chinese Warring States period.

Hansen only references the Guanzi in the comparative capacity of a common "direct concern with enhancing the power of the ruler"; Pines references it in the capacity that "Han Fei explains the system he designs should cater to the need of average or mediocre (zhong 中) rulers, neither moral paragons, nor monstrous tyrants."^[33]

The sage ruler relies on laws, not on personal wisdom; on methods and not on persuasions; on impartiality and not on selfishness; on the great Way and not on trivial matters. Then, he may be at ease and All-under-Heaven will be governed well. (Guanzi 45, “Relying on law”; cf. Ricket 1998: 144)

Wu Wei

For Xun Kuang, as the purported teacher of Han Fei and Li Si, the Warring States period would come to expect that a true or sage monarch would ensure perfect universal order and compliance, considering an unrivaled, all-powerful, universal ruler necessary for peace. Although achieving victory by conquest, the Qin would claim that they had brought the wars to an end. On the other hand, the period expects mediocre rulers to delegate.

Han Fei, Goldin says, does not appear to anticipate objection that his program effectively allows ministers to set the agenda. As opposed to a true or sage monarch, Han Fei's mediocre ruler may be allured by his advocacy that, reducing his activity, he can attempt to manipulate the ministers to claim their accomplishments as glory and fame for himself. From the perspective of those under him, the reduction of his activity would make him less of a burden.

In the Confucian Analects, as quoted by Han Fei's predecessor in prime minister Shen Buhai, wu wei at basic simply means to leave ministerial affairs to ministers. The ruler's separation may enhance his charisma, and his reduced activity may allow him time to rule, inasmuch as one man can rule. Goldin relates that it may have always connoted a suppression of private activity, but Han Fei's focus is more primarily that of ministers and even the king himself.

Confucianism aside, texts like the Zhuangzi also rarely, let alone simply, suggest that ordinary people are able enhance their power through wu wei, while the Daodejing is if anything a later text. Hence, whatever Han Fei may say to convince his employer that wu wei as a tool of power, the broader literature lacks totalitarian connotation for it until the Han dynasty, in Huang-Lao literature.

In contrast to the mediocre ruler, while Shen Buhai and Han Fei expects the ruler will be average, Winston emphasizes that Han Fei frequently addresses himself to the enlightened, benevolent or sage ruler. Han Fei says "If the ruler is stupid and upholds no rule, ministers will act at random", enhancing their wealth and power, and eventually breeding chaos. Han Fei's enlightened ruler will investigate order and chaos, promoting clear laws (fa) and severe penalties, even rescuing "all living beings from chaos".

Winston does not consider Han Fei's focus on fa abstract or an accident. Although potentially useful, laws and administrative methods are not necessarily always the best choice simply for the purposes of power. Law is practically and consciously chosen for broader purposes. The laws of Han Fei's Hann state were in dissaray; his predecessor in Shen Buhai issued contradictory laws following it's founding, without repealing the old ones. Along with the administrative method of Shen Buhai, Han Fei advocates the fa or law of Shang Yang, with critique. Although like Shen Buhai still primarily bureaucratic, Han Fei may indeed very well be interested in order, and law itself at least in a limited sense, and not simply power or the interest of the ruler.

While Han Fei's mediocre ruler practices Wu Wei, his enlightened ruler also practices wu wei, busying himself with checking reports and investigating job performances, strictly adhering to fa (method /standards) to reward, promote and punish. Only rewarding those who perform their jobs properly, the ruler will supposedly dominate his properly rewarded ministers, enhancing his power. Or, he will play an effective institutional role without obstructing, exposing himself to manipulation and criticism.

As Tao Jiang recalls of Winston, it would be "outside the realm of possibility within the traditional imaginaire of monarchy" for Han Fei to effectively restrain the power of an abusive monarch. In contrast to Confucians and the mandate of heaven, Han Fei rejects the legitimacy of overthrowing the ruler. Yet, he does not suggest much chaos as resulting from his replacement. He even has a chapter advising ministers to speak to the king disingenuously. The enlightened ruler will avoid their traps by dispensing with his own personal abilities. Adhering to fa (measurement, laws and methods), he will delegate to Han Fei and his fellow impartial institutionalists, who perform their jobs properly and refrain from suggesting his overthrow.^[34]

Systems administration

The key figure in the late imperial bureaucracy was the district magistrate, a combination of a mayor, chief of police, judge, and even military commander.^[35] He obtained the position by passing the examination for the civil service and performance at a lower level. He had a staff, some who moved with him, some permanently located in the district. Any penalty more serious than bambooing had to be approved by higher officials, any decision not based on statute required approval from Peking.^[36]

Drawing by William Alexander, draughtsman of the Macartney Embassy to China in 1793.

Pines Stanford Encyclopedia takes what he terms the fa tradition as political realists who sought rich states and powerful armies in their time, but follows Creel in taking a proper staffing and monitoring of the bureaucracy to be their lasting contribution. With older work in particular as example, the "fa thinkers in general and Han Fei in particular" have often been condemned as defenders of “monarchic despotism” and “absolute authoritarianism”. Yet, as characterized by Pines, A.C. Graham took Han Fei's system as "making sense only 'if seen from the viewpoint of the bureaucrat rather than the man at the top", with good government depending on sound institutions.

Graham recalling his contemporary in Benjamin Schwarz, contrary to comparisons of Han Fei with Machiavelli, Schwarz takes Machiavelli as teaching an art rather than science of politics. Although more modernly Sinologist Goldin critiques the idea that Han Fei tries to establish any kind of general theory of state, Schwarz took the so-called Legalists as seeming "closer in spirit to certain 19th- and 20th-century social-scientific 'model builders'", with Shen Buhai's 'model' of bureaucratic organization "much closer to Weber's modern ideal-type than to any notion of patrimonial bureaucracy."

It is possible that the personal factor could prove decisive in both the ruler's personal survival and the establishment of a system of administration and law. Yet, as Pines recalls, both the "Book of Lord Shang and Han Feizi repeatedly refer to 'contemporary sovereigns' as the epitome of shortsightedness and mediocrity." As Graham noted, they do not make much discussion of such factors as charisma that might enhance his personal power. His power is simply institutional. In practical terms, for the ruler, authority means that he ought to hold the power to reward and punish. As Pines quotes however, Han Fei says:

If the sovereign personally inspects his hundred officials, the whole day will not be enough; his power will not suffice. Moreover, when the superior uses his eyesight, the underlings embellish what he sees; when he uses his hearing, the underlings embellish what he hears; when he uses his contemplation, the underlings multiply their words. The former kings considered these three [methods] as insufficient: hence they cast away personal abilities and relied on laws and [administrative] methods examining rewards and punishments.

Although a critic taking them as aiming at the enhancement of the ruler's power, with fa administrative standards preventing the formation of obsequious cliques, Sinologist Hansen did not consider them anti-people, but anti-ministerial, with Han Fei concerned more particularly with the bureaucracy. While the Book of Lord Shang in particular has been taken as anti-people, with a broader program of agriculture and war, ordinary people "have an interest in the security against arbitrary punishment" by controlling penal officials, which Shang Yang's fa ("penal law") and Han Fei's Shu technique regulate. If they are taken as simply serving the ruler, it is only by discarding the people from the equation, as Hansen does openly.^[37]

Enlightened Absolutism

Not expecting that monstrous tyrants can be accommodated, although Han Fei frequently addresses the enlightened ruler, what Pines terms the fa tradition must aim to accommodate mediocrities on the throne. Characterized as akin to "social engineers", they aim at "perfectly designed", "foolproof", "self-regulating", "mechanically reliable institutions."^[38]

His Hann state yet lacking an organized code or penal law, Shen Buhai advised that the ruler at least keep control over the powers of life and death, rather than delegate them to the ministers. Hiding the ruler's weaknesses, Shen Buhai's ruler makes use of method (fa) in secrecy, aiming for a complete independence that challenges "one of the oldest and most sacred tenets of Confucianism"; that of respectfully receiving and following ministerial advice. Recalled by Tao Jiang, Creel marvels at the degree of Shen Buhai's emancipation from considerations of religion, tradition, familial ties, or loyalty, basing governmental thought almost entirely upon administrative technique and applied psychology.

Xuezhi Guo's Ideal Chinese Political Leader 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.

As easily as mediocre carpenters can draw circles by employing a compass, anyone can employ the system Han Fei envisions.^[39] 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.^[40] Laws and regulations allow him to utilize his power to the utmost. Adhering unwaveringly to legal and institutional arrangements, the average monarch is numinous.^[41][42] 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.^[43]: 288

Pines recalls Graham's provocative conclusion that the ruler in Han Fei’s system “has no functions which could not be performed by an elementary computer", questioning whether it is not in fact the ministers who do the ruling. Resting empty, Han Fei's ruler simply checking "shapes" against "names" and dispenses rewards and punishments accordingly, concertizing the Dao as standards for right and wrong. Submerged by the system he supposedly runs, the alleged despot disappears from the scene.^[44]

Graham's Realism

Tao Jiang recalls the Fajia's members as taking the state and people "as they actually are" rather than an ideal vision, with other early thinkers taking politics as ethical. He characterizes them under a Grahamistic scrutinization of personal virtues as connected with political authority, with their singular focus the institutionalization of political power. Graham says: "they have common ground in the conviction that good government depends, not as Confucians and Mohists supposed on the moral worth of persons, but on the functioning of sound institutions." Most other early philosophers not separating the two, the fajia consider personal virtues disruptive or even hostile towards political power.

In the Realist vein, A.C. Graham's "Disputers of the Tao" titled his Legalist chapter "Legalism: an Amoral Science of Statecraft", sketching the fundamentals of an "amoral science" based largely, Goldin notes in a criticism, on the Han Feizi, consisting of "adapting institutions to changing situations and overruling precedent where necessary; concentrating power in the hands of the ruler; and, above all, maintaining control of the factious bureaucracy." Goldin notes however, with regards the Guanzi as passed over by Graham, that not all Chinese took fa as an "amoral science." Nor, aside, do Kenneth Winston or Tao Jiang more modernly take Han Fei as simply amoral.^[45][46] Nonetheless, Tao Jiang recalls its narrative as enchoed by Eirik Lang Harris of The Shenzi Fragments (2016), with "starting not from how society ought to be but how it is" as a commonality between the fajia's four most prominent figures.

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

Although taking the thinkers as realists, as a matter of discipline, Pines suggests the fa tradition as a preferable moniker, with realism implying that other thinkers were simply idealists. Fa itself represents not oppression but transparency. Pines qualifies against a perception of them as totalitarian, as stated by "not a few scholars", including Feng Youlan (1948), Creel (1953) as prior to some of his more prominent work on Shen Buhai, and Zhengyuan Fu's 1996 The Earliest Totalitarians. Although (the Shang Yang-Han Fei's branch's harsh laws) and "rigid control over the populace and the administrative apparatus" might seem to support totalitarianism, apart from exposing the fallacies of their opponents, the fa tradition has little interest for instance in thought control, and Pines does not take them as "necessarily" providing an ideology of their own.^[47][48]

Anti-ministerialism

Although less antagonistic than Han Fei, Shen Buhai still believed that the ruler's most able ministers are his greatest danger, and is convinced that it is impossible to make them loyal without techniques. Shen Buhai argued that if the government were organized and supervised relying on proper method (fa), the ruler need do little – and must do little, putting up a front to hide his dependence on his advisors. Well aware of the possibility of the loss of the ruler's position, and thus state or life, from said officials, Shen Buhai says:

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

Prince Han Fei includes Shen Buhai under his own doctrine of Shu administrative technique, as including Xing-Ming, or form and name, alongside the power over life and death. His Xing-Ming names (ming) ministers to office, comparing ministerial proposals (ming) with results (Xing, form) for appointment and performance monitoring. Han Fei addends Shang Yang's automatic reward and punishment to the method.

Han Fei's 'brilliant ruler' "orders names to name themselves and affairs to settle themselves."^[49]

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

Han Fei presents Qin reformer Shang Yang, known for penal law with harsh punishments, as the opposite component of his doctrine. That being said, Han Fei does not seek to simply implement Shang Yang's laws or policies. Considering the officials bent on usurping the throne, Han Fei uncompromisingly opposes a subversion of the law to the detriment of the people and state, famously criticizing Shang Yang for paying insufficient attention to governing the political apparatus. With shu aiming to limit the ministers power relative to the ruler, the publicly named fa of Shang Yang limits their power over the people, punishing ministers who abuse the law with the given law. Tao Jiang quotes:^[50]

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

On justice

Tao Jiang advocates fa as justice in the sense of impartiality, with Han Fei in believing in justice in that sense, in opposition to the early Confucian idea that ministers should not be subject to penal law. Tao jiang does not compare with other concepts of justice ("thin or baseline definition"). In contrast to early works, Kenneth Winston and Tao Jiang promoted moral questions, with Han Fei as concerned with the people, even if taken as incidental. Han Feizi, Tao Jiang says, was "adamant that blatant manipulation and subversion of law to the detriment of the state and the ruler should never be tolerated":

Those men who violated the laws, committed treason, and carried out major acts of evil always worked through some eminent and highly placed minister. And yet the laws and regulations are customarily designed to prevent evil among the humble and lowly people, and it is upon them alone that penalties and punishments fall. Hence the common people lose hope and are left with no place to air their grievances. Meanwhile the high ministers band together and work as one man to cloud the vision of the ruler.

An earlier original work in Huang Kejian however takes Han Fei's predecessor in Shen Dao as still giving more regard to virtue than Han Fei, as a concept that would be relevant for civic law. While Huang regards Shang Yang's law as aiming to benefit the people, he criticizes the idea of an ancient Chinese 'Legalist' justice, at least as compared to the ancient Roman sense. While the Chinese tradition is broader, fa itself, as simply measurement, lacks consciousness of the idea of individual rights. Fa did not therefore anciently tend to develop toward civic institutions. As criminal law it is simply penal. As with other scholars, Huang regards fa as otherwise primarily aiming to control officials. Hence, it tends to evolve towards Han Fei's shu administration that had not yet been realized in Shang Yang.^[51]

Sima Qian's Fajia

As for the Fajia Sima Tan says:

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

Chinese scholar Huang Kejian takes Zichan, as an early codifier of state law, as a 'Legalist' pioneer, but considers his status posthumous, as starting in the Warring states period. The Guanzi text, posthumously attributed to Guan Zhong, dates to the second to fourth centuries B.C., and the Book of Lord Shang itself to 240 B.C. so that what would be termed either the Fajia or Legalism might only be considered "recognizable" in the Warring States period, around the time of Han Fei and Li Si in particular.

However, they were probably never an organized or self-aware movement in the sense of the Mohists and Confucians, and would only be considered a school starting in the Han dynasty, with Sima Tan and Sima Qian essentially inventing the Fajia in the Shiji. The Shiji does not name anyone under the schools. The figures would only be assembled as the Fajia in the Hanshu, or Han History, one hundred years after Sima Qian. Han literature would regard early Spring and Autumn period figure Guan Zhong as a forefather of the Fajia, but the Han History lists Li Kui, Shang Yang, Shen Buhai, Han Fei, Shen Dao, and Han Fei under the School of Fa (Fajia).

While Li Kui is a predecessor of Shang Yang in their native state of Wei, the figures listed are otherwise those of the Han Feizi. As asserted by Creel, Kidder Smiths, and Pines modernly, the association is likely not coincidental. Sinologist Goldin's Persistent Misconceptions recalls Creel's assertion that Sima Qian, like Han Fei, was still clearly aware that fa had senses that included both law and administrative method, the latter as associated more with Shen Buhai and prominently used by his philosophical successor Han Fei. In Creel's account, the Fajia would only come to mean something like "Legalists" in the era of the Hanshu, through slanderous association with Shang Yang. Despite attacks, the figures and their administrative methods don't appear to have been generally obscured as Legalist before then.

Shen Dao translator Erik Lang Harris would still consider the figures appropriately grouped together within the Fajia in the sense of being political realists, but scholar Shen Dao is for instance only even mentioned in the shiji in a stub, with the claim that he had studied Sima Qian's own Huang-Lao ideology. Although Schwarz and Hansen would take Shen Dao as a relevant Daoistic forebear, he has no recognizable followers, and no record of any noteable activity. Rather, Han Fei discusses him in chapter 40 "for mediocre rulers."

Similarly, Shen Buhai is not a Legalist and even disadvises punishment. Although regarding Shen Buhai as an originator, if not the major originator of the 'Legalist' doctrine of names, Makeham has less to say on him. Goldin regards the Xing-Ming idea earlier originating in Shen Buhai, matching an official's performance to his office, as requiring any legal consciousness whatsoever. Lü Peng modernly criticizes Shen Buhai's craft in particular as not contributing to the formation of consistent rules, with each subject having their own 'legal basis'. Tao Jiang recalls Creel as backing for Shen Buhai's pedigree, with his subsequent legacy, despite vilification, based in part on lacking in punishment.

Although seeking to build his pedigree, Tao Jiang follows Creel in emphasizing his legacy in connection with the later establishment of the imperial academy (Gongsun Hong). Kidder Smith reiterates Creel in considering the primary explanation for Shen Buhai's placement within the Fajia to be Han Fei's posthumous association of him with Shang Yang as the opposite end of his own doctrine. Lacking in both punishment and standardized law, he would not necessarily have been sufficiently distinct to separate him from the school of names. Creel considered the Han Feizi, at basic, most similar to the Shen Buhai fragments.

Although used conventionally, the accuracy of the term Legalism aside, Kidder Smith (2003) takes the terms as having been in Sinological disrepute by his time, as anachronisms. Goldin would reject both Fajia and Legalism as useless and obscurative terms. Tao Jiang defends them, amongst other arguments recalling the Fajia as legitimated by Harris, and Creel as distinguishing Legalism and Fajia. Pines early recalls Goldin, using the fa tradition a neutral term. He does not consider the Fajia category useful "as a major analytical tool." It is a bibliographic category in the Han imperial library. His article dropped discussion of Legalism's vagaries in the 2023 edition along with the term.^{[52] [53]}

Creel's branches of the Fajia

Originally credited by Creel as syncretic precedent for their later association within the Fajia, Chapter 43 of the Han Feizi says: ^[54]

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

Associated with penal law in the Han dynasty, but never bureaucratic organization, Gongsun's administration can be associated more broadly with agriculture and war. Shen Buhai is associated with bureaucratic organization, but never penal law prior Han Dynasty gloss. Appointed following the collapse of the Jin state, Shen Buhai issued regulations or laws, but did so haphazardly, without repealing the older ones.

Shu, or method/technique, as the most frequently used term to describe Shen Buhai's doctrine historically, does not appear in the Shen Buhai fragments. Only shu numbers does, which Creel took as evolving towards technique. Han Fei and Li Si (the latter as quoted by Sima Qian) quote Shen Buhai as using fa in the sense of what Creel translated as method, but never law.

While Han Fei has tactics in later chapters, method itself is concerned almost exclusively with the ruler's selection of ministers, as including performance monitoring. Shang Yang primarily uses fa as law, but while representative of his opposite branch, fa-shu or method-technique appears even in the Shangjunshu, fa meaning sometimes means both law and method even there ("along with a good nature, the fa of the sage compels the faith of the empire").

Following Creel, A.C. Graham takes Han Fei's shu as "distinguishing between law as public and method as private", sharpened by the contrast between the two. Graham terms method (or "technique") the arcanum of the ruler. Goldin reiterates: Han Fei appropriates Shen Buhai under his own doctrine of shu, which includes reward and punishment, with Shen Buhai as lacking fa. Shen Buhai actually uses fa quite often in the administrative sense.

Goldin suggests Creel's own work as not necessarily sufficient for his distinctions, but that he needed only turn to Shen Dao, who uses fa in the administrative sense, but like Shang Yang has more reward and punishment. Graham's discussion simply translated Shen Dao's fa as law, but although Shen Dao and Han Fei make some usage of fa as akin to law, with reward and punishment, the three all generally use fa in much the same sense as Shen Buhai, that is, as an impersonal administrative technique. With a particular quotation from Han Fei as example:

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

Questioning a glossing of the primarily bureaucratic Han Fei with Shang Yang, Goldin's (2011) Persistent Misconceptions mainly reiterates Creel's objection to the term Legalism. In contrast to Shang Yang, who himself addresses statutes and other questions from an administrative standpoint, they primarily use fa more administratively.

Taking Goldin as antagonist in a rejection of the Fajia and Legalism as categories, Tao Jiang employs Goldin as illustration that they are primarily fa theorists, as opposed to shu or shi theorists, as a view from Han Fei's standpoint dating back to Feng Youlan (1948). Although Hansen reiterates than Han Fei considers shu nonsensical without fa measurement-objective standards, the distinction is relevant for the nature of Shen Buhai as a philosopher of impartial fa Standards, as opposed to a shu philosopher, associated with Han Fei's trickery and tactics in later chapters. Goldin does not appear to espouse the view.

Tao Jiang contrasts him with Han Fei along Creel lines. Although Shen Buhai considers the ministers one of the ruler's greatest dangers, Shen Bubai does not advocate that the ruler should suppress ministers, but seek their cooperation. More than Han Fei, he does not simply consider the ministers potential enemies. Although Gongsun Hong makes a more general use of them all under a Han Fei based discussion, Shen Buhai's succeeding line, as elaborated by Creel, is more generally different from both Shang Yang and Han Fei.

Represented in chapter 40 of the Han Feizi, the scholar Shen Dao covered a "remarkable" quantity of 'Legalist' and Daoist themes. Lacking a recognizable group of followers, with clearly Daoistic usages and representation in the Zhuangzi, Schwarz and Hansen accepted him as a relevant philosophical forebear for the Daoists. Although focused on fa, he was remembered for shih because he is mentioned the Han Feizi for his themes on shi as "power" or more namely "situational advantage", for which he is also incorporated into The Art of War. Despite shih's necessity, and although seeking to improve its argument, Han Fei says that he speaks on shi "for mediocre rulers", emphasizing institution. Korean scholar Soon Ja Yang notes the term as only appearing twice in the Shen Dao fragments. Xun Kuang calls him "beclouded with fa", associating fa primarily with Shen Dao, and naming Shen Buhai for the doctrine of position (shi).^{[55] [56]}

Legalists or Administrators?

Creel saw the term Legalism to "contrast strangely" with Han Fei blaming Shen Buhai, as the opposite of his doctrine from Shang Yang, for concentrating all of his attention on administrative technique and neglecting law. Because, historically, despite the presentation of their opponents, those advocating policies derived of Shang Yang or Shen Buhai did not endorse each other's views, Creel's Legalists or Administrators? advised that the Shen Buhai group be called "administrators", "methodists" or "technocrats", in contrast to the more "Legalist" Shang Yang.

Seeing remarkable similarities between Shen Buhai and the Han Feizi, noting imperial China as never fully accepting the role of law and jurisprudence, taking the managerial Shen Buhai branch as predominantly influential, and seeing the Shangjunshu as also sometimes using fa administratively, in Creel's opinion, Legalists did not play a great role in the formation of traditional Chinese government. That is, with it's administrative tendency more influential in the Han dynasty. In promotion of Shen Buhai's pedigree, Tao Jiang recalls Creel's attribution to Shen Buhai the ultimate posthumous emergence of the imperial examination system. Tao Jiang attributes Shen Buhai's success in part to his being less Draconian than Shang Yang.

In promotion of Shang Yang, Tao Jiang recalls Creel's acceptance of him as ancient China's Legalist school, with only Shang Yang as Legalist and Shen Buhai its administrative wing. However, his dissent with regards Legalism is primarily explorative. Tao Jiang promotes Shang Yang as a foundational bureaucratic pioneer in his time, with his legacy as playing a perhaps greater contemporary historical role in the sense of contributing to the unification of China. However, as Goldin notes, Shang Yang addresses statutes and other questions primarily from an administrative standpoint, while on the other hand Stanford Encyclopedia's Yuri Pines notes his heavy punishments and agricultural focus as otherwise ultimately abandoned by the Qin.^[57]

Earlier classification as Huang-Lao

Sima Qian

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Although modernly more often given to contrast and comparison with the Mohists, comparison and attempts to root the Han Feizi in proto-Daoist attitudes or naturalism can be still seen within scholarship. Creel did not exclude the possibility that Daoist ideas influenced the fajia before they were written down in the Zhuangzi and Daodejing, or for instance influence by Yang Zhu and the Yangists, but his evidences suggested Huang-Lao as not existing during Shen Buhai's time. Writing at the turn of its discussion, John Makeham (1990) still considered some of the Han Feizi's most typifying chapters as being of distinctly Daoist quality, not considering, at least, the dividing line between the two as having ever been particularly clear.^{[58] [59] [60]}

Han Dynasty slurring

Although Han Fei, in the Warring States period, advocates harsh punishment, Emperor Wen of Han is noted for reducing punishments and making capital punishment rare. He is regarded by the Shiji and Hanshu as basically fond of Xing-Ming. While Sima Qian's own Huang-Lao faction, favoring the feudal lords, uses Xing-Ming, Sima Qian adds Shang Yang to Xing-Ming in the Records, glossing together Shang Yang, Shen Buhai and Han Fei as followers of the doctrine of Xing-Ming. Not being a bureaucratic organizer, Shang Yang is not known for Xing-Ming, but glossing often occurred in Chinese texts. Their later grouping under the Fajia aside, it would serve as secondary historical moniker for the figures.

Pairing Shang Yang and Shen Buhai, Sima Qian names reformers like Jia Yi as an advocate of Shen Buhai and Shang Yang in the records. Advocating for reform, although a past student of the Qin dynasty official Li Si, Jia Yi wrote the Disquisition Finding Fault with the Qin, and as Sinologist Creel notes was probably not an advocate of Shang Yang. Moreover, centered on agriculture and war, Shang Yang's exclusivist preoccupation with agriculture had been abandoned by the Qin, and his punishments reduced.

With the encouragement of Emperor Wen, Jia Yi drew up "complete plans for revising the institutions of government and reorganizing the bureaucracy", which Emperor Wen put into effect. Exiled by Emperor Wen under factional pressures to the southern Changsha Kingdom, Jia Yi was sent to tutor one of Wen's sons, Liu Yi/Prince Huai of Liang. With the Han dynasty shifting favor from Huang-Lao to Confucianism, the orthodox interpretation of the fajia becomes Confucian and more critical. It would "be quite popular and respectable to oppose the harsh use of penal law", and apart from disliking the managerial controls of xingming itself, those otherwise disliked by the Confucian orthodoxy, with some philosophical association, would also often be slurred as fajia, like the otherwise Confucianistic reformers Guan Zhong and Xunzi, and Sima Qian's own Huang-Lao faction.

Over the Han dynasty, Xing-Ming would sometimes be used in reference to Han Fei and Shang Yang, rather than Shen Buhai and Han Fei, the school of names, or their technique. Although Sima Qian appeared to be aware of the differences between Shen Buhai and Shang Yang, Creel suggests that this would seem to disappear among scholars as early as the Western Han dynasty. Xing (form/results) would be glossed as punishment in the later part of the Han dynasty, coming to encompass the prohibitionist texts, or penal law, down to the fall of the Qing dynasty. Its meaning would be so completely lost that Duvendak, 1928 translator for the Book of Lord Shang, would translate Xing as criminal law.

The historiographer Liu Xin (c. 50 BCE – 23 CE), as a kind of follow up work, assigned the schools as having originated in various ancient departments, portraying the Fajia as having originated in what Feng Youlan translates as the Ministry of Justice, emphasizing strictness, reward and punishment. Its view would be adopted by later Chinese scholars even into the later 1700s. The Western Jin Hanshu commentator Jin Zhuo separates Xing-Ming as xing-jia and ming-jia, with the latter as referring to the earlier school of names, under the retroactive idea of Xing-Ming as a contraction of the schools. The term Xing-Ming reappears in later dynasties, but for the uninitiated, Xing (result of the proposal) becomes punishment, criminal law, or "the school of punishments."^[61]

Fajia and the fa tradition

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

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

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

Pines credits Goldin for a preference of the Fa tradition over Legalism, which he argued against as his essay's "most important obligation", saying that "Creel’s objection to translating fajia as 'legalism'" is "still valid today and deserves to be repeated"; even if one wishes to take Shang Yang, whose standpoint is administrative, as more Legalistic, Shen Buhai, who compares offices and performances, does not "presuppose a legal code or any legal consciousness whatsoever."

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

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

Although characterizing fa thinkers as political realists, as defended modernly to be more or less legitimate, Pines takes its usage as a designation to give the impression that "the opponents of fajia were mere idealists, which was not the case."^{[47][46][62][63]}

Realist commentaries

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

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

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

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

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

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

Adventures in Chinese Realism (2022)^[64]