Legalism (China)

Legalism
Statue of pivotal reformer Shang Yang
Chinese	法家
Literal meaning	School of Standards/Methods School of Law [1]: 59
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Fǎjiā Gwoyeu Romatzyh Faajia Wade–Giles Fa3-chia1 IPA [fà.tɕjá] Wu Romanization Fat平 ka平 Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Faatgāa Jyutping Faat3-gaa1 IPA [faːt̚˧.kaː˥] Southern Min Tâi-lô Huat-ka

Part of a series on
Chinese legalism
Relevant articles Traditional Chinese law Chinese law Rectification of names Wu wei Discourses on Salt and Iron Fengjian School of Diplomacy Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius
Texts Guanzi Canon of Laws The Book of Lord Shang Shenzi (both books) Han Feizi
Related texts Wuzi Wei Liaozi Xunzi Annals of Lü Buwei Tang Code Huang-Lao Huangdi Sijing Huainanzi
Early figures Guan Zhong Zichan Deng Xi Marquess Wen of Wei Li Kui Wu Qi
Founding figures Shen Buhai Duke Xiao of Qin Shang Yang Shen Dao Zhang Yi Xunzi Han Fei Li Si Qin Shi Huang
Han figures Jia Yi Liu An Emperor Wen of Han Emperor Wu of Han Chao Cuo Gongsun Hong Zhang Tang Huan Tan Wang Fu Zhuge Liang
Later figures Emperor Wen of Sui Du You Wang Anshi Li Shanchang Zhang Juzheng Xu Guangqi
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Fajia (Chinese: 法家; pinyin: fǎ jiā), often translated as Legalism,^[2] is one of Sima Qian's six classical schools of thought in Chinese philosophy. Compared in the West with political realism and even the model-building of Max Weber,^[3] the "fa school of thought" represents several branches of what Feng Youlan called "men of methods",^[4] who contributed greatly to the construction of the bureaucratic Chinese empire. Although lacking a recognized founder, the earliest persona of the Fajia is often considered Guan Zhong (720–645 BCE),^[5] while Chinese historians commonly regard Li Kui (455–395 BCE) as the first Legalist philosopher. The term Fajia was identified in the west by Sinologist Herrlee G. Creel as referring to a combination of administrator Shen Buhai (400–337 BCE) and Legalist Shang Yang (390–338 BCE) as its founding branches, but is noted earlier by K.C. Hsiao.

Sinologist Jacques Gernet considered the "theorists of the state" later christened fajia or "Legalists", to be the most important intellectual tradition of the fourth and third centuries BCE.^[6] With the Han dynasty taking over the governmental institutions of the Qin dynasty almost unchanged, the Qin to Tang dynasty were characterized by the "centralizing, statist tendencies" of its tradition. Leon Vandermeersch and Vitaly Rubin would assert not a single state measure throughout Chinese history as having been without Legalist influence.^[7]

Dubbed by A. C. Graham the "great synthesizer of 'Legalism'", Han Fei is regarded as their finest writer, if not the greatest statesman in Chinese history (Hu Shi). Early considered the "culminating" or "greatest" of the Legalist texts,^[8] the Han Feizi is believed to contain the first commentaries on the Dao De Jing. Sun Tzu's Art of War incorporates both a Daoist philosophy of inaction and impartiality, and a Legalist system of punishment and rewards, recalling Han Fei's use of the concepts of power (勢, shì) and technique (術, shù).^[9] Temporarily coming to overt power as an ideology with the ascension of the Qin dynasty,^[10]: 82 the First Emperor of Qin and succeeding emperors often followed the template set by Han Fei.^[11]

Though the origins of the Chinese administrative system cannot be traced to any one person, prime minister Shen Buhai may have had more influence than any other in the construction of the merit system, and might be considered its founder, if not valuable as a rare pre-modern example of abstract theory of administration. Creel saw in Shen Buhai the "seeds of the civil service examination", and perhaps the first political scientist.^{[12][13]: 94}

Concerned largely with administrative and sociopolitical innovation, Shang Yang was a leading reformer of his time.^{[14][10]: 83} His numerous reforms transformed the peripheral Qin state into a militarily powerful and strongly centralized kingdom. Much of Legalism was "the development of certain ideas" that lay behind his reforms, helping lead Qin to ultimate conquest of the other states of China in 221 BCE.^[15][16]

Taken as "progressive," the Fajia were "rehabilitated" in the twentieth century, with reformers regarding it as a precedent for their opposition to conservative Confucian forces and religion.^[17]

Historical background

The Zhou dynasty was divided between the masses and the hereditary noblemen. The latter were placed to obtain office and political power, owing allegiance to the local prince, who owed allegiance to the Son of Heaven.^[18] The dynasty operated according to the principles of Li and punishment. The former was applied only to aristocrats, the latter only to commoners.^[19]

The earliest Zhou kings kept a firm personal hand on the government, depending on their personal capacities, personal relations between ruler and minister, and upon military might. The technique of centralized government being so little developed, they deputed authority to regional lords, almost exclusively clansmen. When the Zhou kings could no longer grant new fiefs, their power began to decline, vassals began to identify with their own regions. Aristocratic sub-lineages became very important, by virtue of their ancestral prestige wielding great power and proving a divisive force. The political structures late Springs-and-Autumns period (770–453 BCE) progressively disintegrated, with schismatic hostility and "debilitating struggles among rival polities."^[20]

In the Spring and Autumn period, rulers began to directly appoint state officials to provide advice and management, leading to the decline of inherited privileges and bringing fundamental structural transformations as a result of what may be termed "social engineering from above".^[1]: 59 Most Warring States period thinkers tried to accommodate a "changing with the times" paradigm, and each of the schools of thought sought to provide an answer for the attainment of sociopolitical stability.^[14]

Confucianism, commonly considered to be China's ruling ethos, was articulated in opposition to the establishment of legal codes, the earliest of which were inscribed on bronze vessels in the sixth century BCE.^[21] For the Confucians, the Classics provided the preconditions for knowledge.^[22] Orthodox Confucians tended to consider organizational details beneath both minister and ruler, leaving such matters to underlings,^[13]: 107 and furthermore wanted ministers to control or at least admonish the ruler.^[23]: 359

Concerned with "goodness", the Confucians became the most prominent, followed by proto-Daoists and the administrative thought that Sima Tan termed the Fajia. But the Daoists focused on the development of inner powers, with little respect for mundane authority^[24][25] and both the Daoists and Confucians held a regressive view of history, that the age was a decline from the era of the Zhou kings.^[26]

Mohist predecessors

Compared by the Stanford Encyclopedia with Socrates, the Mohists, of Mozi (470 BC–391 BC) contained the philosophical germs of what Sima Qian would term the "Fa-School", initiating philosophical debate, positing some of ancient China's first theories, and 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, favoring thrift over extravagance, economic wealth, population growth, and social order. Mozi's ruler was intended to act as fa (or example) for the nobles and officials, developing towards political technique. 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.^[27]`

Although the Stanford and earlier work affirms the derivation of fa from the Mohists, the exact relations between the Mohists and later fa thinkers has not been broadly affirmed at a detailed level, as much as explored at a broad sweeping level in some few opposing works.^[28]

The elimination of harm

The elimination of harm is a Mohist doctrine. Although Mohism can involve punishment, the broader Chinese tradition considers punishment only one tool, with people responsive to Confucian education, or in the Mozi, attitudes and just rules themselves. The Book of Lord Shang highlights honor, and regards his broader program of fa or law as a teaching transmitted by the accountable laws officers, aiming to spread knowledge of it; "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."

Aiming at quick results, although reward and punishment is a major emphasis for Shang Yang and Han Fei, Shang Yang repeatedly advocates the abolition of punishment with punishment. Liu Xiang takes Shen Buhai's work as advising that a ruler following his doctrine of (administrative) technique ought to follow after ministers proposals, supervising strictly to abolish punishment. Unlike his predecessor Shen Buhai, Han Fei endorses Shang Yang's fa or 'law' with critique, and punishes violations of ministerial roles. But it was not a primary component of his method.

Although there is old precedent for their roots in Confucianism-Mohism, their own variations on the theme doesn't necessarily make them Mohists as much as it does products of their environment.^{[29][30][31][32]} A quotation from Tao Jiang's exploratory work on justice and humaneness highlights the Qin as more conservative than the Mohists, containing both Confucian and Mohist elements. With a "slightly modified" quotation from the late Qin work, the Lüshi Chunqiu.^[33]

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.

School of names

Only termed Fajia later, Sima Qian originally glosses Shang Yang, Shen Buhai and Han Fei under the Xing-Ming doctrine of the school of names,^[34] as a family of terms, along with fa, that Shen Buhai and Han Fei actually prominently used. Xing-Ming dealt in the administrative details of names and realities, and word and substance of ministers, with Shen Buhai in his time checking minister's works. Xun Kuang also had a Xing-Ming method, only just behind Han Fei in sophistication. Although it's earlier thinkers are, like Shen Buhai, more Confucian, more broadly philosophical than them, and less advanced, words and names are essential for administration.^[35] The three rise again in the Three Kingdoms period, and broader 'teaching of names' thinker Xu Gan differs from them but still follows Shang Yang-Han Fei doctrine of reward and punishment, emphasizing consistency over their extremes.^[36]

Han Fei connects the 'word and substance' of Shen Buhai's ministers with Shang Yang's doctrine of reward and punishment; while not otherwise going into detail apart from extremes, Han Fei more explicitly executes appropriation of titles, but with punishment in the broader Qin context ultimately tending towards conversion into fines etc.^[37]

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. When the merit matches the task, and the task matches the proposal, [the minister] is rewarded; when the merit does not match the task and the task does not match the proposal, he is penalized. … Thus, when the clear-sighted sovereign nourishes his ministers, the minister should not claim merit by overstepping [the duties of] his office, nor should he present the proposal that does not match [his task]. One who oversteps his office’s [duties] dies; one who[se proposal] does not match [the task] is punished; then the ministers are unable to form cabals and cliques (Pine's Stanford Encyclopedia, Han Feizi 7.2, “Two levers”).

Far from the ministerial center, as a contemporary of Shen Buhai, Shang Yang connects Name with reward and punishment, social status and reputation, as passable to deceased soldier's heirs with Qin limitations. The explicit relation between the school of names and Shang Yang is not currently articulated; translator Pines discusses the broader context of the honor of a name, as a motivator alongside wealth "properly understood and manipulated" towards state ends. Shang Yang says:^[38]

Wherever the name and benefit meet, the people will go in this direction; they brave what they consider bitter and perform what they consider dangerous because of the calculation [of a name and benefit]. Thus, in [ordinary] life, the people calculate benefits; [facing] death, they think of a (good) name. One cannot but investigate whence the name and benefit come. When benefits come from land, the people fully utilize their strength; when the name comes from war, the people are ready to die.

On the Qin

While broader, Shang Yang, Shen Buhai and Han Fei include important principles that can be found in the Qin empire's administration, with Shang Yang influential on ancient China's unification and law. Emperors and reformers would refer back to them and the broader milieu of their methods. Han Fei presented the two as the opposite components of his doctrine, but was, like his predecessor Shen Buhai, primarily bureaucratic. With the Qin dynasty more reasonable than might be expected of the Book of Lord Shang, the milder, more administrative Shen Buhai's policies compliment Shang Yang in this sense.^[39]

The Qin empire's laws were primarily administrative, with fa referring primarily to standards, models and norms. Only including penal law alongside 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 linked to punishments. While some Qin penal laws deal with infanticide or other unsanctioned harm of children, it primarily concerned theft; it does not much deal with murder. By contrast, detailed rules and "endless paperwork" tightly regulate grain, weights, measures, and official documents.^[40]

Although not discarding all his reforms, the Qin had already abandoned Shang Yang's reforms focusing on agriculture and heavy punishment by the time of the Qin dynasty.^[41] The First Emperor declares himself to be "benevolent and righteous."^[42] Regardless, in the Qin and early Han, criminals may be given amnesties, and then only punished if they did it again.^[43]

Penal law actually develops more in the Han dynasty. The Qin often expelled criminals to the new colonies, or pardoned them in exchange for fines, labor, or one to several aristocratic ranks, even up to the death penalty. While the penal laws would still be considered harsh compared to the modern day, they were not harsh for their time, and often not actually enacted.^[44] Villainizing the first Emperor while adopting Qin administration,^[45] a "confused revulsion" against the Qin occurs in the Han dynasty, centering on Shang Yang and Han Fei as espousing rigorous law and punishment. The Han dynasty ultimately takes the Qin dynasty as having practiced these.^[46]

Sima Qian's Fajia

Fajia was invented by Sima Tan.^[47] Although most figures later called Fajia were influential, they were probably never an organized or self-aware movement in the sense of the Mohists and Confucians. Creel in his time took Shang Yang as the Fajia's Legalist school, with Shen Buhai it's administrative wing, but only in the sense of their prominence, influence, and reform recollection. Or, they were schools in that their works could not have been written by one person.^[48] But no one ever called himself a Fajia,^[49] It does does not exist as a Warring States period category,^[50] it's figures could never have used the term, and does not represent a unified category of ideology between their texts. With some similarities, their 'emphases' are different. The "typical canon" includes Shen Buhai and Shen Dao only because they are part of Han Fei's lineage.^[51]

Sima Qian lauds their capacity to “clearly distinguish offices so that no one can overstep [his responsibilities]”, while also promoting it as a "one-time policy that could not be constantly applied."^[52] Sima Qian says:^[53]

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.

Creel explains Fajia, coming to mean something like Legalism, as a Han dynasty slur targeting regulation of the vassals and ministers, despite the predominant "Shen Buhai branch" reformers commonly opposing punishment.^[54] Sima Qian does not name anyone under the schools;^[55] rather, Shen Buhai-Han Fei and their administrative method shift towards association with Shang Yang and punishment over the Han dynasty.^[56] With Shang Yang as the most 'Legalist' of them, it's figures are not, in critical academia, characterized as Legalist modernly, unless Shen Buhai's ministerial labor contracts or Han Fei's addendum of punishment count as Legalism. Shen Buhai's method does not require a legal code,^[57] and has even been criticized for it in Chinese scholarship.^[58] Legalism has only still been used by some in recent years conventionally.^[59]

Credited by Creel as syncretic precedent for their later association within the Fajia, Chapter 43 of the Han Feizi says:^[60]

Now Shen Buhai spoke about the need of Shu (fa-shu "Method" or "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.

As Han Fei discusses in chapter 43, Shen Buhai only had disorganized law in his comparatively new Hann state.^[61] As with Han Fei after him, he was concerned primarily with ministers and administration.^[62] Based on his own reading of the Hanshu, Homer H. Dubs considered Shen Buhai the best ruler of the Hann state.^[63] Shen Buhai is likely in the Fajia rather than then the school of names due to opposition and presence in the Han Feizi.^[64]

Mentioned in the Outer Zhuangzi and with a potential influence in Daoism,^[65] scholar Shen Dao would remembered for his secondary subject of shih or "situational authority", of which he is spoken in Chapter 40 of the Han Feizi and incorporated into The Art of War. He only uses the term twice in the his fragments.^[66] Xun Kuang calls Shen Dao "beclouded with fa", instead naming Shen Buhai for the doctrine of position.^[67] He is earlier taken as having a group based on the chapter,^[68] but although known by some in his time, has no record of any notable activity, and is only mentioned in the shiji in a stub with the claim that, along with the others, he had incompletely studied Sima Qian's own Huang-Lao ideology.^[69][70]

With Shu as Han Fei's distinctive, although Han Fei and Shen Dao make some use of fa akin to law, with reward and punishment, they both generally use fa similarly to Shen Buhai, as an impersonal administrative technique. With a quotation from Han Fei as example:^[71]

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 early Han dynasty kings who used Xing-Ming made capital punishment rare. After the death of Gongsun Hong the chancellery becomes ineffective, with only two not executed. Serving as a secondary historical moniker for the fajia, Xing-Ming's meaning ultimately narrows into the "names of punishments", becomes a term for criminal law, and is given to ministers in charge of criminal affairs.^[72] Along with departments for the other schools, Liu Xin assigns the Fajia a fictional origin in an ancient ministry of criminal justice for his imperial library classification system,^[73] while the school of names were already considered disputers in the Warring States period. Hence, Pines explains the term Fajia as a cataloguing label for 'intellectually related texts'. While it's earliest usage is unknown, it was already termed Legalism dating to the 1939 translation of the Han Feizi, with a decreasing usage over the decades.^[74]

Philosophical introduction

Systems administration

Although Han Fei does not necessarily try to "establish any kind of general theory of state",^[77] he still seems "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." Contrary to comparisons with the art of Machiavelli, Shen Buhai and Han Fei have been compared more with science of politics, and even the model building of Max Weber.^[78]

In practical terms, the ruler's authority means that he ought to hold the power to reward and punish, which Han Fei advises. However, his power is simply institutional. Both the Book of Lord Shang and Han Feizi consider their rulers "shortsighted", "mediocre" and "muddle headed." Hence, fa thinkers do not actually make much discussion of such factors as charisma that might enhance the ruler's personal power. Han Fei has tactics in later chapters, but primarily attempts to convince the ruler that a do-nothing role of paper checking and rubber stamping will be the best thing for him.^{[79][excessive citations]} Han Fei says:^[80]

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.

Han Fei has, like other ancient thinkers, been considered a defender of monarchy. But his critics have not necessarily considered him anti-people, but anti-ministerial, with Han Fei more concerned with bureaucracy. Some have considered Shang Yang noting more than a defender of state power, but 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 "managerial technique" regulate. If they are taken as only serving the ruler, it is only by discarding the people from the equation.^[81]

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."^{[82][excessive citations]} 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":^[83]

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.^[84] 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.^[85] Laws and regulations allow him to utilize his power to the utmost. Adhering unwaveringly to legal and institutional arrangements, the average monarch is numinous.^[86][87] 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.^[88]: 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.^{[89][excessive citations]}

Huang-Lao appropriation

Sima Qian claims 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. Associated with the much earlier Guan Zhong, the Guanzi, with its proto-daoist texts, was classed as Daoist in the Han bibliography, with the texts commonly classed Guan Zhong and Shen Dao under Daojia before Fajia.

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

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 out a Legalist school, with the Mohists as a primary influence.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[90][excessive citations] [91][excessive citations] [92][excessive citations]}

Appendix

Notes

Creel's branches of the Fajia
Creel's basic lense for the subject would be reiterated by K. C. Hsiao (1979), Michael Loewe (1986) of the Cambridge History of China, A.C. Graham (1989), and S.Y. Hsieh (1995). With his prior What is Taoism? as relevant, Creel's Shen Pu-Hai: A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century B. C. remains the only major publication on Shen Buhai. Tao Jiang would modernly reiterate its view as having superseded that of Feng Youlan (1948). Emphasizing Creel's heavy utilization of other works, Tao Jiang still takes him as still "very useful for understanding fajia thought more generally."^[93]

Tao Jiang mentions Korean scholar Soon-Ja Yang as the only opposition, with a more Legalist Shen Buhai as going against the general history^{[citation needed]}

References

Sources and further reading

• Pines, Yuri (2023), "Legalism in Chinese Philosophy", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 28 January 2022
• Lai, Karyn L. (2008), An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1-139-47171-8.
• Creel, Herrlee Glessner. What Is Taoism?: And Other Studies in Chinese Cultural History (1982)
• Creel, Herrlee Glessner. Shen Pu-hai: A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century B.C. (1974)
• Goldin, Paul R. (March 2011). "Persistent misconceptions about Chinese 'Legalism'". Journal of Chinese Philosophy. 38 (1): 88–104. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6253.2010.01629.x. See also
  • Goldin, Paul R. (2011), "Response to editor", Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 38 (2): 328–329, doi:10.1111/j.1540-6253.2011.01654.x.
  • Cheng, Chung-ying (2011), "Editor's discussion", Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 38 (2): 330, doi:10.1111/j.1540-6253.2011.01655.x.

• Schwartz, Benjamin I. (1985), The World of Thought in Ancient China, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-96191-3.
• Creel, Herrlee Glessner, 1974 Shen Pu-Hai: A Secular Philosopher of Administration, Journal of Chinese Philosophy Volume 1.
• Makeham, John (1994) Name and Actuality in Early Chinese Thought
• Bodde, Derk (1986). "The State and Empire of Ch'in". In Twitchett, Denis; Loewe, Michael (eds.). The Cambridge History of China Volume I: Ch'in and Han Empires, 221 B.C. — A.D. 220. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521243278.
• Graham, A.C., Disputers of the TAO: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (Open Court 1993). ISBN 0-8126-9087-7
• Hansen, Chad. Philosophy East & West. Jul94, Vol. 44 Issue 3. Fa (standards: laws) and meaning changes in Chinese philosophy
• Barbieri-Low, Anthony, trans. The Standard Measure of Shang Yang (344 B.C.) (2006)
• Eno, Robert (2010), Legalism and Huang-Lao Thought (PDF), Indiana University, Early Chinese Thought Course Readings

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Legalism (Chinese philosophy).

• The Han Feizi
• Book of Lord Shang
• The Shenzi