Legalism_(Chinese_philosophy)
Legalism (Chinese philosophy)
Chinese school of philosophy
Fajia (Chinese: 法家; pinyin: fǎ jiā), often translated as Legalism,[1] was a school of thought derived of classical Chinese philosophy. It represents several branches of thought of early thinkers mainly from the Warring States period, such as Guan Zhong, Li Kui, Shen Buhai, Shang Yang, and Han Fei, whose reform ideas contributed greatly to the establishment of the bureaucratic Chinese empire. With an influence in the Qin, it formed into a school of thought in the Han dynasty. The Qin to Tang were more characterized by the tradition.
Legalism | |||||||||||||||
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Chinese | 法家 | ||||||||||||||
Literal meaning | School of law | ||||||||||||||
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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 for the construction of the merit system, and could be considered its founder. His philosophical successor Han Fei, regarded as their finest writer, wrote the most acclaimed of their texts, the Han Feizi. Sun Tzu's Art of War recommends Han Fei's concepts of power, technique, inaction, impartiality, punishment and reward.
Concerned largely with administrative and sociopolitical innovation, Shang Yang's reforms transformed the peripheral Qin state into a militarily powerful and strongly centralized kingdom, mobilizing the Qin to ultimate conquest of the other states of China in 221 BCE. With an administrative influence for the Qin dynasty, he had a formative influence for Chinese law. Succeeding emperors and reformers often followed the templates set by Han Fei, Shen Buhai and Shang Yang.
The combination of figures Shang Yang and Shen Buhai can first be seen in the Han Feizi, and is essentially attributable for their combination under the 'fa school of thought.'[2] Although Han Fei advocates their use together, they do not share a unified doctrine.[3] Han Fei presents Shen Buhai and Shang Yang as the opposite components of his doctrine in chapter 43 of his named text, with Shen Buhai as focused on the use of fa (standards) in the administration, termed (shu) Method or Technique, and Shang Yang as focused on fa "standards" as including law; Han Fei considers both necessary.[4]
Sima Tan and Sima Qian (145–c.86 BC) invented Fajia or "Legalism" in the Records of the Grand Historian as a "taxonomical category", or abstract school of thought, rather than a group of people or historical category. They do not name anyone under the schools.[5] The Book of Han uses the 'school of fa' as a category of Masters Texts, as one of ten such categories,[6] prominently listing Han Fei and his philosophical lineage under it,[7] being other figures of the Han Feizi, Shen Buhai, Shang Yang and Shen Dao.[8][9]
With Shang Yang and Shen Buhai as contemporaries in neighboring states, the fa school's various thinkers and statesmen had influences for the Warring States, Qin, Han and later dynasties. But no one ever called himself a "Fajia", and they were probably never an organized school in the sense of the Confucians or Mohists.[10][11] Their categorization itself divides them from sister categories like the school of names, who, with some differences, make use of similar administrative practices.[12]
With a potential influence for Daoism, the Outer Zhuangzi lists the Mohists and Shen Dao as preceding Zhuangzi and Laozi, not regarding them as having yet belonged to a school.[13] Shen Dao was early remembered for his secondary subject of shi or "situational authority", of which he is spoken in Chapter 40 of the Han Feizi and incorporated into The Art of War, but only uses the term twice in the his fragments;[14] Xun Kuang calls him "beclouded with fa", which is prominent in his work.[9]
Although known by some in his time, Shen Dao has no record of any notable activity, and is only mentioned in the Shiji in a stub, listing him with other scholars of the Warring States period's Jixia Academy, like Xun Kuang and Mencius.[15][16] Sinologist Herrlee G. Creel found no following for him comparable to Shang Yang or Shen Buhai in either the Warring States period or Han dynasty.[17]
Han Fei's three predecessors are glossed in early scholarship under the three elements of fa, shu, and shi.[18][19] But shi is a minority,[20][21][9] while Shu ("Technique") is Han Fei's distinctive for Shen Buhai's fa (administrative standards/methods).[22][23]
Although generalized as a commonality, what the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy terms an evolutionary view of history has been associated more particularly with Gongsun Yang and Han Fei. Feng Youlan took the statesmen as fully understanding that needs change with the times and material circumstances. Admitting that people may have been more virtuous anciently, Han Fei believes that new problems require new solutions, with history as a process contrasting with the beliefs of Ancient China.[24]
In what A.C. Graham takes to be a "highly literary fiction", the Book of Lord Shang opens with a debate held by Duke Xiao of Qin, seeking to "consider the changes in the affairs of the age, inquire into the basis for correcting standards, and seek the Way to employ the people." Gongsun attempts to persuade the Duke to change with the times, with the Shangjunshu citing him as saying: "Orderly generations did not [follow] a single way; to benefit the state, one need not imitate antiquity."
Graham compares Han Fei in particular with the Malthusians, as "unique in seeking a historical cause of changing conditions", namely population growth, acknowledging that an underpopulated society only need moral ties. The Guanzi text sees punishment as unnecessary in ancient times with an abundance of resources, making it a question of poverty rather than human nature. Human nature is a Confucian issue. Graham otherwise considers the customs current at the time as having no significance to the statesmen, even if they may be willing to conform the government go them.[25]
Hu Shih takes Xun Kuang, Han Fei and Li Si as "champions of the idea of progress through conscious human effort," with Li Si abolishing the feudal system, and unifying the empire, law, language, thought and belief, presenting a memorial to the throne in which he condemns all those who “refused to study the present and believed only in the ancients on whose authority they dared to criticize." With a quotation from Xun Kuang:[26]
You glorify Nature and meditate on her: Why not domesticate and regulate her?
You follow Nature and sing her praise: Why not control her course and use it? … … … …
Therefore, I say: To neglect man’s effort and speculate about Nature, is to misunderstand the facts of the universe.
In contrast to Xun Kuang as the classically purported teacher of Han Fei and Li Si, Han Fei does not believe that a tendency to disorder demonstrates that people are evil or unruly.[27]
As a counterpoint, Han Fei and Shen Dao do still employ argumentative reference to 'sage kings'; Han Fei claims the distinction between the ruler's interests and private interests are said to date back to Cangjie, while government by Fa (standards) is said to date back to time immemorial. Han Fei considers the demarcation between public and private a "key element" in the "enlightened governance" of the purported former kings.[28]
Considering the Qin remote in the Spring and Autumn period, central China in the Warring States period saw Shang Yang's Qin state as barbarian, writing little about it.[29] Late Warring States figure Xun Kuang knew about Shen Buhai and Shen Dao, but still did not appear to know about Shang Yang.[30] With Li Kui and Wu Qi taken as predecessors, he would much appear associated with anyone apart from another syncretic work, the Shizi, with only the late Han Feizi otherwise seen as adopting him before the imperial era.[31][32]
Although not abandoning all of his reforms, the Qin themselves had already abandoned Shang Yang's heavy punishments before the founding of the Qin dynasty.[33] While the term Legalism has still seen some conventional usage in recent years, such as in Adventures in Chinese Realism, academia has otherwise avoided it for reasons which date back to Sinologist Herrlee G. Creel's early work on the subject. As Han Fei presents, while Shang Yang most commonly has fa (standards) as law, Han Fei's predecessor Shen Buhai uses fa (standards) in the administration, which Creel translated as method.[34][35]
The Han Feizi abstractly advocates a government by fa (standards), reward and punishment, to control ministers and establish a larger order, but it has a 'changing with the times' paradigm.[36] In the later context of the Qin state to Qin dynasty, punishments were reduced towards an expulsion of criminals to the new colonies, or pardon in exchange for fines, labor, or one to several aristocratic ranks, even up to the death penalty.[37]
More broadly, together with Shen Buhai and Shen Dao, Han Fei was still primarily administrative. Han Fei and Shen Dao make some use of fa akin to law, and some use of reward and punishment, but generally use fa similarly to Shen Buhai: as an administrative technique.[34] Shen Buhai compares official's duties and performances, and Han Fei often uses fa in this sense, with a particular quotation from the Han Feizi as example:[38]
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.
Shen Dao similarly uses fa (objective standards) as an administrative technique for determining reward and punishment in accordance with merit,[39] and Shang Yang himself addressed many administrative questions, including an agricultural mobilization, collective responsibility, and statist meritocracy.[40]
The 'school of names' (Mingjia) used fa (comparative models) for litigation, and both posthumous groupings have both, but the school of names would appear more to represent a social, ministerial category, rather than Han Fei's choice figures with relevant company. Sima Qian simply divided the categories along elemental lines, as including Ming ("names" categories in the administration including contracts) and fa (standards in the administration including law and method).[41][42][43]
Although typically associated with the school of names, discussion of names and realities were common to all schools (as including posthumous categories) in the classical period (500bce-150bce), including the Daoists, Mohists and 'Legalists'. It's earlier thinking was actually most developed by the Confucians, while later thinking was characterized by paradoxes and, in Daoism, an even higher degree of relativism. It's more advanced discussions date to the later Warring States period, after Shang Yang, Shen Buhai, and Mencius.[44]
Shen Buhai can be taken as an early bureaucratic pioneer, but was not so much more advanced as he was more focused on bureaucracy. Shang Yang can be considered pioneering in the advancement of fa (standards) as law and governmental program more generally.[45] But his early administrative method more simply connects names with benefits like profit and fame, to try to convince people to pursue benefits in the interest of the state.[46]
Although less Confucian, Han Fei can still be compared with the earlier Confucian rectification of names together with Shen Buhai and Xun Kuang,[41][47][33] but his late tradition develops its own unique names and realities (mingshi) method, termed Xing-Ming. Naming individuals to their roles as ministers (e.g. "Steward of Cloaks"), in contrast to the earlier Confucians, Xing-Ming holds ministers accountable to their proposals and performance. Their direct connection as an administrative function cannot be seen before Han Fei. The late theories of Xun Kuang and the Mohists were still far more generalized.[48]
Sima Qian does not name anyone under the schools,[5] and originally defined "Fajia" more in terms of office divisions and responsibilities, but as "strict and with little kindness".[49] He likely did not intend Han Fei's figures for it.[50] He lists Shen Buhai and Han Fei with Daoists Laozi and Zhuangzi, simply giving Shang Yang his own chapter.[51] Aiming to demonstrate his own early Daoistic Huang-Lao ideology as best,[52] Sima Qian claims that Han Feizi figures (Han Fei), Shen Buhai, and Shen Dao had studied it as a teaching based in the ancient Yellow Emperor.[53][54]
Han Fei's Way of the Ruler lacks a definitive belief in later daoistic universal moralities or natural laws. It promotes a doctrine of self-interest to the ruler, makeing combinational references to Laozi and Shen Buhai, including advice to reduce his desires and traditional wisdom.[55] With a posthumous commentary on the Daodejing included in the Han Feizi, and early concepts of wu wei, Han Fei's early commentators likely could not tell the difference between them and the Daoists, apart from Shang Yang.[56]
After Sima Qian's death, his faction would be suppressed by the Emperor Wu of Han and Chancellor Gongsun Hong (130-121bc). Under Confucian factional pressure, Emperor Wu discriminated against students of Shang Yang, Shen Buhai and Han Fei in favor of the Confucians, but when older, upheld those officials who praised Shang Yang and Li Si and denounced Confucius. The ministerial examination system would be instituted through the likely influence of Shen Buhai and Han Fei.[57]
Confucian archivists Liu Xiang (77–6BCE) and Liu Xin (c.46bce–23ce) would appropriate the term, assigning the school a fictional origin in an ancient department of criminal justice or "chief of prisons" for their imperial library classification system, together with departments for the other schools.[58][33] Some one hundred years after Sima Qian, the Book of Han classified the 'school of fa' as a category of Masters Texts, as one of ten such categories,[6] prominently listing Han Fei and his philosophical lineage under it,[7] being other figures of the Han Feizi, Shen Buhai, Shang Yang and Shen Dao.[8][9]
- Pines 2023; Goldin 2011; Creel 1970, p. 93,119–120.
- Creel 1970, p. 93; Goldin 2011, p. 94(6).
- Fraiser 2011, pp. 59.
- Creel 1970, p. 93; Goldin 2011, p. 104(16); Hansen 1992, p. 347,349; Graham 1989, p. 268,282-283.
- Goldin 2011, p. 89,92; Smith 2003, p. 142; Fraiser 2011, p. 59.
- Smith 2003, p. 141; Pines 2023; Goldin 2011, p. 91,92(4,5).
- Leung 2019, pp. 103.
- Smith 2003, pp. 131.
- Graham 1989, pp. 268.
- Creel 1970, p. 93; Hansen 1992, p. 345-346; Graham 1989, p. 31; Loewe 1999, p. 591,589.
- Goldin 2011, p. 88(1); Pines 2023.
- Schwartz 1985, pp. 131, 142–144.
- Hansen 1992; Hansen 2020; Kejian 2016, p. 95.
- Smith 2003, p. 141-142.
- Jiang 2021, p. 267; Rubin 1974, p. [page needed].
- Creel 1970, p. 95.
- Peerenboom 1997, p. [page needed].
- Jiang 2021, p. 267.
- Pines 2020, p. 689.
- Graham 1989, pp. 282–283.
- Goldin 2011, p. 104.
- Pines 2023; Youlan 1948, p. 30,33.
- Graham 1989, p. 270-272.
- Fraser 2023, p. 65.
- Goldin 2005, p. 59; Leung 2019, p. 1; Jiang 2021, p. 237,452.
- Pines 2014, p. 16.
- Graham 1989, p. 268; Hansen 1992, p. 345,346.
- Goldin 2011, pp. 102(14).
- Goldin 2011, pp. 96–98(8, 10).
- Hansen 1992, pp. 347, 349.
- Leung 2019, pp. 118–119.
- Loewe 1986, pp. 526, 534–535.
- Goldin 2011, pp. 98(10).
- Goldin 2011, pp. 8(98).
- Goldin 2011, pp. 104-105(16-17).
- Smith 2003, pp. 143–144.
- Yu-Lan 1983, p. 81; Makeham 1994, p. xiv,xv; Fraser 2020; Fraser 2023.
- Hansen 1992, p. 359.
- Pines 2017, p. 50 sfnm error: no target: CITEREFPines2017 (help); Jiang 2021, p. 254.
- Makeham 1994, pp. xvi, 67.
- Goldin 2011, p. 89,92; Pines 2023.
- Smith 2003, p. 142.
- Kejian 2016, p. 22.
- Creel 1970, p. 51.
- Goldin 2005, p. 64; Makeham 1994, p. 73,74.
- Hansen 1992, p. 345-346,360.
- Vankeerberghen 2001, p. 24,96; Creel 1960, p. 239,241; Creel 1970, p. 110-111,115-120.
- Smith 2003, p. 131,141; Youlan 1948, p. 32–34.
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