Legalism

1
Legalism

• IAS 2540 / UGD 2270 History of Traditional
  Chinese Thought

2

• The legalists
• A group of philosophers and practical politicians
  known as the Legalists, who were closely
  associated with the state of Chin.
• A leading thinker of this school was Han Fei Tzu
  (d.233B.C.) a prominent Chin statesman
  identified with it was Li Ssu (d.208B.C) were
  both disciples of Hsun Tzu. (c.300-237B.C.)

3

• Hsun Tzu was a Confucian who left a deep mark on
  Chinese civilization, though he was condemned by
  later Confucians as unorthodox (probably because
  he was opposite to Mencius in many aspects of
  ideas).
• Nevertheless, in his day, Hsun Tzu was a great
  success both as a politician and teacher, and
  sections of his book, the Hsun Tzu, which is made
  up of well-organized essays, was incorporated
  into the Record of Rituals.

4

• Hsun Tzu flatly contradicted Mencius basic idea
  that man is naturally good.
• Human nature, Hsun Tzu argued, is derived from an
  impersonal, amoral Heaven mans emotions and
  natural desires lead to conflict and therefore is
  bad. The cure for this situation is improvement
  through education. His emphasis on education,
  rituals, an hierarchic order, and strict ruler
  through warnings and punishments seem to have
  contributed to a growing authoritarian trend in
  government.

5

• Nevertheless, Legalist ideas found full
  exposition in the Han Fei Tzu written by the
  philosopher, Han Fei Tzu, who was a member of the
  royal house of the state of Han. He was said to
  have studied under Hsun Tzu at the same time as
  Li Ssu who subsequently became the prime minister
  of Chin. When the state of Han was on the verge
  of collapse in the face of the attack by Chin,
  Han Fei was sent as envoy to Chin. Although the
  king of Chin was pleased with him, he was said
  to have died as a result of the machination or
  trick trap of Li Ssu, who was jealous of his
  superior talent.

6

• At first, Li Ssu was not afraid of Han Fei Tzu
  (even though he was extremely talented, because
  Han Fei Tzu was not fluent in spoken language- he
  easily got tongue-tied. But then, despite of
  that, the king of Chin was pleased with Han Fei
  Tzu, so Li Ssu worried that the king of Chin
  might replace himself with Han Fei Tzu as prime
  minister, therefore, Li Ssu imprisoned Han Fei
  Tzu and executed him.)

7

• In his though, Han Fei Tzu combined the teachings
  of a number of schools to form the system known
  as Legalist thought. It combined the ruler of
  law (fa) advocated by Lord Shang the methods of
  dealing with the subjects (shu) advocated by
  Shen Pu-hai, and the exploitation of the vantage
  position of the ruler (shih) advocated by Shen
  Tao.

8

• Lord Shang was a descendant of the ducal family
  of Wei.
• His given name was Yang.
• In his youth, he was fond of the studies of
  criminal law and he had served the Minister of
  Wei. Later, Shang Yang went to the State of Chin
  where he greatly pleased Duke Hsiao of Chin and
  was appointed as a councilor.

9

• He order the people to be organized into groups
  of fives and tens, mutually to control one
  another and to share in one anothers
  punishments. Whoever did not denounce a culprit
  would be cut in two
• Whoever denounced the culprit would receive the
  same reward as he who decapitated an enemy
• Whoever concealed a culprit would receive the
  same punishment as he who surrendered to an enemy.

10

• When the ordinances were already drawn up but
  still unpublished, feaing that the people would
  not believe it, Lord Shang had a 30feet pole
  erected near the south gate of the capital, and
  announced to the people that he would give 10 oz
  of gold to anyone who could move it to the north
  gate. The people found that strange there was no
  one who dared move it. Thereupon, Lord Shang
  announced that he would give 50 oz of gold to
  make it clear that he deceived no one.

11

• Han Fei Tzu is the last figure in Legalisms
  development, and he in fact brought all the
  earlier contributors to that development together
  into a grand synthesis.
• the ruler of law
• the political methods of dealing with the
  subjects
• the exploitation of the vantage position of the
  ruler or power
• are the three principal concepts in his
  thought-system, all were the products of
  historical circumstances they were conceived,
  given birth, and nurtured then coming to Han Fei
  Tzu, they took on the form of their ultimate
  maturity.

12

• The historical circumstances that conceived, gave
  birth to, and nurtured those concepts were, in a
  word, simply those various social and political
  realities through which the old feudal world
  disintegrated and collapsed. The direct
  consequence of feudalisms collapse was the
  weakening of the Son of Heaven of Chou, and the
  strengthening of the feudal lords.

13

• Government by means of power had its origins in
  the elevation of the ruler. When the feudal order
  of Chou Dynasty was declining, gradually, the
  powerful ministers took over the states. The
  Legalists not only recognized the logic of this
  new historical reality, they also added their
  explanations on it. Theories of authority and
  power consequently took form. Shen Tao, with his
  Phrases about flying dragons and soaring serpents
  (metaphors suggesting the sovereigns shih, or
  power) can be looked upon as the representative
  figure in the emergence of these theories.

14

• Governing with methods took form with Shen
  Pu-hai. It is also related to the elevation of
  the ruler, but in particular, it was a response
  to political needs following the collapse of the
  feudal system of the Chou Dynasty cases of
  assassinations of lords and usurpation of thrones
  were frequent. Analysts tracing the causes could
  lay the blame on rulers lack of methods in
  handling their ministers. Therefore, the
  Legalists on the art ruling eventually began to
  produce theories about governing by methods.
• Cf. Machiavelli, The Prince

15

• In ancient Greece, Plato, in his theories of
  government, first erected the ideal of the
  absolute ruler by a philosopher-king, but
  subsequently discovered that this was a practical
  impossibility, and changed his views to support a
  legalist polity. His intent was to replace the
  impractical ideal of the enlightened ruler with
  that of good laws capable of being enforced.
  Thereafter, having gone through successive
  developments, this concept has at last splendidly
  emerged as the modern theory and practice of
  constitutional government.

16

• Lord Shang applied himself to the ruler of law
  Shen Tao clarified the subject of power, and Shen
  Pu-hai discoursed on methods Han Fei Tzu
  synthesized the three bodies of thought, taking
  the rulers power as the basic substance, and
  regarding laws and methods as its functions or
  applications..
• From these elements, Han Fei Tzu created and
  brought to completion the most comprehensive
  system of Legalist thought.

17

• Lord Shang and Han Fei Tzu failed to realize how
  difficult it is to have an enlightened monarch.
  Therefore, they developed their ruler-centered
  Legalist political thought, and succeeded only in
  opening the door for subsequent dictator.
• Cf. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemy
  (Vol.1 The Spell of Plato)

18

• It was in the 4th to 3rd centuries B.C. that we
  see the full emergence of the theory of Legalism
  with the figures Shang Yang, Sheng Pu-hai, Shen
  Tao, and Han Fei Tzu.
• Han Fei Tzu was considered the grand synthesizer
  of Legalist thought.
• According to Han Fei Tzu, Lord Shang is
  preeminently the theorist of fa (the rule of
  law), while Shen Pu-hai is the theorist of shu
  (bureaucratic method or technique), and Shen Tao
  is the theorist of shih (authority).

19

• Lord Shangs fa stress severe punishment (penal
  law) more than positive reinforcement of rewards.
• Shen Pu-hais shu usually translated as method
  or technique the technique of organizing and
  controlling an effective bureaucracy.
• Han Fei Tzu perceives that the doctrines of Lord
  Shang and Shen Pu-hai are as complimentary as
  food and clothing. Lord Shangs fa provided the
  program for controlling the entire society. Shen
  Pu-hais shu provided the organization for
  implementing the enlightened rulers program.

20

• Because Lord Shang neglected the principle of
  proper bureaucratic organization, various
  powerful elements in the state were able to
  maintain their own bases of power even to use
  Lord Shangs reforms to enhance their own power.
  Lord Shangs own tragic death resulted from this
  fatal oversight in the matter of the control of
  officials.
• Han Fei Tzu seems to have sought the ultimate
  common foundation of Legalism at a deeper level.
  What penal laws and bureaucratic devices have in
  common is that they are all universalistic,
  impersonal, and objective mechanisms for
  controlling human behavior.

21

• In Han Fei Tzus synthesis, we find a third
  component which in his view had been neglected by
  both Shang Yang and Shen Pu-hai Shen Taos
  principle of authority (shih).
• The entire system in the end rests on the
  authority of the ruler. Without authority, the
  ruler cannot be the ultimate source of all the
  impersonal codes and mechanisms of control which
  maintain the entire social order.

22

• In recent years, the Legalists have often called
  totalitarians. In their own days, they were
  reactionary in their unquestioning acceptance of
  royal absolutism. At the same time, they were
  undoubtedly in their emphasis on a universal
  system of law and impersonal, uniform relations
  between the government and the people it ruled.

23

• Despite the condemnation of later ages (about its
  inhumane, impersonal ruler), Legalism left a
  lasting mark on Chinese civilization. Through the
  triumph of Chin and the imperial system that
  Chin originated, it became an important part of
  the Chinese political tradition, partially
  accounting for the highly centralized government
  of later times and its harsh and strict rule.