One who has merit should be awarded: then ranks and emoluments are bountiful and they are ever more encouraging; one who is promoted and ascends to higher positions, his official responsibilities increase, and he performs his tasks ever more orderly. When ranks and emoluments are great, while official responsibilities are dealt with in an orderly way—this is the Way of the Monarch.
Han Feizi This objective process of promotion according to measurable and objective merits became one of the hallmarks of the Chinese administrative system throughout the imperial era and beyond. Rewards and punishments primarily promotion and demotion are the major handles through which the ruler has to control his officials. But how to judge their performance?
Performance and title refers to statements and tasks. The minister presents his statement; the ruler assigns him tasks according to his statement, and evaluates his merits exclusively according to the task. When the merit is in accordance with the task, and the task is in accordance with the statement, then [the minister] is awarded; when the merit is not in accordance with the task, and the task is not in accordance with the statement, then he is punished.
Han Feizi 7: 40— This latter point is of particular importance to the Legalists. Both terms are similar to fa but are narrower in their meaning, referring primarily to a variety of means through which the ruler controls his officials. This is what the ruler should hold. Yet amid the strong emphasis on the power of techniques, rules, laws, and regulations, we can discover the sober realization that even these are not always enough, and that a perfect administrative system simply cannot come into existence.
Thus, in one of the later chapters of the Book of Lord Shang it is said:. Nowadays, [the ruler] relies on many officials and numerous clerks; to monitor them he establishes assistants and supervisors.
Assistants are installed and supervisors are established to prohibit [officials] from pursuing [personal] profit; yet assistants and supervisors also seek profit, so how they will able to prohibit each other? Insofar as techniques and rules are implemented by self-interested—or simply erring—human beings, the question remains: to what extent can the impersonal mode of rule cure the intrinsic maladies of the bureaucratic system cf.
Van Norden ? This evaluation should be qualified, though. Rather, their distinctiveness was in their pronounced anti-ministerial stance. This stance is exemplified by the following saying of Shen Buhai:. Now the reason why a ruler builds lofty inner walls and outer walls, looks carefully to the barring of doors and gates, is [to prepare against] the coming of invaders and bandits.
But one who murders the ruler and takes his state does not necessarily climb over difficult walls and batter in barred doors and gates. Creel , translation modified. This warning epitomizes what may be considered the major dividing line between Legalists and their opponents. Despite their pronounced belief in monarchic form of rule, most thinkers of the Warring States period insisted that the monarch would never succeed without a worthy aide. Their common desideratum was attaining harmonious relations between the ministers and the rulers; not coincidentally, the common simile of these relations was that of friends, i.
One of the most radical manifestations of this pro-ministerial mindset of the Warring States era was the idea of abdication, according to which a good ruler may consider yielding the throne to his meritorious aide Allan ; Pines For Legalists, in contrast, this very idea proved that the pro-ministerial discourse of their rivals was usurpation in disguise.
They added a few new dimensions to this overarching monarchistic discourse. Goldin 3—4. As such, his power is conceived not as the means of personal enjoyment but as the common interest of his subjects. Shen Dao elaborates:. In antiquity, the Son of Heaven was established and esteemed not in order to benefit the single person. Hence the Son of Heaven is established for the sake of All under Heaven, it is not that All under Heaven is established for the sake of the Son of Heaven….
Even if the law is bad, it is better than absence of laws; thereby the hearts of the people are unified. Shenzi , 16; Harris Shen Dao presents his political credo with rare clarity. A ruler is crucial for the proper functioning of the political system; he is the real foundation of political order, not a beneficiary but rather a servant of humankind. Significantly, the ruler attains these blessed results by the sheer fact of his existence and not due to his morality or intelligence. As Shen Dao clearly states, bad laws are better than a lawless situation, and we may infer that a bad ruler is better than anarchy.
As long as the ruler preserves his power intact, i. Otherwise, turmoil is inevitable. Shen Dao warns:. When the Son of Heaven is established, he should not let the regional lords doubt [his position]; when a lord is established, he should not let nobles doubt [his position]; … Doubts bring commotion; doubleness [of the sources of authority] brings contention, intermingling brings mutual injury; harm is from sharing, not from singularity Shenzi , 47—48; Harris It is because by the sheer fact of his exclusive authority, the ruler is able to arbitrate conflicts among his ministers and to preserve the chain of command in his state, without which the state may collapse.
The very fact that the monarch—unlike his officials—owed his position to pedigree alone meant that this position would more often than not be occupied by a mediocrity. The intrinsic contradiction between an institutionally infallible and humanly erring sovereign is the major source of tension in the Han Feizi Pines b. Thinkers of different ideological inclinations shared the sober realization that a sovereign may be a mediocrity; yet for them this problem was easily resolvable.
Insofar as the ruler would be prudent enough to entrust everyday affairs to a meritorious aide, he would be able to continue enjoying absolute prestige, while practical matters would be decided by worthy ministers see, e. For Han Fei, though, this solution is unacceptable. Every single person around the throne should be suspected; and minimal negligence can cost a ruler his life and his power.
Han Fei compares them to hungry tigers ready to devour the sovereign whenever the opportunity arrives:. If the minister does not murder his ruler, it is because the cliques and cabals are not formed. Han Feizi 8: This is an amazing saying: the minister is, by his nature, deceitful and murderous, and his failure to eliminate the sovereign is simply a sign of insufficient preparations, not of unwillingness to do so. But going beyond this personal tragedy there is a more general question: how can the ruler maintain his functions in the situation of permanent danger and absolute mistrust between him and his aides?
But this supposedly neat solution is problematic. Second, it remains unclear how the ruler will gain access to reliable information if each of his close aides—as Han Fei reminds him—is a potential cheater Han Feizi 6: 36— The monarch is the most revered individual, but also the weakest chain in the government apparatus.
He can be duped by his underlings, is prone to misjudge them, and his actions may frequently endanger the very foundations of political order that he is supposed to safeguard. Hence, the thinker repeatedly urges the ruler to refrain from any personal activities, any reliance on personal knowledge, and any manifestation of personal likes and dislikes.
The thinker summarizes his recommendations:. The ruler does not reveal his desires; should he do so, the minister will carve and embellish them. He does not reveal his views; should he do so, the minister will use them to present his different [opinion].
When there is success, the ruler possesses a worthy [name]; when there is failure, the minister bears the responsibility. Han Feizi 5: This is a curious recommendation: the ruler should completely nullify himself both in order to preserve his authority against scheming ministers, and to acquire—unjustly! Yet this sovereign, who has neither desires nor observable views, becomes the ultimate slave of his office. For the sake of self-preservation he must abolish his personality, being completely submerged by the system which he ostensibly runs.
This paradox of an entrapped sovereign, who enjoys God-like omnipotence, but who is required to refrain from any activism in order to preserve this omnipotence is one of the most fascinating manifestations of the intrinsic contradiction of the authoritarian system.
When it comes from a thinker who is often described as singularly authoritarian-minded, it deserves utmost attention. Some of the aspects of the Legalist program—a powerful state that overwhelms society, rigid control over the populace and the administrative apparatus, harsh laws, and the like—seem to lend support to this equation. Yet when we move to the realm of thought control—a sine qua non for a true totalitarian polity—the results are somewhat equivocal.
Shang Yang is particularly notorious for his comprehensive assault on traditional culture and on moral values. The Book of Lord Shang abounds with controversial and highly provocative statements like this one:. Poems , Documents , rites, music, goodness, self-cultivation, benevolence, uprightness, argumentativeness, cleverness: when the state has these ten, superiors cannot induce [the people] to [engage in] defense and fighting. If the state is ruled according to these ten, then if the enemy arrives it will surely be dismembered, and if the enemy does not arrive, the state will surely be impoverished.
Shang jun shu 3: 23; Book of Lord Shang 3. Yet this conclusion should be qualified. It seems that the text assaults not morality as such but rather moralizing discourse. Shang Yang deplores traveling intellectuals because they damage the foundations of his sociopolitical model. When one thousand people are engaged in agriculture and warfare, yet there is a single man among them engaged in Poems , Documents , argumentativeness and cleverness, then one thousand people all will become remiss in agriculture and warfare.
Shang jun shu —26; Book of Lord Shang 3. The very fact that talkative intellectuals are being promoted distracts the people from substantial occupations and causes them engagement in hollow talk and needless learning. Thus, both economically and politically, learning is harmful: it distracts the people from their diligent work and diminishes their submissiveness.
Sanft In a major discussion of jiao , the text says:. And [entering] the gates of riches and nobility must be through military [service]. Therefore, when they hear about war, the people congratulate each other; whenever they move or rest, drink or eat, they sing and chant only about war. Yet the Book of Lord Shang never speaks of, e.
Hence war, which elsewhere in the book is frankly associated with what the people hate Shang jun shu ; Book of Lord Shang Han Fei advises:. Now, when the ruler listens to [a certain] teaching, if he approves of its doctrine, he should promulgate it among the officials and employ its adherents; if he disapproves of its doctrine, he should dismiss its adherents and cut it off. Han Fei does not deny in principle that some of the rival doctrines may benefit the state; he just denies their proponents the right to develop and elaborate their views independently of the state.
Confucianism as such was not targeted; actually, it prospered among the court erudites Kern — What mattered to Li Si—as to Han Fei—was not doctrinal unity as such, but the imposition of the state control over intellectual life, as in all other spheres of social activity.
Intellectuals were not persecuted because of the content of their ideas; but they were required either to enter government service or to quit their pursuits. It caused not only considerable resentment in the short term, but, more ominously, brought about immense dislike of Qin—and of Legalism—among the overwhelming majority of the imperial literati for millennia to come Pines a.
Qin unification of BCE could have become the triumph of Legalism. Proud of his success, the First Emperor emp. In the stele inscriptions he boasted of bringing unity, peace, stability, and orderly rule Kern ; Pines b. Yet history was cruel to the Legalists. The dynasty was no longer a success story, but rather that of miserable failure; and the ideas which guided its policymakers were discredited as well.
All these policies could be meaningfully attributed to the Legalists, whose intellectual legacy was as a result discredited. The diminishing appeal of Legalism became fully visible under the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han r.
Although the Emperor himself adopted assertive domestic and foreign policies largely patterned after the Qin dynasty, he considered it prudent to distance himself from the Qin and Legalism, and to endorse—however superficially—Confucianism. It was during his reign that first proposals were made to ban the followers of Shang Yang, Shen Buhai, and Han Fei from holding office.
Few scholars studied their writings; even fewer were courageous enough to endorse their legacy openly. Much like Qin itself for which see Pines a , Legalism henceforth became a negative label, associated with the policies immensely opposed by the majority of imperial literati: excessive harshness, oppression, terror at court, imperial hubris, and the like.
Self-identification as a follower of Shang Yang or Han Fei became a rarity, if not an impossibility. In imperial times, the position of Legalism was somewhat paradoxical. In ancient China, Qin accomplished an amazing amount of change.
He united China. He built the great wall. He organized a system of weights and measures. He established laws that were the same for all people. But, he did not accomplish things kindly. Much of his rule was cruel. If you said that things could improve, you could be put to death.
Emperor Qin was a legalist and ran his dynasty with absolute control and extreme and harsh punishment. Justification: The justification of legalists is that legalists believe man will always look out for himself first, and thus, man is evil by nature. Therefore, explicit awards and penalties could guide people to do the right things.
Movements among social classes are allowable. The ancient hierarchy and aristocratic hereditary should be abolished. Civilians could get rewards, such as noble titles or political positions, based on their excellent military or productive contributions.
Noble people would lose their title or get punished because of their incapable of contributing to the kingdom, or illegal behaviors. Generally speaking, good moral comes out of a fine material condition. People living stable and wealthy lives are more liable to behave in respectful ways, and vise versa. Therefore, it is more important to develop the economy instead of teaching people to obtain high-level morals, as well as to set up explicit punishments to get rid of wicked activities.
Legalism values the centralized power of the monarch; the System of Prefectures and Counties should take place of the enfeoffment of heredity feudal states. Emperors and powerful officials should be capable of establishing systematic rules regarding governing, control, evaluate, award, and punish their subordinates, to make sure that every position is served well by the proper person.
Therefore, constant reform and relevant adjustments are necessary. Imitating and worshiping the systems of the past empires is a big retroversion. Rule of Law is always better than the Rule of Man. Clear terms and orders of laws are the most reliable means to keep a society stable and peaceful. Law provisions should be explicit and stable and widespread, so that the entire society would know and follow them, strictly.
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