For more than 200 years, the Chinese people have experienced war as their daily reality, and a legalistic approach to trying to control people`s worst impulses – controlling people through the threat of severe punishment for injustice – would have been the best way to deal with the chaos. Shang Yang`s legalism dealt with everyday situations, but also extended to how to behave in wartime, and he is credited with the tactic of total war, which allowed the Qin state to defeat other warring states in order to control China. During the Qin Dynasty, all books that did not support legalistic philosophy were burned, and writers, philosophers, and teachers of other philosophies were executed. The excesses of legalism of the Qin Dynasty made the regime very unpopular with the people of the time. After the fall of Qin, legalism was abandoned in favor of Confucianism, which significantly influenced the development of Chinese culture. Authority | Chinese philosophy: ethics | Chinese philosophy: Mohism | Hanfeizi | Xunzi Han Fei`s immediate response is that the ruler should protect himself by carefully applying the techniques of government described above. It should review the reports of its ministers, review their performance, promote them or demote them according to the correspondence between “performance” and “name”; He must remain calm and mysterious, and let them be exposed; He should encourage mutual spying and whistleblowing between his ministers. But this supposedly clean solution is problematic. First, it sometimes requires superhuman intellectual abilities on the part of the ruler, in direct contradiction to Han Fei`s insistence that his system be transformed into an “average” (i.e. mediocre) Sovereign fits (Han Feizi 40:392).
Second, it is still unclear how the ruler has access to reliable information if each of his close associates – as Han Fei reminds him – is a potential fraudster (Han Feizi 6:36-37). And third, a system that requires constant surveillance of all can easily fall into the trap of totalitarian regimes in which “each agent in charge of inspection and control must logically be inspected and controlled himself” (Graziani 2015: 175). Han Fei`s foresight regarding ministerial machinations is remarkable, but it ultimately involves the ruler in the nightmarish situation of widespread distrust and distrust. After Qin Shi Huang`s departure and the overthrow of his empire, legalism was widely considered too cruel and strict, especially in a stable, unified empire. The Dao of the sovereign and ministers is that ministers are engaged in tasks while the prince has no task; The prince is relaxed and happy, while the ministers are responsible for the tasks. Ministers use all their intelligence and strength to satisfactorily accomplish his work, in which the leader does not participate, but only waits for the work to be completed. As a result, each task is completed. So the right way of government is.[210] [211] Legalistic philosophy, along with the Confucian and Taoist philosophies, is one of the three dominant streams of Chinese philosophy. It aims to establish objective, impartial and impersonal standards of human behaviour. It represents prescriptive models that use metaphors such as the builder`s plumb line and the carpenter`s square L. “Model after” implies the transformation and transformation of human behavior, not out of moral conviction, but through the application of fa, a term that refers to both prescriptive norms and an enacted criminal law aimed at harming the public interest. Li Si`s attack on private learning is often misinterpreted as a victory of “legalists” over “Confucian” ideology, but this is false.
Confucianism as such was not targeted; in fact, it flourished among court scholars (Kern 2000: 188-191). What mattered to Li Si, as to Han Fei, was not doctrinal unity as such, but the imposition of 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 had to either enter the public service or give up their jobs. Eventually, Li Si`s biblioclasm backfired. Not only did this cause considerable resentment in the short term, but, more worryingly, an immense dislike for Qin – and legalism – among the overwhelming majority of imperial scholars for millennia to come (Pines 2014a). Adherence to the use of technology to govern requires that the ruler not engage in any interference or subjective consideration. [206] Sinologist John Makeham explains: “The judgment of words and deeds requires the impartial attention of the sovereign; (Yin is) the ability or technique to make one`s mind a tabula rasa, to take note without committing to all the details of a man`s claims, and then to objectively compare his achievements with the original claims. [206] Li Si, the premier of the Qin Dynasty (221 BC – 207 BC) A.D.), greatly contributed to the standardization of characters, measures, currency and implementation of the system of prefectures and counties, etc. The Zhou Dynasty was divided between the masses and hereditary nobles. The latter were used to gain office and political power by pledging allegiance to the local prince, who owed allegiance to the Son of Heaven. [52] The dynasty acted according to the principles of Li and punishment. The former applied only to aristocrats, the latter only to commoners.
[53] Han Fei`s enlightened ruler devotes the entire chapter 14 “How to Love Ministers” to “persuading the ruler to be ruthless towards his ministers” and terrifies his ministers by doing nothing (wu wei). The qualities of a leader, his “spiritual strength, moral excellence and physical abilities” are irrelevant. He sets aside his private reason and morality and shows no personal feelings. What is important is its method of government. Fa (administrative standards) do not require perfection from the rule. [242] For Shen Dao, “power” (勢 Shih) refers to the ability to enforce compliance; It does not require the support of the subjects, although it does not exclude it. [221] The merit (of Shih) is to prevent people from fighting among themselves; Political authority is justified and indispensable on this basis. [226] Shen Dao said, “If everything under heaven lacks the one [person] of value, then there is no way to apply the principles [of an orderly government, li 理]. Therefore, the Son of heaven is established under heaven for the benefit of all.
Not everything under heaven is established for the Son of heaven. [149] If the Lord of men abandons the method (Fa) and rules with his own person, then punishments and rewards, confiscations, and gratuities will all come from the Spirit of the Lord. If this is the case, then those who receive rewards, even if appropriate, will constantly expect more; Those who receive punishment, even if appropriate, will constantly expect gentler treatment.