Legalism () refers to an intellectual, political, and philosophical orientation beginning in the Warring States period of China. While heterogeneous, the Legalists generally shared a view of most people—or at least the elite—as fundamentally self-interested, emphasizing equality under the law, administrative methods, and regulations. In addition, the Legalists tended to view the strengthening of agriculture and the military as the primary concern of the state, and they advocated for reducing the power of the aristocracy in favor of meritocracy and limiting the direct interference in the affairs of state by the sovereign.
The Legalist emphasis on pragmatic,Pines 2023 1.2 Historical context results-driven governancePines 2023 1.2 Historical context put them at odds with the Confucians, who advocated for cultivated virtue as a primary method of building a well-governed state, as well as the Mohists, who supported an egalitarian society driven by universal love.
While the core Legalist thinkers heavily criticised Confucianism and Mohism, their relationship with Daoism was much more complex. Some legalist thinkers, such as Han Fei (considered by many to be the greatest Legalist thinker), were greatly influenced by Daoism, and drew inspiration from the Daoist concept of Wu wei (non-action) to describe their ideal of a ruler who retreated from active management of the state in favor of setting universal rules and standards. The confluence of Legalist and Daoist ideas is referred to as Huang-Lao, which was the dominant ideology of the early Han dynasty.
Legalist ideas first saw institutional adoption in Qin state, under Shang Yang's reforms in the 4th century BCE. These reforms, such as providing fiefs based on military performance and punishing farmers who failed to meet quotas, would become instrumental in Qin's conquest of China and establishment of China's first imperial dynasty. The Qin dynasty's reputation for brutality and rigid, harsh laws led successive dynasties to distance themselves from Legalism, opting instead to proclaim Confucianism as the official state ideology; however, the Legalist bureaucratic apparatus established by Qin was adopted by the following Han dynasty, and would remain a profound influence on Chinese statecraft throughout Chinese history.
The concept of a "Legalist" school of thought first appeared in the Han dynasty, and was primarily used as a bibliographic category to describe a variety of thinkers from the Warring States period. However, the term has been debated dating back to early scholarship, as not all focused on law, or jurisprudence so much as organization and leadership. Some more recent scholarship has regarded this label as inaccurate. Nonetheless, the term persists in both popular and scholarly accounts of the period.
Background
The establishment of the Eastern Zhou dynasty in 770 BCE marked the beginning of a gradual decline in the Chinese political order. Previously, China had operated under a feudalistic system in which lords swore fealty to the Zhou king; however, Zhou authority was challenged by local fiefdoms acting as states in their own right. By the early 5th century, the Zhou monarchy had become largely symbolic, and the political landscape of China was dominated by intense competition and warfare between rival states in what is known as the Warring States period.
The collapse of the Zhou order provided the impetus for the development of new political ideas - without their allegiance to the Zhou dynasty, states needed other frameworks in which they could ground their legitimacy. In addition, the fierce rivalries between the warring states led to a demand for thinkers who could help stabilise and strengthen states politically, economically, and militarily. The innovative and diverse ideas that were developed during this period are known as the Hundred Schools of Thought, which form the basis of Chinese philosophy.
The first major schools to emerge during this flourishing of intellectual activity were Confucianism and Mohism, which held widely diverging positions. To the Confucians, the success of the state depended its virtue - A virtuous king, who held fast to the ritual order of the Zhou dynasty, would inevitably inspire virtue in his ministers, which would in turn lead to a virtuous populace and thriving state. Meanwhile, the Mohists held that the state should be run on rationalist, egalitarian grounds, with officials appointed for ability rather than birth, and with resources directed away from frivolities like music and ritual and towards strengthening the state.
By the fourth century, both Confucianism and Mohism would come under heavy criticism by a new, loose cluster of thinkers who would later be classified as Daoists and Legalists. Closely associated with the nascent Jixia Academy in Qi state, these thinkers attacked the two major schools for imposing artificial disruptions on the natural way of things, and advocated for a posture of non-action and return to simplicity. These ideas exerted a major influence on the thought of Shen Buhai, Shen Dao, and Han Fei, who would later be classified as major Legalist thinkers.
Imperial Library category
The Han Feizi (Ch.43) referred to Shang Yang's followers as a school focused on fa law as something like "Legalists", contrasting him with Shen Buhai as focused on (administrative) techniques. Favoring neither fa (law) nor techniques between them, the Han Feizi'''s Ch.11 describes its own self-identified class of desired worthy minister as fashuzishi 法術之士 "men of service adept at (both) laws (fa) and techniques (shu) of rule", or "men of methods" in short.
Likely only meaning "law-abiding families" (jia) in Mencius's time or "economist" in the Guanzi, it is unlikely anyone politically identified themselves as a fa school. Apart from Confucianism and Mohism, early Han dynasty historian Sima Tan (165–110 BCE) presented schools as somewhat hypothetical, broad conceptual areas or styles of governmental practice, but not precise abstract ideologies with specific people or texts.
Sima Tan coined the term "Fajia" ("fa school") in an essay included in the Shiji's final chapter, On the Essentials of the Six Schools of Thought. More broadly including methods for distinguishing offices, his concept of Fa school was not originally identical to a concept of Legalism. Discussing approaches to governance, Tan argued the superiority of a syncretic political "Dao school" ("Daojia") including the "best" elements of six schools, but came to refer more simply to Laozi-Zhuangzi Daoism by the third century.
Han Confucian scholar Liu Xiang (77–6 BCE) used Fajia or "fa school" as a category of Masters Texts when he established the imperial library, becoming a major category in Han dynasty catalogues, namely its Book of Han (Hanshu, 111 CE) CH30. The bibliographic classifications do not claim to be precise or exclusive, sorting texts taken to be related by intellectual resemblances. Excluding Chao Cuo, the known texts are those referenced in the Han Feizi, stemming from its combined discussion contrasting Shen Buhai with Shang Yang (Ch.43).
Alongside the Han Feizi's more famously referenced Book of Lord Shang, Shen Buhai, and Shen Dao (Ch.40), six other texts were listed under the fa school, now lost, including Li Kui (HFZ 30 & 32) and Han minister Chao Cuo (Hanshu CH1), leaving four unidentifiable works. The Hanshu considered Li Kui the first of broader works on regulations, influencing Shang Yang. Only officially reclassified from (syncretist) Daoism in the Sui dynasty, the Guanzi text, named for the much earlier Guan Zhong, is a late compilation, possibly going into broad circulation together with the Book of Lord Shang late in the period. (HFZ Ch.49) While not included, the late pre-Imperial Qin state's encyclopedic Lushi Chunqiu includes chapters discussing Shang Yang, Shen Buhai and Shen Dao.
Though considering bad laws better than no laws, Shen Dao preferred good law, advocating that punishment and reward should be proportionate rather than extreme. In contrast to Shang Yang and Han Fei, Liu Xiang says that Shen Buhai opposed punishment in favor of supervisory technique (shu). But he does resemble the later Han Feizi more than any other text. Gradually associating Shang Yang and Shen Buhai through the Han Feizi, the three are associated together with the Qin dynasty, subsequently associated with a harsh penal policy derived from Shang Yang and the Han Feizi. Following Sima Tan, they came to be seen together as strict and unkind advocates of cruel law and merciless punishment.
Sima Tan praises Fajia for honoring rulers, and subordinating subjects, clearly distinguishing offices so that no one oversteps [his responsibilities]. He described the fa school (Fajia) as emphasizing fa administrative protocols that ignore kinship and social status, treating everyone equally and thereby elevating the ruler above humanity. Defining kindness as judging people differently (kinship and social status), Tan criticizes Fajia as being strict with little kindness, as a temporary policy that could not last. Included in the Book of Han, Liu Xin ( – 23 CE) adds that Fajia likely originated in an ancient Zhou dynasty department of prisons (or justice, in Feng Youlan's more positive reading) "make reward certain and punishment unavoidable, as a support to control by (Confucian) ceremony", reject teaching and benevolence (though Li Kui was more focused on education than Shang Yang), and concern for others, aiming to perfect government relying only on punishment and law (though the Han Feizi also famously advocated techniques of rule), inflicting corporal punishment even on closest kin, and demeaning mercy and generosity. Feng Youlan's early scholarship considered this a legitimate attempt at history, but not an accurate one.
Sima Qian Though the Daodejing (Laozi) disadvises too much reliance on law, the work is not anarchist; the Zhuangzi that later discusses it includes "anarchist" strains. Later termed Daoist, A.C. Graham took the Zhuangzi as preferring a private life, while the Daodejing contains an art of rule. Xun Kuang does not perceive the two as belonging to a single school in his time, listing them separately. Listed in the Outer Zhuangzi alongside Mozi, Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Hui Shi,(note) others include Mohist Song Xing and Daoist Guan Yin the Zhuangzi does not associate Shen Dao with a literal Daoist or Legalist school, and was probably not familiar with the idea.
Simply giving Shang Yang his own chapter, Sima Qian attested Shen Buhai, Shen Dao and Han Fei as "rooted" in Huang-Lao or "Yellow Emperor and Laozi (Daoism)". Sima Qian and Ban Gu describe Huang-Lao as works of rule, and makes more sense if understood as techniques of governance. This is arguably what the term Daojia "Daoism" refers to in the Shiji, rather than just Laozi and Zhuangzi as understood modernly.
Though considering Han Fei cruel, Sima Qian's "Biographies of Laozi and Han Fei" (Ch.63), presumably under its banner, discussed him and Shen Buhai alongside Laozi and Zhuangzi, claiming them as originating in dao ("the Way") and de (inner power, virtue), or "the meaning of" the Way and its virtue. "Overshadowing" Zhuangzi, Sima Qian considered Laozi the most profound of them, but places Shen Buhai just below Laozi and the free-spirited Zhuangzi.
Though Sima Qian favors Laozi and Zhuangzi, what Sima Tan called the "Dao school" or "Daoism" bears more resemblance to what they described as Huang-Lao, or a "Daoist-Legalist" syncretism. As advocates of what they called Daoism, the Simas could be expected to argue from its viewpoint, i.e., in favor of their own position. But the Han Feizi's Chapter 5 already discusses Laozi and Shen Buhai together, albeit as part of Han Feizi's own critique.
The Han Feizi's combination