Concept

Legalism (Chinese philosophy)

Overview

Legalism (Chinese: 法家; pinyin: fajia) 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 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 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, results-driven governance 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.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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Even though the vanguard of the working-class knew in theory that Might is the mother of Right, still their political thinking was completely permeated by the spirit of opportunism, of adaptation to bourgeois legalism. Now they are learning from the teachings of facts to despise this legalism and tear it down. Now dynamic forces are replacing the static forces in their psychology. The great guns are hammering into…
Leon Trotsky, The Bolsheviki and World Peace
Names Legalism twice; opens on Legalism.
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condition the rules were among the monkish communities in the land of Ts'in, and made the following aspiration: "From this time forth till I come to the state of Buddha, let me not be born in a frontier-land." He remained accordingly in India, and did not return to the land of Han. Fâ-hien, however, whose original purpose had been to secure the introduction of the complete Vinaya rules into the land of Han, returned…
Confucius, Chinese literature
The author is tied to Legalism in the knowledge graph.
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Alluding to the matter of the Chief of the Ki family worshipping on T[']ai-shan,[7] the Master said to Yen Yu, "Cannot you save him from this?" He replied, "It is beyond my power." "Alas, alas!" exclaimed the Master, "are we to say that the spirits of T[']ai-shan have not as much discernment as Lin Fang?" Of "the superior man," the Master observed, "In him there is no contentiousness.
Confucius, The Wisdom of Confucius with Critical and Biographical Sketches
The author is tied to Legalism in the knowledge graph.
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