In his treatise Han Fei Zi, the Chinese ancient thinker Han Fei proposes a governance structure that emphasizes the institutionalization of legal norms, judicious sovereign intervention, and ministerial obligations. These three core concepts of Han’s legal thinking are informed by both the Taoist law of Nature and the Confucian philosophy as is expounded by Xun Zi. Recognition of the Taoist and Confucian influences brings to light the ethical and normative dimensions of Han’s legal thought, dimensions that, I propose, provide new (...) insights into China’s legal and institutional reforms today. (shrink)

The Chinese Legalist Hanfei claimed that by separating the duties of the ruler as such from any moral claims attained to it, he made it possible for all rulers to apply “artifacts” for ruling. Ruling through moral superiority will fail because only few rulers will achieve it. Through the ruler running the “carefully oiled state machinery” as quasi-causal system, Hanfei claims to have developed a system of government suited even for the mediocre rulers. This paper claims that Hanfei shifted the (...) difficulty from the ethical to the practical level, not solving the problem. Moreover, by changing the level of the problem, he also faces some epistemic and metaphysic challenges. In short: the supposedly ideal system of government Hanfei claims to have developed fails. It fails especially because it is too difficult for the mediocre ruler, perhaps more difficult than the Confucian. In the first section, the interpretation of Hanfei as a philosopher in the Daoist tradition will be briefly presented. In the second, Hanfei’s first—practical—difficulty will be examined; in the third, potential epistemic and metaphysic challenges will be shown. (shrink)