This article explores Han Fei’s political theory of rulership by taking a cue from his observation that most rulers are mediocre in their talent or skill. Through various analogies, Han Fei creates the image of a ruler as a paranoid man whose unique political life, defined by the possession of supreme power, puts him in a life of constant fear of usurpation and regicide. While urging the ruler to maintain absolute isolation and complete emotional detachment from all around him, which further exacerbates his anxiety, and to rely on wuwei statecraft based on law, Han Fei, nevertheless, stresses the critical importance of the otherwise mediocre ruler’s political agency – the ability to deliberate public matters, make laws that are best suited in the given context, and exercise political judgment in punishing and rewarding his subjects. This article concludes by highlighting the key difference between Han Fei’s conception of wuwei statecraft and its Confucian counterpart.
AllanSarah. 2015. Buried Ideas: Legends of Abdication and Ideal Government in Early Chinese Bamboo-Slip Manuscripts. Albany: State University of New York Press.
2.
AmesRoger T.1994. The Art of Rulership: A Study of Ancient Chinese Political Thought, edited by LiuAn. Albany: State University of New York Press.
BrownMirandaSanftCharles. 2011. “Categories and Legal Reasoning in Early Imperial China: The Meaning of Fa in Recovered Texts.” Oriens Extremus50: 283–306.
DeneckeWiebke. 2010. The Dynamics of Masters Literature: Early Chinese Thought from Confucius to Han Feizi. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center for the Harvard-Yenching Institute.
7.
ElsteinDavid. 2011. “Han Feizi’s Thought and Republicanism.” Dao10, no. 2: 167–185.
8.
FlanaganOwenHuJing. 2011. “Han Fei Zi’s Philosophical Psychology: Human Nature, Scarcity, and the Neo-Darwinian Consensus.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy38, no. 2: 293–316.
9.
GalvanyAlbert. 2017. “The Court as a Battlefield: The Art of War and the Art of Politics in the Han Feizi.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies80, no. 1: 73–96.
10.
GoldinPaul R.2005. After Confucius: Studies in Early Chinese Philosophy. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
11.
GrahamA. C.1989. Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. La Salle, Ill: Open Court.
12.
HansenChad. 1994. “Fa (Standards: Laws) and Meaning Changes in Chinese Philosophy.” Philosophy East and West44, no. 3: 435–488.
13.
HarrisEirik L.2011. “Is the Law in the Way? On the Source of Han Fei’s Laws.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy38, no. 1: 73–87. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6253.2010.01631.x.
14.
HarrisEirik L.2013a. “Constraining the Ruler: On Escaping Han Fei's Criticism of Confucian Virtue Politics.” Asian Philosophy23, no. 1: 43–61.
15.
HarrisEirik L.2013b. “Han Fei and the Problem of Morality.” In Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei, edited by Goldin PaulR., 107–131. Dordrecht: Springer.
16.
HarrisEirik L.2024. “Human Motivation in the fa Tradition: Visions from the Shenzi Fragments, Shangjunshu, and Han Feizi.” In Dao Companion to China’s fa Tradition: The Philosophy of Governance by Impartial Standards, edited by PinesYuri. Cham: Springer.
17.
HsiaoKung-chuan. 2015. History of Chinese Political Thought, Volume 1: From the Beginnings to the Sixth Century, A.D. Translated by Frederick W. Mote. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
18.
HuttonEric. 2002. “Moral Connoisseurship in Mengzi.” In Essays on the Moral Philosophy of Mengzi, edited by LiuXiushengIvanhoePhilip J., 163–186. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
19.
HuttonEric. 2006. “Character, Situationism, and Early Confucian Thought.” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition127, no. 1: 37–58.
20.
HuttonEric. 2008. “Han Feizi's Criticism of Confucianism and its Implications for Virtue Ethics.” Journal of Moral Philosophy5, no. 3: 423–453.
21.
HuttonEric, trans. 2014. Xunzi: The Complete Text. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
22.
IvanhoePhilip J.1991. “Character Consequentialism: An Early Confucian Contribution to Contemporary Ethical Theory.” The Journal of Religious Ethics19, no. 1: 55–70.
23.
IvanhoePhilip J.2011. “Hanfeizi and Moral Self-Cultivation.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy38, no. 1: 31–45.
24.
JiangTao. 2021. Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China: Contestation of Humaneness, Justice, and Personal Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press.
25.
KimSungmoon. 2012. “Virtue Politics and Political Leadership: A Confucian Rejoinder to Hanfeizi.” Asian Philosophy22, no. 2: 177–197. doi:10.1080/09552367.2012.692977.
26.
KimSungmoon. 2020. Theorizing Confucian Virtue Politics: The Political Philosophy of Mencius and Xunzi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
27.
KnechtgesDavid R.2010. “Han Feizu.” In Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature. Volume 1: A Reference Guide, edited by ChangTaipingKnechtgesDavid R., 313–317. Boston: Brill.
28.
LewisMark E.2024. “The Ruler in the Polity of Objective Standards.” In Dao Companion to China’s Fa Tradition: The Philosophy of Governance by Impartial Standards, edited by PinesYuri. Cham: Springer.
29.
LiaoWen Kwei, trans. 1939. The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu. Vol. 1. London: Authur Probsthain.
30.
LiaoWen Kwei, trans. 1959. The Complete Works of Han Fei Tzu Vol. 2. London: Arthur Probsthain.
MowerGordon B.2018. “Does Han Fei Have a Conception of Justice?” Asian Philosophy28, no. 2: 170–182.
33.
PinesYuri. 2009. Envisioning Eternal Empire: Chinese Political Thought of the Warring States Era. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
34.
PinesYuri. 2013. “Submerged by Absolute Power: The Ruler’s Predicament in the Han Feizi.” In Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Han Fei, edited by GoldinPaul R., 67–86. Dordrecht: Springer.
35.
QianMu. 1980. Zhongguo Sixiang Shi 中國思想史 [History of Chinese Thought]. Taibei: Taibei Xuesheng Shuju.
36.
RosemontHenryJr.2000. “State and Society in the Xunzi: A Philosophical Commentary.” In Virtue, Nature, and Moral Agency in the Xunzi, edited by KlineIIIT. C.Ivanhoe PhilipJ., 1–39. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
37.
SchwartzBenjamin I.1985. The World of Thought in Ancient China. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
38.
SlingerlandEdward. 2011. “The Situationist Critique and Early Confucian Virtue Ethics.” Ethics121, no. 2: 390–419.
39.
WatsonBurton, trans. 2003. Han Feizi: Basic Writings. New York: Columbia University Press.
40.
WinstonKenneth2005. “The Internal Morality of Chinese Legalism.” Singapore Journal of Legal Studies313–347. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24868258.
