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Ray · 04-25-2008, 21:50 PM

Quote:

In Chinese history, Legalism (Chinese: 法家; pinyin: Fǎjiā; Wade-Giles: Fa-chia; literally "School of law") was one of the four main philosophic schools during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period (the other three being Confucianism, Daoism and Mohism). This period (from 770 to 221 BC) was an era of great cultural and intellectual ferment in China, and gave rise to many important schools of thought. In China under the political leadership of Li Si, his form of Legalism became a totalitarian ideology in China, Li Si's Legalism one of the earliest known totalitarian ideologies.

Legalism was a pragmatic political philosophy, with maxims like "when the epoch changed, legalism is the act of following all laws", and its essential principle is one of jurisprudence. "Legalism" here can bear the meaning of "political philosophy that upholds the rule of law", and is thus distinguished from the word's Western sense. The school's most famous proponent and contributor Han Fei believed that a ruler should govern his or her subjects by the following trinity:

1. Fa (Chinese: 法; pinyin: fǎ; literally "law or principle"): The law code must be clearly written and made public. All people under the ruler were equal before the law. Laws should reward those who obey them and punish accordingly those who dare to break them. Thus it is guaranteed that actions taken are systematically predictable. In addition, the system of law ran the state, not the ruler. If the law is successfully enforced, even a weak ruler will be strong.

2. Shu (Chinese: 術; pinyin: shù; literally "method, tactic or art"): Special tactics and "secrets" are to be employed by the ruler to make sure others don't take over control of the state. Especially important is that no one can fathom the ruler's motivations, and thus no one can know which behaviour might help them getting ahead; except for following the 法 or laws.

3. Shi (Chinese: 勢; pinyin: shì; literally "legitimacy, power or charisma"): It is the position of the ruler, not the ruler himself or herself, that holds the power. Therefore, analysis of the trends, the context, and the facts are essential for a real ruler.

More at:
Legalism (Chinese philosophy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The Chinese text is available at this link!