Revisiting the thoughts of Han Feizi

By Alistair Jones

SMU Office of Research – In a new study, Antong Liu, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Singapore Management University (SMU), invites us to reconsider the writings of Han Feizi, a Chinese statesman and political philosopher in the 3rd-century BCE.

Han Feizi was aligned with Legalist thinkers and rejected Confucianism. Among his concerns was how to defend an absolute monarchy, and its attempts to centralise state power, from the threat posed by its subjects. 

The specific threat discussed in Professor Liu’s study was disobedience prompted by the pursuit of personal reputation. Han Feizi concluded that a monarch's best response would be coercion and intimidation. 

This is reminiscent of the old Japanese proverb: the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.

"If Han Feizi had known this proverb, he would have been happy to confirm its truthfulness," Professor Liu says. 

"From his point of view, any monarchical subject who 'sticks out' can be a threat to the supreme authority of the ruler and 'hammering' them down is what the ruler must do to maintain this authority. 

"The crucial task for my paper, then, is to explore why the ruler must resort to the hammer to achieve this effect, despite the heavy cost that the deployment of threat and force has to incur. Put differently, why can’t an absolute monarch take any non-confrontational approach to gently remove the nail?” 

Undermining foundations

So, how does the pursuit of reputation lead to disobedience? Han Feizi identifies two different groups.

"One group consists of those who treat reputation as a means to profit," Professor Liu says. "They go after the good opinion of their society because they aim to eventually 'monetise' this good opinion to benefit themselves. Think of social media influencers and you may get his point. 

"In contrast, the other group consists of those who love reputation for its own sake. They would rather die for honour and esteem than live in anonymity and ignominy, even if doing so requires them to sacrifice their life and property. 

"The first group… can be menacing to the monarch because by gaining reputation from society they take away the social support that should have been directed to the monarch. As a result, while these people become more and more influential, the monarch loses his authority." 

As for the second group, Han Feizi sees their very existence as undermining the foundation of the Legalist system: rewards and punishments according to the monarchy’s law. 

"If the law encourages something that the society treats to be shameful, then the people who value reputation for its own sake will not follow the law because avoiding shame is far better than not getting reward," Professor Liu says.

"Likewise, if the law forbids something that the society treats to be honourable, then these people will not follow the law because getting esteem is far better than avoiding punishment. 

"As a result, those who love reputation for its own sake belittle the monarchical authority and encourage more people to do so. This is how their pursuit of reputation makes them disobedient," Professor Liu says. 

The heavy hand

"Han Feizi acknowledges that there is simply no way to thwart people’s pursuit of reputation, as he takes it for granted that reputation is a motivation alongside profit that is deeply engraved in human nature," Professor Liu says. 

But he does find it tenable to stop it.

"It is in this context that his theory of reputation-driven disobedience helps us understand why the two non-confrontational strategies elaborated and defended by quite a few canonical modern Western thinkers… simply don’t work."

One of these strategies is distraction. 

"The distraction strategy suggests that the ruler amplify subjects’ love of profit such that they no longer find reputation as valuable as they used to think," Professor Liu says. 

"The major problem with this strategy is that it does not consider the possibility that ministers in the monarchical system have all the incentives to accumulate reputation as a means to power and influence, which in turn increases their chance of survival."

The second strategy is manipulation.

"The manipulation strategy suggests that the ruler secretly seize control of social opinion without forcefully altering what subjects treat as reputable. In this way, they always believe that the monarch is on their side," Professor Liu says.

This is problematic for a number of reasons, not least that a monarch's submission to the authority of social opinion amounts to an acknowledgement that the monarchical authority is not the highest within the realm. 

And so we come back to confrontation and the realisation that any attempt to avoid offending social opinion in order to tame it is futile.

"If the monarch doesn’t want to risk losing his kingdom and life by yielding to the authority of his society, then he should get ready to claim the supremacy of his own authority by keeping society in awe," Professor Liu says. 

"Is this costless? Of course not, because the open use of threat and force will only deprive the legitimacy of the monarchy before all dissidents either yield or get killed. But this is still Han Feizi’s preferred strategy, as its alternatives will fare even worse."

Ancient and modern

With the revival of authoritarianism and the centralisation of state power across the globe, are there insights we can draw from Han Feizi?

"[First], we must note the significant change in context from Han Feizi to us," Professor Liu says. "His focus is exclusively on absolute monarchical politics, which is a bit distant from most polities in our era. 

"Even if parallels may be drawn between absolute monarchies and contemporary authoritarian regimes, it must still be noted that their sources of legitimacy and hence authority are not quite the same: contemporary authoritarian regimes seldom openly reject popular support as a source of their legitimacy, which is far less necessary for the monarchies that base their legitimacy on divine or semi-divine sources.

"On the other hand, one of the reasons why historical thinkers such as Han Feizi are insightful is that many aspects of their thoughts transcend their narrow temporal and geographical boundaries," Professor Liu says.

"His reflections on reputation, disobedience and authority go deeply enough into the nature, or essence, of these things and therefore remain illuminating even for us, who still have to face and tackle these phenomena." 

But this illumination can be a double-edged sword. 

"For those in support of the centralisation of state power and the discipline of social opinion, Han Feizi not only helps them dissipate their hesitation about confronting their society but also warns them of the difficulty in successfully achieving so," Professor Liu says. 

"For those in support of a freer and more democratised society, he not only unwittingly shows them that reputation is a valuable motivation for resistance that cannot be easily tamed, but also warns them of all the possible side effects that may ensue, such as the deterioration of political stability. 

"This is why Han Feizi’s writings are not a simple collection of monarchist propaganda despite his monarchism. Rather, they have long-lasting values for human beings – ancient and modern, East and West." 

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