Who Can Make Better Law? On the Problems of Hanfeizi’s Legal Philosophy
Author: Szu-hsuan Hung
Abstract / Chinese PDF Download
This research finds that Hanfei not only emphasized right behavior that is determined by law, but that he also set up the standards for determining better law. In order to judge better law, Hanfei set up three standards of criteria: the origin of the political society, the disposition of human behavior, and the property of the law. Based on these three standards, lawmakers are required to have three kinds of abilities, which are: to give insight into environmental change, to make use of the disposition of human behavior, and to correctly distinguish between public and private. However, mediocre governors don’t have the abilities for making better law. To solve this problem, Hanfei’s legalist design assists mediocre governors in making better laws for a well-ordered political society.