Legalist Legal Thought

I . The legalists did not have an ancient 損edigree?, and it is hard to identify any theoretical precursors for their legal thoughts before the Period of Warring States. This system of thought prevalent during the above Period did not result from the development of some doctrine or theory existing during the Period of Spring and Autumn and before, but rather, as the Chinese law was codified, evolved from the experiment in the enactment of laws and utilization of laws, and from the debates about statutes and their applications. The Yu Xing, the Tang Xing and the Jiu Xing could not be taken as the evidence that the laws in the Xia, Shang and the West Zhou Dynasties were in the form of statutes; the LU Xing was not the written law of the Zhou Dynasty, and even 搕he Moulded Caldron with Criminal Law? of Kingdom Zheng and that of Kingdom Jin did not fundamentally transform the unwritten law system of the Zhou Dynasty into that of written law. The privatization movement during the Period of Spring and Autumn, the change in the social and political structures during this Period facilitated the occurrence of statutes. The legalist school came about from the practice when statutes were widely enacted and implemented in the various kingdoms during the Period of Warring States. II .The Confucius school and the legalist were posthumous titles given to their predessessors by the people in the Han Dynasty when they summarized the learning before the Oin Dynasty. They do not mean that the various schools of thinkers were already well defined then. If the criteria set forth by Si Ma Tang for the identification of a legalist are taken in connection with the understanding by today抯 people of the legalist school, quite a few precursors to the legalists may be identified in the Period of Spring and Autumn. In addition to (3uan Zhong and Zi Chan. Fan Xuanzi, Zhao Yang and Gou Jian, the King of the Yue Kingdom all had engaged in the political and legal practices close to legalism, or made statements similar to those of the legalists. The development of the legalist school can be categorized into the following three stages. 1. The first stage is the formative years of legalism. The main characters of the legalist school in this stage were Li Kui and Wu Qi whose main contribution to the school was their facilitation of the application of law in the political practice. 2. The second stage is the period during which the legalist school came to mature. Shang Yang. Shen Dao and Shen Buhai were the key figures of this stage who not only put forward a systemic legalist theory, but also used legalism to guide the legal construction at the time. 3. The third or the last stage is a historical period in which the legalist school was synthesized and diversified. Han Feizi .and Li Si were the characters pivotal in this stage. Han Feizi summarized the legalist thoughts in the first and second stages and made his contribution by perfecting and enriching the legalist school; however, he also made mistakes by overstressing the importance of 損olitical trickery?.and as a result, the theoretical value of the rule of law was much derogated. Li Si played an important role in the utilization of the legalism in the legal construction in the Qin Kingdom and the Qin Dynasty, but he also should be held responsible unshirkingly for the fatal blunders made in the enactment of legislation and its p...