The Tumultuous Backdrop of the Warring States Period

The Warring States period, spanning roughly from the 5th to the 3rd centuries BCE, was an age of profound upheaval in ancient China. As centralized Zhou authority crumbled, seven major states vied for supremacy through relentless warfare, diplomatic intrigue, and administrative innovation. This era of political fragmentation paradoxically fostered an extraordinary intellectual ferment, giving rise to what historians later termed the Hundred Schools of Thought. Philosophers, strategists, and reformers traveled between courts, offering rulers competing visions of governance, ethics, and social organization. Amid this vibrant marketplace of ideas, two schools emerged as particularly influential: Confucianism, advocating moral cultivation and hierarchical harmony, and Mohism, promoting universal love and utilitarian pragmatism. Their prominence made them natural targets for critics, most notably the Legalist philosopher Han Fei, whose scathing analysis remains one of the most penetrating critiques of ancient Chinese thought.

The Rise of Rival Philosophical Giants

Confucianism, founded by Kong Qiu , championed impartial care, condemnation of offensive warfare, and practical utility. After Mozi’s death, his movement splintered into three main branches: the Xiangli, Xiangfu, and Dengling factions. This proliferation of subgroups, each asserting exclusive authority to interpret their founders, created intellectual chaos that Han Fei found both philosophically untenable and politically dangerous.

Han Fei’s Devastating Critique of “Foolish and Deceitful Learning”

As a principal exponent of Legalism, Han Fei approached philosophy with a ruthless pragmatism focused on state strengthening and social control. He dismissed Confucian and Mohist doctrines as “foolish and deceitful learning” because they made claims about ancient sage-kings that could not be empirically verified. Both schools invoked the legendary rulers Yao and舜 to legitimize their teachings, yet offered contradictory interpretations of these figures’ policies and virtues. Han Fei argued that since these rulers lived over two millennia before his time, and since even more recent historical figures like the Zhou founders remained shrouded in myth, any claims about their true teachings amounted to speculative fiction. He famously declared that assertions made “without verification through comparison” were foolish, while building arguments on “what cannot be certain” constituted deception. This epistemological skepticism formed the core of his rejection of both schools’ intellectual foundations.

The Political Dangers of Philosophical Pluralism

Beyond philosophical objections, Han Fei identified concrete political perils in the Confucian and Mohist approaches. He observed that their teachings produced “contradictory behaviors” in society—extravagance versus frugality, leniency versus harshness, filial piety versus rebellion—creating confusion about proper conduct. This ideological fragmentation, he warned, undermined the state’s ability to maintain social order and economic productivity. The Confucian emphasis on elaborate rituals and Mohist advocacy of universal love struck Han Fei as particularly detrimental to what Legalists valued most: people diligently working and frugally spending to strengthen the state. He compared Confucian advisors to shamans and soothsayers—practitioners of empty ceremonies that contributed nothing to effective governance. A ruler who entertained such “diverse learning and erroneous doctrines” risked leading his state to chaos and destruction.

The Legalist Prescription for Intellectual Unity

Han Fei’s solution to the problem of philosophical dissent was characteristically authoritarian: the state should establish a single orthodoxy and suppress competing viewpoints. He advised rulers to “promote those whose words are correct to official positions and employ them,” while “eliminating those whose words are incorrect and suppressing their ideas.” This stark binary approach reflected the Legalist conviction that “words without fixed principles and actions without constant standards” would inevitably lead to national decline. Rather than engaging in endless philosophical debates about ancient sage-kings, Han Fei urged rulers to focus on “elevating practical affairs and eliminating the useless”—meaning concrete policies that enhanced agricultural production, military strength, and administrative control. His program emphasized clear laws, severe punishments, and material incentives to shape behavior, rejecting moral persuasion as an ineffective governance tool.

The Problem of “Unusable Popular Wisdom”

A particularly controversial aspect of Han Fei’s critique was his dim view of ordinary people’s intellectual capabilities. He considered popular wisdom inherently unreliable and easily misled by elegant but empty rhetoric. This perspective led him to advocate for a rigid hierarchical system in which an enlightened ruler, advised by practical-minded ministers, would make all decisions for the common good without consulting public opinion. While this authoritarian stance reflected the practical realities of organizing large-scale states in ancient times, it also revealed a profound distrust of intellectual pluralism and democratic deliberation. Han Fei’s dismissal of “the unusability of people’s wisdom” remains one of the most criticized elements of his philosophy, representing what many modern scholars view as an unjustifiably pessimistic anthropology.

Enduring Legacy and Modern Relevance

Han Fei’s critique of Confucianism and Mohism, while extreme in its conclusions, raised enduring questions about the relationship between philosophical diversity and political stability. His arguments anticipate modern debates about the limits of pluralism in maintaining social cohesion and the role of state power in establishing ideological orthodoxy. The eventual triumph of Legalist principles in unifying China under the Qin dynasty demonstrated the short-term effectiveness of Han Fei’s approach, though the Qin’s rapid collapse also revealed its limitations. Interestingly, subsequent Chinese dynasties typically adopted a synthesized approach, combining Legalist administrative techniques with Confucian moral rhetoric—a practical compromise that might have struck Han Fei as incoherent but which proved remarkably durable. Today, as societies worldwide grapple with questions about misinformation, political polarization, and the proper limits of free expression, Han Fei’s arguments about the dangers of unverified claims and ideological fragmentation retain surprising resonance, even as his authoritarian solutions remain rightly controversial.

The intellectual battle between Legalism and its philosophical rivals during the Warring States period represents one of history’s most fascinating confrontations between competing visions of social order. Han Fei’s critique, while partisan and occasionally unfair, forced subsequent thinkers to confront difficult questions about evidence, utility, and political realism that continue to challenge philosophers and policymakers millennia later.