ZHU SIYU

Abstract:

This paper delves into the concept of justice and compares the understanding of justice between the ancient Chinese Legalist philosopher Han Fei and the Western political philosopher Machiavelli. It begins by reviewing various definitions of justice by different political philosophers, including Hume’s utilitarian perspective and Rawls’ theory of fair distribution. The paper notes that while these theories predominantly define justice within a democratic context, the concept of justice is equally significant in non-democratic regimes. Through an analysis of Han Fei’s “The Five Vermin” and Machiavelli’s “The Prince,” the paper examines how justice, as a means of equal treatment, was used to maintain the power and stability of monarchs. Han Fei emphasizes the supremacy of law and the importance of equal punishment, while Machiavelli argues that a prince may sometimes need to engage in morally questionable actions to ensure the stability and success of the state. The paper posits that although the ancient sense of justice may seem questionable today, it has laid the foundation for modern conceptions of justice, which vary among different philosophers, but all encompass the core element of equal treatment. By analyzing the views of Han Fei and Machiavelli, the paper reveals how justice was originally employed as a tool to solidify the power of monarchs and guides our modern understanding of justice.

Key word:

Justice; Han Fei; Machiavelli; Monarchy; Legalism; Equal treatment; Power stability; Non-democratic regimes; The Five Vermin; The Prince

Introduction
Almost no political philosopher would deny that justice is one of the most indispensable elements in human society. Through human history, different political philosophers have proposed different understandings and definitions of justice. Utilitarians like David Hume will argue that “public utility is the SOLE origin of justice,” and justice derives its value because it is useful in solving the scarcity in society (Hume, 1912, p.10). John Rawls will argue that justice is fair distribution of resources in the society, and inequalities in a just society should be arranged to benefit the least advantaged members of society (Rawls, 2017).

Theories of Justice:

However, most philosophers tend to define justice mostly in democratic setting, since some “just” policies or rights, according to their theories, seemed to be really hard to be achieved in nondemocratic regime. For example, Hume stresses the importance of private property, but in a monarchy country, it seems that “whatever is produced or improved by a man’s art or industry [cannot] be secured to him”, because the king can arbitrarily distribute anyone’s property (Hume, 1912, p.16). Similarly, according to Rawls’ theory, fair distribution can hardly be implemented since the inequality in monarchy society will tend to favor the most advantaged groups (Rawls, 2017). For example, kings can live in luxurious palace and upper class can have higher chance of promotion, these are all examples of “unfair distribution” in Rawls’ theory.

Justice in Non-Democratic Regimes:

David Hume argues that, in a society with “profuse ABUNDANCE of all EXTERNAL conveniences” or a virtuous society, justice will be useless (Hume, 1912, p.10). If Hume is right that justice emerge because of scarcity, then justice would have emerged long before democracy. For example, in “The Five Vermin” written by ancient Chinese philosopher Han Fei over 2000 years ago, he pointed out that ancient Chinese ruler “Yao” and “Yu” lived lives even bitterer than prisoner and slaves due to scarcity (Fei, 1999). Hume says that in a relationship like slavery, which contains “absolute command on the one side, and servile obedience on the other,” justice is completely useless (Hume, 1912, p.14). However, in ancient regimes like monarchy, every citizen was similar to the slave of the king and everyone must strictly following every single word from the king. In that sense, justice will have no place in monarchy. Nevertheless, if justice was really a powerful tool that can promote “the peace and interest of society”, why would kings not utilize it (Hume, 1912, p.15)?

Han Fei’s Perspective on Justice:

I am not opposing Hume’s theory of justice here, instead, I agree with it. However, according to his assumption of justice, which is scarcity, there must be justice in monarchy regime. The problem is, Hume and other philosophers’ theories cannot totally justify the justice in monarchy. Hume probably noticed this problem, and he claims that our concept of justice gets enlarged through history and experience (Hume, 1912). Thus, the original understanding of justice should be different, at the same time, our modern understand of justice also must have inherit some element from it. I argue that the core element of justice throughout history should be regarded as an equal treatment (from a body, either legislative, executive, or judicial) to every possible community member for a particular condition. In the following of the essay, I will further explain my idea.

Machiavelli’s View on Justice and Power:

In monarchy, especially absolute monarchy, kings do have power to do anything he wants. Nevertheless, a rational king will not do that, because his whimsy can weaken his authority and ruling, therefore threaten his safety. In most situation, a king’s desire to keep in power will exceed most of other desires, so he will take some action to strengthen his ruling instead of letting his whimsy destroy it. As a result, a sense of justice–equality–is developed by some rational kings. One of the most common ways used by the king to present this kind of justice is law. As ancient Chinese philosopher Han Fei argues in “The Five Vermin”, “The ancient kings allowed law to be supreme and did not give in to their tearful longings.” In his argument, the law is the tool to calm people down. He didn’t discuss how to judge whether a certain law is reasonable and just, and the legislative power totally belongs to the king in his argument. It seems that whether the law is good or not doesn’t matter. As long as everyone is obeying the same law, the king achieves his purpose (Fei, 1999). Nevertheless, what Han Fei want to emphasize is same punishment for same crime. For instance, a farmer and the prime minister of the country, they both stole one egg from another farmer, and they should be treated equally under the law. In a modern sense, it seems unsurprising at all. However, in ancient China, emperors often adopt different penalty to people depend on their moods, the criminals’ reasons for the crime and the criminals’ identities. The main purpose of Han Fei is to oppose this kind of action, and he believes that this greatly threaten the authority of the king. As Sampson said, this equity of treatment can provide safety from others’ retaliation and achieve a long-term mutual gain (Sampson, 1975).

In western country, Machiavelli proposed similar idea. In his famous book “The Prince”, he believes that “the ends justify the means”, saying that the complexities of political life necessitate a flexible approach to ethics. The king sometimes need difficult or morally questionable actions to achieve stability and success. Actions like deceit, manipulation, or even cruelty are acceptable as long as it contributes to the preservation of the state. Even though he has long been criticized for his unclear distinction between monarchy and tyranny, he still admit that there are two kinds of combat, the first one is by law: a prince should rule according to established laws and norms, ensuring justice and order (Machiavelli, 2009). It is true that he argues that the king doesn’t have to keep his words and kings who know how to lie often succeed. Nevertheless, that is actually not contradictory to justice and Han Fei’s theory, because he mentions that kings should do so if his words can put himself at risk. No king will actually put his words higher than his safety, and most rational people won’t do so either. Thus, in most situation, Machiavelli actually support Han Fei’s argument, which means the king should follow the law and punish people equally under the law, because it is undeniable that equity “ensures that order, cohesion, and justice will prevail” (Sampson, 1975, p.46). The difference is, Machiavelli encourages the king to utilize the vacancy of the law to make it beneficial for the king, but Han Fei didn’t mention that.

Comparative Analysis:

Although the ancient sense of justice as equality seems questionable nowadays, people have already inherited that notion and got used to that. This notion of justice is used in many situation. For example, in a community like school, most policies does not necessarily serve the students’ interest. Students don’t wanna wear school uniform, and they don’t wanna have homework either. Thus, many school policy doesn’t satisfy most modern definitions of justice, like Hume’s definition–serving the interest of society (in that sense, school). However, students do complain about them, but they hardly claim them as unjust. In this situation, they instinctively adopt an equal treatment to every possible community member for a particular condition as definition of justice. When students complain a certain policy is unjust, it is often because the policy unequally treats a certain group of members, like providing different cuisine for female and male.

Modern Implications:

The ancient sense of justice can also be deemed as the foundation of many modern senses of justice. One of the major differences between different philosophers’ theories is that they have different interpretations for the term “a particular situation”. For example, the meritocratic sense of justice, which is “assign[ing] the largest possessions to the most extensive virtue”, can be viewed as treating people equally according to their merits (Hume, 1912, p.15). Rawlsian’s definition of justice–assigning the greatest benefit to the least advantage groups, is also an approach to treat according to advantage (Rawls, 2017). People who voice for Retributive justice, like Kant and Hegel, will argue for treatment according to the extent of crime (Kant, 2012; Hegel, 2015). Although these theories develop in greatly different ways, this core element of justice still exists in their understanding. The difference is that they each extend this element to a broader sense.

Conclusion:

By analyzing Han Fei and Machiavelli, we can see how justice was originally used as the tool to stabilize the power of king, at the same time directing our modern understanding of justice.

Reference:

1. Fei, H. (1999). The Five Vermin. Columbia University Press.
2. Hegel, G. W. F. (2015). The philosophy of right. Hackett Publishing.
3. Hume, D. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. https://econfaculty.gmu.edu/klein/Assets/Hume_Morals.pdf
4. Kant, I. (2012). The science of right. Simon and Schuster.
5. Machiavelli, N. (2009). The Prince. https://apeiron.iulm.it/retrieve/handle/10808/4129/46589/Machiavelli%2C%20The%20Prince.pdf
6. Rawls, J. (2017). A theory of justice. In Applied ethics (pp. 21-29). Routledge.
7. Sampson, E. E. (1975). On Justice as Equality. Journal of Social Issues, 31(3), 45–64.