Han Feizi

Han Feizi lived from approximately 280 to 233 BCE, a Chinese philosopher of royal Han lineage and the foremost systematizer of Legalist, or Fajia, thought, gathering and extending the ideas of earlier reformers such as Shang Yang into the text that bears his name. He argued that a ruler should govern through clear, publicly promulgated law applied impartially regardless of rank, reinforced by strict administrative technique and the ruler's exclusive hold on the levers of reward and punishment, a philosophy that decisively influenced the legal and administrative structure of the unified Qin empire.