Han Fei · Politics
The bleak foundation and the bitter end. Han Fei held that human beings are moved by self-interest, not affection - even a ruler’s own wife and heir may calculate against him - so a state must be built on law and incentive, never on trust. His ideas armed the Qin unification of China; his own doctrine of ruthless calculation was used against him by his fellow-student Li Si, who drove him to suicide.
You learned that Han Fei grounded his politics in a distrustful view of human nature - people follow interest, not affection, so even the ruler’s intimates may calculate against him - and that his Legalist ideas armed the Qin unification of China in 221 BCE, even as he was destroyed by his fellow-student Li Si t…
Leads to Thomas Hobbes.
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