Legalism (Chinese philosophy)
Confucian influences

Basing himself in administrative impartiality, and showing "both Daoist and Confucian characteristics", Shen Buhai can still modernly be taken as a more Confucian, cooperative figure than might be supposed from the scheming of Han Fei's later chapters, and does not appear to directly attack Confucianism. Although Han Fei would generally be considered authoritarian, neither were figures like Shen Dao necessarily more authoritarian for their time. Advocating that administrative machinery (fa) be used to impartially determine rewards and punishments, Shen Dao otherwise advocates that the realm be literally modeled off the natural world.

Discarding the use of his ears, eyes and wisdom, in contrast to Daoism as later understood, with Dao referring to such things as the totality of reality, Shen Buhai 's Dao or Way refers only to impartial administrative methods (fa). As a figure who paraphrases the Analects, he makes a more Confucianist usage of Wu wei 'reduced activity' in the sense of leaving duties to ministers, teaching the ruler not to engage in actions that might harm the 'natural order of things', hiding his power and wit. Argued by Creel as earlier than the Daodejing, he would have to be reconsidered with the discovery of the Mawangdui Silk Texts. Later Han classification as Fajia aside, he was nonetheless said to be a Daoist, or at least "to have studied Huang-Lao". Han Fei's Chapter 5 otherwise quotes from his work alongside that of Laozi.

Mencius advocates that Emperor Shun would run away with his father if he had committed murder, rather than see him arrested. Not considering Confucian values like filial piety sufficient for governing the state, Shen Dao advocates the ruler encourage faith in rules by acting according to rules, and not abandon the throne to help murderous family members escape. While the Zhuangzi is generally critical of filial piety, Shen Dao still upheld it even if the parents are bad, instead suggesting that parents can be reproached if it might save them from disaster. Although some authors of the Han Feizi took a negative view of Confucianism, it can still be compared with Corncianism, at least nominally. Its system of reward and punishment was focused on forbidding and encouraging ministers, extending to the population, and was not just a punishment-focused penal system.

Shen Buhai, Shen Dao and Han Fei bears resemblance to the recovered eclectic, early Boshu text in the Mawangdui Silk Texts, with daoistic ideas comparable more to Natural law. But Creel found no direct political following for Shen Dao comparable to Shang Yang or Shen Buhai by the Han dynasty; the Huainanzi has major influences from the Zhuangzi, and to a lesser extent Han Fei, but opposes Shang Yang and Shen Buhai under a gloss of harsh penal law.
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