Shenzi (or Shen Dao) probably lived around 360–285 BC, during the period in Chinese history known as the “Warring States.” He was a progenitor of the so-called Legalist school (fajia). Legalists held that proper order was a matter of clear and strict laws rigorously applied, regardless of the individual virtue of either rulers or subjects. Students of Chinese thought generally know Shenzi best as the propounder of the “thesis” in the “Nan Shi” (“Problems with the Concept of Position”) chapter of the Han Feizi: The dragon rides the clouds, but without the clouds the dragon is no better than an earthworm. Similarly, effective rule depends on control over the means of reward and punishment, not on the personal character the ruler (cf. fragments 10–14 in this book, pp. 107–8). Han Fei then introduces a critic: True enough—but by the same token, it takes a dragon to ride the clouds; an earthworm could never do it. And Han Fei derives his own synthesis, in the process changing somewhat the terms of the argument.

At one point, apparently, there was a complete collection of the purported works of Shenzi, but this was lost about one thousand years ago. There remain only sets of “fragments,” amounting to about three thousand characters (which come to approximately the same number of English words). Eirik Lang Harris translates these fragments in this engaging volume, commenting on them and arguing they represent a coherent political philosophy worthy of attention from anyone interested in problems of political order.

Some classical-age thinkers, particularly Confucius and Mencius and, from a somewhat different perspective, Mozi, held there is an objective moral order in the universe (Heaven, or the Way [Tao]) and good government reflects this moral order. Other thinkers, notably those we now call Taoists, held instead that Heaven is merely a term for the operations of nature. Human beings are a part of nature, along with rocks or trees or bugs, and Heaven has no more concern for humans than it has for anything else—were Heaven the sort of thing capable of having concerns. This naturalistic perspective is shared by Harris's Shenzi: human beings seek comfort and avoid pain and give priority to their own comfort and pains over those of anyone else. Since human beings are much alike, what produces comfort or pain is predictable. Good government stipulates and enforces laws that provide comfort when our behavior conforms to social order and causes pain when we do not. The stipulation of these laws is solely the province of the ruler, since multiple lawgivers would result in confusion and strife. The ruler can make any laws he pleases, but effective laws will conform to the people's character and circumstances. Effective laws do not reflect the ruler's personal likes or dislikes (except accidentally), but enforce what will actually result in an orderly society, which pretty much reduces to the strength of the state. Rulers, however, as several fragments point out, are not necessarily smarter or more competent than anyone else—indeed, in many cases less so—and are as motivated by personal desires as the rest of us: a core weakness of the whole Legalist position (cf. 80).

Harris credits Shenzi with the insight that politics operates by rules different from those of morality, implying that this insight marks an advance in political thinking. One might point out to the contrary that this is merely a reaction to the earlier view of the Confucian and Mohist schools that politics properly speaking is a branch of morality, and is subject to moral limits—a view which, in its turn, is a reaction to the putrid state of the political culture of their times. Harris may also exaggerate the similarity of Shenzi with Xunzi who, “naturalistic” as he may have been, remained in the Confucian tradition. Mencius believed that the rules of proper behavior reflected, or were outward manifestations of, a moral sense inherent in human nature. For Xunzi there is no such moral sense: left to ourselves, we are out for Number One. So the strong oppress the weak, the rich oppress the poor, the many oppress the few, and so forth. Nevertheless, selfish as we are, human life is possible only in society. As part of nature, human beings are subject to natural tendencies and inclinations, and so the rules of proper behavior are “artificial” in the sense that they are discovered by “sages” (or, we might now prefer to say, the process of social evolution). Yet as indicators or marks they are objective laws that enable inherently antisocial beings to live together more or less in harmony. So, properly speaking, Xunzi's rules are more in the line of discoveries than inventions, as Harris calls them. Harris, though, is likely right to say that for Shenzi, they are inventions, expressing not part of an order rooted in objective morality, but a set of techniques for keeping the people quiet and docile (as Laozi puts it, “Fill the bellies and empty the minds”).

The translation itself is clear and, as far as I can tell, accurate. Given the structural differences, it is very difficult to render classical Chinese into idiomatic English, and this book does not always avoid the familiar stiltedness. (For example, fragment 53: 亡國之君， 非一人之罪也 “Being lord of a failed state is not the fault of a single person”—might this more clearly be: “State failure is not solely the fault of the ruler”?) At one point at least, the translation flirts with tendentiousness. For fragments 21–22, “Son of Heaven” (tianzi—天子) is rendered emperor, and tianxia (天下—”[all] under Heaven”) is translated empire. But the terms “emperor” and “empire” are anachronistic when applied to Warring States times, a period of disunity. In an earlier supposed period of unity, the Son of Heaven was termed king (wang), not emperor—although during Shenzi's lifetime this title was also assumed by various local rulers (who did not, however, style themselves “Son of Heaven”). The point is that “Son of Heaven” refers to the ruler as Heaven's agent on earth, owing his position to Heaven's mandate, contingent on ruling with justice and benevolence. Tianxia literally means the entire world, but has connotations of the world as a civilized, cultured, harmonious community. It is not the same as state (guo or guojia), the administrative, judicial, penal, military aspect of rule. There is another term for emperor (huangdi—”august lord,” or some such thing), referring to that personage in his capacity as chief executive of the guojia. In Harris's interpretation, which is very persuasive, Shenzi no doubt had a purely “secular” concept of rule, without any “Way of Heaven” nonsense. But the translation glosses over a linguistic distinction that exists in Chinese and so may assume the desired conclusion.

But these are largely quibbles. The presentation is well reasoned, leavened by an unobtrusive wit (at one point, for example, Harris suggests that a possible reason for the general neglect of Shenzi is the same as that for the neglect of his own opinions on Aristotle's Golden Mean—namely, that no one finds them particularly original or interesting; he of course rejects this as an explanation for the obscurity of His Guy). Harris contends that Shenzi's ideas, as reconstructed, are interesting not only sinologically but also as general political philosophy. The ideas are certainly worth thought and discussion, though this position is more systematically, logically, and coherently developed elsewhere, particularly in the Han Feizi. But anyone interested in Chinese history and the genesis and development of Chinese political thinking is certain to learn from and enjoy this volume.