Legalism (Chinese philosophy)

Fa-Jia, usually (although inaccurately) translated as Legalism is a classical school of Chinese philosophy. Its reformers focused on the centralized management of personnel through protocol and political technique. The developments representative of the term were important in Chinese history, forming guiding principles for the First Emperor. Sometimes compared with modern social sciences, they rejected their Confucian contemporaries' espousal of a regime based solely on the charisma of the aristocrats as private interest undermining to their ruling patrons. Highly effective in the short run, their dismissiveness of traditional culture, morality and "anti-ministerial" approach earned them enmity, and with the fall of the Qin dynasty the imperial administration would often be overlaid with Confucian ideology and customs.

The term fa-jia was introduced by the Chinese historian Sima Tan (c. 165 BC – 110 BCE) in his essay, “The Essential Implications of the Six Houses of Thought." (The other five schools being Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, the School of Names, and the School of Naturalists.) The originating Canon of the Mohists, who were given their own school, explain fa as ideas, compasses, or circles. Sima Tan’s criteria held that Fa philosophers disregarded kinship, treating everyone equally according to administrative protocol, saying that they "are strict and have little kindness, but their alignment of the divisions between lord and subject, superior and inferior, cannot be improved upon... Fajia do not distinguish between kin and stranger or differentiate between noble and base; all are judged as one."