EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a comment made by Prof. Mark Fischer of California State University, Fullertonon, on an article posted on our website "Lord Shang and Legelism". We welcome and appreciate comments like this, as we believe earnest discussions on academic issues between professional scholars and general readers as well with different cultural backgrounds will help promoting mutual understanding and assimilation and hence benefit humanity in general. Therefore, we sincerely thank Prof. Fischer for his participation in the discussion and hope more readers will join us and support us in various ways.

THE TEXT  (Divided into paragraphs by the editor for easier reading)

This is generally an insightful essay. Two corrections are in order, however.

1. The statement that Shang Yang "puts the liberal argument against Confucian authority albeit without the concept of individual rights" is both contradictory and interpretively wrong. It’s contradictory in that individual rights are the very essence of liberalism. It’s interpretively wrong in that Shang Yang’s proposition to make the laws known to the people was not motivated by a liberal concern for their rights (which, as the statement admits, were none of his concern) but for preventing officials from applying the laws to their private interest. To solve this problem, use "legalistic" instead of "liberal."

2. It’s also misleading to state that "scattered passages give some sense of retributive "appropriateness" of certain punishments because it gives the impression that Shang Yang favored proportional punishment. But he clearly inveighs against proportionality when arguing that minor infractions should be punished severely to prevent crime from arising.

Mark Fischer, Ph.D. California State University Fullerton mfischer@fullerton.edu