人治还是法治——试析对韩非政治思想的分歧性评价

Rule of Man or Rule of Law——On the Different Evaluations of Han Fei's Political Thoughts

韩非是战国法家的集大成者,他继承前期法家的思想成果,创立了法、术、势兼用的政治理论。但韩非思想究竟主张人治还是法治,后世出现了以梁启超为代表的法治论派和以郭沫若为代表的人治论派这两类截然不同的观点。评价分歧的根源在于韩非思想自身的矛盾性,韩非在建构法治主张的过程中难以避免地陷入理性主义与理想主义的结构性冲突,既以工具理性批判儒家理想化的政治观,反过来又用过于理想的态度看待法治建设中君主的作用。因此,将韩非简单定性为法治的倡导者或独裁的鼓吹者都有失偏颇。

HAN Fei was a master among the legalists of the Warring States Period who inherited achievements of legalists in the early stage and created a political theory combining law,skill and power.But whether he advocated rule of man or law has remained controversial：there exist two totally different opinions separately represented by LIANG Qichao and GUO Moruo.The gap derives from HAN Fei＇s own thoughts which inevitably fall into structural conflicts of idealism and realism when constructing nomocracy theory.He used instrumental rationality to criticize Confucian ideal political views but held an optimistic attitude towards the monarch in reverse.So it＇s unfair to simply judge whether HAN Fei was an advocator of rule of man or a trumpeter of dictatorship.