Han Fei does not ask you to be a sage. He does not ask you to be a villain. He asks you to be hard to destroy.
The Han Feizi’s tenth chapter, “The Ten Faults” (十过, Shí Guò), consists of the ten faults or failure modes (patterns of behaviour) that, in Han Fei’s analysis, reliably produce ruin. They were written for rulers. They translate, with uncomfortable precision, into the lives of anyone who is responsible for outcomes that depend on other people, on institutions, or on their own judgment under pressure.
1. Petty Loyalty: The Kindness That Kills
The first fault is illustrated by a story from the battlefield.
King Gong of Chu (楚共王) fought Duke Li of Jin (晋厉公) at Yanling. The Chu army was defeated; the king was wounded in the eye. In the heat of battle, Marshal Zifan(子反) asked for something to drink. His attendant, Shu Guyang(竖谷阳), brought him a cup of wine. Zifan said: “Out of my sight! It is wine.” Guyang said: “It is not wine.” Zifan drank it. He was fond of wine; he could not stop; he became drunk.
When the battle ended, the king wanted to fight again. He summoned Zifan, who excused himself, claiming a pain in his heart. The king went to his tent in person, smelled the wine, and turned back: “In today’s battle I was wounded. The only person I relied on was the Marshal. Now the Marshal is drunk like this – he is ruining the altars of Chu and showing no concern for my soldiers.” The army withdrew. Zifan was executed.
Han Fei’s verdict is devastating in its simplicity:
竖谷阳之进酒，不以仇子反也，其心忠爱之而适足以杀之
Guyang did not offer the wine out of hatred for Zifan; his heart loved him, and that was precisely enough to kill him.
The modern translation: guaranteeing a friend’s debt out of “brotherhood,” covering a relative’s shortfall out of “family feeling,” making an exception for someone you like – these are acts of petty loyalty. They feel like virtue. They are transfers of your own security to someone else’s problem. The great loyalty – to your own survival, your own household, your own long-term capacity – is betrayed by the small loyalty that feels good in the moment.
2. Petty Gains: The Gift That Costs Everything
The second fault is illustrated by Duke Xian of Jin(晋献公), who wanted to march through the state of Yu to attack Guo. He sent the jade of Chuiji and the horses of Qu as gifts to Duke of Yu, asking for passage. Gong Zhiqi(宫之奇) warned: “Yu and Guo are like a cart and its side-boards: each depends on the other. If you lend the road, Guo will fall in the morning and Yu will follow in the evening.” The Duke of Yu did not listen. He granted the passage. Guo was destroyed. Three years later, Jin attacked Yu and destroyed it too. Xun Xi (荀息) led the horses and carried the jade back to Duke Xian, who said: “The jade is the same. The horses’ teeth have grown longer.” Han Fei’s conclusion:
虞公之兵殆而地削者，何也？爱小利而不虑其害
why was the Duke of Yu’s army endangered and his territory reduced? Because he loved petty gains and did not consider their harm.
The modern translation: the small advantage that arrives “for free” is almost always a hook. The jade is the visible benefit. The road is the structural concession. Han Fei’s rule is not “reject all benefits.” It is: before you accept a benefit, trace the road it requires you to open.
3. Wilful Self-Assertion: The Confidence That Isolates
King Ling of Chu convened a meeting at Shen. The crown prince of Song arrived late; he was arrested and imprisoned. The ruler of Xu was treated with disrespect. Qingfeng from the State of Qi was detained. A remonstrating officer warned: “To gather the feudal lords without courtesy is the hinge of survival and destruction. Jie convened a meeting at Yourong, and the Youmin rebelled; Zhou held a hunt at Liqiu, and the Rong and Di rebelled. Both were because of a lack of courtesy.” The king did not listen. Within a year, he travelled south, his ministers seized him, and he starved to death by the River Ganxi.
The Daodejing supplies the image Han Fei’s reader is meant to recall:
企者不立，跨者不行
One who stands on tiptoe does not stand firm; one who strides does not walk far.
The fault is not confidence. It is confidence that has stopped listening. The person who cannot hear a warning is not strong. They are structurally blind – and structural blindness is fatal in any environment where other people can see the cliff you are approaching.
4. Neglecting Governance for Music: The Distraction That Consumes
The fourth fault is about displacement. The ruler who neglects political affairs to indulge in music is not simply enjoying himself. He is using enjoyment to avoid the difficulty of governance.
The modern translation is not “never relax.” It is: notice when relaxation has become avoidance. The late-night scrolling, the endless streaming, the “I’ll deal with it tomorrow” – these are not rest. They are the displacement of the difficult task by the easy stimulus. The Legalist question is not “Is this pleasurable?” It is: “What is this pleasure displacing?”
5. Greed and Stubbornness: The Combination That Destroys
Zhi Bo Yao (智伯瑶) led the armies of Zhao, Han, and Wei against the Fan and Zhonghang clans and destroyed them. After a pause, he demanded territory from Han Kangzi (韩康子). Duan Gui (段规) advised Han Kangzi: “You must give it to him. Zhi Bo is a man who loves profit and is arrogant and stubborn. If you refuse, he will move his army against Han. Give it to him, and he will become accustomed to it and demand territory from others. When someone refuses, he will attack. Then Han can avoid disaster and wait for the situation to change.” Han gave him a county of ten thousand households. Zhi Bo was pleased. He demanded territory from Wei. Wei gave it. He demanded from Zhao. Zhao refused. Zhi Bo attacked Zhao at Jinyang – and Han and Wei turned against him, destroyed him, and divided his territory.
Han Fei’s conclusion:
贪愎好利，则灭国杀身之本也
Greed and stubbornness, delighting in profit, is the root of the destruction of the state and the killing of the self.
The danger is not greed alone. It is greed that cannot be corrected by advice. A greedy person who listens can be restrained. A stubborn person who is not greedy can be managed. The combination – the appetite that expands and the ear that closes – is structurally unstoppable until it meets a wall.
6. Indulgence in Pleasure: The Slow Dissolution
The sixth fault is the narrowest in its ancient formulation and the broadest in its modern application. The original target is the ruler who indulges in female musicians and ignores the administration of the state.
The Legalist point is not moralism about pleasure. It is structural: whatever consumes your attention without returning capacity is a slow leak in your ability to govern your own life. The form of the pleasure is historically contingent – the Han Feizi’s audience would have recognised the court musician; the modern reader recognises the drug, the wine, the feed, the game, the entanglement, the sex. The mechanism is identical: time and will are finite, and the pleasure does not replenish them.
7. Leaving the Foundation: The Rot You Cannot See
The seventh fault is distance from the base. The ruler who leaves the court on distant journeys and ignores remonstrating officials is not simply travelling. He is removing himself from the place where his authority is anchored, while the people and structures that sustain that authority continue to operate – and decay – without his attention.
The modern translation applies to managers who leave the core business, professionals who neglect their network, founders who stop talking to customers. The Han Feizi does not assume that the people left behind are plotting. It assumes something colder and more accurate: structures deteriorate when they are not maintained, regardless of anyone’s intentions. The rot is not caused by your absence. It is revealed by it.
8. Refusing Counsel After Error: The Excuse That Compounds
The eighth fault is the refusal to learn from a mistake. Han Fei’s formulation is exact:
过而不听于忠臣，独行其意，则灭其高名为人笑之始也。
To have made a mistake, and not to heed loyal ministers, but to go one’s own way alone. The beginning of the destruction of one’s good name and of becoming a laughingstock.
The Zhouyi (Book of Changes) supplies the image:
履霜，坚冰至
Treading on frost, the hard ice arrives.
The first frost is the small error. The hard ice is the accumulated consequence. The fault is not making the error. It is the refusal to treat the error as information – the insistence on protecting the self-image at the cost of correcting the trajectory. The person who cannot say “I was wrong” is not strong. They are committed to a path that is already showing frost.
9. Miscalculating Strength: The Gamble Without the Stack
The ninth fault is the failure to assess one’s own capacity while relying on external support. Han Fei said that: “not to assess domestic strength, and to rely on the regional lords abroad – this will lead to the disaster of having your state decimated”.
The modern proverb says “the bigger the waves, the more expensive the fish.” The Legalist correction is colder: the bigger the waves, the cheaper the life of the fisherman who has no boat. High risk is not neutral. It is proportional to the margin you have to absorb it. Without the margin, the risk is not a gamble. It is a scheduled loss.
10. Small State, No Courtesy: The Weakness That Forgets Its Position
The tenth fault is the most easily misread as Confucian moralising, and it is the most Legalist in its structure. The small state that shows no ritual politeness and does not employ remonstrating ministers is not bad-mannered. It is acting as if it has a margin it does not have.
Han Fei is not asking the weak to be humble as a virtue. He is asking them to read their position accurately. The weak who demand, press, and provoke are not brave. They are spending a credibility they cannot replenish. The Legalist insight is that powerlessness has its own rules, and the first rule is do not force a confrontation you cannot survive.
The Structure Beneath the List
The ten faults are not ten separate lessons. They share a single architecture: the substitution of a proximate, emotionally satisfying response for the structural condition that would actually protect you.
- Petty loyalty substitutes warmth for boundary.
- Petty gains substitute the visible gift for the invisible cost.
- Wilful assertion substitutes the comfort of certainty for the discipline of listening.
- Distraction substitutes the easy stimulus for the difficult task.
- Greed-stubbornness substitutes appetite for judgment.
- Indulgence substitutes consumption for replenishment.
- Absence substitutes the illusion of continuity for the maintenance of the base.
- Refusing counsel substitutes self-protection for correction.
- Miscalculation substitutes hope for capacity.
- Weakness without courtesy substitutes the performance of strength for the reality of position.
Each fault is locally rational and globally destructive. That is why the list is useful. It does not ask you to be better. It asks you to notice the moment when a short-term response is eating a long-term structure.
What Han Fei Is Not Saying
The Ten Faults is not a moral programme. Han Fei does not say “be humble” or “be generous” or “be brave.” He says: do not be the person who is destroyed by a pattern you could have seen coming.
The comparison with Machiavelli is instructive here. Both thinkers share a pessimistic psychology and a belief that ethics cannot be the foundation of political order; both write practical advice for rulers rather than ideal theory. But their solutions diverge at the point that matters for the Ten Faults. Machiavelli’s prince is an exceptional figure whose uncommon virtues allow him to master fortune. Han Fei’s ruler is not assumed to be exceptional. “Since most rulers are mediocre,” the scholarship notes, “the ruler should govern with the support of a wider bureaucratic state that is regulated by a complicated system of laws”.
The Ten Faults is the negative image of that system. It is what happens when the laws, the verification, and the structural protections are absent – when the ruler is left to his own judgment, his own appetites, and his own unwillingness to listen. The list is not a substitute for institutions. It is a diagnosis of what institutions exist to prevent.
The Takeaway
The goal is not to be good. The goal is to remain standing.
Han Fei’s ten faults are a survival checklist for anyone whose life depends on decisions made under uncertainty, with incomplete information, and with other people’s interests pressing against their own. The checklist does not make you virtuous. It makes you harder to kill – and in the Legalist calculus, that is the foundation on which everything else, including virtue, becomes possible.
If you cannot preserve yourself, you cannot preserve anything else.
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