商鞅
Han Fei credits Shang Yang with the practice of Fa in statecraft, to which Shang Yang and Han Fei intended their "legal codes" (Fa) be as "self-interpreting" (Hansen). Shang Yang's systematic application of penalties increase the tendency to see it as penal, but arguably does not change meaning from that of the Mohists. Shang Yang's innovation was not penal law. Rather, Shang Yang's idea was that penal codes should be reformed to have the same kind of objectivity, clarity and accessibility as the craft-linked instruments. Contrasting Fa with private distortions and behavior, theoretically, their Fa exactly follows Mozi. Shang Yang was supposedly taught by a Confucian syncretist, Shi Jiao, who, stressing the importance of "name" (rectification of names), connected it with reward and punishment.