 Another idea we have seen already is that governance demands objective standards. This is a central theme of the Book of Lord Shang. It repeatedly stresses the importance of public, impartial standards (fa) for application of punishment and reward. “Fa” is often translated “law”, but its uses here and elsewhere are clearly broader than mere penal law. One kind of standard, to be sure, is the penal statute (xian), but standards take many other forms. The fact that rewards and punishments are regularly attached to standards makes it clear that these are normative expectations, and not just ideals. In another way the “fa” are more than ideals: they are institutionalized. This aspect no doubt explains part of the appeal of translating “fa” as “law”, since we often think of laws as norms that are subject to some kind of enforcement, unlike ethical ideals.