Which Legalist scholar dismissed the Confucian belief that government could be based on virtue, arguing instead that rulers should establish a code that enabled control of subjects through punishment and reward?

Han Fei or also sometimes known as Han Fei Zi.

Explanation:

Legalism is the philosophy of the Chinese school of thought where the main interest and concern is on the need to have order and power over every other concern of human life. It suggests the need of having the citizens to pursue their aims and purposes only if it will also benefit the state.

One of the most famous propunder of this philosophy was Han Fei who advocates for the more stricter rules of authority. Dismissing the popular Confucian belief of the virtue or morality based government, he propagate the need for the establishment of a much more controlled authority of the subjects by introducing punishments and rewards. According to him, these two methods are the most effective ways of managing the people in a systematic and ordered way, without the possibility of any unrest. In most ways, he is also implying the same philosophy that Niccolo Machiavelli had suggested in his political essay "The Prince".