Traditional Chinese law v. Weberian legal rationality 法理学英文论文--.doc

Traditional Chinese law v. Weberian legal rationality Abstract A universal theory of law cannot be based on Weber’s paradigm of the rationality of western law. Abstraction and systematization of law are compared in western law and traditional Chines codes. Chinese law was not substantively irrational but governed by ethical and status distinctions. Chinese legislators worked with humanistic goals. The empiricism of traditional Chinese law is as valid a form of intellectuality as the deductive rationality of Civil Law and the inductive rational- ity of Common Law. Keywords: Universal theory of law, FALV, formal and substantive irrationality, empirical law-finding, Confucian ethics. 1. Universal theory of law and western particularities Since Jeremy Bentham attempted his general jurisprudence, the efforts for a universal theory of law have been continuing for quite a while. 1 The theory is indeed significant especially in this global- ized world of cultural pluralism because such a theory, if completed, would solve the problem of a universal concept of law and construct one fundamental theory applicable to different legal systems in the world. Only in this way could we really get rid of all the barriers to communication and mutual understanding between different legal systems and cultures. Such a theory is not only necessary but even seems possible. Among all the differences between different legal systems we find they share at least one commonality, which is what could be named as law in English or FALV in Chinese and this makes the two terms generally inter-translatable. This basic commonality may be 1. Jeremy Bentham, Of Laws in General (London: Athlone Press, University of London, 1970).30 Max Weber Studies ? Max Weber Studies 2010. the basis for a possible universal theory of law. Whatever the local peculiarities of different legal systems on the outside, this should not prevent us seeing the inner nature of law and constructing a uni