How to evaluate China's traditional legal culture?

The positive influence of China's traditional legal culture on the overall rule of law.

First, academically, China's traditional legal culture provides resources for China's legal academic research. The implementation of the strategy of governing the country according to law needs academic research of law to provide theoretical support for practice.

The academic research of law should be rooted in China's traditional legal culture and learn from western modern laws, so as to establish a modern theory of rule of law suitable for China and provide a theoretical basis for the practice of governing the country according to law.

There are many legal thoughts in China's traditional culture that are worth digging and learning from. Studying China's traditional legal culture can provide valuable theoretical materials for contemporary China's legal academic research.

Secondly, the combination of "rule by virtue" and "rule by law" in China's traditional legal culture is worth learning. Taking Confucianism as an example, Confucian legal thoughts mainly include the principles of "morality as the main factor and punishment as the auxiliary factor", "punishment should be taught clearly" and "courtesy should be applied and punishment should be punished". This kind of legal thought of Confucianism mainly emphasizes the role of morality and education, takes law as an auxiliary means, advocates "rule by courtesy", "rule by virtue" and "rule by man", and realizes the confluence of Confucianism and law through the high similarity between morality and law.

Under the special conditions of traditional society, this kind of legal thought of Confucianism is the realistic need of governing feudal countries and the necessity of historical development. Confucian legal thought emphasizes that "rule by courtesy", "rule by virtue" and "rule by man" are higher than the rule by law, which is not in line with the modern concept of rule by law. However, from another perspective, Confucian legal thought makes good use of and unifies the rule by virtue and the rule by law, which is of guiding significance for today's comprehensive rule of law.

Thirdly, the positive thoughts in China's traditional legal culture can provide a useful supplement for the modern concept of rule of law. China's traditional legal culture contains many excellent ideas of the rule of law. As early as the Spring and Autumn Period, Zheng produced the Book of Punishment, which reflected the idea that the law must be enforced. Han Feizi, the founder of Legalism, stressed that "if the law is clear, morality can't be humiliated, the strong can't invade the weak, and the public can't explode."

This shows that the law must have the attributes of equality and justice. Another example is that "the testimony is correct" and the rule of law will not be chaotic. "Emphasize the value of the rule of law; And "punishment is clear, civil service" is to explain the purpose of punishment. These traditional legal cultures have a distinctive social color of China, which can provide local resources for today's socialist concept of rule of law.

After thousands of years of precipitation, China's traditional legal culture has become a whole, with the following distinctive features:

First, China's traditional legal culture attaches importance to the role of "rule by virtue". The basic starting point of the concept of rule of law is to restrain people's behavior with a set of formed legal system. In traditional society, "virtue" is the most basic principle to restrain and regulate people's words and deeds, and following the traditional norms of "virtue" is the basis for the emergence and development of the rule of law. Confucianism especially advocates virtue, regards benevolence, loyalty and filial piety as the most fundamental moral requirements of individuals, and regards "three cardinal principles and five permanents" as the basic ethical standards of society.

Second, China's traditional legal culture attaches importance to collectivity and obligation. China's traditional society is dominated by self-sufficient natural economy, and small-scale peasant families are the cells of society. In this small family, a relatively independent hierarchical structure is formed by generations.