國家的刑法與社會的民法

對中國古代“重刑輕民”“法治落後”的批評由來已久，對禮的性質和定位也是學術界始終面臨的困難問題之一。近幾十年的法學發展，對法的社會治理功能有了新的理論認識，觸發了對法的內涵和外延的重新理解。結合近年來法律經濟學，特別是博弈論對社會規範及其與法律之關係的研究，傳統中國社會的治理規則可以從規則的形成和執行兩個維度分析，既可以是專業化的，也可以是非專業化的；既可以是國家壟斷的，也可以是分散演化的。對中國古代法律體系的認識，應當拋棄受制於“法=國家法”的觀念，將禮法理解為法律規則的不同執行體系，即國家壟斷執行的刑法和社會分散、複合執行的民法（禮）。禮法之間的關係是事前的等級化產權分配規則和事後的刑罰之間的關係。禮法分野在社會治理層面上的法律部門分工，更多的是小政府下的社會分權治理模式，對維持兩千年來中國古代社會以及中國傳統文化的穩定和統一，起到了關鍵性的作用。

What is Li(civility or ritual), and how we understand it, is a perennial question in Sinology. Li is commonly regarded as a norm system, but attributed to morality or belief rather than an independent legal norm system. This kind of stereotypical idea or imagination about Li has also heavily influenced legal studies. Statements like ''ancient China had no civil law'' or ''traditional China paid much attention to criminal law rather than civil law'' have become popular judgments about the Confucian legal tradition. The authors question such arbitrary assertions and argue that the formation and enforcement of law could be separated and can be provided either by public or private sectors, and either in competitive or monopolized way. Comparing with different regimes of legal system, including law merchant, social norm, Iceland private enforcement legal system in middle time, Li could be seen as ''society s civil law'', dominated by a hierarchical property rules according to the Confucian distributive justice. The authors also analyze the efficiency and effectiveness of the separation of states criminal law and society s civil law and argue that the social governance of social autonomy and power separation of enforcement of law have helped China keep the long term unification of society and made the Confucian ideas, values, and belief system to be independent of the rulers will.