Legal Vices and Civic Virtue: Vice Crimes, Republicanism and the Corruption of Lawfulness

Vice crimes, crimes prohibited in part because they are viewed as morally corrupting, engage legal theorists because they reveal importantly contrasting views between liberals and virtue-centered theorists on the very limits of legitimate state action. Yet advocates and opponents alike focus on the role law can play in suppressing personal vice; the role of law is seen as suppressing licentiousness, sloth, greed etc. The most powerful advocates of the position that the law must nurture good character often draw on Aristotelian theories of virtue to ground the connection between law and virtue. While Aristotle believed that law and character were linked, it is ironic to note that he did not argue for the position evidenced in our vice laws that law was likely to succeed in instilling virtue. Indeed, Aristotle thought the project of using law to instill private virtue was nearly certain to fail. Aristotle’s deep concern was not for the way law protected private virtue within each person but the way law had to protect civic virtue between citizens. This article argues that even from its foundations, the project of vice crimes as moral instruction is misconceived. The use of law for overly instrumental or narrow reasons opens law and legal institutions to abuse and factionalism. Lawyers, judges and others specially connected to law must first and foremost aim at addressing “legal vices,” vices internal to the institutions of law. Particularly, increasing factionalism and instrumentalism which disconnects law from the pursuit of the common good threatens our civic bonds. Most importantly, where civic bonds are disrupted, citizens have no reason to remain law abiding. The striking lesson, captured both in ancient philosophy and modern history, is that when legal vices grow unchecked and factions use the law to pursue narrow interests, ultimately law abidingness is corrupted and interest groups harm themselves as much as others.     

共和与民主宪政

共和国是千百年来政治法律家们所追求的政权组织形式。共和主义可以使各种社会政治资源得以充分利用。民主是人民当家作主 ,自己决定自己的事业 ,是近现代人们所推崇的政体的主流形式。宪政主义的核心是废除绝对主权 ,强调对宪法限制统治权 ,确认并保护人民的权利。共和与民主并不矛盾 ,民主是共和的重要组成部分 ,没有民主就没有共和 ,但民主必须受到节制 ,共和必须接受民主的洗礼 ,民主共和必须由宪法予以确认。在宪政的体制下发扬民主 ,完善共和 ,是建设现代文明国家的基本要求。     

共和精神:刑事政策选择的宪政制约

民主是宪政的前提 ,其正当性源于多数决定。共和是宪政的基础 ,其合理性体现在对少数的保护。共和的最终精神体现在人权中。保护少数的权利是共和的基本内涵 ,也是宪政的基本要求。中国的刑事政策选择应当体现共和精神并受其制约。首先应当解决权力规制问题 ,关注刑事政策的合宪性 ;其次 ,刑事法律应当警惕多数的霸权 ,保护犯罪嫌疑人、被告人与罪犯的权利。     

Civic Protest. Version 2.0

The author discusses the involvement of Russian-speaking members of the Ukrainian population in the Euromaidan protests. She argues that protesters of all cultural backgrounds had united in opposition to the corruption of the Yanukovych government and highlights the potential inherent in their participation in protests in creating a civic Ukrainian nation     

The Anatomy of Civic Integration

Recent legislation on migration and citizenship in Europe and the EU framework on integration require migrants to meet integration requirements in order to enter, reside, reunite with their families and naturalise in the host country. Mandatory language course attendance and examination tests are viewed as means of enhancing integration, which is now framed as a ‘two way’ process or a contractual agreement between migrants and the host society. Despite the deployment of the notion of a contract, integration is, in reality, a one way process aimed at procuring conformity, discipline and migration control. Civic integration rests on an artificial homogenisation and displays the same elements of paternalism and ethnocentricity that characterised past initiatives. The civic integration paradigm is a crucial feature of a renewed, albeit old‐fashioned, nationpolitics used by political elites to provide answers to a wide range of issues and to elicit support for a controlling state in the first decade of the 21^st century.     

现代宪法的理论基础:自由主义抑或共和主义?

近代以来西方国家的宪法强调自由主义,以公民个人自由、权利的保障为核心来型塑各种制度。然而在现代社会,以自由主义为基础的宪法面临着困境,其需要从共和主义理论中汲取营养;中国宪法强调共和主义,需要用自由主义的核心价值弥补其不足。现代宪法的理论基础应该是自由主义与共和主义的有机结合。     

论公民文化与宪法政治

公民文化是政治学中十分重要的概念。在阿尔蒙德和维巴的研究中，公民文化和政治社会化息息相关，可以说，它们是支撑民主制度的核心要素。我国在建设宪法政治的过程中，也必须认真对待公民文化对于宪法政治的支撑作用，并从宪法社会化的角度出发，探索公民文化对宪法政治建设的推动作用。对我国来说，正确处理公民文化和宪法制度的关系至关重要。     

欧盟宪法发展进程中的双重变奏——共和主义与自由主义的视角

欧盟宪法较之于民族国家的宪法的一个突出特征在于，欧盟宪法不是来自于一次政治决断，而是由多个连续性的决断构成，这就表现为欧盟宪法的发展或欧盟统合秩序的形成是一个由多种力量或因素参与其间的法律与政治进程，其中，共和主义与自由主义最为重要，从而欧盟宪法的发展进程也就体现为共和主义与自由主义的双重变奏。共和主义是欧盟宪法的灵魂与骨架，而自由主义在欧盟宪法发展之初是作为一种积极的力量而存在的。随着欧盟宪法的发展，因触及了各个民族国家的政治、社会发展模式及成员国人民的福利，自由主义则成为欧盟宪法发展中重要反对性力量所借助的思想资源，但是，源于“欧洲梦”的追求，共和主义较之于自由主义始终具有正当性与统摄性。欧盟宪法未来的发展，在一定意义上就取决于共和主义与自由主义之间的平衡。     

Semiotics,Civic Education And The Internet

This essay examines civic education and the representational capacity of the Internet. Of concern is encouraging citizens to think about law and politics as something more than just a zero-sum process and the Internet as a public forum. These observations take a semiotic approach to the representational character of the Internet. I recommend alertness and responsiveness to the complexity of public affairs and skepticism about anything else other than provisional and hypothetical social analysis.     

Public Reason,Neutrality and Civic Virtues

In this paper I argue that political liberalism is not the “minimalist liberalism” characterised by Michael Sandel and that it does not support the vision of public life characteristic of the procedural republic. I defend this claim by developing two points. The first concerns Rawls's account of public reason. Drawing from examples in Canadian free speech jurisprudence I show how restrictions on commercial advertising, obscenity and hate propaganda can be justified by political values. Secondly, political liberalism also attends to the identity, and not just the interests, of its citizens. It attempts to cultivate certain virtues of character. But it does so in a way that does not entail the acceptance of a comprehensive or perfectionist doctrine. Rawls's defence of neutrality of aim does not mean the state should be neutral towards all the views its citizens espouse. I conclude that political liberalism shares little with the doctrine Sandel claims is embedded in American law.     

论中国民间对日索赔的权利

本文主要根据笔者在东京高等法院出庭作证的“鉴定书”和“补充意见书”,针对日本政府的“《中日联合声明》放弃论”和“日华和约有效论”的观点和主张,从国际法和一般法律原则的角度,结合历史事实进行了较为全面和深入的研究和分析,在驳斥日本政府反论的同时,论证了中国民间战争受害者拥有对日索赔的权利。     

The Place of Religious Arguments in Civic Discussion

I shall consider whether morality requires citizens of democratic societies to advance secular reasons in public debates on political questions. Is it wrong to give purely religious reasons in political discussion? I shall argue that the moral acceptability of public religious arguments that are not supported with secular reasons depends on the political context we are discussing, and that often there is nothing wrong with using religious considerations. I shall also discuss the so‐called shared premises requirement in political argumentation. The overall aim of the paper is to clarify intuitions concerning the ideals of public reason on the one hand, and the commitment to religious liberty on the other.     

重新审视日本公民馆:历史谱系、目标偏差与功能错位——兼论我国公民教育的基本路向

公民馆是二战之后日本实施社会教育特别是公民教育的重要基础设施,遍及日本各地的市镇街村。从其历史谱系来看,公民馆承担着实施社会教化、提供社区服务和促进终身学习等职能,在养成公民意识、培育公民精神和促进公民参与等方面都发挥了重要的作用和功能。但是,由于错误历史观的引领和右翼势力的干扰,国家权力与教育权力的价值取向扭曲及目标偏差导致公民馆出现了功能错位。借鉴日本公民馆在社会教育特别是公民教育方面的经验教训,我国的公民教育要进一步拓展公民教育空间、完善公民教育内容和创新公民教育方式。     

Civic Conscience,Selective Conscientious Objection and Lack of Choice

Most democratic states tolerate, to various extents, conscientious objection. The same states tend not to tolerate acts of civil disobedience and what they perceive as selective conscientious objection. In this paper it is claimed that the dichotomy between civil disobedience and conscientious objection is often misguided; that the existence of a “civic conscience” makes it impossible to differentiate between conscientious objection and civil disobedience; and that there is no such thing as “selective” conscientious objection—or that classifying an objection as “selective” has no significant moral or practical implications. These claims are supported by a preliminary, more general argument according to which conscientious objection is and should be tolerated because the objector lacks the ability to choose his conscience and to decide whether to act upon it. The lack‐of‐choice argument, it is claimed, applies equally to all types of conscientious objection, including those that are mistakenly called “selective” objection. It also applies to one type of civil disobedience. As a result, if a state is willing to tolerate non‐selective conscientious objection, it may and at times must also tolerate selective conscientious objection and (one type of) civil disobedience and to a similar degree (all other things being equal).     

近代中国宪政缩影——辛亥百年解读云南护国运动

1908年清末立宪至今,中国宪政已有百年历史。宪政从西方传来之时,正值中华民族生死存亡之际,反帝救亡成为当时的主旋律。宪政之于近代中国也因此被赋予了双重目标,即追求民主政治与追求民族独立的目标联系在一起,且后者优于前者。近代宪政不可避免地被当作功利性的手段,其自身的价值内涵却被忽略了。     

宪政语境下的公民主体性法理分析——兼析中国宪政语境下的“国家—市民社会”范式的历史逻辑缺陷

学界对宪政主义与市民社会的引入与研究普遍地存在割裂了西方语境下的宪政主义与市民社会的历史逻辑链条的问题,它忽视了公民主体性这个宪政发展与市民社会构成的基础性与结构性的要件。现代宪政意味着权力自身的矛盾运动,它需要对权力的矛盾运动予以限制和控制以使得其在理性的轨道中运行。权力精英之间的权力博弈在现代宪政中是必不可少的,但是这种权力博弈如果没有具有主体性的公民组成的成熟市民社会的参与,那么它就可能导致宪政体系的崩溃。     

关于当前公民道德建设几个重大关系问题的思考

着力提高全民族的道德素质,是全面建设小康社会的基本目标和重要保障。为此,必须将全面贯彻十六大关于道德建设的精神与切实落实《纲要》密切结合起来。当前,在公民道德规范的概括、提炼和倡行上,应该正确认识“基本道德规范”的地位、重点以及与其他规范、与“三德”着力点的关系。在我国现阶段道德建设的实际操作过程中,应该体现法制一定程度先行的原则,发挥法律规范的更直接、更强有力的保证作用;同时注重公民道德的实践养成,从具体的行为入手,加强道德教化、训练、指导;还应处理好公民道德建设中的“三德”并行、整体推进与城乡优势互补、各有侧重的关系,处理好全体公民的道德建设与抓好干部、青少年两个重点的关系。     

民生关怀：中国宪政改革的现实基础

中国正处于社会转型的重要历史时期，选择一种符合国情的、合理的、适时的宪政改革路径和步骤至关重要。现阶段中国宪政改革应该以民生关怀作为切入点，围绕解决社会危机事件和众所注目的社会热点问题启动宪政改革，先实施体制内宪政微调，弥补立法和制度缺漏，改进相关管理及其运作方式，解决民主宪政操作层面的具体问题，尽可能发挥现有体制民生设计的预期效益。以民生需要基础考虑中国宪政改革，就必须通过推行人民代表的“非行政化”、专职化和完善选举制度强化人民代表大会的民意代表地位和功能，同时强化行宪主体的责任追究和宪法实施的社会监督。