法律认知和法律原则：情感、效率与公平

情感、效率、公平是人们认知活动中惯常的三个进程。对应这三个进程,人们对法律的认知有一些基本的原则。这些认知互动既可能形成社会自发秩序,也可能为法学提供一个基于认知背景的分析框架,有助于法学应对实践问题。“公平主导”的一个简单回答是,面对不同场合,情感、效率、公平三种进程被激活的程度不同。大体上,家庭场合激活情感,工程场合激活效率,市场和法律则更激活公平。在实践中,公平主导的法律原则由于比较接近主流社会认知,所以法律规范在社会中往往可能“自执行”,无需全靠外界监督或者激励。公平原则也有其自身的局限。虽然规范和原则很重要,是社会秩序的母体。但是,公平原则并不能解决所有问题。缺乏制度上的法治,光靠情理法是不足的。所以现代社会形成了规则化解决纠纷的机制,这就是二阶意义上的法律。

Legal Cognition and Legal Principles:Emotion,Efficiency and Fairness

Emotion,efficiency and fairness are the three common processes of people's cognitive activities.Correspondingly,there are some basic principles of people's cognition of law.These cognitive interactions may not only form the spontaneous social order but also provide an analysis framework for jurisprudence based on cognitive background,which helps jurisprudence to deal with practical issues.A simple answer to the dominance of fairness is that the three processes of emotion,efficiency and fairness are activated at different degrees in different situations.Generally speaking,family occasions activate emotion;engineering occasions activate efficiency;market and law activate fairness.In practice,because the legal principle of fairness is close to people's mainstream social cognition,legal norms are often“self-executing”in the society,without relying on external supervision or incentives.The principle of fairness has its limitations.Although norms and principles,the origin of the social order,are fundamental,the principle of fairness itself cannot solve all the problems.It is not enough only to rely on emotion,rationality and legislation without the systematic government of law.Therefore,modern society has formed the mechanism of regular dispute resolution,and that is the so-called“second-order law”.