Abstract：The recognized meta-concept in ancient Chinese natural law is “heaven”, which has three expressions. The way of heaven is a natural law, Taoism is a relatively complete and pure representative of natural legal thought, wherein ZHUANG Zi discussed the proposition of “evil law is illegal” and other propositions related to the value of natural law, but had little influence on positive law. The doctrine of divine punishment is a political law, formed by DONG Zhong-shu, who fused Yin-Yang and Confucianism. The Yin-Yang school also implies a purer natural law. The doctrine of heavenly principle is a social law, abstracted by rationalists such as ZHU Xi, and shared by monarchs, officials, and the people, embodying Confucian natural law. Confucianism partly contains certain thoughts of natural law, which plays an important role in the substantializing of law. However, it is not accurate to regard Confucianism as all natural law, and then regard it as dualistic opposition to legalism, which is regarded as positive law. Although both Chinese and Western natural law originated from natural laws, the ancient Chinese natural law, with Confucianism as the carrier, neither developed an effective power balance mechanism to restrict the monarchical power nor evolved the theory of property rights to protect private rights in the process of transforming to human-centered “human law”. The basic national legal system was mainly built around the goal of maintaining the monopoly of monarchical power. The natural law component contained in Confucianism has limited instrumental rationality, and Confucian natural law as a whole has the defect of fragmentation. Ancient Chinese natural law has a profound influence on the ancient consciousness of law-abiding, and can also provide ideological resources for the concept of human destiny community.
孙康. 中国古代自然法：表达、特征与再认识[J]. 《深圳大学学报》（人文社科版）, 2023, 40(6): 100-110.
SUN Kang. Ancient Chinese Natural Law: Expression, Characteristics and Reunderstanding. , 2023, 40(6): 100-110.
2023, Vol. 40 
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