Research on the Basic Values of the Constitution

Author: Chen Xiong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-02-01
Features: The problem of value, although a difficult one, is one that legal science cannot go back on. Even in rough, hasty, or capricious adjustments of relationships or arrangements of behavior, there is always some criterion for evaluating conflicting and overlapping interests. This criterion may be as simple as maintaining peace. It may be maintaining the status quo of society, it may be promoting the self-affirmation of individuals with maximum freedom. It may be the implementation of the self-interest of a dominant social or economic class or a class striving to become dominant. It may be the maintenance and strengthening of the power of an established political organization. If, at times and in places, these value criteria are more or less unconsciously established, then due to the emergence of legislators and legal workers, these criteria increasingly gain systematic development and formulation, and increasingly relate to various life hypotheses in civilized society. Throughout the classic periods of legal history, whether in ancient or modern times, the argumentation, criticism, or logical application of value criteria has always been the main activity of legal scholars.