Ho on Confucian Legal Hypotheticals @profnormanho @PKUSTL

Norman Ho, Peking University School of Transnational Law, is publishing Confucian Legal Hypotheticals, in volume 18 of the Journal of Comparative Law (2023). Here is the abstract.

This Article examines a legal hypothetical in the Mencius text, where Mencius is asked by his disciple Tao Ying what would Emperor Shun do if his father had killed someone. By situating this legal hypothetical in premodern Chinese legal history, particularly with respect to dynastic legal developments regarding the issue of kinship and family concealment of crimes (i.e., where family members cover up crimes of other family members), this Article argues that later dynasties went further (to the extreme) in “Confucianizing the law” than what foundational thinkers like Mencius and Confucius originally advocated. The Article concludes with a brief discussion of the possible continued influence of traditional Chinese law on current PRC law in the realm of kinship/family concealment.

Doownload the article from SSRN at the link.