Topic: Law and Humanities Seminar Series: Normative Dualism: One Way to Understand Confucian Legal Philosophy
Speaker: Xingzhong Yu (於兴中), Chair Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Macau
Moderator: Prof. Norman P. Ho, Peking University School of Transnational Law
Lecture Summary: Using one or more systems of norms to positively maintain order but another system of norms to negatively punish disorder is a characteristic, if not unique, Chinese experience. This can be described as normative dualism. This dualist practice has been proven to have a long-lasting life, originating more than three thousand years ago. Normative dualism continues to influence the Chinese normative system today. This talk discusses this perennial feature of the Chinese normative system by examining its phenomenological attributes which separates “Li” from “Xing” and its more profound philosophical foundation of dialecticism that distinguishes Yin from Yang, positive from negative and morality from punishment.
Speaker Bio: Xingzhong Yu is Chair Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Macau (UM). Prior to joining UM Faculty of Law, he was the Anthony W. and Lulu C. Wang Professor in Chinese Law at Cornell Law School (2012-2022). His academic interests include Chinese law and legal history, social theory, comparative legal philosophy, constitutional law, and intelligent technology and law. He holds an LLM and SJD from Harvard Law School, and while there was a lecturer on law, senior research fellow in East Asian Legal Studies, and visiting associate professor. He taught at the Faculty of Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). He was the Wang Distinguished Visiting Professor at Cornell Law School in the fall semester of 2010. He is the author of numerous articles and 6 books, including Rule of Law and Civil Orders (2006).
