法治理念的生成逻辑

The Generating Logic of Rule of Law Theory

法治建设的前提是法治观念的澄清,而这必须从法治与“政治正当性”等问题的关联性思考中展开。法治理论在西方古代主要是通过“善—正当—合法”这一逻辑链条得以理解。近代政治独立后,这一链条缩减为了“正当性”决定“合法性”,法治被等价于自由主义价值观与政治组织原则,近代自由主义法治观得以形成。随着近代工具理性观的出现,法律自治得以确立,法律不再与任何政治价值具有逻辑上的必然关系,法治与外在价值脱离,回到了法律本身,在理论上确立为“形式法治”。虽然理论家对“正当性”与“合法性”的分离存在质疑,并提出各种“实质法治”方案,但“形式法治”作为近代法律自治理论的一个重要成果,在理论逻辑的证立方面更具有优势。因此,当代中国法治建设最重要的任务是政治价值共识的建立,并由此塑造一种被广泛接受的“观念性法治”。

The premise of the construction of the rule of law is the clarification of the concept of the rule of law,which must be carried out from the consideration of the relevance of the rule of law and“political legitimacy”.The theory of the rule of law was understood mainly through the logical chain of“goodness-legitimacylegality”in ancient Western times.After modern political independence,this chain was reduced to“legitimacy”that determines“legality.”The rule of law was equated with liberal values and principles of political organization,and the modern liberal concept of the rule of law was formed.With the emergence of the modern concept of instrumental rationality,legal autonomy has been established,and the law no longer has a logical and inevitable relationship with any political value.The rule of law is separated from external values and returns to the law itself,which is theoretically established as“formal rule of law”.Although theorists have questioned the separation of“legitimacy”and“legality”,and have proposed various“substantive rule of law”schemes,the“formal rule of law”,as an important achievement of modern legal autonomy theory,has more advantages in the justification of theoretical logic.Therefore,the most important task for the construction of the rule of law in contemporary China is to establish political value consensus,and thus a widely accepted“ideological rule of law”is to be shaped.