Law, Culture, and the Politics of Confucianism

A paper that deals with law, culture, and Confucianism is perhaps doomed to be a collection of vague and general platitudes. This is because all three of these terms are notoriously plagued with definitional problems. Legal theorists continue to disagree about the nature and scope of the concept of law, while anthropologists and sociologists constantly argue about the utility of the concept of culture. Similarly, philosophers, historians, journalists, politicians-indeed, almost anyone with a voice-seem to have different ideas about what Confucianism means. One of the main reasons for such disagreements, in my opinion, is an all-too-human tendency to want neat and simple categories that can encompass,…