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Introduction: Freedom of Contract Under Ethical Justice

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The History of the Contractual Thoughts in Ancient China

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Abstract

When it comes to researches on ancient Chinese contractual culture, ethical justice can be anything but ignored. Any organic society relies on related both inside and outside binding force. In Chinese traditional society, the most important binding bonds were ethics and contracts. Ethics comprises the internal motivation of contracts while contract is the external manifestation of ethics, which not only constituted the nature of Chinese traditional society but also served as the means to achieve its existence and development.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See International Aesthetics [1].

  2. 2.

    Mitchell [2].

  3. 3.

    Chen [3].

  4. 4.

    Hegel [4].

  5. 5.

    Hajime [5].

  6. 6.

    See footnote 5.

  7. 7.

    ibid.

  8. 8.

    ibid.

  9. 9.

    Yu [6].

  10. 10.

    See Hou et al. [7]. Or see [8].

  11. 11.

    See Baihu General Sense (Volume I(b): Rites and Music).

  12. 12.

    Xu [9].

  13. 13.

    Ba [10].

  14. 14.

    Zhang [11].

  15. 15.

    Jiang [12].

  16. 16.

    See [13].

  17. 17.

    Fei [14].

  18. 18.

    See Mencius: Lianghui Wang (Part II) where Mencius once claimed propriety and righteous proposed by Sage.

  19. 19.

    Ma [15].

  20. 20.

    Cited in Zhang et al. [16].

  21. 21.

    Hugevilt [17].

  22. 22.

    Hugevilt [18].

  23. 23.

    Justian [19].

  24. 24.

    Cited in the note 14, 21, 20 of On the Spirit of Western Law. 1996. Journal of Comparative Law, (1).

  25. 25.

    Plato [20].

  26. 26.

    Cited in [21].

  27. 27.

    Bodenheimer [22].

  28. 28.

    Aristotle [23].

  29. 29.

    Hobbes [24].

  30. 30.

    Schwartz [25].

  31. 31.

    A Source Book in Foreign Civil Law (p. 83). 1983. Law Press. p. 83.

  32. 32.

    Atiyah [26].

  33. 33.

    Bodenheimer [27].

  34. 34.

    Hobbes [28].

  35. 35.

    The Wealth of Nations, wirtten by Adam Smith, has dealt with the main points of economic liberalism, putting that the government is the “protector and watcher” of free competition, and that law can only provide convenience for parties to contract though universal norms.

  36. 36.

    Wang Daokun. Taihan Collection (Vol. 54): Epitaph for Mr. Wu, a late prominent personage in Xiyang in Ming dynasty.

  37. 37.

    Cited in The Business Principles of Huizhou Merchants in Ming Dynasty Observed from Guide to Scholarly Merchants. 1994. Academics in China, (6).

  38. 38.

    Gao [29].

  39. 39.

    Zhang [30].

  40. 40.

    Karen [31].

  41. 41.

    Xu [32].

  42. 42.

    Ban [33].

  43. 43.

    Hsun Tzu On Names.

  44. 44.

    White [34].

  45. 45.

    White [35].

  46. 46.

    Jiang [36].

  47. 47.

    Hugh [37].

  48. 48.

    See [38]. Also see [39]. It is deemed that the contract law was not attached importance to in the early stage and developed slowly from the seventeenth to eighteenth century. The nineteenth century saw its unprecedented development.

  49. 49.

    ibid, p. 203.

  50. 50.

    The Analects of Confucius Eight Rows and Eight Lines.

  51. 51.

    Hsün Tzu: Honor and Dishonor; Hsün Tzu: Da Lue.

  52. 52.

    Canon of heavenly peace (Tai Ping Jing) Vol. 112.

  53. 53.

    Compilation on the Alliances between the Song and King of three dynasties (San Chao Bei Meng Hui Bian) Vol 137.

  54. 54.

    A Record Causing Blame on Me (Zui Wei Lu) Vol. 31: Li Zicheng.

  55. 55.

    Zeng et al. [40].

  56. 56.

    Brokaw [41].

  57. 57.

    Sakai [42].

  58. 58.

    You [43].

  59. 59.

    See Richard Hon-chun Shek. Religion and Society in late Ming: Sectarianism and Popular Thought in Sixteenth and Seventeeth Centrury China Ph. D. dissertatioin, 1980: 147–148.

  60. 60.

    The History of the Former Han Dynasty Naitional Financial Economy.

  61. 61.

    See Emphasizing Agriculture, Mintage, Conference Foucus and Censure on Shangyang in On Salt and Iron.

  62. 62.

    Ma [44].

  63. 63.

    Fu [45].

  64. 64.

    Fan [46].

  65. 65.

    Gao [47].

  66. 66.

    See the theory of Sigmund Freud, cited in [48].

  67. 67.

    Tachibana [49].

  68. 68.

    Mio [50].

  69. 69.

    Greeze [51].

  70. 70.

    Fei [52].

  71. 71.

    Huang [53].

  72. 72.

    Liu [54].

  73. 73.

    Du [55].

  74. 74.

    Wang [56].

  75. 75.

    Adamson Hoebel [57].

  76. 76.

    Joseph Toynbee [58].

  77. 77.

    Zhang [59].

  78. 78.

    Pound [60]. Cited in [61].

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    Yunsheng Liu

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Liu, Y. (2020). Introduction: Freedom of Contract Under Ethical Justice. In: The History of the Contractual Thoughts in Ancient China. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5768-2_1

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