• What is the relationship between law and justice?
• What role does law have in society? What is it trying to accomplish?
• Do people need written laws and punishments?
• Who makes law?
• Who should law apply to?
• Who should enforce law?
• How should different laws be balanced?

Some notes to start with:
1. What is the relationship between law and justice?

i. Can it be a law if it is not just?

2. What role does law have in society?

i. How is the social order conceived?
ii. What is the relationship between Confucian rites (or proper conduct) and "law" in pre-modern China? China (for deviants) vs. West (to order society and guarantee rights)

3. Do people need written laws and punishments?

i. What is the concept of human nature that law is based on?
ii. Natural Law vs Positivism, Confucianism vs Legalism
iii. Human nature is good vs human nature is bad and must be restrained

4. Who makes law?

i. Early sources draw authority from God, others from ruler, others from people
ii. Role of legislature, judicial review, executive power
iii. Custom/religion vs legislation

5. Who should law apply to?

i. Magna Carta, modern rule of law makes sovereigns subject to laws
ii. Should leaders have power to bend/change laws? If so, when?
iii. How does law apply when different classes/sexes are involved?

6. How should different or conflicting laws be balanced?

i. Municipal vs. International Law
ii. National law vs. local custom or religious law

Questions assembled by Hallie Fader.

Contact: Michele Delattre 
University of California Berkeley 
Office of Resources for International and Area Studies 
2223 Fulton Street Room 338 #2324 
Berkeley CA 94720-2324 

510.643.0868 | orias@uclink4.berkeley.edu