Commentary notes on lord neuberger's speech: mission of law and ambition of science

• Author: SHI Yan'an
• Pages: 587-589

FRONTIERS OF LAW IN CHINA

VOL. 11 DECEMBER 2016 NO. 4

DOI 10.3868/s050-005-016-0035-7

SPECIAL SPEECH

COMMENTARY NOTES ON LORD NEUBERGER’S SPEECH：

MISSION OF LAW AND AMBITION OF SCIENCE

SHI Yan’an *

Justice Neuberger’s remarks inspire us to contemplate this old but unfamiliar topic on

law and science again. Indeed, law is very different from pure science because law is

more likely to construct rules of human society while pure science is just to describe and

manifest rules of the universe containing human beings themselves and their behaviors.

However, law study and law application shall be carried out with similar logic and

reasoning approaches as science research.

There is still a debate whether law (more accurately, law study) as a discipline is a

part of science. In China universities, law falls into the social sciences with economics,

business, public management, etc., and we have a somewhat weird term “science of law.”

We can make a correct judgment only by giving a definition of science. However, science

is not defined unanimously. If science is defined as a systematic enterprise building and

organizing knowledge about this universe by applying measurable methods that can be

tested repeatedly, law cannot be regarded as a part of science. However, if science is

defined as a system of knowledge by using reasonable attitudes and objective

methodology, law may be considered as part of science. In my view, law could not be

equal to pure science till now because we cannot consider and calculate all elements by

any mathematical model, especially human thinking and moral issues which law has to

face and embrace.

As Justice Neuberger pointed out that legal thinking has some fundamental

similarities with scientific thinking, nowadays, legal research has been introduced more

and more into empirical study to convincingly support legal theories. In this way, legal

research may take a more scientific spirit and not just guess what society is and needs.

But, notably, some legal issues cannot be easily answered in a scientific way or clarified

by scientific methods. For example, we must insist on implanting basic or common

values into statutes, while science itself cannot be connected directly to social values.

The main function of law is to recognize or formulate rules among human beings. An

* (时延安) Ph.D., School of Law, Renmin University of China; Professor, School of Law, Renmin

University of China; General-Secretary of Center for Common Law, Renmin University of China, Beijing

100872, China. Contact: shiyanan@ruc.edu.cn