Max Weber's Sociology Of Law Thought

Sociology of law from Max Weber is a unique analysis of law which is from the external perspective of Sociology. His statement of sociology comes from some fragments of. These fragments relate to "the law in the sociology of law", "the division from substantial law", "the property of subjective law", " the property of objective law ", "legal profession and legal education", etc. Weber debated with several theories via the experimental description, such as the "legal order paradigm," "structural functionalism," "economic determinism", "legal positivism" and "legal pragmatism". Finally, he point out that "Social Action", "public power", "social contract", "legal system" and "legal thinking" are all originate from the idea——"rational".Overview the statement of Weber, the spine of his theory is rational. Depend on the different standard, Weber divided sociology of law into two types. The rational of legal procedure is treated as a standard; "essence", "form", "rational", "irrational" have been used to construct four types:formal-irrational law, value irrational law, value rational law and formal rational law. The rational process of administration has been regarded as another standard which includes three types:traditional administration, charismatic administration and rational administration. It is noteworthy that the development of history is not merely a line. In Weber's opinion, the reason of using typology is just point the trend of future. He also profoundly indicated the dilemma of modern society by this way.In summary, Weber has four kinds of research way. First, interpretation and "understanding"; Second, the "neutral" position that the value of experimental research; Third, the construction of ideal-types; Fourth, the panorama which is the combination of stakeholders and leaders.Weber had compared the Chinese traditional law and Western rational law. He used the value judgments instead of fact judgments. He concerned the construction and the history. Finally, he made a conclusion that the law from medieval western countries leads the Chinese law. Let us concern the theory of Weber, his thesis of Western-centrism affect the legal process in China from a negative side. Actually, the value-rational should be treated as the final pursuit in the legal process of China. This way should be unique and unprecedented.