The value of law refers to the positive significance or usefulness of law to meet people's needs. The value of law is an ancient and novel legal proposition. As early as when human beings created law or law, they began to think about the value of law or law. The act of creating laws or laws by human beings is by no means a blind act without meaning and purpose. For thousands of years, jurists and thinkers have been thinking and exploring the value of law. As early as ancient Greece, Aristotle, a famous thinker, put forward two standards of "rule of law". He believes that the so-called rule of law, first, refers to universal compliance with the law, and second, refers to the law to be observed should be good law. Obviously, in his view, the "good" and "bad" of the law is one of the inherent standards of the law and one of the foundations for people to abide by the law. As Pound said: In every classical period in the history of law, whether in the ancient or modern world, the demonstration, criticism or logical application of value standards was once the main activity of jurists.

In the history of legal development, natural law school has always advocated that law has its value pursuit, that is, justice, freedom and so on. The theoretical framework of natural law theory mainly has three fulcrums: first, the system of rights or justice owned by human beings is natural law, which refers to the universal laws owned by human beings. Natural law emphasizes the unity of law, and the basis of legal unity is justice, equality, freedom, happiness, dignity and rights. Secondly, it emphasizes that the positive law formulated or recognized by the state should belong to the natural law as a system of rights or justice, which is superior to the positive law and has the effect of dominating the positive law. If positive law conflicts with natural law, it must be amended or abolished to meet the requirements of natural law. Third, natural law itself is composed of eternal, transcendental and universally applicable general principles, or various principles illuminated by rational natural light. Therefore, it does not have the written form and national coercive force commonly used in positive law.

Because there have been many disputes between natural law school and analytical positivism law school in history, people seem to think that analytical law school is a problem of denying the value of law. Analytical jurisprudence thinks that natural jurisprudence confuses law and morality, and then puts forward that the research object of jurisprudence can only be empirical law, which is the truth that "evil law is also law" Austin once pointed out that the existence of law is one thing, and its advantages and disadvantages are the same thing. Whether it is a law or not is one thing, and whether it is suitable for people's imagination is another matter. Obviously, Austin opposes taking moral standards as the inherent condition of law, and the issue of legal value is based on the recognition of the value of law, so it is not necessary to become the field of legal research. So his point of view is not to deny the value of law, but to say that the value of statement does not need to be a legal issue. It can be said that no matter what kind of school of law, it finally recognizes or studies the value of law in a certain sense.

The research on the value of law, after thousands of years of conciseness, has solidified several basic value forms such as order, freedom, efficiency and justice. Order refers to the stability of relationship, the continuity of process, the regularity of behavior and the security of property and psychology to some extent. In civilized society, law is the primary and often effective means to prevent and stop disorder, and law is the most important means to establish and maintain order. Freedom in the legal sense is a specific field of freedom in philosophy. It is a category of relationship between individuals and society, which means that people have the right to do everything permitted by law. So Montesquieu pointed out that freedom is the right to do everything permitted by law. If a citizen can do what is forbidden by law, he will no longer have freedom, because others will also have this right. The word efficiency or effectiveness can have many meanings. Originally a concept in the field of economics, such as improving economic efficiency, it was later borrowed by the legal profession. The pursuit of efficiency has become an important value goal of law, which can usually be summarized as a basic meaning, that is, to get the maximum output with a given input, that is, to get the same effect with the least resource consumption, or to get the maximum effect with the same resource consumption. Justice, justice and fairness are basically the same concept, expressing an ideal state pursued by human beings and a social ethical concept. The phenomenon of social justice is very complicated. As Bodenheimer pointed out, justice has an ever-changing face, which can change into different shapes at any time and has a completely different look. [p238] Marxism believes that justice is the concept and system of social legitimacy determined by a certain social and economic foundation, and it is the organic unity of social system justice and subject behavior justice.

Second, the conflict and coordination between the values of law.

There are certain differences in several values of law, and there are important differences between them. Generally speaking, order is the basic value, and the most basic requirement of a society is an orderly state. Without a stable social order, other values cannot be realized. Justice is the highest value, and the noblest goal pursued by law is to realize social fairness and justice. However, these boundaries are not absolute. When the law realizes these value goals, it needs to determine what value should be preferred according to the actual situation at that time. Moreover, there may be conflicts and contradictions among these legal values, which are mainly manifested in the conflicts between order and freedom, efficiency and fairness (justice). Although it is impossible for the law to completely solve these conflicts in the process of operation, it can try its best to alleviate these contradictions and make them reduce or even reach a certain state of coordination and balance. This is also the same task of legislators and law enforcers, and also the ideal goal pursued by law. In other words, there is an opposite side between the values of the two series. "Under certain historical conditions, there will be contradictions between values such as freedom, order, justice and interests. This kind of conflict may occur in the internal aspects of legislation, justice and law-abiding. " [2]

The first is the conflict between freedom and order values. Freedom emphasizes the exertion of the subject's personality, while order emphasizes the establishment and maintenance of an orderly state. Freedom inevitably tends to break the established order, and order will suppress freedom to maintain balance to a certain extent, so the conflict between the two is inevitable. Then, there is a problem of value priority in legislation and law enforcement. There are different views on this: First, the freedom priority theory holds that the order of legal protection must give way to freedom in legislation, and it can only be the confirmer, distributor and protector of freedom, but not the denier and obstructer of freedom. Under the established law, when there is a conflict between freedom and order in law enforcement, freedom should be emphasized at the expense of order. Freedom is higher than law and order in an all-round way, and the law that damages freedom by order is not a good law itself. The second is the theory of order priority. Law is the embodiment of order, and the existence of order itself is the bondage and norm of freedom, so freedom must be based on order and take law as the criterion. After the law determines the status of freedom and order, when they conflict, they should obey order unconditionally. Law enforcers can ignore freedom and deprive or restrict certain freedoms for the sake of order. Order is superior to freedom in every respect. In legislation, we should aim at order and obey it freely. In law enforcement, if there is a conflict between freedom and order, people should even disregard the provisions of the law and seek order at the expense of freedom.

The second is the conflict between fairness and efficiency. Fairness emphasizes average, consistency or * * * and prosperity, while efficiency emphasizes development, rapidity, difference or some people get rich first, so there are some conflicts between them. There are two main views on the choice of value orientation: one is the theory of fairness priority, which holds that efficiency and fairness are two independent value forms, and when they conflict, fairness should take precedence. In the whole legal value system, fair value should take priority and become the primary value goal of social resources. It determines the social allocation of legal resources such as rights and powers, and guides the individual allocation of resources, and it is not allowed to damage or lose fairness by emphasizing efficiency. Since ancient times, justice has been the primary value of the social system, and everyone has the inviolability based on justice. The second is the theory of efficiency priority, which holds that efficiency priority is the inevitable law of market economy, efficiency belongs to the economic category, while other values belong to the moral category. [p32 1] Law and economics believe that it is the primary task of law to promote the efficient development of economy through the definition and maintenance of property rights and the reduction of commodity transaction costs. In the whole legal value system, efficiency value should be given priority and become the primary value standard for allocating social enterprise resources. It determines the social distribution of legal resources such as rights and powers, and guides the individual allocation of resources, thus giving "rights to those who value them most". [p20] When there is a conflict between efficiency and fairness, efficiency with higher value should be given priority, which makes fairness relegated to the second place and even sacrificed.

The values of freedom and order, efficiency and fairness are both opposite and unified. Although there may be some conflicts, such conflicts are not absolutely insurmountable and can be unified. Therefore, the above viewpoint is untenable in theory, only seeing the opposite side, but not the unified side, and the two may also develop harmoniously.

The first is the coordination between order and freedom. Freedom is based on a certain order. It is believed that the value of freedom is higher than the value of order, firstly because theorists who hold this view misunderstand the meaning of freedom. This view has two interpretations of freedom. One is that freedom is "the arbitrary demand of social subject", and the other is that freedom is the exertion of subject personality. These two understandings of freedom are obviously one-sided. In fact, the concept of freedom already contains the meaning consistent with order. From the philosophical point of view, freedom means the recognition of the objective law of inevitability; Freedom in the legal sense refers to activities within the scope permitted by state power. If you want to be free, you must agree with the objective law, and the objective law of social life is that people must live an organized social life and be restricted by social order. Therefore, people can't completely get rid of restrictions, and they can only get a relatively unconstrained life at the expense of enduring some restrictions. Freedom is always relative and associated with restriction. If you don't understand the limits of freedom, you can't understand what freedom is. In reality, people always determine freedom by making norms and establishing order. Freedom is freedom that is not prohibited by law. Unrestricted freedom or freedom without order guarantee will inevitably infringe on the freedom of others. If they invade each other, they will inevitably lose their freedom. When people talk about freedom, they shouldn't just consider arbitrariness without considering restrictions. Therefore, freedom has never been arbitrary and unconstrained. It is always associated with certain responsibilities, restrictions and constraints. These are the contents of order, so freedom can only be obtained in order, and the value of freedom can only be realized through the value of order. The idea of sacrificing order to gain freedom is one-sided.

Order is based on certain freedoms. The view that the value of order is higher than freedom, and the view that order is obtained at the expense of freedom is also wrong. Because the order we are talking about should be an order characterized by freedom and equality, not a feudal hierarchical order without freedom. The order of modern society should not only be a stable social state, but also people have certain freedoms and rights in this stable social state. The order determined and maintained by law should be based on giving people great freedom rights, with responsibility, restriction and bondage as the elements, and on giving people certain freedom by law. In this state of order, people have certain freedom, and the order without freedom is not the value goal we pursue. Moreover, the so-called order at the expense of freedom can not be realized in the end. Without freedom or deprivation of human freedom, people will continue to struggle for freedom, and society will not be able to achieve a state of order. Only an order based on freedom is a stable order. In fact, the modern social order based on market economy mainly gives people full freedom. Therefore, freedom and order are unified and interdependent. All the above propositions are caused by one-sided understanding of the concepts of freedom and order, which regards freedom as absolute freedom and order as absolute non-freedom. In fact, the two can develop in a coordinated and balanced way. The law can not only give people freedom, but also maintain order.

The second is the coordination of fairness and efficiency values. Fairness and efficiency are by no means antagonistic, that is, fairness produces low efficiency or high efficiency at the expense of losing fairness. Similarly, the fairer the two, the higher the efficiency. Efficiency and fairness do not exist in themselves. On the one hand, efficiency and fairness are often associated with social goals and their stage goals (stability or development). The pursuit of stability often emphasizes fairness, while the pursuit of development often emphasizes efficiency. On the other hand, efficiency and fairness are the result of interest contrast, and they are not diametrically opposed and incompatible. Pursuing or abandoning fairness does not necessarily lead to low or high efficiency, and pursuing or not pursuing efficiency does not necessarily lead to unfair or fair results. Efficiency and fairness are inherently unified. Efficiency without fairness can only be efficiency under the whip and efficiency under the pressure of hunger, and can only provide a material basis for an unequal society. Inefficient fairness can only be utopian fairness and meaningless fairness. Therefore, our task is to try our best to coordinate the relationship between efficiency and fairness, so that they can be coordinated and balanced, so as to strive for real efficiency and real fairness. The balance between efficiency and fairness does not mean that any factor that is beneficial to one side is necessarily harmful to the other. If the tax rate for the rich is heavy enough to undermine their investment, society will affect the quantity and quality of employment for the poor, which will damage efficiency and equality. There are indeed some conflicts between the two, which have caused various problems. If equality and efficiency are treated equally, we can't tell which is higher or lower. When they conflict, we must seek reconciliation. Sometimes, some equality must be given up for efficiency, and sometimes, some efficiency must be sacrificed for equality. But no matter which side makes sacrifices, it must be based on the other side's gains, or in order to obtain other valuable social purposes, so as to improve efficiency and fairness.