Liu, Jianhong. Philosophical Ideas of Confucius and Values of Restorative Justice.

Scholars generally believe that there must be a strong consistency between the principles of modern restorative justice and ancient Chinese Confucian Philosophical ideas. John Braithwaite once wrote “Confucius is the most important philosopher of restorative justice” . However, few studies to date have analyzed Confucius’ work and identified the specific ideas which encourage the values and practices of restorative justice. John Braithwaite also pointed out that it is “a pity that so few Western intellectuals are engaged with the possibilities for recovering, understanding and preserving the virtues of Chinese restorative justice while studying how to check its abuses with a liberalizing rule of law” . It is unfortunate that the Western restorative justice movement has not yet borrowed much theoretical insight from studying the valuable heritage of Confucius’s ideas, which are truly a profound source of wisdom for modern Western restorative justice reformers.

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