洪遜欣（1914-1981）出身日治時期南投草屯望族，為臺灣著名法學家，專攻民法與法理學，著有《中國民法總則》（1958）、《法理學》（1982）。洪遜欣就讀東京帝國大學法學部期間，參加日本司法官考試及格。1937年畢業後，在廣島、東京、岡山等地方法院擔任法官。二戰結束返回臺灣，在臺大法律系任教。1976年起擔任司法院大法官，直至1981年過世。洪遜欣的法理學，立足於二戰後復甦的新自然法論，提出人格理念的客觀法律價值，以救濟法律實證主義及由此衍生價值相對論輕忽基本人權的弊端。洪遜欣認為，人格理念不僅是立憲法治國家的基本價值，更是文化法治國家的核心內涵。對洪遜欣而言，文化並非歷史或社會習慣的改寫，而是出於實踐理性的當為價值要求。文化在現代法律秩序扮演的功能，除了堅持傳統自由主義的立憲法治國家，更要求促進社會福祉，維繫個人生存權，以確保每個人人格的完整實現。洪遜欣的自然法思想，可以說起因於對二戰血腥殘暴的深刻反省。而戰後蔣介石在臺灣實施戒嚴威權統治，既箝制言論自由、學術自由，又動輒以警察國家威嚇人民。洪遜欣藉自然法、人格、立憲與文化法治國家等理念，為臺灣社會保留人權法治血脈，微言精義，任重道遠。

Shun-Shin Hong (1914-1981) was from a prominent family in Caotun, Nantou County in Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period. He was renowned scholar specialized in Civil Law and Jurisprudence, and authored two books “General Principles of Civil Law of the Republic of China (1958) and “Jurisprudence (1982)”. He passed the judicial examination in Japan when he was a law student at the Imperial University in Tokyo. After graduating in 1937, he was a judge at the district court in Hiroshima, Tokyo, and Okayama. He returned to Taiwan after the end of World War II and taught at the Department of Law at the National Taiwan University. He served as the Grand Justice, Judicial Yuan from 1976 until his passing in 1981. The jurisprudence of Shun-Shin Hong originated from the new natural law after the World War II. He proposed objective legal values based on the idea of person and pointed out disadvantages of neglecting basic human rights from relieving the legal positivism and its derivative relativism. He argued that the idea of person is not only the basic value of the constitutionalism but also the core of cultural rule of law because culture is not a revision of the history or societal customs, but an ought of practical reason. Culture plays a crucial role in maintaining law and order in modern society and promoting social well-being and self-actualization in a constitutional state with traditional liberalism. Hong’s thoughts on the natural law were profound reflections on the atrocity of the World War II and were also affected by Chiang Kaishek’s administration of martial law, restrictions on speech and academic freedom, and strict policing on citizens. His succinct ideas on the natural law, person, constitutionalism and cultural rule of law have helped further and preserve the rule of law for human rights for many future generations in Taiwan.