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Importance of law in society
Roles and functions of law
Importance of law in society
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Law is one of the most important elements that transform humans from mere beasts into intelligent and special beings. Law tells us what is right and wrong and how we, humans, should act to achieve a peaceful society while enjoying individual freedoms. The key to a successful nation is a firm, strong, and fair code of high laws that provides equal and just freedom to all citizens of the country. A strong government is as important as a firm code of law as a government is a backbone of a country and of the laws. A government is a system that executes and determines its laws. As much as fair laws are important, a capable government that will not go corrupt and provide fair services holds a vital role in building and maintaining a strong country. …show more content…
However, is every law evil because it restricts us from being able to do whatever we want? Interestingly, not all laws limit our rights and what are naturally ours. Rather, many laws take active roles in protecting our rights and properties from unwanted external threats, so we can harmoniously and happily function and interact with other human beings. True freedom is not a freedom from external influences dictating what we need to do. Influential British philosophers John Locke and Thomas Hobbes indicate that true freedom means being able to continue our daily and peaceful routines and to keep our rightful properties securely. Without a code of laws effectively halting evil oppressors from harming our qualities of lives, the offenders can do whatever they please, putting innocent people further into the chaotic states. Not all maliciously crafted laws represent the entire nature and spirits of laws. Hobbes in his work Levianthan tells us that “Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no …show more content…
However, it is based on the natural human values which we all, Americans, Kabulistanis, British, Russian…etc, share. As Locke and Hobbes famously shared, every single human being is selfish to a certain degree. The reason we have been forming societies around the world and living right next to each other is not that we have lost our senses of selfishness. Rather, we have grown to learn that we cannot achieve a harmony and a peace individually, so we have agreed to put down our natural selfishness and to cooperate with each other to achieve those two necessities. If we are able to live and defend ourselves perfectly from any unwanted external influences individually, no man would be living within a fenced and limited society. Selfishness is a virtue we cannot fix. Therefore we need to construct a system of government that will limit harms resulted from our innate feature. A government plays a crucial role of carrying out necessary duties and judging who is right and who is wrong as most objectively as possible. Furthermore, Locke mentions another flaw with the human natures: bias. Not all cases in our world can be clearly determined as right or wrong by the laws alone. Each situation almost always does need an interpretation, and someone has to determine how the law will be applied, if necessary. Humans are not immune against subjective feelings: a single or
laws is to keep the bad things out from the old society out such as
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke have authored two works that have had a significant impact on political philosophy. In the “Leviathan” by Hobbes and “Two Treatises of Government” by Locke, the primary focus was to analyze human nature to determine the most suitable type of government for humankind. They will have confounding results. Hobbes concluded that an unlimited sovereign is the only option, and would offer the most for the people, while for Locke such an idea was without merit. He believed that the government should be limited, ruling under the law, with divided powers, and with continued support from its citizens. With this paper I will argue that Locke had a more realistic approach to identifying the human characteristics that organize people into societies, and is effective in persuading us that a limited government is the best government.
One of the key components of the rule of law is that the law should apply to everyone equally and fairly, whether, monarch, government or citizen (Ellis 2013). As A V Dicey believed, no one should be above the law and everyone should be subject to the rule of law (Ellis 2013). Within the rule of law, there are five vital components to the operations. These include fairness, rationality, predictability, consistency and impartiality (Hinchy 2015). Fairness and rationality ensures the rule of law applies to everyone including citizens and the government. Predictability pertains that if a law is broken, the consequences will be known. Consistency, warrants consistency that the rule of law is being applied to everyone the same. Lastly, impartiality, which is an individual that decides on issues to do with the law (Hinchy 2015). The rule of law maintains consistency and equality within nations, yet there are countries where the rule of law is not common practice (Ellis 2013). Overall,
... For example, after the September eleventh terrorist attacks on America, citizens became frightened and gave the government more power and sacrificed privacy rights to prevent future attacks. Some people now argue that too much power was sacrificed and now the government has an excessive amount of authority over our lives. It seems that in periods of instability, people let government have more control, but when there is peace and stability, people tend to argue more for individual rights. Neither Hobbes nor Locke was accurately able to represent human nature because neither of them experienced people in both optimistic and pessimistic historical contexts. I believe that the optimal theory would incorporate both ideas about human nature, but how this would be executed in the form of government is something that I and other members of society have failed to recognize.
In every society around the world, the law is affecting everyone since it shapes the behavior and sense of right and wrong for every citizen in society. Laws are meant to control a society’s behavior by outlining the accepted forms of conduct. The law is designed as a neutral aspect existent to solve society’s problems, a system specially designed to provide people with peace and order. The legal system runs more efficiently when people understand the laws they are intended to follow along with their legal rights and responsibilities.
John Locke powerfully details the benefits of consent as a principle element of government, guaranteed by a social contract. Locke believes in the establishment of a social compact among people of a society that is unique in its ability to eliminate the state of nature. Locke feels the contract must end the state of nature agreeably because in the state of nature "every one has executive power of the law of nature"(742). This is a problem because men are then partial to their own cases and those of their friends and may become vindictive in punishments of enemies. Therefore, Locke maintains that a government must be established with the consent of all that will "restrain the partiality and violence of men"(744). People must agree to remove themselves from the punishing and judging processes and create impartiality in a government so that the true equality of men can be preserved. Without this unanimous consent to government as holder of executive power, men who attempt to establish absolute power will throw society into a state of war(745). The importance of freedom and security to man is the reason he gives consent to the government. He then protects himself from any one partial body from getting power over him.
“The more civilized a man becomes, the greater is man's need for law, and the more law he creates. Therefore law is just a response to social needs."
According to Aristotle, "The rule of law is better than that of any individual”, suggesting every member of society, even a ruler, must abide by and follow the law. The rule of law is linked to the principle of justice, meaning that everyone within a society (including both private citizens and government officials) are subject to the law, and that those laws are administered fairly and justly. The intention of the rule of law is to protect against arbitrary governance. It is the basic underpinning of a free society. One of the features of the Australian constitution is that it is structured in a way that theoretically reflects the rule of law.
It is definitely arguable that in order to promote democracy in it's current format there must be rule of law. The law making process has fundamentally seperate divisions, with Parliament fulfilling the function of legislature, national government fulfilling the executive and the courts representing the judicracy. By dividing the law-making process this prevents one group or person from collecting too much power which in turn helps prevents misuse.
The American legal system today is filled with corruption and untold truths compared to the European system. To understand how the American legal system is flawed, you will need to understand how both systems work. Both systems have a common law, which means that most laws are decided by legislators, but some laws are based on customs. The United States court system is based on the principle of precedent. For example, if a court has made a ruling on a similar case to the case they are presiding over then he or she has to respect the earlier ruling, with some exemptions (Henderson). This leaves a lot of room for suspicious activities because you only have to slip it past the courts once and it is final.
Legal realism defines legal rights and duties as whatever the court says they are. Out of all the legal theories we have examined in class, I personally believe that this is the one that best exemplifies the purpose of law and would best suit and benefit society. The Dimensions of Law textbook defines legal realism as “the school of legal philosophy that examines law in a realistic rather than theoretical fashion; the belief that law is determined by what actually happens in court as judges interpret and apply law.”
Every action of the government will be assessed under the rule of law and it will not be able to mediate in certain cases. Also, with the rule of law existing, the people will not be under a dictatorial rule as the government cannot exercise their power at their own wishes.
Should the aim of law be primarily focused on the protection of individual liberty or, instead, the normative goals aimed at the good of the society? The question of law and morality is difficult mainly because it needs to be addressed with current social conditions that exist, the morals and values that the particular society has. In general, the laws in any society should not only be focused on regulations, but it should also protect individual’s liberty. Devlin debate was based on deciding whether law should enforce morality. He debated about what the law ought to be and whether morality should be enforced by law to form a good society. Furthermore, John Stewart Mill did not write specifically on law and morality. His argument constituted mainly on the anti-enforcers side of law and morality because he believed in individual liberty. John Stuart Mill's assertion that the only justification for limiting one person's liberty is to prevent harm to another
Justice is a vital part of governmental systems. Justice is a way to control the activities of citizens without infringing on their rights. Without justice, the acts of the citizens living under a government could not be very well controlled. There would be no punishments for bad behavior with would make this type of behavior more common. Even though justice acts as a way to loosely control the acts of citizens, it doesn't affect their liberty. Liberty is freedom. No one would want to live under a government under which they have no freedom and are controlled. Defense is also very important in a government. The protection of the people should be in high priority of the government. The government is there to serve the people and make life better for everyone. If they don't protect the people then there is no point in the government.
Both law and morality serve to regulate behaviour in society. Morality is defined as a set of key values, attitudes and beliefs giving a standard in which we ‘should’ behave. Law, however, is defined as regulating behaviour which is enforced among society for everyone to abide by. It is said that both, however, are normative which means they both indicate how we should behave and therefore can both be classed as a guideline in which society acts, meaning neither is more effective or important than the other. Law and morals have clear differences in how and why they are made. Law, for example, comes from Parliament and Judges and will be made in a formal, legal institution which result in formal consequences when broken. Whereas morals are formed under the influence of family, friends, media or religion and they become personal matters of individual consciences. They result in no formal consequence but may result in a social disapproval which is shown also to occur when breaking the law.