AskEssays.com - Discover essay samples

Why we need laws

4.9 of 5.0 (94 reviews)

Contains
775 words
Category
Other

Why we need laws Page 1
Why we need laws Page 2
The above thumbnails are of reduced quality. To view the work in full quality, click download.

Why we need laws


The American Heritage Dictionary defines law as ?a rule of conduct or procedure established by custom, agreement, or authority.? Since even the most primitive forms of life have been known to live by some ?rule of conduct,? by definition, law has existed before the dawn of the human race. However, no other species have adopted laws to fit their immediate needs more than humans. As groups of humans began living in larger and larger groups, competition for resources such as food, water, shelter, and even mating partners grew increasingly intense. Therefore, the leaders of these basic forms of society found it necessary to set guidelines for sharing and protecting these resources. As these societies grew in complexity, so did the need for laws. While in its nascent stage law primarily protected tangibles such as life, limb, and property, the scope of laws has grown to encompass moral values as well. However, these values often differed from society to society. With each passing year, more and more laws are coming into effect. Consequently, more and more people are growing incognizant of the laws that govern them. In effect, this ignorance of the law nullifies its effectiveness as a deterrent of crime. Therefore, modern law has taken a more passive role as a medium for holding people accountable for their actions.

Voltaire once said that ?a multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.? Historically, laws have been created in an attempt to correct perceived problems within a society. An epidemic of adultery must have occurred before laws forbidding such activity came into existence. Several affluent members of society must have been robbed before anti-theft laws were passed. Undoubtedly a number of politicians were shot and killed before gun-control laws were believed to be necessary. For the most part laws are created out of fear of becoming victimized. As illustrated in the preceding examples, most laws are designed specifically to address crimes in which the distinction between an offender and a victim is clear. However, laws against so-called ?victimless? crimes suggest that its intent exceeds that of mere protection. For instance, according to California Penal Code 286, 'sodomy is sexual conduct consisting of contact between the penis of one person and the anus of another person. Any sexual penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the crime of sodomy.? Assuming that both persons involved in the ?crime? of sodomy are consenting adults, the law is clearly protecting an imposed moral position rather than the rights of the parties involved. Simply speaking, such laws are created to push a predetermined ideology of morality upon the public as a whole.

In the view of some, laws are mere extensions of what people already know to be morally correct. The Ten Commandments, perhaps one of the best examples of what is known and accepted to be fundamentally moral, supports this claim. The Sixth Commandment, 'thou shalt not kill,? easily translates to California Penal Code 187, which states that ?murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought.? Similarly, the Seventh Commandment, 'thou shalt not commit adultery,? can be likened to California Penal Code 285, which states, ?persons being within the degrees of consanguinity within which marriages are declared by law to be incestuous and void, who intermarry with each other, or who commit fornication or adultery with each other, are punishable by imprisonment in the state prison.? Lastly, the Eighth Commandment, 'thou shalt not steal,? directly correlates to California Penal Code 484, which states that ?every person who shall feloniously steal, take, carry, lead, or drive away the personal property of another? obtains credit and thereby fraudulently gets or obtains possession of money, or property or obtains the labor or service of another, is guilty of theft?.? In each of the aforementioned examples, the intent of the law as it is associated to what is traditionally considered to be moral conduct is clear. However, what is considered to be moral often differs from culture to culture. The act of stealing, as it is defined in California Penal Code 484, is widely accepted as morally appropriate in many gypsy cultures. Likewise, although bigamy is equally as accepted in many Mormon and African cultures, under California Penal Code 281, which states, ?every person having a husband or wife living, who marries any other person? is guilty of bigamy,? the practice is clearly forbidden. Furthermore, in cases involving controversial topics, such as abortion, gun control, and capital punishment, the difference between what is considered to be moral and what is not ...

You are currently seeing 50% of this paper.

You're seeing 775 words of 1550.

Keywords: why we need laws in society, why we need laws essay, do we need laws, why we need law enforcement, why we need law in our country, why we need law and order, why we need rules, why we need regulations

Similar essays


College Stress

STRESS IN COLLEGE Everybody experiences stress in their lives. There are many stressors in college that start with college work. College is a big source of stress for a variety of reasons, and poor planning often leads to crisis situations. The stress of every day life in college shows itself in different ways: the expectations of making an...

70 reviews
Download
Stress Reduction

1. In today's smaller Air Force, members are finding themselves doing more with less. This in-turn has caused numerous stressful situations on and off duty. It is incumbent for Air Force members to recognize, treat, and eliminate stress whenever practical to increase morale and mission accomplishment. This paper will cover the emotional, behavioral...

12 reviews
Download
East Timor. Do They Have A Rig

East Timor is half of an island in Indonesia, about 300 miles north of Australia. In the 1500's, Portugal colonized the island of Timor, and its inhabitants today are primarily Catholic. The Dutch colonized much of the area, eventually including the western half of Timor as part of the Dutch East Indies. Before 1975 it was a lush paradise that had...

92 reviews
Download
Free Will vs

. Determinism I. Determinism Before one can properly evaluate the entire debate that enshrouds the Free Will/Determinism, each term must have a meaning, but before we explore the meaning of each term, we must give a general definition. Determinism is, "Everything that happens is caused to happen. (Clifford Williams. "Free Will and Determi...

38 reviews
Download
Welfare In The U.s.

Welfare is a government program that provides money, medical care, food, housing, and other things that people need in order to survive. People who can receive help from these welfare programs are children, elders, disabled, and others who cannot support their families on their current income. Another name for welfare is public assistance. There...

56 reviews
Download
Baseball

, cricket played a role in the evolution of organized baseball. From this British game came umpires and innings, and early baseball writers like Henry Chadwick used cricket terminology such as "batsman," "playing for the side," and "excellent field" in describing early baseball games. Likewise, the pioneer baseball innovator Harry Wright, a cri...

165 reviews
Download
Essay on women in the work pla

Women In The Labour Force The past decades their has been a dramatic increase of women participating in the labour force from countries all over the world including Canada. In 1950, one Canadian worker in five was a woman. By 1980 this percentage had doubled, and women are expected to make up more than 44 percent of the labour force...

197 reviews
Download
Socialized sexism

Running Head: SOCIALIZED SEXISM Abstract This paper asserts that sexism in America is socialized. Examples of sexism in America from a very young age to an old age are given to support the idea that sexism is engrained into American society in an endless loop of discrimination and harassment. Socialized Sexism Results of Yal...

206 reviews
Download
Essay on kierkegaard

Willed Faith and Belief An essay on Kierkegaard 1. Introduction Can we will to believe what we choose? Are there times when we should at least try to believe in something? If it were easy to manipulate our own beliefs, low self-esteem would vanish, the divorce rate would decline, and over-consumption would disappear with the reminder: "I...

132 reviews
Download
What causes juvenile delinquin

A question that is often asked throughout the world today is where does juvenile delinquency start at. The most logical answer that comes to people?s minds is the juveniles home. Many different factors from the home can be used to describe why a juvenile becomes delinquent, or negligent in what they do. Some are poor housing conditions, the...

13 reviews
Download
Hume

on Miracles In explaining 's critique of the belief in miracles, we must first understand the definition of a miracle. The Webster Dictionary defines a miracle as: a supernatural event regarded as to define action, one of the acts worked by Christ which revealed his divinity an extremely remarkable achievement or event, an unexpected piec...

38 reviews
Download
Offensive and defensive strategies

are by products or results of the corporate strategies. A corporate strategy is a comprehensive set of activities developed by top management to aid an organization achieve its corporate objectives. Involving all parts of an organization, these strategies consider both internal and external environments. Offensive Strategies As the name...

55 reviews
Download
Generation Y

We began the class by asking if this is the world in which we wish to live in. I did not know then and I do not know now. We watched video after video and read book upon book that investigated our society. On the last day of class, you mentioned that most of the world does not get to experience this kind of privilege. This is s...

191 reviews
Download
England

is a very small country with a huge population. This report will tell you some features and facts about this country. I will be talking about its people, it's government, it's industry, it's resources, it's land, and finally it's religion. The reason I said has a big population is because they have about 47,505,000 people living...

143 reviews
Download
Atsisiųsti šį darbą