Rules & Laws: What is their role?

Martin Luther King once said:

"Just as it is the duty of all men to obey just laws, so it is the duty
of all men to disobey unjust laws".

[Presumably he meant women too! ;)]

It seems true that rules and laws play a pivotal role in maintaining some sense of social order. What if there were no laws? Would chaos unfold? Would the world as we know it fall apart? Or would life take on some new kind of structure, maybe something we haven't imagined yet? What is the role of rules and laws in our society? Is there ever a time when some rules or laws should be broken? Why?

Comments

Unknown said…
People want to feel secure in the world they live in and that is the job of Law.
Law creates stability for the society. If there were no laws, evil would lurk without being punished. Thus instability would occur and such unsteadiness could essentially tear apart the world.

There are exceptions for breaking the law. (Some people break the law to survive.)
Examples:
-self-defence
-during Hurricane Katrina many people looted food items for survival
-traumatized woman kills the abusive husband (a.k.a Battered woman syndrome)



--- Winnie ---- :)
July 16, 2008 at 7:24 PM
Anonymous said…
Rules can be chains that bind a person from expressing themselves. One may fear consequences, and decide to bottle up what they believe is right in order to obey the rules that are set up to confine people. Depending on a situation one must "disobey unjust laws" and stand up for one's own beliefs=)

Rishu-xox<3
July 16, 2008 at 10:24 PM
Anonymous said…
Laws are here to protect us, to keep us from hurting others, or hurting ourselves. They were created so that we can live with other humans peacefully. But we must not forget that they were created by humans. Laws are not absolute. If a certain does not work, we should choose to change that law, because as humans, we have the power to change and improve upon things we have created.

Also, Laws themselves do not scare people. There is nothing stopping us from breaking the law, nothing built into the human brain to stop us from breaking laws. It's just that we are afraid of the consequences after. So if you think about it, we arent afraid of laws, we are afraid of consequences after.
July 17, 2008 at 8:00 PM
Wen Jia said…
Rules and laws do play an extreme important role in our society. Without laws, the world would turn into a chaos. From reading "The Lord of the Flies," I think the natural humanity is quite evil. If there's no law, then people might just kill the other people when they have some conflict. Once i saw a movie, a group of people are put into a dying camp. In this camp, everyone needs to kill others in order to survive, and only one person can survive in the end. In the process, they have to kill even it's their best friend. This shows that human beings are naturally selfish. So being selfish and evil people, the world would be a mess if there's no law to protect the order.
July 17, 2008 at 11:26 PM
cc d said…
Rules and law keeps the society in order, reminds me of just how Big Nurse likes everything to be. Laws are for the safety of everyone, and that's why we have the court and judges to maintain them. I think everyone just assumes that the world will be chaotic if there were no laws existant, when actually there are countless possibilites. Despite how the world might be without all the restrictions, there will be some sort of rules established eventually because we seek the safety and steadiness.
July 18, 2008 at 10:24 PM
Trung Nguyen said…
What is the role of law? What is law?

One might say that law is the written, shared principles of what is believed to be right or wrong between a mass majority of people. If it were to be looked upon in that perspective, then it is possible to establish who is right and who is wrong. Who should receive punishment and who should be protected. Therefore, the role of law can be said to protect those who follow the law and punish those who do not.

If there were no law, one might believe that there would be no protection for the "good" and people would be able to act as they want. However, we forget that the law is only a written collection of shared principles. People have their own sense of what is right and wrong. There are always the unwritten laws that are shared between all people. A person will not take another's life just because there is no law against it.
July 31, 2008 at 12:46 AM
Daniel Cho said…
Food exsists to be eaten by me, and the rule exsists to be broken by me.


;)
August 4, 2008 at 10:48 PM
Anonymous said…
Very nice Daniel Cho!
August 11, 2008 at 3:44 PM
ryan said…
the law is to make the world safe and better.Somethings that are against the law may sound fun but there is always a reason why its illegal or against the rule.

The rule of law is that no one is above the law meaning no one is allowed to break the law.
September 29, 2008 at 8:05 PM
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