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?
"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
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 ---- :)
Rishu-xox<3
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.
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.
;)
The rule of law is that no one is above the law meaning no one is allowed to break the law.