Why are certain activities, like murder, stealing, arson, illegal?

Question

When and how did things we call crimes become punishable? It it somehow based in religion?

Most of the people answering aren't grasping the question.

I'll try again.

What motived human society to value one person killing, or stealing from, another as bad and punishable? I'm trying to understand the moral/legal interphase.

Answer 1

Many of these also have religious justifications for being illegal, and historically there was very little distinction made between actions that were prohibited by the church and actions prohibited by law. But ignoring the religious rationale, most also have a valid secular reason.

For destruction of life and destruction of home (arson), these directly harm society by interfering with its ability to function. If people killed other people without limitation, there were less people to plan crops, make things, etc. If people burned down homes, other homes might catch on fire, etc. Both of these actions, with few exceptions, caused massive disruption in small communities. Absent living people, the community would die, and thus for society to function, they needed to be regulated. These have been part of legal systems going back at least 5000 years.

Theft is/was illegal because most societies did (and still do) attribute status based on acquisition of personal property. The more stuff you have, the richer you are, and thus the more important you are. Taking someone's property attacks the status system, and thus is again a threat to the stability of the community. Also, survival (especially in primitive cultures) often depended upon possessions, so taking someone's possessions was also a threat to their life.

If you look at all the old common law crimes, predating statutory criminal codes in the US and other countries, they fall into seven main groups: homicide; harm to persons (assault, battery, kidnapping); theft of property by force (larceny, robbery); theft by fraud (embezzlement, fraud, etc.); crimes against dwellings (burglary and arson); and inchoate crimes (attempt, conspiracy), and treason. These concepts go back at least 600-1000 years, and are common (with variations) within most countries.

Their prohibition was fairly universal (again, with variations) despite continent, so they couldn't have all come from the Code of Hammurabi or the Code of Justinian, since these were only western or middle eastern collections of laws.

We've already talked about homicide and theft. Harm to persons was illegal for similar reasons, to extend to the protection of society to those who cannot defend themselves. That is also why exceptions were made for consenting conduct (dueling).

Burglary and Arson again threatened the stability of the home (dwelling), which was the centerpiece of each family in the community. Without homes, and a sense of safety in them, there would be no community. Treason, which was an attack on the community as a whole, is obvious.

Once the concept of punishing harmful activity became commonplace, punishments were added for attempting the prohibited activity as well, which led to prohibitions against conspiracy. The concepts of conspiracy were already present in the concept of treason, so it wasn't too much of a stretch to extend this to other crimes.

Over time, the commonality of what actions were considered criminal (harm to persons, harm to property), both secular and religious, led to the general classification of "malum in se" meaning "bad in itself". This distinguished these crimes as opposed to those which were merely "malum prohibitum", meaning "bad because they are prohibited". The latter category includes violations like registration/license requirements or traffic safety laws, which don't cause direct harm but increase the risk of harm to society.

The hard part is not looking backward at how these crimes became illegal, because thousands of years ago, there was no fundamental difference between crime and sin. Church and state were the same authority, or close enough for government work.

What people need to do, at least in the US as we move forward under a Constitution that prohibits government endorsement of religious doctrine (see the Establishment Clause), is to make the distinction between those actions which only violate religious doctrine, and those actions which cause a measurable harm to society in secular (non-moral, non-religious) ways.

If people actually stopped trying to legislate religious morality and church doctrine, and focused solely on objectively measurable harms, that would solve about 80% of the major hotbutton political topics currently divinding this country.

Answer 2

Are you serious? It's hars to believe that you wouldn't know that!

First, let's go back to the beginning of civilization. Imagine there is a tribe who lives on a ramote island in the middle of the ocean and has never heard of "religion".

Now imagine that a man's son is murdered by the man's enemy. Do you seriously think there would be no punishment for that? In those days, the man would probably have gotten away with killing the man who killed his son.

But as times progressed, people's MOTIVES for killing began to be based on things such as greed and power. Pretty soon, all motives for taking the life of another were outlawed except in self- defense.

Also consider this: you can't give away your neighbor's house because you don;t own it, right?
You don't have the right to take someone else's life: their dreams, their hopes, their chances of falling in love, their opportunity to reach their potential and develop their talents, their family- because it is not yours for the taking.

The court system developed because
Person A kills Person B

If it is FUNDAMENTALLY not ok to take a life then it can't be allowed for PERSON A to be killed in revenge. But PERSON A needs to be punished or put where he cannot hurt anyone else, etc....
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Stealing: again, it is not yours for the taking. Plus it means taht the person has to spend time and money to replace the stolen items, if they can be replaced at all. If nothing else it just boils down to: you would not want others to steal from you.
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Arson, come on, you don;t know why burning someone's house down is illegal?
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Basically, most of the laws deal with issues that HURT other people. You should be asking why there are laws against doing things that only hurt the person doing it, like prostitution and drugs.

Answer 3

These kind of criminal acts are illegal because they violate other peoples' human rights. Now if you remove our human rights then we're no different to animals being forced to work or slaughtered for whatever reasons. Yes, somehow they are based on things in the Bible,especially the Mosaic Law or Ten Commandments, but then again consider the fact that are constitution was formulated by years or experience, justifications and considerations on what will be good to every individual. How would you consider this, "The right of an individual ends at the moment of violating another individual right"? Equality is the goal of the laws.

Answer 4

Possibly partly religion, but I believe it started almost in the beginning of time, even before Jesus' time. There always was some type of police/governing force that institued laws so that people just can't take something that didn't belong to them whether it be a life or a pocession. There had to be some kind of rules to keep people in order.

Answer 5

Tell you what, kid. Say someone kills your child. Would you not want to punish that person, or at least have the state do it? How about you've worked your tail off all month, gotten your pay, and someone just takes it from you? What if they burn your house down? Are you trying to say that these things are okay?

Answer 6

It became illegal one because it inflicts on others rights in the constitution and yes if your talking about America it was made as a country under God there are also a lot more reasons... but those are the obvious ones...

Answer 7

They've always been punishable.
Think about it.
If you kill someone, the family's going to come after you.
If you steal something, the owner is going to come after you.
If you burn someone's house down, be careful, because they'll probably burn yours while you're sleeping.
That's just the way it was back then.

Answer 8

Much of it comes from the logical realization that these things cause suffering for everyone, and need to be controlled as much as possible.

Answer 9

Soooo, ....... are you trying to figure how you would have done things differently if you could go all the way back to the beginning and start over from scratch?

Answer 10

beacause it causes a break down in the social structure in society, and fear of such things cause progress to slow or falter.