why do we have/need law?

Question

i know this is might sound like a stupid qn but i am writing a 10,000 word essay on this and im getting headeaches.. ive looked at a lot of philosophers and ideas but im finding hard to structure my essay.. please help.. thanks so much!

Answer 1

Basically, and really simplistically, it's so we all know what the rules (for that society or community of people) are so we know fairly specifically what we can do and what not to do. In some societies, a female not chaperoned by a male relative out in public can be beated by any male, and the circumstances don't matter (e.g., if the male ran off somewhere and left the female out alone just for a minute). If you live in that society, you probably would want to know this. We get so accustom to our own community's/society's laws and forget when we visit other places that things are not always the same--like that boy who got arrested and was scheduled to be beaten with a cane (by the government) for chewing gum in public. What may seem like common sense to you may not to someone else so laws are made so we all can know what is ok for the most common. [Having/making laws also creates work for lawyers and judges who probably woudn't have a whole lot else to do without laws (that's a joke).]

Answer 2

Try writing it from the approach that there was no law. If a man saw a woman he desired, just grab her a rape her. It is OK, there is no law against it. If you need some money and you are going by a convenience store, go in kill the guy and take the money. It is OK no law against it. If an adult molests a child it is OK there is no law against it. These are just a few.

Laws were written for the purpose of maintaining order and to ensure that people weren't treated unfairly. There are laws regarding contracts which require people to take whatever action they agreed to in the contract.

Without laws you couldn't even drive down the road. Stop signs wouldn't mean anything, stop lights would mean nothing, lane dividers would mean nothing, just drive as you please.

Without law or rules and regulations if you would rather our society would be a total chaos.

Answer 3

The reason we need laws is to provide a common framework for acceptable behavior. As a society, we agree on what is acceptable and codify the behavior in laws along with punishment for "bad behavior".

It is necessary because people have different values and concepts of right and wrong.

Example:
Some people think it is OK to steal from people who have more than themselves. Some people think it is OK to steal a little bit from everyone, but not a lot from a single person. Enron was a case of a small group of people thinking it was OK to lie about the condition of a company to the owners while padding their own pockets for when the company went under.

Answer 4

Well, I'd go back to cave days and take a close look at their society .... who wanted to go into whose cave, sneak off with whose wife, pilfer whose stock of stones ....... you know, there always is someone who might infringe upon another's rights, and so to defend those rights in a situation of a society (more than a few, say) someone has to lay down the law ...... like your mother, say ("After 9 pm, this kitchen is closed!!!") ... and so it goes....

Basically it is like this:
Your rights end where mine begin
My rights end where yours begin ....

... and it is to protect the rights of both that laws are made so that the people who enforce the law have a written basis for judgment and ensuing enforcement ... .....

Or, so I think anyway .......but, what do I know?

Answer 5

In a civilized society everyone agrees to give up certain freedoms in order to ensure the most peaceful environment possible. We have laws to enforce the peace.

Answer 6

The only proper job of gvmt is to protect the rights of the individual.

Answer 7

Without laws there would be anarchy. Civilization as we know it could not exist without an enforced code of conduct.

Answer 8

You can look at the vice-president and get your answer to this question.