However, in cases related to crime, criminal law is applicable especially if crime is committed against the state. As a result, individuals and businesses are ordered after prosecution to serve a jail term or pay a fine when found guilty. The main purpose of laws and commands is based on their ability to maintain peace and order in the society. It is essential to note that societal order can be achieved only of the set laws and commands focus on enhancing discipline Cates and McIntosh For instance, criminal laws often deter individuals from creating disorder and chaos amongst them.
Law protects every citizen from the other as well as from threats by foreigners. Those who attempt to create distress and social disorder are prosecuted through criminal law. Secondly, laws and commands maintain stability. As mention earlier, laws are not absolute bit in changes in law often occur gradually. Laws are additionally governed by rules and they rely on past verdicts that accord them specific performance level unless they are overruled.
Similarly, laws create a balance between individual freedom and social order. If every person is accorded unlimited freedom, the society will degenerate into chaos. On the other hand, giving social order preference can easily infringe liberties and individual rights. People have a major obligation to obey. There are different obligation types and it can be defined as a moral tie through which a person is expected to do or avoid doing something. Therefore, it follows that obeying laws and commands has a moral foundation.
Obligation can also be grouped into two including imperfect and perfect obligation. See our services here. For example, constitution of the land needs obedience from all citizens. Individuals are subjected to sanctions in the event of noncompliance. This is an indication of attracting punishment for failing to obey laws and commands.
Secondly, following laws and commands is socially important. For example, obeying traffic signs and rules is essential in preserving life and property. Legal rules also tend to impose a moral duty on citizens. For example, a person is sanctioned by the legal system when he or she steals. The purpose of criminal law in particular is to build an orderly society. Order in the society can be achieved or maintained if individuals are permitted to anything they want without necessarily taking into account the rights of other people in the community.
If all humans were to live in isolation from other people, there would be no reason to have criminal or any law in place. As they say, no human being is an island, we live in a society that is very complex and it needs close interaction with other people and on daily basis.
In such a society as a result, every person must understand what he or she can do or not do legally in their regular interaction and contacts with other people.
Obeying laws and commands is additionally a very significant step in governing human activities and in preserving societal values. However, the society is characterized with many individuals who want to steal the property of other people, violate right to life, acquire liberty and property by force, cause fear and fraud and oppress the weak. Crime on the other hand violates societal controls and as a result, criminal law is needed to deal with the people who are determined to disrupt normal society functioning and to prevent misconduct.
Failing to obey the laws makes citizens lack redress in the event where they are wronged. For the society to enjoy protection from the laws, members of the society must also be ready to sacrifice a small portion of their freedom to engage in whatever they wish for at any given time.
There are three major theories in regards as to why it is imperative to obey laws. These include utilitarianism argument, contact argument and principle of fairness theory. Thomas Hobbes introduced social contract as a solution to state of nature.
He defined the state of nature as a situation where people can comfortably live without being protected by the state and its laws. Without laws and lack of obedience to the laws, people will live under constant fear, there will be insecurity, they will fight and there will be no peace.
Therefore, it is clear that to avoid state of nature by Hobbes, human beings have to obey law based on the assumption that other people will obey them. According to Thomas Hobbes, the means for enforcing social contract was through creation of a state with given unconditional powers Hobbes The existence of such a state also allows people to keep up with their normal operations in a secure and peaceful manner.
Hobbes also argues that hypothetical consent exists between the state and individual citizens. The relationship between the state and an individual is as a result, similar to a contract. The state is committed to offering security among other benefits and because citizens often enjoy benefits from the state, they also have an obligation to comply with state laws. Utilitarianism argument states the rightness or wrongness of a given action depends on the wellbeing it produces. Citizens therefore have an inherent obligation to obey laws with regard to the importance of obeying laws and commands of the land because they ensure their happiness and wellbeing compared to other alternatives.
According to Edmundson , citizens attempt to maximize their utility by moving towards happiness in general. As a result, availability of laws requires that citizens obey the laws to help reduce pain and to maximize on the good. If a person fails to obey the law, other people in the society can be affected negatively.
This is also a factor that is more likely to endanger maintenance of security and order across the state. The resources could have been used to reduce suffering and maximize on happiness. Therefore, failure to obey laws and commands not only increases spending but also leads to disutility to the society as a whole.
According to the principle of fairness, citizens of a country have a duty to obey the state, its laws and commands based on the fact that they offer specific benefits including security, order and public services just because they live within the territories of the state. It is simply a question of fairness and each citizen owes the other to carry out his or her own part to enjoy the benefits. This also means that citizens of a state enjoy protection and are serviced by the laws of the state.
Therefore, they have a responsibility to obey state laws. It is a responsibility that can be likened to payment for an offered service. First of all, laws defend the people from any form of evil. The law is designed to protect residents and citizens of a country from the people who are out to cause harm to them without any reason.
Secondly, the law enhances the common good. Laws bring perpetrators of various injustices to book so that they can account for their actions.
A community or a society of individuals with no will against the other person are also concerned with pursuit of their self-interest and should at all times respect the laws. This is because if every person decides to pursue personal interest, the situation will be worse compared to if the case was vice versa.
As a result, a society that is full of individuals who are self-centered requires laws especially when it comes to distribution of private property that could be exploited ordinarily by everybody thus resulting in tragedy of commons. Thirdly, laws help in resolution of disputes over limited resources.
Lesson 3: How can I start to be responsible? Lesson 2: Human rights: what do they say? Lesson 3: Survey: what people around us think and know Lesson 4: Human rights alive!
Lesson 3: Presentation time! Student handout for Unit 6, lesson 2: Schema of political representation Student handout for Unit 6, lesson 3: Election information Student handout for Unit 7, lesson 1: Responsibility for what? Student handout for Unit 7, lesson 4: Who has what kind of responsibility?
Toolbox for students - Introduction 1. Researching in libraries 2. Researching on the Internet 3. Carrying out interviews and surveys 4. Interpreting images 5. Mind maps 6. Creating posters 7.
Holding exhibitions 8. Planning and giving presentations 9. Preparing overhead transparencies or a PowerPoint presentation Writing newspaper articles Putting on performances Lesson 3: Stereotypes and prejudices Lesson 4: Identity - Stereotypes about me!
Student handout 1. Lesson 1: How can people live together? Lesson 2: Why do people disagree? Lesson 3: In what ways are people different?
Lesson 4: Why are human rights important? Student handout 3. Lesson 4: Why do people become active citizens? Student handout 6. Lesson 3: We produce our wall newspaper Lesson 4: Our first issue! Background material for teachers Student handout 7. Lesson 3: You make the law Lesson 4: Rules of evidence Student handout 8.
Student handout 8. Lesson 3: Looking forward: three choices that shape our future lives Lesson 4: Which job suits me? Materials for teachers 1. Lessons 2 and 3: What would you do? Lesson 4: What values must we share? Other data on people's attitudes to the police, whether they act fairly, satisfaction levels, how corrupt people think they are were analysed, along with information on the levels of punishment, conviction rates and so on.
It is still early days with the analysis, I should add, but an initial attempt has been made to assess the relative importance in Britain of punishment and legitimacy in getting people to obey the law.
Here is the key slide:. What this suggests, it seems to me, is that both effectiveness and fairness are important - but that if the system is not regarded as fair, people are significantly less likely to obey the law. Image source, PA. Riots spread to several areas of England over a number of days in August.
What do I think is right and wrong? What do I risk if I get involved? Image source, Getty Images. Observance of such a standard would helpfully highlight anti-democratic chicanery like voter suppression, outright lying, and highly partisan investigations never really meant to establish truth. No one could honestly say that they would like to be on the receiving end of such unfair procedures—no matter how zealously they may use them now. Instead, such observance depends on how rigidly or openly one understands the experience of the self that becomes the measure by which we ought to treat others.
Will we confine ourselves in tribal fashion to a notion of self extending only to such categories as gender, ethnicity, or sexuality? In such a case, for instance, my experience as a white man becomes the singular rule by which I measure what I expect of others. Democratic legitimacy rests on such challenging moral choices. Why Should We Obey the Law?
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