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Every individual in a society has the reposibility to obey just laws and to disobey and resist unjust laws. Write a response in which you discuss the extend to which you agree or disagree with teh claim. In developing and supporting your postition, be sure to address the most compelling resons and/or examples and could be used to challenge your position. The authour’s claim that every individual in a society is responsible for obeying just laws and disobeying unjust laws seems reasonable at first glance. However, after scruity, the propositions reveals an oversimplified understanding of the law. First of all, there is no clear or solid definition of whether laws are just or unjust. For example, a mental patient kills a man without intention. In this case, if the law convicts the patient to death, the man’s family would regard it just. But the patient’s family would probably regard the law unjust for the reason that the patient is metally ill to kill the man by accident so it’s unfair for the patient to get a death penelty. Thereby, the same law can either be just or unjust for different people. Take hacker for another example. Usually law considers it unjust for a hacher to hack into normal people’s personal computer. But when it comes to hacking into a personal computer to get some information to assist investigating a crime, hacking becomes just. So the same law can either be just or unjust under different circumstances. Therefore, since there is no clear distinction between just laws and just laws, requring people to obey just laws and disobey unjust laws will benefit nothing but cause disorders. However, varied opinions towards whether laws are just or not doesn’t mean no observation of laws, rather, it demands higher understandings of the law. Take the gun control legislation for an instance. American just passed this law. While some people cosider it just for more security, other people consider it unjust for the reason that prohititing owning a gun hampers individual’s freedom. In this case, despite the disagreements, the law effectively enhances general welfare because it can avoid many shooting accidents. So the general welfare can be actually better off if those people considering the gun control legislation unjust obey the law. At the same time, politicians might try to pass laws that are beneficial to the wealthy people in the price of the general people’s welfare to win support from wealthy people in election. In this situation, even though the laws are advantageous for wealth people, they should resist the laws because it is unjust as for the good of general public. Therefore, though different viewpoints exist for just laws or unjust laws, when deciding whether or not to obey law, thinking in the perspective of general welfare rather than individuals’ or minority’s profits is desirable. Furthermore, what bears more significance than law itself is the spirit of laws. Law isn’t some fixed clauses in a code book but the willingness for people sharing lives in the same space to negotiate for better general welfare. And the essence of the spirit is general welfare and negotiation. While it is true that law keeps changing and the viewpoints of just or unjust law differs from indiviudual, the spirit of law reamains lasting. That is to say, no matter how different attitudes individuals hold for any certain law and no matter how big changes law undergoes, the ultimate goal of law is to achieve better general welfare for everyone through all the people’s negotiation. Only with this perspective, people can catch sight of the essence of law and make insightful judgment of a certain law article, which eventually contributes to individuals’ practice of law. To sum up, categorizing laws into just laws or unjust laws is unwarranted since the same law can either be just or unjust according to different individuals and different circumstances. But varied views actually demands individuals a higher perspective, thinking for general welfare, to decide whether to obey or resist the law. Moreover, only by understanding the spirit of law can people practice law in a better way. | 
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发表于 2013-6-22 17:48:06
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