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发表于 2012-5-31 22:24:40
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Issue 17:There are two types of laws: just and unjust. Every individual in a society has a responsibility to obey just laws and, even more importantly, to disobey and resist unjust laws.
In this issue the author divides laws into two types: just and unjust, also he/she asserts that every person should assume the responsibility to not only obey just laws but also disobey and resist unjust laws. As a matter of fact, we are not able to build up a perfect standard to give any law a reasonable judgment about whether it is just. Also the appropriate approach to deal with unjust laws would never be simply disobeying or resisting them.
To begin with, common sense indicates us that laws are productions of social ideologies and accordingly they cannot traverse boundaries, religions and values. As to issues in these categories, the behavior itself to discuss their justice is ridiculous and meaningless. For example, in the US, citizens are allowed to own firearms according to its constitute. Therefore, American people take this law just for granted. Nevertheless, in many other nations like China, neither citizens nor groups are allowed to own guns. From this we cannot tell which one is just and the other is not. These differences originate from their own cultural backgrounds as well as value systems, and Laws also have to present these points. We cannot define Just or unjust on these laws.
Apart from that, for any country a main objective to legislate is to weigh competing interests so that both sides could realize what they should and should not do. Viewed from this perspective, the definition of just or unjust is relative and it varies from person to person, group to group. Examples are available everywhere. The attitude toward the law of anti-monopoly among small companies would certainly be divergent from that aroused among multinational enterprises. An act of environmental protection which requires factories to spend money for sewage treatment is also persuasive. The factory owner might insist the act is unjust as the cost is bound to increase because of this. On the contrary, environmentalists would affirm the government has done the right thing. Moreover, in certain cases things become more complicated. Just imagine an automobile-involved accident in which a person suffers a physical hurt. If he/she was violating traffic rules when the accidents happened, whether it is justifiable for us to affirm that the automobile could be free of any responsibility? After all, a human body is so vulnerable in front of the metal-made automobile. Laws about this issue are always controversial and sometimes both sides might question their justice.
Considering the approach to deal with unjust laws, provided that they are widely acknowledged to be so, a legal and not so radical way is both important and necessary. Law is the foundation of social stability and its authority can never be questioned. If anyone who believes a law is unjust could disobey and resist it, the whole society would fall into complete anarchy. The resistance to personal owning guns will possibly used by criminal groups to achieve their dangerous goals. And sometimes this behavior might infringe others’ legal rights. If the law allowing the existence of nude beach is treated as unjust by certain groups, the nudists’ personal rights will be ignored in the behavior of eliminating the beach. Therefore, we should improve the unjust law in a mild and rational way. Luckily enough, in the history many unjust laws were repealed or modified and it is still our goal nowadays. American constitution has 27 amendments which is much longer than the original text. Viewed from this perspective, our endeavor to perfect the law system will never stop.
In sum, the line between just laws and unjust laws is so vague that we cannot give a precise description. In addition, even to those proved unjust laws, we should improve it in a more appropriate way instead of irrational disobeying or resisting. |
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