179"It is possible to pass laws that control or place limits on people's behavior, but legislation cannot reform human nature. Laws cannot change what is in people's hearts and minds."
Law, as we define it, is an obligatory and peremptory force that keeps the proper function of legal system, regulating people’s behavior and ensures the smooth running of the social system. Due to its imperative nature, some people argue that in spite of its forcefulness, laws are insufficient in changing human nature and thus fundamentally shift people’s hearts and minds. I should agree insofar that the laws do lack efficiency in dealing with human nature, but under certain circumstances, we should observe that in some degree, people’s behavior do reflect what is in their hearts and minds.
A state pass legislative regulations and laws to confine people’s behavior in accordance with the social norms and at the same time to ensure that citizens enjoy their rights and freedom while pose no threat to others ‘ interest and the well-being of the society as a whole. Thus, the social engine would possibly being kept running without disturbance from wildly spreading irrational behavior and social chaos. This is of vital importance to every citizen since without laws, people’ s sense of security and responsibility will be undermined and jeopardized to such a degree that the human society is pushed to the verge of disaggregating. We were told by laws that deprive other people of their right to live would be sentenced to death, robbery is intolerable by jurisdiction and divulge information of national security would be evaluated as a behavior of treason, all of which successfully limiting our irrational behavior.
While realizing the benefits that laws have bring to our lives, we sometimes can not help stop to doubt, do laws only suppress the underlying lust or do laws change us fundamentally through posing certain limits on our behavior. I should argue that human nature is inherently crippled by selfishness, lust and insatiable desire, which could hardly be regulated by anything, no matter how elegant, and efficient those regulations seem to be. For example, if we saw somebody who is extremely rich, we tend to become jealous and thus may conjure to seek money from him illegally, by means of robbery, abduction or blackmail. If somebody really gets on our nerves and we may lose our cool-head to punch him heavily or even lethally and thus this is the case how most injury happens. In nature, we are deeply rooted in the proclivity to take revenge toward those who deceive; shift jealousy by ways of damaging other’s reputation and personal property. if it were not the consequences being illustrated definitely and clearly, we would expect such a chaotic scenario that people use their nature instead of ration and intellect to behave and the result may be the disappearance of the whole human society. Powerful though law is, it turns out to be a too hard and onerous task for laws to tackle alone and the whole society, families and community included, should shoulder some responsibility in providing some moral lessons and standard to help people to realizing that to behavior decently is not only a requisite by laws, but a virtue in fully achieve self-actualization. Another point we should attach importance is that although laws can not change people’s nature directly, through regulating people’s behavior, it has exert a subtle influence on people’s consciousness and ideology.
There are two kinds of people, those who passively place themselves within the bondage of law and those who seek actively protection and enlightenment from laws. I think the latter is far smarter since any laws in a democratic society reflect respect towards freedom, dignity and human rights, which shed light on a person’s consciousness as well as intellectual actualization.作者: 雨&彩虹 时间: 2003-7-17 20:49:29