- 最后登录
- 2007-3-15
- 在线时间
- 0 小时
- 寄托币
- 1342
- 声望
- -10
- 注册时间
- 2003-6-11
- 阅读权限
- 25
- 帖子
- 0
- 精华
- 0
- 积分
- 1124
- UID
- 136936
- 声望
- -10
- 寄托币
- 1342
- 注册时间
- 2003-6-11
- 精华
- 0
- 帖子
- 0
|
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."
Syllabus:
Disagree
1, whether laws are just or unjust depends on its environment that is related to the individual’s beliefs, interests, and traditions. What some people believe to be just perhaps is entirely unjust to other people. There are no absolute just or unjust laws in the world.
2, one shouldn’t decide obey or disobey the laws that he or she believes to be unjust in a simple or straightforward manner. It will result in a great social upheaval if everyone takes actions in terms of his or her attitude over laws.
3, what is the right attitude toward which laws some groups believe to be unjust? The only correct and viable means is to evaluate the effects of laws on the society’s whole and long-term interests and then to decide according attitude in terms of this evaluation.
I don’t agree with the over-simplifying attitudes toward laws that some social groups believe to be just or unjust. Reasonable these attitudes seem to be at first glance, but they are actually built upon the misleading understanding about what is the just and what is the unjust.
The just or the unjust is always a highly abstract concept full of disputes. From different standpoints of beliefs, traditions and interests, people can draw utterly different conclusions about what is the just and what is the unjust. Moreover, as time goes by, people’s attitudes over the just or the unjust also will change steadily, sometimes revolutionarily. Take the Abraham Lincoln for example. When he decided to relinquish the slavery laws, of course, he was just in the eyes of the slaves and the liberalists at that time, and also in the eyes of almost all the people in modern world. For slaveholders in southern America in the eighteen century, however, the actions undertaken by Lincoln were completely unjust and unwelcome. To avenge, they murdered Lincoln. The kind of disputes exists not only in the past, but also in the modern so-called democratic and rational world. This is why there is the same large number of people in America standing up the tax-reducing program of president Bush as that of those who violently oppose it. All above vividly indicates that in this disputable world, the absolute and abstract just or unjust laws never exist: people’s attitudes rest on their beliefs, traditions and interests.
Now that everyone has his or her ideas of whether laws are just or unjust, if people are encouraged to disobey or resist what they believe to be unjust, the society would entirely bogged down into the disorder or even upheaval. No laws could be set down and obeyed by its citizenships if there still having laws. This anarchic state is by no means the progress of democracy, but the degeneration of civilization and the calamity of human beings. But should we require people to obey all the laws, just or unjust? No, it just goes to another extreme. If all the people in the society get used to complying and obeying, ample unjust laws on behalf of interest groups will be instituted; public wills and interests will be trampled; the access to despotism will be open to ambitious dictators. In sum, the attitudes above toward which laws people believe to be unjust are both over-simplifying and thus shouldn’t be encouraged by the society.
But what is the right attitude toward the laws that regarded as unjust by some people? In my views, the only correct and viable means is to evaluate the effects of laws on the society’s whole and long-term interests and then to decide according attitude in terms of this evaluation. Although any laws, once they have been set down, must be just to some groups, and unjust to other groups. the criterion to evaluate their whole effects on the society exists. That is to observe whether they can benefit most people. For example, if some laws act only on behalf of small group of people and do little or negative benefit to the whole society, of course those who feel unjust have the right to disobey and resist these laws. By contrast, if some laws do well to the whole and long-term interests of the society, even at cost of special groups, those who feel unjust also must make some concessions and obey these laws. As to who and how to evaluate their whole effects on the society, it is just another complicated problem out of our analysis.
In conclusion, due to the complexity in determining whether the laws are just or unjust, unless an objective evaluation of the laws on the whole society has attained, it is unwise to take any simplifying attitudes. (638 words) |
|