DA小组 第1次作业 ISSUE25 BY 1号 Gassa

GassaUID: 2498402

180."Many problems ofmodern society cannot be solved by laws and the legal system because moralbehavior cannot be legislated."

It seems true that because the moral behaviorcannot be legislated, laws and the legal system, thus, lose the power to solvesocial problems, as the speaker’s assertion. However, I still cannot agree withthe speaker’s assertion in that the legal system actuallycontributes to maintain the well-being society. Meanwhile, we should understandthe combination between the legal system and morality is the effective way tosolve the social problems, instead only taking account into laws.

To begin with, I concede that it is truly becauseof lacking power to legislating moral behavior that the legal system cannot solvesome standing social problems, particularly, when the problems come to the personalmoral behavior which reflects one’s the internal heart. As we know, althoughthe legal system really can mandate the irresponsible children to support theirparents, it cannot force children to really love their parents and preventthese seniors from the loneliness and mental ills. Unfortunately, the legalsystem only can punish the people who act wrong, but it can’t control people’smind and change their hearts.

However, we also should recognize that thelegal system does contribute to the social integration as a whole and protectthe individual freedom. For one side, Adlib the different people hold thedifferent moral values, laws, at least as a minimum standard of morality, containthe widely accepted morality and define the bottom line of human behavior. Aswe all know, almost every law regards stealing, killing, defrauding andmisrepresenting as crimes and demand people conduct honesty, integrity and soon, and there is no exception for anyone. On the other side, the laws also issuethe individual freedom in a wide range, especially in democratic countries. To obeythe laws, the every citizen equally possesses freedom of religion, and freedomof speech, and additionally, the right to due process,to a , to own property, and to privacy. Underthe equal rights, the conflicts in last decades between different races havebeen dramatically alleviated. From these two sides, laws to some extent facilitatethe harmony of the human society.

Finally, the other compelling reason why Icannot agree with the speaker has to do with the fact that, instead of onlyconsider laws, the legal system and morality mutually exist to solve standing socialproblems. In the one hand, if we only resort to legal system, political andeconomic theory and history inform us that granting the power of morallegislation to state probably will result in social chaos, but rather thesolving problems. For example, during the 1960th, Chairman Maoimposed strict moral codes to the new born china, and then the legal power feltinto the “Gang of Four”, which wassubsequently charged with a series of treasonous crimes during “the Cultural Revolution”. At last, The Chinesesocial experienced the biggest chaos after the World War II. It aptly demonstratethat when the power of the state tends inevitably to be commandeered by thevocal minorities who are interested in their own sake, and it must be harmfulto the development of the states, even generate the social disasters. On the other hand, without the force of the laws,the profiteers would become interest-oriented. For the highest profit, theymight extend the working hour, lower the quality of the product and etc, but notcare the non-interest demands of the society and ignore the responsibility forthe environmental protection. So that we should take the balance between thepure moral legislation and pure morality, let both of them reciprocate eachother to help us to solve social problems.

In sum, although itis truly because of lacking power of moral legislation, the legal system failto solve some social problems which relate to the personal moral value.However, without legislating morality, the society might lose the basic orders and fraught with crime and vices. Without morality, thesociety might also develop into chaos.