杀G小组寒假第三次作业贴

wagner1985UID: 2838595

89) Claim: Many problems of modern society cannot be solved by laws and the legal system.
Reason: Laws cannot change what is in people's hearts or minds.
Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the claim and the reason on which that claim is based.

wagner1985UID: 2838595

It goes without saying that laws serve to regulate and control people's behavior, which plays an important role in governing our society. Although, in most of cases, laws and legal system successfully minimize a lot of illicit activities, it cannot completely eradicate those problems owing to people's mind and heart. There are also some other factors which contribute to the inability of laws and legal system. Therefore, it is not reasonable to conclude that the failure of laws simply attributes to people's psychological factors.  

To begin with, because of the fear of punishment, remedy and castigation, the majority of people stay away from any illegal activities. As such, legal system in modern time, actually, solve a lot of social problems, which is far beyond people's imagination. It is court, jail, policemen, imprisonment, even death penalty deters people from going out of boundaries of laws. If a man dares to affect or hurt other people's welfare and livelihood, legal system can make them lose far more than what they can gain from the breach of justice, which brings people a well-ordered society.

However, laws, as the statement said, cannot change people hearts and minds which determines whether or not people can really solve some problems, such as various crimes. Sigmund Frued divided personalities into three folds, the id, the ego and the superego. Ego control most of people's rational behavior, hence can be influenced by the law. While law fail to exert any impact on the other two folds. A rapist, for example, spending tens of years in prison, could relapse into recommiting crimes, for the intensive craving in the id and the superego for violence and sex has not been adjusted. To truly eradicate the root of the crimes, people are not supposed to simply rely on laws, but resort to combining the social interaction, education and psychotic therapy, which can really rebuild criminal's mental world. Only punishing without considering psychological factors is putting the horses before cart.

People cannot neglect the fact that many factors, other than incapability of influencing hearts and mind, can lead to the inability of laws and the legal system, such as enormous cost. For example, taxpayers have to spend a great deal before the wrongdoer can get punishment. To begin with, policemen start to try to investigate and collect the proof, which would cost a lot of time and money. After that, the public prosecution began to reinvestigate the case, which is also expensive and tedious. Then both of sides go to court and try their best to prove the opposite side is wrong. Sometimes, due to the budget, policeman cannot collect enough evidence to prove the guilty of wrongdoer.While, more often than not, because of the occurence of fault during investigation , some important evidences are not valid. Also, technologies about investigation is not always effective and available. Therefore, going to court is not as easy as many people think. It needs quite a lot of investment in terms of money, energy, time.

To sum up, laws and the legal system is not elixir in any time of history, though it is effective since the Code of Hammurabi came into being. One of the reasons is it cannot solve the problems which take roots in people's mind and heart. People should also pay attention to other problems.

XuyuanlingUID: 3686195

Laws and legal systems have become an indispensable part of human society, through which we consciously discipline our behaviour and regulate our characteristics to enjoy a harmonious community life. It's hard to imagine what our society will be without the constitution, the courts, and the legislature. Fairly speaking, no single laws can meet all the parties' benefits and solve all disputes faced by human beings at a time. However, in most circumstances, it is the absence of the legal system or the lack of publicity of various laws,  not laws’ failing to change people's hearts or minds, that lead to the ineffectiveness of laws on addressing most of the intractable problems faced by the modern society.

Almost all the countries in the world are bound by various types of laws, regulations or disciplines. Those set of legal systems play an important role on maintaining the safety and security of our life, and, most importantly, fulfilling the welfare of the majority. Life, absent of the binding of laws, is horrible. Imagine the pre-history, when killing and invading were not prohibited. Even in modern society, with people well educated and without such laws, it will be hard to lead a peaceful life. In the absence of laws and jurisdiction, everyone can maximize own benefits while ruining others'; those underprivileged is justified to be left uncared, even hungry to death, and deprived the right to equally share the advantage of our society. Laws set boundary for our self-benefits and rules for our behaviour. It is through the evolution of legal systems, what is bad has been punished, what is good has been enhanced and hence people's mind-sets and behaviours have been regulated.

Of course, we cannot neglect the fact that there are many cases laid beyond the boundary of laws or out of the effectiveness of interpretation of laws, such as the cloning of human, the international political conflicts, such as the nuclear weapon, and religious conflicts. For these situations, there is no single right answer or fair judgement. To avoid play the zero-sum game, more comprehensive and multilateral legal systems are required to promote trust and communication and solve the dispute. The absence of a universal legislative framework usually leaves the issues mentioned above unresolved and leveraged.

More than once, we see how laws have changed our worldly perspectives.  The justifying of abortion frees tens of thousands of women out of the chains of religious beliefs and moral spirits. Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Act 1984 first invited environment friendly and urban ecology against the extreme consumerism. Marriage (Same Sex Couple) act redefined "marriage" and enriched the meaning of human relationships. To free or to ban, laws always rebuild people’s mind-set by pushing forward or pulling back the boundary, even in the extreme cases where there is little or no justice. It is the responsibility of both the legislature and the court to make sure common census are heard, mutual benefits are guaranteed and justice and freedom are maintained from the long run.

To sum up, as part of our mental fruits, laws help bring equality and moderation while we try to chase efficiency and self-benefits. It is our continuous efforts to make our legal systems more upright, harmonized and inclusive. Times and times again, people will know laws stand side by side with humanity and justice, and hence would like to act within the boundary of the laws.