Issue17 Ares第四次作业

veinardUID: 2195006

ISSUE17 "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."

Laws are crucial to a society, which are enacted by the government in order to administer and control the behaviors of its citizens. I agree with the speaker insofar as that in some special periods, there are absolutely unjust laws in our society. But the speaker neglect that the criteria of just and unjust laws is difficult to establish and disobey and resist the so-called unjust laws may destruct the fabrication of society, with chaos ensuring.

Admittedly, there were some acknowledge unjust laws in history, especially in the society in which the democracy and civilization had not been comprehensively formed. For instance, before the Civil War, treating the black people as slaves and depriving their freedom and various rights was the one of the federal laws, which was apparently unjust to the black people. The law had hampered the economy and society progress of America, which even threaten the unification and stability of the nation. To eliminate such unjust laws and the dangerous they generated, people had the right and responsibility to change or replace it through whatever means, including disobeying and resisting them.

However, in most occasions, it's unpractical to lineate an explicit line between the two kinds of laws. The situation in which the laws are so unjust that inflict the harm or even damage to the society and most of people is rare. In other words, there are not absolutely just or unjust laws in most countries nowadays because the average lever of the democracy and civilization has been prompted to a high degree. Whether the laws are just or not is involved with a subjective issue that differs according to personal interests, social classes, as well as one's personal value system. Consider, for example, for the homosexual people and their supporters, the laws permitted their right of marriage are just because they think homosexual people should have the same rights as heterosexual people, while for other people, the laws are unjust because homosexuals may cause some awful diseases such as AIDS and so on, as well as violate the morality and ethics of human. Consequently, justice is in the eyes of the backers of certain laws, since people's attitude and opinion on what's right and wrong diversify greatly. The judgment on whether a specific law is just or unjust varies.

Although there is not a definite criteria to judge the just and unjust laws, but it's entirely possible that a specific law violates the majority's interests. So, people's intention to improve the justice system will always exist, though direct disobedience and resistance is not recommended. Alternative approaches, which are not so radical, can be adopted to accomplish the goal of laws amelioration. Though legislation reform, for example, in which common citizens can be elected to take part, people can access the better execution of justice, without deviation of the laws. Such methods can not only assure the laws to be just to a great extent, but also to develop the democracy of the society. Nevertheless, once passed though and put into effect, laws should be obeyed to make sure of the security of the society and the interests of the majority.

In sum, the laws are difficult to categorize as just and unjust in most occasions. Simply claiming that people have the responsibility to obey the just laws and disobey or even resist the unjust laws is not appropriate. Although which type a law belongs to should be determined on a case-by-case basis on varying with changing social conditions, we should make sure that the majority's interests and rights are protected by the laws and optimize the approaches to the amelioration of laws.

baihe1988UID: 2203505

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