issue17 [超越自我小组]第一次作业

yk19840405UID: 2463374

Issue 17
I find the speaker's claim is too extreme in two respects. First, it unfairly categorizes the laws as just or unjust. Simply classifying them into two opposed position is difficult and unreliable. Secondly, it advocates that unjust laws should be disobeyed and resisted.

In the first place, categorizing laws as just and unjust is an extremely tricky issue bacause different persons or groups may have different attitudes toward the same law as a result of their different interests, education backgrouds, cultral upbringings and so on. After all, there is no way that a law can be unanimously regarded as unjust, otherwise there will be no foundation for the law's existence. Legislation on contentious issues like euthanasia and human cloning has always drawn controversies from people with different views. For euthanasia, its opponents claim that under no circustances should on be granted the right to take another person's life; while its advocates argue that when it has come to a point when all that left is merely torture and pain, a person should have the autonomy to choose to end his own sufferings. Both sides's view has their reasons and it is tremendously difficult to say which side is just or unjust. In another case, a lot of people including many scientists think that human cloning not only could provide research materials for medical programs, but also could help the patients whose organs have diseases with his own cloning organs for transplanting. But opponents cliam that there may be variant humankind come out by occasional accidents. Both sides has their merits and suppoters and it's hard to dismiss either side as wrong and relevant laws as unjust.

Moreover, it is impposible for the law to be universally fair to everyone concerned. The main function of law is to reconcile interests of different groups and maintain a balance between them. Unfortunately, the arbitrtion is rarely a win-win game, and losers obviously have a discontent attitude toward the relevant law. The illegalization of whale hunting in Japan serves as a case in point. From the whale hunters' point of view, its unfair to deprive their sustenance, and people in relevant industries may support this view. But from a broad point of view, it is necessary to ban whale hunting to preserve the environment and maintain the eco-balance  for the greater good of the society and the whole creatures in the earth.

From the above argument it is clear that disobeying the law is rarely a rational option because it is opposed to the general interest of a bigger group and is therefore counterproductive. Another possible problem of disobeying laws is that by justifying a violation of one sort of law we may ultimately sanction other illegal behaviors, even crimes. Take authanasia for example again, the radical advocates may give pressure or try to convince people who have severe diseases to take anthanasia involuntarily, in some degree it's almost murder.  

In conclution, because the inherent purpose of the law system is to balance different interest groups, people with different priorities will inevitably doubt the fairness of laws that inflicts their personal interests. However, the laws are basically beneficial to the society. Therefore, disobedience and resistance of the laws should not be encouraged, especially when it can lead other problems such as loosing of standards and bending of rules, which will jeopardize innocent people's legitimate interests.

[ 本帖最后由 yk19840405 于 2008-8-11 00:01 编辑 ]

yk19840405UID: 2463374

第一篇，没有限时
等待排砖

[ 本帖最后由 yk19840405 于 2008-8-11 00:02 编辑 ]