Jurisprudence

[Hive]

This is sort of related to the discussion about the meanings of the law. But I wanted to tie it in with ethics as well and see what you guys think? ^^
How do we really define the essence of law? And as an extension how do we define our ethics?

-is a law just the command of a political authority? (the "command of a recognized political authority"- Thomas Hobbes) and are legal land moral considerations separate? (Legal Positivism).
-Should all laws be obeyed whether just or unjust? How about social norms, and society's formation of rules and opinions? (not all positivists believe this)

-Is there a higher law or universal set of moral rules that binds all beings? (Natural Law)

-Is the law in theory not as important as how the law is actually acted upon? (American Legal Realism). To tie this in with ethics, say you say you believe that happiness is the main point of life. And then say that when you are considering actions and sides you take use different approaches to make the points (not necessarily the one that causes the most happiness- okay, like 90% of ppl here do this. And everyone I think at least once). So then is the law as you proclaim it not as important as the law as it is actually carried out?
In law this is saying that even though the constitution and other written codes say "what the law is," what is really defined as the law is what the law is in action. This is a little fuzzy though when making moral considerations and differing between actions.

-Is law defined through accumulated experience of what works and doesn't? (Sociological Jurisprudence). Is the law (and our ethics) a process of social ordering reflecting society's dominant interests and values?

Anyways, your thoughts! ^^











notes from Business Law: The Ethical, Global, and E-Commerce Environment. 14th Edtition
By Mallor, Barnes, Bowers, Langvardt

 

[Narukari]

It really depends on what section of law you are talking about. Criminal law, tort law, and business law have very different reasons behind them.

Criminal law is the hardest one to support since it is pretty much a system of values that is enforced by punishment. Not everyone will have all the same values, but generally the idea is to get the more universally accepted ones enforced on a national scale, like murder, theft, etc. The problems start when laws are enacted that are just supporting the big businesses hold on the consumers, like copyright law. When criminal law is broken, the offended does not have a choice in prosecuting or not.

Tort law is different from criminal law, because you don't actually have to do anything illegal to be punished, and the punishment isn't to hurt the offender, but to make things fair for everyone. If you said you would buy someone's car for $500, they sent the car to you, and you only sent $250 in the mail, they could sue you to get the other $250 back. Tort law is just to keep people from screwing each other over. If tort law is broken, the offended gets to chose whether to prosecute or not.

Business law is very similar to tort law, which is to keep an essence of fairness in business operations. It is used to create a universal system that businesses can adhere to when dealing with each other. These laws would include merchantability, where if a merchant states anything about a product to someone who is interested in buying it. They can take it as a guarantee. This stops people from being able to lie about a product and refuse to give a refund when it doesn't work properly. There are many other laws in business regarding how communication is done between businesses, how transactions are supposed to be documented, and what businesses are not allowed to tell eachother (antitrust laws). Business law is the same as tort law in that the punishment is just to make things even again, not to hurt the person in the wrong. The offended also has the right to not prosicute the offender.

Punitive damages is a special circumstance in tort and business law that is a punishment ment to hurt the offender. The only time punitive damages is awarded is if there is malice behind the offender's actions against the offended.

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My personal take on law is that I obey the ones that make sense and don't care about ones such as copyright law, which is an obvious attempt by business to have an iron grip over people. I am Christian and believe there is some sort of universal law set by God(10 commandments), but I don't believe that Leviticus is a part of them, and is rather an abuse of the Bible by people high in power to oppress the common people.