Law and Order

Why laws exist in society

Laws exist for a few reasons. We need laws in our society to survive and thrive. However, this doesn’t mean that some people cannot abuse them. Throughout history, different legal systems have existed and died. None of those legal systems were without their flaws, since they were based on different principles. Following are two of the five main principles that laws stand on:

The harm principle

Laws created under this principle are written to protect people from being killed, injured, etc. by others. For instance, there are laws against violent crime and property crime. Without this principle, a society descends into the rule of the strong and violent over the weak and non-violent, which is referred to as ‘despotism’. To avoid this, every government on Earth has laws based on this principle.

The parental principle

Some laws intend to stop people from self-harm. Laws based on this principle include compulsory attendance laws for children, laws against neglect of children and vulnerable adults and laws banning the possession of certain drugs. Such laws can be abused if they are not written properly or if they are enforced with bad intentions. For instance, the government can declare its critics mentally ill and send them to a mental facility in order to silence them.