Issue-89
题目:
Many social problems cannot be solved by the legal system because laws cannot change what is in people's hearts or minds.
范文:
Ever since the Code of Hammurabi came into being, laws have attempted to restrict people's behavior. Laws have played an important role in the maintenance of social order. But aside from limited impacting on behavior laws cannot change was a person thinks or feels.
We live each day under a legal system. No one is ever granted extralegal rights. If we break the law, we will be punished. It is fear of consequence that guides our behaviors—the threat of a fine, imprisonment or even death. Laws, for better or worse, serve to enhance social stability by encouraging or discouraging certain behaviors.
Laws, while they can certainly guide behavior, can exert their influences on the body, not hearts and minds. In the long history of legal development, laws have always changed to reflect different needs. Bigamy, for example, is commonly regarded as illegal in most countries, and yet it is legal in some Arabian countries. For Islamic people, outlawing bigamy seems an impinge upon their religious freedom of choosing mates. Instead of bringing about a revolution in the conception of marriage among Islamic disciples, the laws give way to the reflect the members of the society over which it governs.
Still more, from the psychoanalytic perspective, laws can never change nature. Sigmund Freud has divided the individual personality into threefold: the id, the ego and the super ego. The ego, as the surface of the nature and the part you show the world, is governed by the "reality principle," otherwise known as laws. However, the power of law cannot extend its impacts on the id and the superego. A rapist, for example, despite years of imprisonment, will rape again as he is motivated on different levels. Law or fear of punishment can’t change a rapist. There is no force known to man that can reconstitute the very human nature that guides us all.
In conclusion, as we can see by the evolution of the legal system as presented above, if the law doesn’t reflect the will of the people, they aren’t going to embrace it. Further, if the law runs contrary to an individual’s nature, it will have little effect in deterring or encouraging particular behaviors.