... Hobbes is famously quoted for saying, "Life is lonely, poor, nasty, brutish and short." He is right. Without a contracted, written understanding of law and its consequences, there is no reason for people to follow rules or be civil. Hobbes contends that humans are out for their own self-interests. ... must be appointed. The sovereign is that person who makes the laws. The sovereign is that person who decides right from wrong, and just from unjust. In the state of nature, people don't have ideas of justice and injustice because laws define justice and injustice. This state of nature is h...

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• Grade Level: High School

... was going to be elected, all had the same intention of keeping segregation among blacks. King also spoke on the differences between just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. What is right and what is wrong. The policy of the philosophy class of 2101 follows with ... squares with the moral law of the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eterna...

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... believed that by appealing to the verdict or by running away he would be wronging the city [50A]. He should have instead fought against the unjust verdict, and prove to the city that it was not right to sentence someone to death for philosophizing. He didn't want to appeal or runaway ... that he was right. It has been proven in the United States that one can fight against an unjust ruling or an unjust law; like the Black Civil Rights Movement, and Women's Rights. By allowing the unjust ruling to go through, Socrates allowed the city to be able to wrong another person when the situation ...

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... just laws. However, he also believes that people have a moral obligation to disobey unjust laws. With this, he quotes St. Augustine with, "An unjust law is no law at all." King goes on to explain that a just law is a law that uplifts human personality and it squares with moral law. In addition, an unjust law is a law that degrades human personality and is a code that is out of harmony with ... the moral law. An easier way to view this is that a just law is a law that a group who enacts it ... will not mind following itself. On the contrary, an unjust law is a law that the group that en...

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• Grade Level: High School

Thoreau's Civil Disobedience poses the question of what a man should do if in the situation of following or not following an unjust law. Should this person follow the law and disobey his conscience? Thoreau's essay advocates how one must decipher his conscience and decide whether he is for or against an institution's laws. In the beginning of Thoreau's essay ... he asks what a person should do if he is faced with an unjust law. He argues that most people abide by that law until the majority is persuaded to change it. The majority, he states, is not necessarily the right opinion- it is merely ...

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• Grade Level: High School

Socrates Vs King In the two reading assignments that were assigned each of the characters argue whether breaking the law is just or unjust. The characters namely being, Socrates and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., both have different outlooks on the authorities, and the laws in which they must abide by. Both stories are ... and Socrates have completely different outlooks on weather it's right to intentionally break the law. I think that the argument between Dr. King and Socrates is very apparent that they disagree on weather a person should intentionally break the law. Socrates being a firm bel...

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... outlawing of segregation in public schools. He however does go on to state that he believes that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. He believes it is very obvious to distinguish the difference in a just and unjust law. Dr. King uses numerous ways to develop a pretty distinguishable line between the two types of laws. He first states that " Any ... law that uplifts human personality is just and any law that degrades human personality is unjust."" He emphasizes that all segregation laws are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages personality. He ... also belie...

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... David Thoreau would completely agree with Socrates" above quotation. Thoreau argues that government should be based on conscience and that citizens should cease associating with an unjust government. Thoreau writes: "How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be ... be men first, and subjects afterward." According to Thoreau, if people followed their conscience instead of the law, they would do the just thing. If people obeyed all laws, they would tend to do unjust things. In Thoreau's mind, the American people would ...

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... the most. He also explored the duties and obligations of citizens to their government and vice versa. Aristotle discussed the notions of "just" and "unjust" and how laws affected them. According to Aristotle, there were three true forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and constitutional republic. The perverted forms of ... was a citizen who was loyal to its government, willing to die for his country, and also a person who abides by the laws, even unjust laws. A good citizen would also put the state before its family because the family was dependant upon the state for survival. Ari...

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... every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be Unjust. The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice have there no place. Where there is no common Power, there is no Law: where no Law, no Injustice. Force, and Fraud, are in warre the two Cardinall vertues ... make designs of force upon other people. Locke bases his theory upon several assumptions about morality and justice, which he believes to be inherent in natural law. The state of nature, according to Locke is a state of perfect freedom, in which every man is independent of every other man: "A state ...

• Word Count: 4512
• Approx Pages: 18
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... The ruler, therefore, is justified in doing whatever is necessary to maintain the country, even if it is unjust. On the other hand, Plato argues a ruler can never be unjust. In spite of the fact, Machiavelli is greatly influenced by the Greek and Latin classics, and by the ... practice is essential in keeping the orderly nature of the republic. Machiavelli disqualifies any interference from private citizens in enforcing the rule of law because of the notion that the citizen, given the opportunity, will act with malignity in pursuit of his self-interests. Another untoward ... This min...

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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... who has committed a hate crime is partly punished by his or her motives. This makes that hate crime laws in the United States of America are superfluous, unjust, discriminating against victims of other crimes, and in violation of the First Amendment. At first, in the US hate crime laws are superfluous. Every crime that ... can be committed can already be punished under state laws and local laws. If someone commits a crime he has broken the law and is punished for that. An example: if a man murders a black woman because she is black, he should be charged with murder in the first ... degr...

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• Grade Level: High School

... also preserve, as much as possible, his fellow man. Locke believes that in a state of nature every individual has the authority to execute the law of nature, but only when the killing of the offender will do justice. Justice of this type is defined as punishing the crime for the prevention ... There can never be an absolute monarchy and rule will thus then be limited. Locke believes that monarchy is a type of slavery and violates the law of nature that then makes it totally illegitimate. Locke believes that government's main purpose is to protect property with unbiased laws, while also p...

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... , if not exclusively, towards a desire for self-aggrandizement that really knows no inherent limits. For him, the strong individual has no obligation to uphold the law of the community, and he will grant that if justice is good at all, it is only good instrumentally, as a means to something else. The apparently ... on the one hand we have the just man, but a just man who appears to be unjust. This man will be very likely to suffer harm from his fellows. In direct contrast, we have an unjust man who appears just. This man will be much more likely to prosper and be rewarded by his ... fel...

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... were being imprisoned for standing up for their beliefs and arguing that the government's practices, especially slavery, were immoral. Thoreau thought that imprisoning these people was unjust in itself. "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." (230) Thus any penalty that ... be one step toward obtaining it." (223) It is the citizen's obligation to disobey governmental dictates when he or she believes that they are unjust or immoral. According to Thoreau, in a non-perfect society, those men willing to take the risks to rebel agains...

• Word Count: 1490
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• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... of view. In his address, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, Calvin feels the people should live above the law and have a conscience that does not observe the law(359). This is probably due to the fact that some of the laws were unjust and he urges the uneducated to rise above them and act accordingly. When people are uneducated, they cannot question ... . Calvin, in his, Institutes of the Christian religion, urged people not only to live above te law, but to be better that than the law (360). Calvin says ". . . do not observe the law, as being under any legal obligation; but that,...

• Word Count: 1192
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... what they think good." The base level activity that, perhaps best shows man to be a political animal is moral consideration; "humans alone have perception of good and evil, just and unjust" . Being such a political animal, man succumbs to a natural urge and pairs off with a woman, similarly, a master pairs with a slave to better enable life and then, in succession, a household, a village and ... is an indirect natural occurrence; we are political animals and form households, villages and states, which Aristotle has demonstrated to be natural associations. Social collaboration is a preco...

• Word Count: 1343
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• Grade Level: Graduate

... if there were a society that had a deficiency of all things necessary. According to Thrasymachus" idea on justice the stronger or ruling class should be the beneficiary of justice. So say a law is passed that the ruling class be given an excess of the things they need. This would leave little or none for the lesser people so the justice is not ... the laws from the society lacking necessities. The laws there are instated for the good of the stronger. Morally the only way it would be okay to act unjust would be if the unjust act were to benefit the stronger more than remaining just. (Pla...

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... justifying the breaking of some laws. Martian Luther felt there were two types of laws, the just and the unjust. A just law is a man-made code that agrees with morality or God's law and uplifts human personality, an unjust law is out of harmony with moral law and degrades human personality. Segregation is morally wrong and sinful yet legal, just as what Hitler did in Germany ... ...

• Word Count: 257
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... argument, The Apology and The Crito. Issues that I will base my argument on are the important questions of Truth, Justice, Death and State Law. In The Apology, Socrates sets about on a course to instil his moral mission. He seems much less concerned with the offering of an impressive ... unjust or just. He proclaims in "no circumstance must one do wrong one must not even do wrong when one is wronged". (48c) Another idealistic stance when viewed through the harsh realities if our times. If everyone adopted this particular Socratic line, society would doubtless have little to worry it. For...

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... like Callicles and Gorgias telling people exactly what they want to hear, and throwing dust in the eyes of councils of justice who hear them in the law courts. Socrates refutes this easily because it turns out that "oratory doesn't need to have any knowledge of the state of their subject matters; it only ... it knows more than those who actually do have it" (p.18). Thus, some orators are capable of using oratory unjustly and being willing to do what is unjust. However, Callicles and Gorgias believe in what they do. They think that by being great speakers and able to persuade, they are b...

• Word Count: 978
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• Grade Level: High School

... said, "Dear, your death is not justified," the 70-year-old Socrates responded, "You don't wish my death to be justified." The ancient Greek philosopher was determined to accept his unjust fate with dignity. He might have wanted to prove his innocence to his fellow citizens of Athens with his own death. He was charged with corrupting the youth and put ... out of a desire to get the better; this is what any nature naturally pursues as good, while it is law which by force perverts it to honor equality." He believes that anyone will be unjust, given the opportunity. Socrates believes that G...

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... across the country, when does it become the users responsibility to curb his or her use of tobacco? [When] a law is thought to be unjust, it seems always to be regarded as being so in the same way in which a breach of law is unjust, namely, by infringing somebody right. (Mill, 139) In essence, this quote shows that aside from regulations and policies made ... ...

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... idea of passive resistance. He contends that people's first obligation is to do what they believe is right and not to follow the law given by the majority. When a government is unfair, people should refuse to follow the law and put themselves away from the government. He believed a person is not obligated to dedicate his life to eliminating evils from the world ... , but he is obligated not to participate in such evils. Thoreau further argued that the United States fits his criteria for an unjust government, given its support of slavery and ... effectiveness of reform within the governm...

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... conflict, competition, diffidence, and glory. Different reasons to violate others: competition for the same objects, for gain, distrust of others, for safety, desire that others value them highly, for reputation - Law of nature: rule forbidding what is destructive to life or its preservation ("defend ourselves by all means that we can"). Right of nature: self-preservation ("seek peace and follow it ... are as follows: - 1) Subjects owe him sole loyalty; - 2) Subjects cannot be freed from their obligation to him; - 3) Dissenters must yield to the majority in declaring a sovereign; - 4) The...

• Word Count: 2051
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• Grade Level: High School