Dear family, both chosen and blood, and people who are reading this who are not my chosen or blood family:
My core belief is that I don’t know most things. The list of things I don’t know and the reasons I don’t know them is huge, and, I suspect, of interest only to me. I certainly do not know all of of “The Law.” However, I do know a lot of “The Law.” I went to law school and practiced law, on and mostly off, for over forty years. I sometimes wore a tee-shirt that said, “I love the law,” Still, the amount of law I don’t know is larger, by far, than the law I do know.
I have excerpted and tweaked much of the information below from Introduction to Law/Basic Concepts of Law, available for free online.
In law school, I was taught the following. (The wording comes from Introduction to Law/Basic Concepts of Law. I had not distilled it down to these three things but when I read them they resonated with me.)
The law is “a system of rules enforceable by public authority requiring the members of a community to meet certain standards of conduct.”
The law “makes sure that the society remains stable and its members are able to pursue their interests and that disputes are settled efficiently.”
The law “should conform to public morality, without, however, turning all moral norms into legal rules.”
In law school, I did not learn much about non-public authorities making and enforcing rules. In the forty-plus years that I practiced law (on and off), I learned much more about those rules and have come to believe they are at least as important as rules made by public authorities.
Do and Do Not
Often, the humans who make these rules also set up methods for compliance by threatening humans and non-humans who (or which) disregard the rules, the disregarding of which involves some harm, like losing liberty or money. This consequence is called a judgment, sanction, punishment, or accountability. The humans who enforce these rules do so in the name of many different entities, such as “communities,” “states,” “nations,” or intergovernmental organizations (e.g., the United Nations).
Months ago, I started writing this because I wanted to explore whether powerful humans (such as former President Trump, Sam Bankman-Fried, or Michael Madigan [who for many years was one of the most powerful people in Illinois], etc.) were being held accountable by “The Law” in the USA. Years before that, I largely withdrew from many communities because I did not think I was able to obey the rules of those communities. I felt that, if I was not part of a community, I did not have to obey the rules of the community and could not be held accountable.
Is and Ought
The Law does not explain what human behavior is. It says what it ought to be.
For example, I am told that the law says my landlady has to provide 68 degrees of heat during the day and 66 degrees during the night. As I write this, the thermostat says that the heat in my apartment is 61 degrees and getting colder.
Another and more important example is that there are “rules of war,” as President Biden said in one of his recent addresses, which I watched, sort of, while working on this. Those rules are frequently violated, often with tragic results.
Right and Wrong
Many people think that the law not only prescribes or forbids certain acts but also indicates what is right and what is wrong. I don’t believe that. However, among the things I don’t know are all of the rules of right or wrong behavior. That said, I often have strong opinions about what constitutes wrong acts. Torture is wrong, for example.
Natural Law
The Doctrine of Natural Law decides behavior that is right or wrong by referring to meta-legal authority. According to its adherents, law is correct if it conforms to human nature (Plato), to divine revelation (Augustinus, also known as St. Augustine; St. Thomas Aquinas; John Duns Scotus; William of Ockham) or to reason (Cicero, Grotius, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant).
Positivist Doctrine
The Positivist Doctrine states that humans cannot derive law from a higher authority. Its adherents feel that the law is made up of social norms that are generally accepted and adhered to (Georg Jellinek) or are formally enacted (Radbruch) or are regularly enforced (Austin, Holmes, Llewellyn).
Now, maybe I will get back to exploring if powerful people are being held to account by the rule of law. More likely, I will obsess about powerless people being hurt, with the people who are hurting them not being held to account. It breaks my heart.
With much love, and give peace a chance,
Fred
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Fred, I am afraid that I didn't get any great insight to the law From this missive. Much of what you are discussing implies that the law teaches us right from wrong. Considering the recent rulings by the Supreme Court, I don't believe that. Lloyd
I found your comments about "law" thoughtful and well-stated.