Is legislation necessary or is it a way of the government suppressing culture?.
These two words often drive fear into the minds of people who live in todays society. Why do we need law in our society? Humanity is made of all different varieties of people, and as expected, we don't all have the same views on how we should treat each other or our environment. This is when the law steps in, legislations are put in place to create the highest amount of happiness to the greater amount of people. Jurisprudence is the study of the philosophy of law. It looks at the deeper meaning of the law and its evolution from the natural law of the 18th century, to the legal reality of today's business and practice.
As previously mentioned, the law aims to create the greatest good to the greatest amount of people, this ideology is known as Utilitarianism; to maximise utility. 18th Century philosopher Jeremy Bentham described the law's importance as 'providing the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right or wrong'. A utilitarianism outlook on the law is that it maximises total benefit and reduces the negatives. This is completely correct. We all know as human beings it is impossible to please everyone at the same time. Laws are extremely necessary in order to prevent our society becoming out of control in terms of the safety of ourselves and the world we live in. Let us imagine a world without the law in place to punish a wrongdoer; suppose a person goes to their local clothes store and steals a jumper out of greed. A group of young teenagers see this wrongdoing and as a result of no punishment, they assume it is acceptable to steal therefore continue on to perform this act of greed in the future. This then develops into a never ending chain threatening the core of our society. Absence of law and the fear of punishment creates an opportunity to go against the expectations of reality and generates the desire to go against one's conscience.