LAWS101
CATAGORIES OF LAW
What is the Law/Ture? :
Peter Spiller, New Zealand Law dictionary: The law is the enforceable body of rules that
govern a society; A law is one of the rules making up the body of law
Oxford Companion To Law: Law, in general, is a regime of adjusting relations and ordering
human behaviour through the force of a socially organised group
Two features that stand out from these definitions - what we are told by these is that law
occur within societies as a way for us to organise ourselves, secondly it is doing so to
regulate human behaviour and human relationships
This makes sense when thinking about the potential of human nature. i.e one wants to kill
someone, that someone doesn’t want to be
Because of this free will, there can be conflict between what we want, and what we
want to do, thus we must compromise to continue living in society. This is about
limiting our autonomy (having control over your body, your action, self governing) to
a certain extent, in order to compromise. Limiting that freedom to do whatever we
want. Perhaps having limitations about speed because you might want to drive fast
but someone else wants to be safe.
What we are regulating is behaviour
Organising and regulating human behaviour
If we look at the definitions they don't actually tell us how we should do this…
Third feature that we have to imply or read into these definitions as it is not explicitly stated :
This is that the law is normative, it is concerned with norms, with what people SHOULD be
doing, how we SHOULD behave
The law is not descriptive, but it is prescriptive, it is normative. Its not describing HOW we
treat each other but how we SHOULD be treating one another, i.e do not steal, do not kill,
we should not be driving fast
If we put these three things together, the 2 definitions and the idea that law is normative, we
can think of law as;
The law is a set of rules that govern society that help us to organize ourselves and regulate
our relations in the way that we should be treating each other.
This is how we can think about what the law is
This definition shows you that the law is vast, it touches on almost everything. Think of the
law like a spider web, we are all caught up in the web, in someone the law touches on our
lives whether we are aware of it or not. Very mondain every day things are touched by law.
In intricate network
What is the Purpose of the Law/Ture? :
CATAGORIES OF LAW
What is the Law/Ture? :
Peter Spiller, New Zealand Law dictionary: The law is the enforceable body of rules that
govern a society; A law is one of the rules making up the body of law
Oxford Companion To Law: Law, in general, is a regime of adjusting relations and ordering
human behaviour through the force of a socially organised group
Two features that stand out from these definitions - what we are told by these is that law
occur within societies as a way for us to organise ourselves, secondly it is doing so to
regulate human behaviour and human relationships
This makes sense when thinking about the potential of human nature. i.e one wants to kill
someone, that someone doesn’t want to be
Because of this free will, there can be conflict between what we want, and what we
want to do, thus we must compromise to continue living in society. This is about
limiting our autonomy (having control over your body, your action, self governing) to
a certain extent, in order to compromise. Limiting that freedom to do whatever we
want. Perhaps having limitations about speed because you might want to drive fast
but someone else wants to be safe.
What we are regulating is behaviour
Organising and regulating human behaviour
If we look at the definitions they don't actually tell us how we should do this…
Third feature that we have to imply or read into these definitions as it is not explicitly stated :
This is that the law is normative, it is concerned with norms, with what people SHOULD be
doing, how we SHOULD behave
The law is not descriptive, but it is prescriptive, it is normative. Its not describing HOW we
treat each other but how we SHOULD be treating one another, i.e do not steal, do not kill,
we should not be driving fast
If we put these three things together, the 2 definitions and the idea that law is normative, we
can think of law as;
The law is a set of rules that govern society that help us to organize ourselves and regulate
our relations in the way that we should be treating each other.
This is how we can think about what the law is
This definition shows you that the law is vast, it touches on almost everything. Think of the
law like a spider web, we are all caught up in the web, in someone the law touches on our
lives whether we are aware of it or not. Very mondain every day things are touched by law.
In intricate network
What is the Purpose of the Law/Ture? :
