Difference Between Human Law And Unjust Law

Laws are enforced to provide our society with safety, boundaries, protection of rights, and overall justice. The United States Constitution and Bill of Rights were established years ago to reduce the tensions and conflicts of our newly founded nation. It sought out to accomplish this by providing justice through an equal voice for all citizens. However, this equal voice for justice more often times than not is squandered and diminished. Things such as race, religion, and culture often times blur the lines of the law and fair outcomes in a court. Individuals feel that their beliefs are more important than the protection of rights and the deliverance of law or the law itself cannot go outside of its limitations to provide justice. This is apparent in the court cases of Marbury v Madison, Plessy v Ferguson, and the book To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee. These cases clearly exemplify that the law does not always provide justice, although it endeavors to do so.

The law of nature requires things to be in constant balance; meaning where there is good, there is bad, and inverse. The two will always overshadow each other because they cannot exist without each other. It applies to whether the law is just or unjust, because the law is always evolving with. It is evolving and adapting to the current time we are in because it was pushed and challenge by citizen in quest of trying to achieve relevance. Sometimes the law changes because of the protest from the citizens as it is being applied to them. Which leads to a consideration of the “justness” of civil disobedience as it forces people to pay attention force change to the laws.

In the novel Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey it is revealed that justice and the law are not the same things. The law can be defined as a set of rules and regulations to be followed and justice can be defined as just behaviour or treatment. The law is meant to ensure that justice is always present but this is not always the case as seen in Jasper Jones. In the novel, the law is not used for justice but is rather used for prejudice, in order for characters of the novel to find justice they must do so outside of the law and to find justice you have to take the law into your own hands.

"There are just laws and there are unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that an unjust law is no law at all... One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly...I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for law."

Are we morally obliged to obey even unjust laws? This moral question addresses what we commonly know as civil disobedience. In order to properly discuss civil disobedience and whether or not it is moral to disobey laws, we must first characterize civil disobedience. In Peter Singer's book, Practical Ethics he begins to characterize civil disobedience as arising from "ethical disagreement" and raising the question of whether "to uphold the law, even if the law protects and sanctions things we hold utterly wrong?" (Singer 292).

"One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." Martin Luther King's words, which just correspond with the above assertion, perfectly tell us what to do in face of laws, either just or unjust.

Martin Luther King used the same idea of unjust laws to justify his actions and nonviolent campaigns. He used this idea to answer the question of how he can support the breaking of some laws, but not others? His simple answer was that there are two types of laws, just and unjust, and "an unjust law is no law at all." (80). He goes on to quote St. Thomas Aquinas, ."..Any law that uplifts personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust." (80) and says that any individual that breaks an unjust law and accepts the punishment of imprisonment actually has the "highest respect for the law." (81). King makes a very strong point in distinguishing just and unjust laws to advocate his actions, just like Stanton and Anthony do in their address.

Laws are created among society to maintain order, keeping the communities safe and controlled. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the trial of Tom Robinson is a textbook example of how law creates order among society. When Tom was accused of rape, he was taken to a court of law and prosecuted for the laws that he had broken. Atticus states, “There is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller… that institution gentlemen, is a court.” pg 274 When Atticus says that he is expressing that legally all men are equal in the court of law, and men that are proven guilty are demanded to serve the punishment that has been given to them. This shows that law is the ultimate decider over the people, and that the people should respect the law because it upholds the regulations of the nation.

Throughout history and in today’s society, people have always done what they felt to be right. In Henry David Thoreau “Civil Disobedience” he stated “The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right.” Although doing what you believe to be right may feel right, it’s not always the best decision in all situations. There are many situations where doing what you feel to be right can benefit you, but can affect others negatively. Thoreau believed that following the law, created by most of the people can be morally and socially wrong. A person should not feel it is their obligation to follow a law they don’t believe in; that would be giving up their individual consciences. People should always do what they personally believe is right.

The use of just laws was first abided by Dr. King in his “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” In this letter, he mentions the necessity of just laws in society and how individuals are morally obliged to follow them. He also makes a clear distinction between “just” and “unjust” laws, further advocating his beliefs. Dr. King defines the two different laws in his interpretation of what they actually mean in society. A just law is a human-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. In other words, a law that can uplift the personality of an individual is a law that is just. Also, citizens also have their moral responsibility in a constitutional democratic society to obey and abide by the laws of the country. In comparison to just

Thomas Jefferson once said, “If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.” Citizens of any government are often subject to unjust, unreasonable legislation that they are required to follow - but are they? In fact, in order to uphold a government that reflects the will of the people, citizens must protest unfair laws by deliberately disobeying them. This method often results in immediate change, would help to ban immoral laws that can be dangerous to some groups of people, and upholds the entire idea of a fair government: to let the people rule.

If a law is unjust, one cannot take fault or be punished if it goes against the law, for it is not a law at

As a citizen, one often faces the moral dilemma of whether to abide by the laws they disagree or whether not to. The Crito, written by Plato, and Civil Disobedience, written by Henry David Thoreau, explain and defend their claims on what to do when one encounters this moral dilemma. The Crito argues that one should not break the laws because to break one law is to break all of the laws. Civil Disobedience argues that majorities should not determine whether to make the people of a society follow a law, but ones conscience should determine whether they should follow the laws. The Crito is correct in the fact that one should follow the laws because they are laws, and if broken, essentially all of them are broken; the laws are put in place to conduct society and one does not get to pick and choose which ones to follow and which ones not to.

Unjust laws and just laws are not defined with federal laws and regulations that many people have in mind. A just law is a universal and natural law that is unchanging and is rooted to bring up the right actions of man kind. An example of a universal law would be the ten commandments, that was given to Moses by God for humanity to be righteous and maintain every human moral. An unjust law is not rooted in eternal or natural law, and is out of harmony which divides and separates individuals from unity. An example of an unjust law would be slavery in America in the late 1800s, which destroyed and

            To begin, however, I believe it is necessary to define an "unjust" law. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, "Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust." (King, 3) According to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., "An unjust law is a code