Legal Consciousness And The United States

To be sure, modern laws are made to express the general will, a will that aims at the common good. This means that laws in most cases intend to protect every social member’s rights under the principle of justice and fairness. For telling examples one need to look no further than American judicial system. The access to the two courts systems, one federal court and one state court, provides citizens with the greatest potential to have their legal problems

This week’s article “Situating Legal Consciousness: Experiences and Attitudes of Ordinary Citizens about Law and Street Harassment” by Laura Nielsen studies people’s attitudes towards the regulation of offensive public speech by race, gender and class and the reasoning behind their attitudes. Nielsen introduces the idea of legal consciousness, which reflects on the unique backgrounds within these disadvantaged groups and how it affects their understanding and importance of law (RELATION?). This study found that the majority was against legal regulation of offensive public speech based on the assumption that they can handle these situations on their own, similar to the idea of in house dispute resolution offices in which these situations are

In August 2015, the case Miller V Davis brought to light the complicated relationship between law and morality. Indeed, Mrs Davis a county clerk in Rowan county (Kentucky), is being sued for not delivering marriage licences to same sex couples as she believes that homosexuality is morally wrong. Thus, despite the fact that same-sex marriage has been made legal by the U.S Supreme Court since June 2015. Ought individuals to apply the law though it is in inadequacy with their moral beliefs? Do the law should be totally free from any moral influence? Many legal scholars have argued on these questions, as well as trying to define the terms “law” and “morality”. While no one has agreed to a universal definition, law can be defined as a “body of rules, whether proceeding from formal enactment or from custom, which a particular state or community recognizes as binding on its members or subjects”. On the other hand, morality is referred to as an “ethical wisdom” , the set of common values unifying a society. This essay will discuss the role of morality in the law, while analysing different legal school of thoughts arguing on the topic. First of all, positivists such as Bentham, Austin and Hart, argued that morality should not interfere with the law as it is created by a legitimate authority. On the other hand, naturalist theorists, such as Aristotle, Fuller and Dworkin, believed in the existence of a “higher law”, highly influenced by morals, has to be integrated in a legal system

PHL 612 Philosophy of Law [Calendar Description]: What is law? What makes something a legal norm? Should

We have also witnessed recognition of women’s rights in marital rape and domestic violence as well as technology crimes, and updates to the criminal law involving terrorism since the September 11 Twin Tower bombings in New York (Hayes and Prenzler, 2012). Although law makers can be slow to respond to social change, this proves that as society evolves, so does the criminal law and our opinions and attitudes are taken into account and laws are changed for our best interest.

Law is defined in various ways. Donald Black defines law as government action to control the social environment and perspective of a society. Whereas Oliver Wendell Holmes defines law as a judge made decision (Lessan 2013). A combination of these definitions of law is the explanation for the legal trend of mass incarceration. The government decides what is criminal and what is acceptable. At the same time law is also a judge made decision. Judges bring their own perspective to legal decisions and sentences. DuVernay accounts for these factors in her documentary. This is first exemplified by the film’s comparison of the prosecution of white-collar crime and blue-collar crimes. Starting with Nixon’s “War on Crime” blue collar crime, or street crimes, were punished more harshly than white collar crimes. This is an example of the government criminalizing street crimes to shape the social perspective of crime(DuVernay

     In his book on ?The Behavior of Law? Donald Black attempts to describe and explain the conduct of law as a social phenomenon. His theory of law does not consider the purpose, value, impact of law, neither proposes any kind of solutions, guidance or judgment; it plainly ponders on the behavior of law. The author grounds his theory purely on sociology and excludes the psychology of the individual from his assumptions on the behavior of law (Black 7). The theory of law comes to the same outcome as other theories scrutinizing the legal environment, such as deprivation theory or criminal theory; however, the former concentrates on the patterns of behavior of law, not involving the

Our interactions within the law and society may be described as acts of legal consciousness. The term 'legal consciousness' is used to describe an understanding of the law, society, and ones place within. This awareness is informed by, and informs our societal interaction at both a group and individual level. It is my strong belief, that through critical reflection of our legal consciousness, we are empowered with the ability to influence and analyze the role of law and its effectiveness within society. Legal consciousness is both a form of scrutiny and a device of law. It is the basis for the formation of opinions on some of the more difficult ethical or moral questions posed, such as; abortion and euthanasia.

There are two major areas of law, civil law and criminal law. As a society, people tend to not pay attention to law unless they are in the middle of an issue. The two areas of law are important to know though, since an issue can occur at any time and it is important to be prepared and have a basic understanding of what is happening and what to do. Many people do not know the distinction between civil law and criminal law, and while the ramifications vary considerably for each, the cases can occur simultaneously, which is why it is important to know the differences and in what scenarios each form is used.

Legal consciousness is the summation of views and/or ideas that are expressed by a person in regards to law, litigation, and the justice system as a whole. This can also be viewed as an opinion a single person has about what is constituted as “right” and what is “wrong”. My view of the law might be different than your view of the law and that makes our legal consciousness different from one another. The reason that our views are different from each other/another person is the fact that we have many different factors that make our identities different. Identity is a

Natural law theorists believe that all law must be morally justified if it can be legitimised as law at all. Legal positivism means the simple contention that it is in no sense a necessary truth that laws reproduce or satisfy certain demands of morality, though in fact they have otherwise done so. (Hart, DATE)

Throughout the United States there are many different laws among the fifty states that make up this union. The laws are different throughout the states because of the need of the laws. Living in one state and not having the advantages or disadvantages of a law in another state would not be that unfair or unequal. This is true because if you don’t like a law in your state you could always fight it and try to change it or you could always move out of that state and go to one that has the laws that you like.

Since we were kids and became conscious of our surrounding, our parents and grandparents instilled in us an awareness of what is right and wrong. In other words, it is a trait of all human beings and fosters from our desire to get along with each other to live a harmonious life. Laws are a set of rules and behaviors set by governments that society illustrate on what people can or cannot do. The purpose of this paper is three-fold: it will identify and define what distinguishes law from ethics and what similarities they share. The second is an analysis of examples of where law and ethics either meet or diverge. Third is the role where law and ethics either meet or diverge.

This article discusses the conceptions of legal normativity, both moral and “strictly legal” conceptions. According to Spaak, regarding the normative force of legal justification, legal positivists can still embrace the moral idea and not be in conflict with their generally held belief in the “strictly legal” concept of law. In Torben Spaak’s opinion, there is a reason to desire legal positivism; he explains this through introducing the concept of jurisprudence. When discussing the nature of law, Spaak states, “that while the moral conception is what is likely favored on a smaller scale, the strictly legal conception is more appealing because it is broader,” (478). Spaak is arguing, his belief that “validity-based explanations come nearer to the truth,”(483) rather than belief-based explanations. He concludes that we are to prefer legal positivism over natural law theory. “That is why in this article I have been concerned with the law itself rather than our views about it.”(483)

The rule of law is a difficult concept to grasp and proves elusive to substantive definition. However, the following work considers the attempts of various social and legal theorists to define the concept and pertinent authorities are considered. Attitudes and emphasis as to the exact shape, form and content of the rule of law differ quite widely depending on the socio-political perspective and views of respective commentators (Slapper and Kelly, 2009, p16), although there are common themes that are almost universally adopted. The conclusions to this work endeavour to consolidate thinking on the rule of law in order to address the question posed in the title, which is at first sight a deceptively simple one.