Legal Documents And Law Codes

A set of laws ensures that key elements of civilization are maintained within a society.

It is critical for a kingdom to have a strong set of laws, even in today’s time. These laws help the kingdom to thrive,

The span of Western Civilization encompasses many notable achievements in legal development. As empires rise and expand, it becomes necessary to create a legal code that standardizes punishment, institutes a form of common law, and protects society from arbitrary abuses of power. These principles were formally established relatively early in the western world, and became the foundations upon which later government institutions created their legal systems. The Code of Hammurabi, the Twelve Tables, and Magna Carta, all represent key moments in the evolution of legal thought and practice. Not only do they show the legal and political direction of the empires, but also the progression of their social values

The law codes of the United States are based on the Ten Commandments and various standards that humanity has conceived throughout history. However, before Moses climbed Mount Sinai and “the Lord descended upon it with fire”, the First Babylonian Empire in ancient Mesopotamia was ruled by Hammurabi, who developed the earliest known law code in world history (Exodus 19:2-25; class discussion, 08/29/17). Hammurabi’s Law Code, as it is known today, could be thought of as an early interpretation of morality. Despite the good moral intentions of the law code, these laws are strict, cruel, and, in some cases, unusual. With over two hundred laws, divine right, the act of revenge, and inequality of punishment between classes took up a large amount of this ancient Babylonian law code.

Aristotle once said “At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst. “ Aristotle saw how we as humans were different from other animals; we were able to create these non-existent rules for humans to follow without question. Laws help shape the society we live in, whether they are positive or negative, our morality can come into play when faced with a troubling situation, why should words on paper dictate what we can and cannot achieve? Why is parchment more credible than the humans’ testimony? Should Gods sway the way laws work? These questions are all important when dealing with the creations of rules and regulations.

Antigone refers to such a concept of unwritten law. The concept probably comes into the light in the fifth century along with increasing awareness of potential conflicts between human law and natural law. These three clashes are firmly related, yet this unrefined arrangement of pairings unravels a

Prisoner #48551-083 is a 69-year-old white male named Robert Philip Hanssen. The former FBI-counterintelligence-agent-turned-Soviet-spy is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole at the Administrative Maximum facility in Florence, Colorado, where he is kept in solitary confinement. The United States government originally accused Hanssen of trading more than 6,000 pages of confidential information to the KGB in exchange for cash and diamonds and of blowing the covers of double-agents that the FBI had recruited from the Soviets (Willing & Watson). At the time of Hanssen’s arrest, then-FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said that the charges exemplify “the most serious violations of law – and threat to national security” (“Espionage case”, 2001). This opinion should make us question why, when traitors and spies should be executed in accordance to the United States Code of Law, we as a country are so lenient in our punishments of convicted spies such as Hanssen. Is it because we believe that we cannot decide if someone lives or dies? Are we afraid to acknowledge that the information fed to enemy governments could possibly mean the end of the United States as we know it? Or even the end of our own lives? How many people should be allowed to betray our country until we stop this issue before it is continually perpetuated? Although critics believe that the death penalty should be abolished, I use a combination of retributivist and deterrence arguments to argue that

A few thousand years ago, three sets of laws were composed that show remarkable similarities in their instructions on how to live a moral and righteous life. Although they were written hundreds of miles apart from each other, and in totally different cultures and civilizations, the Edicts of Ashoka, the Bible, and Hammurabi’s Code all elucidate the moral principles of self-control, justice, and abstention from harming living beings.

Maintaining the rule of law is central to most societies ability to remain orderly. Initially, derived from the family, a transition occurred driving the origins of the rule of law to occur within society as a whole. Aeschylus’s The Oresteia provides an excellent illustration of this change from the instinctual law within the family to the positive law of society. Aeschylus shows this transition through the example of the aristocratic family of Argo’s, which culminates in a murder trial in the city of Athens. The Oresteia provides an excellent starting point for understanding the evolution of the rule of law from natural law to societal law through the breakdown of the family roles, the obligations of fate and duty, and the calming of the furies.

Law has changed throughout history and continues to do so today. However, History does teach us that some laws from the ancient times still hold great influence over how laws are made and what laws are created even now. Two prominent documents of law come to mind when needing to reference ancient sources of influence on present Western Civilization’s works of law; one The Code of Hammurabi, and two The Twelve Tables. For this assignment, I will describe in written detail exactly how these two codes compare to the laws of present Western Civilization, as well as, how they compare to what the Bible says should be standard for law and justice. One of the first things I noticed while reading through The Code of Hammurabi, written around 1780 B.C., is that the author of it takes accusation very seriously.

Laws are meant to create order. Order is a necessary means of structure so that men

As we look into Hammurabi’s code; which is described as being the first evidence of written law. We realize how laws have helped with the creation of improved social and moral obligation overall. Though Hammurabi’s laws were perhaps more tailored to the rich, it did bring about a sense of equality. This was made evident by the shift of power from one individual who ruled; to a group considered the legal establishment.

Many features of our law system originated from the Greeks, Romans, and especially the English. The Greeks had law enforcement called Ephori. Five men were appointed this position and they had the power to be an investigator, a judge, jury, and executioner. The Romans came up with The Twelve Tables, which dealt with legal procedures, property ownership, building codes, marriage customs, and punishment for crimes. Justinian I, a ruler of the Roman Empire came up with the Justinian Code which was another set of existing Roman Laws.

Civilization has continued to exist and grow because of the many institutions that exist within most individual cultures, such as art, religion, ethics, etc. I believe that the most important factor in the development of civilization and the biggest aid to the success of past societies is law. Law exists in every society that we have seen throughout this semester, whether it be from the earliest examples of written law like in The Code of Hamurabi, or in the most recent example we have seen in The Code of the Salian Franks. I will seek to analyze the examples of important laws that we have seen throughout developing society, and how they were integral to the growth of the civilization they were created in, including: The Code of Hamurabi, The

The formations of the mankind system have started thousands of years ago and during the pass of time took various changes and transformations. Humans as any other live beings created by nature have developed their own laws of living in order to control and coordinate the relations between them and to avoid chaos in community. Consequently, from this decision arisen another important question – in what way and by whom should the laws be developed and regulated. The main ideas of the laws are to protect the rights of every individual, to ensure peace, to state the norms of social behavior; therefore they should be based on fairness and equality that are involved in the concept of justice. Since the years passed previously formed aspect of justice moved from the sphere of law and got more broaden meaning, certain definition of which was and still remains a topic of debate for theologians, philosophers and legislators.