Law

Question: Sarah thinks that laws are created only by societies.  Are governments the ultimate authority for creating laws?


Response: In simple terms, no, governments are not the ultimate authority for creating rules. However since this issue is complex as opposed to simple explanations must be given to show why this is the case.


To start, one must define the terms used in the question. The easiest being government, which is the head of the country either by election in those countries running by democracy or dictators and monarchies in the countries that function without democracy as the method of choosing officials. The government is the highest man-made authority in the land.


The next term is law. The tricky portion of this question is that law and morality are not always defined as  being inter-dependent or even connected. Law is the manifestation of commands issued to ensure the survival of a countries citizens. These are rules and guidelines for living within the jurisdiction of a government's authority. In a sense the laws are created by the state. Morality however is a higher law that superseded that of the state. Do not confuse the term morality either though, this is not personal subjective morality but the law of human nature and how humans ought to act.


The reason why morality supersedes Law is because laws are subject to society's whims and the efforts of lawmakers making them fluid. This is not true law but man-made law. If law contradicts morality then it is not lawful but a sort of pseudo-law that does not fulfill what it is supposed to. Laws that oppress or hinder the survival of individuals are not lawful because they contradict morality. THe decrees of kings to execute innocents are immoral and follow the same unlawful example.


Rather than being ensured with the task of making laws, governments are trusted with the task of enforcing the law of morality in that they ensure the safety of their citizens by holding them accountable to true moral standards. Again these are not the mores of society but laws derived from what humans ought to and ought not to do.


If Governments are the supreme lawmakers and their laws are in and of themselves fair, just, and right then the obviously corrupt governments of dictators like Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin were in the right. Since however it is irrational to argue these men exemplars of morality, and that it is fact that they did not protect their citizens in view of what humans ought to do, they are great examples to use why governments are not by definition right and lawful.


Another reason that even democracy cannot be trusted to be lawful in and of itself is the rule of the 51% which says that if even one voting member more than one side is in agreement with a piece of legislation it will pass. In this case federal laws can go awry a prime example being the Japanese interment camps. By no means were these lawful in the sense of just and moral yet they were decreed by the government.


In then end the government must find the truths of the moral law and find the ways to apply them to the daily lives of its citizens while still working within the same laws. In short governments are to enforce the law that is already been made not make up laws according to its own agenda.