Law (Unit 3) Flashcards
Why do we have laws?
Protect those things people in society consider important for the common good
- Common GOOD vs. Individual Good
What are laws?
Often we think of a law as a set of rules or guidelines for how we are to behave, not just arbitrary rules that people in authority just make up
- All groups have laws (ex. UN, families)
- Protect the members of the group from possible harm while preserving the bond and unity
What are the five basic requirements of law?
- Lawmaker
- Specific direction of action
- Common Good
- Specific group of people
- Obligation
What is is the lawmaker requirement? What are the types?
Rules must be made by some sort of lawmaker. Three types are God’s law, natural law, and human law
What is God’s law?
Divine Positive Law
- Began with the covenant, since it’s from God, it can’t be changed our altered (positive law)
What is natural law (requirement)
Natural Moral Law
- Created in God’s image, and placed in us
- Unwritten yet known by all men and women who have the use of reason (this makes the law natural)
- Moral because it applies only to moral acts (they involve free will)
What is human law?
Human Positive Law
- Laws created by humans (ex. Stop signs)
- Positive because they are clearly written
- Conditioned by modern times (ex. time, period, culture, place)
What is the specific direction of an action requirement? What are the two types?
Laws are written specifically so people know how to act , civil law and canon law
What is civil law?
Written and enforced by local, national and worldwide groups (ex. municipal), cover all area of human life
What is the common good requirement?
Laws are made to protect the rights, well-being and interests of all people -the common good.
What is canon law?
Supreme law of the Church that covers all aspects of Church Life (ex. Teaching, customs, sacraments, etc.)
What is the specific group of people requirement?
Laws are set up to help groups/institutions realize the good life in a way that is helpful and beneficial to all
What is the obligation requirement?
As humans we are morally obligated to protect the common good and the laws that promote it.
- Need to stand up against laws that do not protect the dignity or well-being of people. (e.g. lack of any law on abortion, some euthanasia laws).
What is natural law?
Sees a law that is more fundamental than all the specific laws that we know, defining what it means to be human (essence of law in our hearts)
- Moral decision emphasizing our shared human nature as the basis for establishing moral principles
- Faithful to God when we are true to who we are (the original moral sense, allows people to recognize good and evil)
Examples of natural law?
- Do good and avoid evil.
- Instinctive to persevere being (common to all creation) , therefore procreating and preserving life as a basic value belongs to natural law
- Be true to your human nature. What nature has taught all animals belongs to the natural law tendency towards procreation and education of offspring. (order of nature)
- Humans are rational therefore whatever pertains to reason belongs to natural law-tendency towards truth and cooperation in a social existence.(order of reason)
