Why We Need Laws

I believe that people are basically evil. I think a lot of people agree too which is why we have and accept laws. Even recent events that happened in the past century will support the statement that humans are basically bad. I feel that the “me over others” attitude is a big contributor to the actions people make that are considered wrong.

Society needs rules in order to create a livable environment. Without laws our society would be in chaos; life would be “nasty, brutish and short”. Laws create an incentive to behave. We need them, or else there would be no motivation to stay in line - other than inner motivation which is weak in most people.

Events in the past hundred years display the true extent of how dark, deceiving, and evil mankind can really be. Mass amounts of murders took place during this period, primarily through war. World War II alone yielded about 60 million total deaths. You may feel that this is solely the fault of the nations’ leaders, but these leaders wouldn’t have come to power without support from the people. Negotiations should have taken place, but like most wars, it was fought over power and greed.

Many people have an attitude in which they put themselves before others. I believe that this is acceptable up to a certain point, but is wrong when that point is exceeded. An example of this is the relationship between developed countries and underdeveloped countries. There are children starving in some countries yet, in comparison to them, we live lavishly and do little (if any at all) to help them. The world would be much better if we lived in unity and if we not only sought to benefit ourselves; I also think that this attitude is an underlying cause in many of the wars fought.

In conclusion, laws are absolutely necessary to restrain bad people from doing bad things. However, it should be important to note that laws are not always morally correct – e.g. slavery was legal and women were not allowed to vote. I don’t believe that humans are born evil; I believe that the upbringing of a child and the environment that he is raised in will ultimately be the reasons for the person that he becomes.