What is law?
Law is a rule which prohibits certain action in society.
Overview
Reasonable people may disagree on what authority may set laws. Applying the concepts of rights is a useful way to identify a law is or what should be a law.
Live and Let Live recognizes that self-ownership means the authority for law does not depend on a government. Rather, it may derive from other types of collectives including non-government associations between individuals.
What is the purpose of law in society?
As a human construct, some people believe there is no objectively correct law. Rather, some hold the view that laws are simply the rules we choose to live by.
Ideally, law facilitates peaceful coexistence between individuals. Although, a great deal of positive law does not support this function. Despite the intentions behind the development of criminal law and regulations, for instance, a great deal of such laws are actually contrary to the Legal Principle.
Live and Let Live considers that to not aggress against another is the least common denominator upon which all reasonable people can agree.
The Live and Let Live Movement supports laws which best facilitate freedom and universal peace. The way in which the movement facilitates such laws is by:
- promoting natural law (such as self-ownership)
- encouraging all customary law to align with the Legal Principle
- seeking all positive law to implement the Legal Principle.
“No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him." — Thomas Jefferson.
What makes a law unjust?
Many of the countless laws enforced around the world today, such as those which outlaw victimless activities, are subjective moral preferences imposed on people acting peacefully. Such laws conflate the Moral Principle with the Legal Principle.
One key insight the 3L Philosophy offers is that freedom and peace require us to remove our moral preferences from the law.
Law is valid insofar as it respects self-ownership on a non-discriminatory basis.
Can laws violate human rights? - Laws themselves do not violate humans’ rights. But laws can permit individual action which violates human rights. For instance, a law which allows some people to take the resources of other people is permitting those who would take the resources to commit a violation of a human right against those who would have their resources taken.
Legal systems
The national governments of most countries practice positive law through one of two legal systems:
- civil law (that is, law of the civil tradition, not “private” law): originating from the Roman Empire
- common law, developed from Medieval England.
Civil law is widely practiced in states in Europe and Asia.
Most anglosphere and British-colonized states employ common law, including the United Kingdom, United States, and India.