What Is Law?
Law is a set of rules created and enforced by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior. It is the basis for a fair and just society, in which everyone faces consequences for their actions, regardless of their wealth or status. This is possible only if there are mechanisms in place to prevent abuses of power, and in which core human and procedural rights are protected.
In the past, scholars have viewed the law as a system of social order that enforces good behaviour through punishment, and prevents evil by rewarding virtue. However, the modern state is far more than an agent of order; it also exercises great control over its citizens’ daily lives. The growing extent of governmental control is challenging long-held ideas about the nature of law. Max Weber, for example, reshaped thinking about the extension of the law by showing that governments often exercise power without any clear legal justification and without regard to the needs of ordinary citizens.
Moreover, the definition of law has changed with advances in social science and in the philosophy of law. For instance, philosopher David Hume argued that the law is nothing more than a collection of ideas about right and wrong behaviour that are held by the society that produces them. This theory of law is based on the idea that our behaviour is influenced by a number of factors, including the expectations and norms that we have about how others will behave.
Another view of the law is an ontological one, which considers it to be a part of reality. This means that the law is not something that can be proclaimed or recognized; it is a part of the social fabric that we can only observe. It is similar to the way that we can only understand our own observations by comparing them with the observations of other people.
There are many different branches of law, regulating a variety of aspects of our daily lives. Contract law, for example, concerns agreements to exchange goods or services; it includes everything from buying a bus ticket to trading options on the stock market. Property law defines people’s rights and duties toward tangible property (real estate, such as land and buildings) and personal property (movable objects, such as computers and cars, or intangible assets, such as intellectual property and shares). Tort law provides compensation when someone or their belongings are harmed, from accidents to defamation.
Other areas of law include immigration and nationality laws, which deal with the rights of individuals to live in a country other than their own; family law, which deals with marriage and divorce proceedings; and commercial law, which governs transactions such as buying and selling property and money. The practice of law is referred to as jurisprudence, and the study of it is known as law school. A person who practises law is called a lawyer.