are laws a social construct?
474506
A currently popular view among legal positivists is that law is a social construction. ... Studies of social constructions are typically conducted by historians, sociologists, and others, who explain them (and what they are) on the basis of empirical data.
1138406
Not even sociologists are able to agree on a single meaning. For our purposes, we'll define marriage as a legally recognized social contract between two people, traditionally based on a sexual relationship and implying a permanence of the union.
265107
Law is essentially a set of rules and principles created and enforced by the state whereas morals are a set of beliefs, values and principles and behaviour standards which are enforced and created by society.
601852
Laws are like the legal version of rules. The main difference between rules and laws is the consequences associated with breaking them. While each is developed to invoke a sense of order, fair play, and safety, the weight of a law is much heavier than the weight of a rule. ... These laws are made by government officials.
1202891
4 Law and justice. Interconnected with the ideas of law and morality is the notion of justice. Achieving justice is often regarded as the main aim or function of the law – it is the ideal or the ultimate goal towards which the law should strive.
1438796
Moral norms are socially constructed, and based on a general consensus in any given society as to what is morally right and what is morally wrong. ... In a case like this, the law and moral norms are in alignment with each other. Law is simply rules, written down in important, formal documents like Acts, for example.
721794
It is closely connected to law. Culture influences law, and law influences culture. For example, an egalitarian culture may establish laws that respect the rights of individuals and guarantee that these rights are not violated.
775929
Law, by its nature, is an institution with a moral task to perform. Law, by its nature, is a morally valuable institution. The first, claiming no more than that the law can be used for moral ends, seems unexceptional. Just about anything can be used for moral ends.
137100
The relationship between social work and the law remains strongly contested. ... The law can be used for social engineering, the promotion of particular ideologies and the preservation of power structures. Certain social groups are overrepresented in prisons, care and psychiatric hospitals.
730147
The social nature of human beings is based on the relationship between nature and society. There is no exclusive contrast between nature and society. Humans are nature beings. They are bound to the laws of nature, neither physical nor other laws can be overridden by human activity.
229153
Laws are general rules and ideas that adhere to the nature of the universe while principles describe specific phenomena that require clarity and explanation. Other terms like theorems, theories, and rules can describe nature and the universe.
204326
Laws rightly asserted that no law can justify itself purely on the basis of the authority of any religion or belief system: "The precepts of any one religion – any belief system – cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other."
1338827
There is no rule of law within societies if human rights are not protected and vice versa; human rights cannot be protected in societies without a strong rule of law. The rule of law is the implementation mechanism for human rights, turning them from a principle into a reality.
422477
Law is a set of rules created by state institutions which make laws through the authority of the state. The laws have sanctions which are recognised by the state and enforced by state-authorised bodies.
844441
So a law is a rule and a law might be used as part of a public policy, but public policy is a socially desired change and may or may not involve the law.
1406474
Time is one of the most basic examples of something that is socially constructed. ... To say that something, like time, is a social construction is not to say that it doesn't exist or it is merely an illusion, but instead that humans have created systems of meaning that creates the concept of time.
170686
These laws serve as a norm of conduct for citizens and act as a guidance of acceptable behaviour. ... We need the law to ensure equality and parity in communities. Many believe that a society without laws would be a society in a state of chaos.