Homework on the Law

There is no reading for this week. Instead, this homework will require you to do some independent research. For many of these questions, your answer must be based in facts, and you will need to say where you got those facts from. What you turn in does not need to include the questions; just put the answers (and, of course, number them).

1. Generally, laws tell people to do or not to do certain actions. For example, speed limit laws tell people not to drive over a certain speed in certain places; tax laws tell people to give the government money at certain times. Find an example of a law (from any country and any time in history) such that if you followed that law -- if you did what it told you to do, or didn't do what it told you not to do -- you would be behaving wrongly (obviously not wrongly in a legal sense, but in the sense we've been talking about in class). This law may NOT be a law from Germany during Hitler's rule, or from the USSR under Stalin.

a. Describe the law: what country and time period is it from? Who is the law aimed at (does it tell everyone what to do or just some people)? What does the law say to do or not to do?

b. What is wrong about doing what the law says to do or says not to do?

c. What source did you get this information in (a) from?


2. Find an example from the United States of the sort of law described in question 1. This can either be a law in effect now, or a law from our history. If your answer to number 1 is from the U.S., the law you talk about for this question must be a different law.

a. Describe the law: what time period is it from? Who is the law aimed at (does it tell everyone what to do or just some people)? What does the law say to do or not to do?

b. What is wrong about doing what the law says to do or says not to do?

c. What source did you get this information in (a) from?


3. Are there any actual or historical (not made up) laws that are not wrong to follow, but that are also acceptable (or right) not to follow? If yes, then give an example, and say where you found out about it. If not, then say why not.


4. Consider the following conditional: If a police office does not follow the law, then they have done something more wrong than a normal person would have done by not following that law.
If you think this is true, then give an argument that proves it. If you think it is false, then give an example that shows it is false.