Indrek Grauberg - Why Do We Need the Government and Justice?
If we didn’t have the government nor justice, we would be at a situation called the war of all against all, claims the director of the Tallinn University School of Governance, Law and Society, Indrek Grauberg.
If we didn’t have the government nor justice, we would be at a situation called the war of all against all, claims the director of the Tallinn University School of Governance, Law and Society, Indrek Grauberg.
Interhuman relationships have always been difficult and complex. Known natural law philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Niccolo Machiavelli have defined man as a fickle, egoistic, hypocritical and selfish being.
Man is prepared to kill and destroy their surroundings in order to improve his well-being. In such a situation, the only balancing force is other people and the natural environment.
We can call this situation a natural situation, in which the human being exists in a constant state of war. Bellum omnium contra omnes – the war of all against all.
A life like this would be miserable, wretched and short-spanned.
Unlike other living creatures, man is capable of rational thought, recognising bellum omnium contra omnes as a self-destructive situation, which must be escaped.
Thus, at one point, people living in the natural situation decided to end war and start living in an agreement, which in theory was called a social contract. According to this agreement, everyone will give up their personal will by subduing it to the will of the society.
The agreement works as long as everyone adheres to it. What happens when the contract is breached? For that, we need something that’s stronger than us, that would protect the weak and punish those who breach the contract – this large and powerful, yet just monster, whom Thomas Hobbes called Leviathan and who would help us fulfil the obligations from the social contract.
To live fairly and independently, we need norms that adhere to everyone and the rationality to prevent ourselves from breaking them.
In today’s democratic society, higher power or Leviathan expresses its will through the development of the justice system and by imposing legal provisions.
Legal provisions have three elements – a hypothesis, a disposition and a sanction. The hypothesis describes the factual circumstances, which are the basis of the provision. The disposition shows what the people stuck in a situation described in the hypothesis must do. The sanction describes the methods of influence that can be applied toward the people failing to adhere to the legal provisions.
Thus, the government and justice are needed to prevent man from falling into a situation, where there’s war of all against all, which might wipe out mankind altogether.