Academic

The Balance of Law

By Lawrence Solum

One of the great problems in political and moral philosophy is that of the balance of law. Plato, in his ring of Gyges tale, was one of the first to present this problem. It was later developed by thinkers such as Hobbes, Locke and Mill.

The problem can be presented in the following way. If there is not enough law, then people will tend to behave badly. While thinkers vary in just how bad the bad behavior would be, the general consensus is that people will not be very nice. Hobbes presented one of the worst case scenarios, but even Locke?s state of nature had its problems.

On the other side of the balance, if there is too much law, then people will be too restricted and this leads to a wide variety of problems. As with porridge, the ideal is to get the laws just right: enough so that bad behavior is checked, but not so many that people are strangled in rules and limits.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on May 31, 2010 (boomark / email).