What Is the Purpose of Law?

“What is the point?” Every educator hears this question at one time or another. Perhaps from a geometry student who wants to know how he is ever going to “use this stuff.” Perhaps from a parent confused about the benefits of studying Latin. Perhaps most amazing, however, are the number of times I have asked parents or students, “What is the purpose of education?” only to find they had not fully considered the question.

Yet, understanding the purpose of a thing is of utmost importance. Failing to understand the purpose of something almost guarantees we will mishandle or mistreat it. This is true of education, the law, chainsaws, and more.

The purpose of law is a somewhat complex question and theories, though many, generally fall into two broad categories – legal positivism and natural law.* Legal positivism argues that laws are “valid only because they are enacted by an existing political authority or accepted as binding in a given society, not because they are grounded in morality or in natural law” (Black’s Law Dictionary).

For example, the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1750 B.C.), according to legal positivists, was simply a reflection of the culture in which it was written and was binding because it was approved by the governing authorities (Hammurabi himself) of Babylon.

Natural law proponents, on the other hand, believe that laws are to be consistent with human nature, divine justice, and universal morality. The validity of law, therefore, does not rest upon a society’s or a ruler’s opinion at a given time, but upon whether it is consistent with natural law (again, human nature, divine justice, and universal morality).

Adherents of natural law would also see the Code of Hammurabi as a reflection of the culture and ruler(s) of Babylon, but would only accept as valid those laws which fell in line with natural law, having a foundation by which individual laws may be evaluated and either accepted or rejected as just and right. As St. Augustine wrote in The Free Choice of the Will (De Libero Arbitrio Voluntatis), “I think a law that is not just, is not actually a law.” This sentiment gave rise to the common legal expression, “An unjust law is no law at all” (lex iniusta non est lex).

Tragically, the theory of legal positivism has won the day in American jurisprudence for now. Laws are determined, not by deference to human nature (see any number of cases concerning transgender athletes, bathroom policies, etc.), not by appeals to universal morality (the existence of which many lawmakers deny), and certainly not by an interest in divine justice. Rather, laws are written as a mere reflection of the current opinions of the lawmakers themselves, their voters (sometimes), and various cultural pressures.

Yet, as you may already see, legal positivism is riddled with fatal problems. To begin with, it provides no authoritative way to determine the rightness or justice of a law, only its contextual validity. It allows for no substantive objection to any particular law outside of procedure and/or representation of a society (however that is defined). As long as a law appears to be enacted in the proper way and seems consistent with the ideas of the given society, there is no basis for critique.