Law as a Social Construct: Insights into Legal Theory
Unit 7: Law as a Social Fact
A) Law and Social Behavior Motivation
Motivational techniques include social morality and religion. However, law, unlike them, is an indirect motivational technique. It outlines sanctions rather than a list of duties.
Instead of directly promoting desired conduct, it discourages contrary conduct by imposing penalties. The specific aspect of this method is to sanction a coercive act contrary to the desired behavior. The author of the legal rule intends for individuals, whose
Read MoreThomas Aquinas: Philosophy, Theology, and Scholasticism
Thomas Aquinas: Philosopher and Theologian
Life and Education
Thomas Aquinas was a philosopher and theologian in the scholastic tradition, known as the “Angelic Doctor” and the “Universal Doctor.” He is considered one of the most important figures in Christian theology and is likely the most representative figure of medieval scholasticism. Born in 1225 at the Chateau of Roccasecca in Naples, he was the fourth son of the Counts of Aquino. Destined for the Church, he entered the Montecassino Abbey at
Read MoreAquinas’ Philosophy: Reason, Faith, and the Existence of God
The Philosophical System of Saint Thomas Aquinas
The philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas was heavily influenced by Aristotle. He concluded that the proper object of our knowledge capabilities are sensible objects.
To reach the knowledge of God, one must begin with sensitive objects. From this knowledge, Aquinas derived ethical and political proposals.
Saint Thomas had to achieve three objectives:
- Establish a clear distinction between philosophy and theology. Only then may it be noted that mutual aid
Thomas Aquinas: Scholastic Philosophy and its Influence
ITEM 6. The Christian Scholastic: Thomas Aquinas
- Historical Context: The Middle Ages and the Feudal Order (5th-15th Centuries)
Estate society had a strong and rigid social hierarchy: clergy, nobility, and peasants. Social life was based on Christian morals, and the Pope (Benedict XVI) was the highest authority in Christendom.
- Class system based on the dual ownership of land: right to use (servants) and usage rights (feudal lords).
- Culture was preserved in the monasteries, communities of monks subject
Durkheim’s Sociological Insights on Social Facts
Rules Relating to the Observation of Social Facts
When a new order of phenomena becomes the object of science, such phenomena are already represented in the spirit not only by sensitive images, but also by certain concepts crudely formed. Therefore, reflection is prior to science, and science is responsible for using only the reflection of a more methodical manner. Man cannot live with things without formulating ideas about them, and regulating their conduct according to these ideas.
Social phenomena
Read MoreRene Descartes and David Hume: Methods and Metaphysics
Rene Descartes
The Cartesian Method
Descartes states that the method is “a certain set of rules, and easy, such that anyone observing them will never take something false as true, and without the cost of mental effort, but by increasing their knowledge step by step, reaches a true understanding of all the things that do not exceed their capacity.”
The method is to be applied logically to the operating mode of reason and is thus proposed here as we see Descartes‘ intuition and deduction as the only
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