Discuss BOTH of the following ideas in your response. Your response should be at least two complete paragraphs in length. Please post your response by Wednesday evening.
I. Several weeks ago, Mr. Dvecka explained that part of Socrates' larger point in the Apology was to argue that laws be written down so that people could reason logically from a set of known laws. In 1776, The United States followed Socrates' suggestion by writing a constitution. This constitution is meant to capture the "general will" that Americans share when they implicitly agreed to live together in society. What is the relationship between the written constitution and the American "general will"? In what way does the act of writing down the laws affirm a society's belief in a "general will"?
II. Even though the United States has a written constitution, there are still problems of interpretation. Name at least one "problem" that we discussed in class and explain why complications in law still arise, even though the laws and constitution are written.
6 comments:
It is a great advantage to have a written set of laws because they are made by the general will, or the people's desires for freedom. The general will is not definable because it is impossible to know what every individual wants. However it can be most satisfied with written laws, written by the people for the people. The Constitution is not only responsible for the general will but for basic freedoms humans have in state of nature and other freedoms given by general will.
The disadvantage of having a written constitution is interpreting following through various interpretations. Many interpret it with prudence while others try to analyze the intentions of the people who wrote it, hoping for loops holes. Frederick Douglass, a slave narrator, attempts to give a solution to the problem and says the constitution is there for us and we should not look beyond the words of the paper. In other words, we are not suppose to figure out older intentions or find loop holes because then the Constitution loses its purpose. It is suppose to guide the American society by having definite laws regulate and protect the people and the general will. In current situations, many techniques of interpretation including the ones mentioned are used to create and pass laws.
-Doug
By writing down a constitution, or a set of definite laws and codes, the people have affirmation that their rights do exist. It would be easy for a dictator to simply remove a law one day while nobody notices. The constitution is concrete evidence of the social contract in effect. If something arises that is detrimental to society, the people can point at the constitution and say: "You can't do that!" Overall ,the constitution is a kind of proof to people that their rights and the structure of government exist, and cannot be easily removed.
One problem with the interpretation of the Constitution is the fact that what was relevant and important back when the document was written may have no place in the government today.Also, the translation of amendmants into implemented laws may have some snags. For example, the right to bear arms states the need for a well-regulated militia. Who says where a common citizen with a gun ends and where a trained specialist begins? They could mean that it is fine to have guns, or they could have been writing about an actually trained and popular militia. These problems with the interpretation of our constitution are why it is not a clear-cut "Can I do this?" "Let me check the constitution. Okay!" situation.
By Doug, in case you didn't see the top. My captcha code was slarc.
The written constitution is meant to represent the American "general will." The act of writing down laws is an advantage because it allows them to be easily understood by all members of society, and therefore, society does not remain "cold" in a state of implied laws and unexamined living, but rather gets "hot" because once written down, laws can be examined and improved to better represent the "general will." Writing down laws affirms a society's belief in the "general will" because it instills the belief that the written laws actually do represent the "general will," by their purpose.
One problem with the written constitution of the United States is that the true intent of the writers of the constitution, which would be more valuable than their words alone, can be speculated, but never actually known. Another problem with the constitution is that it may grant excessive power to the government than necessary to survive, reasoning from a perspective of prudence.
The relationship between the general will and the constitution is that the constitution was written to suit the general will. The general will is the manifestation of what the people want, so writing it down would be writing out the freedoms of each individual under the constitution. The constitution ensures the rights that people had in the state of nature as well as the freedoms that people want and have a right to in a society.
Even though the United States has a written constitution, problems still arise when it comes to interpretation because people try to twist the words of the constitution and they try to find loopholes. Some argue that the intent of the writers of the constitution was different than what it actually says. Others argue that we should go by exactly what it says in the physical text, and if it's not written in there, then that's not how it should go. Another argument is that of prudence, that is, what fits the circumstances of the situation. A solution to these different arguments is to go exactly by what the text says, rather than manipulating it to fit certain cases.
The "general will" is supposed to be reflected in the constitution. In a sense, the American constitution (the laws written on the paper) is, ideally, a physical representation of the general will, or the peoples' desire/interest as a whole. In our American government, laws are written down only after it has been approved. This approval is essentially the threshold of the general will. It is very unlikely that a law reviving slavery will be put into effect as the majority is against such an idea.
Even though the constitution is written and had been for several years, there are problems regarding interpretation. In a sense, the deceased people who have wrote these laws still have some power as we have to obey them to this day. The problem in the interpretation is that we argue what is written over what was meant by the people who wrote it. Because we cannot completely know what these people had in mind when they wrote the constitution, we can only interpret what they meant, which leads to many disagreements and therefore a slow process in decision making...
A written set of laws is a more ideal situation, since there is definite and open knowledge of the laws; things cannot simply be made up or forgotten. By agreeing to be a part of the social contract in which laws are written down, one is a part of the general will that the constitution is for; what this means is that the constitution was written to appeal to the general masses, to focus on their desires and what freedoms all would be willing to give up in order to gain common rights. the act of writing down laws makes this general will definite; it makes the common sacrifices and gains by the people consistent and explicitly defined, and is a physical representation of the ethereal general will.
Although laws are written, the actual interpretation of them can vary greatly depending on what one aims for and how they interpret it. an example of this in modern times is the ban on guns in Washington, DC; some would argue that this is a blatant violation of the right to bear arms. Others argue that the intention of the founding fathers when they wrote, "right to bear arms", was for militia purposes or self-defense only, and the debate rages on. Based on what lens one looks through, the constitution can be interpreted in an innumerable amount of ways; but in a way, this is what makes the constitution good-it provides definitive, rigid, guidelines, yet leaves room for a changing and evolving society that promotes debate.
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