What is law

Task 1. Warming-up Activity.

Look at the subtitles of the text and think of the difference between the following concepts; “descriptive and prescriptive”, “social morality, rules and laws”. Give examples of your own.

Task 2. Read the text. The following sentences (1-8) have been taken out of the text. Fill in the gaps (A-H) with the appropriate sentence.

1) However, when governments make laws for their citizens, they use a system of courts backed by the power of the police to enforce these laws.

2) We learn how we are expected to behave in society through the instruction of family and teachers, the advice of friends, and our experiences in dealing with strangers.

3) In many countries there might be two kinds of prosecution.

4) Other laws are prescriptive – they prescribe how people ought to behave.

5) Public laws establish the authority of the government itself, and civil laws provide a framework for interaction among citizens.

6) They are not, however, enforceable by any political authority.

7) Instead, it is a complex skill based upon long observation of many different people in different situations.

8) Many philosophers have proposed concepts of justice that are much more theoretical than everyday notions of fairness.

What is Law?

Descriptive and prescriptive

The English word "law" refers to limits upon various forms of behavior. Some laws are descriptive: they simply describe how people, or even natural phenomena, usually behave. An example is the rather consistent law of gravity; another is the less consistent laws of economics. A _____ For example, the speed limits imposed upon drivers are laws that prescribe how fast we should drive. They rarely describe how fast we actually do drive, of course.