Good Samaritan Law example essay topic

The definition of good and bad can be divided into the good and the bad. Every person lives by their own ideals of what is "good" and what they think is "bad". One ideal example of the moral vs. immoral viewpoint is outlined by the Good Samaritan Law. This law offers immunity from liability for a person if they choose to assist another in an emergency.

In order for me to have come to the decision that the law ought to require people to be Good Samaritans, there were many important factors and philosophers to contemplate. One significant deciding factor is the purpose of the law. The general basis / purpose of the law is to classify the rules of jurisprudence in their correct order, show their relation between one another, and settle the manner that new or uncertain cases should be brought under appropriate rules. There are three stances one may take in what they consider the purpose of the law to be.

One may believe in legal positivism, where law is dependent upon government for its existence. Another is the idea that law reflects the beliefs of the majority. The third is the idea of true law; can law only happen if there are sanctions and is there such a thing as true law where law does not base itself on an agency or government? Legislating laws evaluates existing standards; they can be changed and / or repealed.

Positive and negative sanctions are applied and the government is ruled in this manner. I highly believe in the third idea of true law and positive and negative sanctions for actions taken. When there are positive and negative consequences, people will choose to act differently because of those, the harsher the negative sanction is will make a person less-likely to pursue the action in fear of the punishment. After looking at the viewpoints of, Hobbes, Aquinas, and Cicero, I was able to decipher which viewpoint I stood by regarding the Good Samaritan Law.

Hobbes thought that the purpose of the law is to promote peace to achieve the goal we are striving for. He thought that everyone is motivated out of self-interest; he had a materialistic view that is based upon metaphysics, the nature of reality. He believed in the idea that everything we see around us is made up of atoms in motion. His materialistic view is applied to psychology, ethics, and political organization. He concluded that every human being is selfish and will only do something because they expect something back. If something is good, there will be a desire for it, and if something is bad, there will be an aversion.

These endeavors are driven from motions that are subjective. However, this idea promotes conflict between physical and intelligent power. Aquinas, on the other hand, thought the purpose of the law ought to be to promote the common good. He emphasizes that the law ought to be directed toward the good at all times. Its goal should be to produce as much good and as little evil as possible. Every citizen encompasses the common good in society.

He believed that it is irrational to sacrifice the good of all people to the private good of only a few, and irrational to sacrifice the good of citizens to non-citizens. Cicero believed that the purpose of law is to enforce and encourage morality by requiring morally right acts and prohibiting morally wrong ones. He believes in the idea of natural law, where morality is at the highest point of reason and commands what ought to be done and discourages what should not be done. He believed that reason determines what is morally right and wrong and any man-made law that deviated from the moral restrictions must be irrational and therefore rationally unjustified. Basically, the moral law is the law of reason. The problem with this theory is that one everyone has a different view of rationality, one questions how you can legislate morality, and some areas are best left to moral persuasion rather than legal constraints and some are even poorly made.

I highly agreed with the view points of Aquinas and Cicero in coming to my opinion that the law should require people to be Good Samaritans. Agreeing with Aquinas, I think the law should promote the common good for the greatest number of people. If people are happy, a society will be cooperative as long as their welfare is high. I agree with Cicero in the idea that I think the purpose of the law ought to encourage and enforce morality by requiring the morally right acts and prohibiting the morally wrong. If something is not moral, it must be irrational, and therefore, the action should not be carried out. In the Good Samaritan Laws, I think if someone is drowning right next to you, as long as you are not putting yourself in harm's way, you should pick him out of the water because that would promote the common good for the most people: him, himself, his family, his friends, etc., and is the morally right thing to do.

The ideas of Hobbes and Cicero entirely different and can easily be contrasted. Hobbes holds the materialistic view that all humans are so incredibly selfish that the only reason anyone would do anything for someone else is because they expect something back. If something is good, they would desire to do it, and if it is bad, they would have an aversion to doing it. Therefore, Hobbes would not agree with the Good Samaritan Laws, because he would not be able to see what the Good Samaritan would benefit from this.

And, if someone did help someone else in the time of an emergency, he would think that they were doing it to get something good for themselves, perhaps money, for the rescue. However, Cicero believes in doing something morally right, such as saving somebody in a time of crisis, because that is what the law should enforce. He acknowledges that morality is at the highest reason implemented in nature and one should act in a rational manner and avoid being irrational. Therefore, he would agree with the Good Samaritan Laws simply because saving someone in an emergency is the right thing to do. Mill and Rawls have different opinions regarding liberalism and what the purpose of law ought to be.

Mill looks at it from a utilitarianism perspective, where one should make a decision regarding what is going to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people. He felt that the law should aim at promoting the welfare of all human beings: both citizens and non-citizens. This theory goes against Aquinas's view because he stated that the law should be for only citizens and that non-citizens should not take those benefits away from citizens. He believed that consequences determine whether a law is good or bad.

He looked toward certain factors of utility to see the short and long term consequences considering pleasure and pain. These factors are: intensity, certainty, duration, propinquity, fecundity, purity, and extent. He also believed in the concept of private morality, which says that as long as you " re not interfering with other people, you should be left alone. This criticizes Cicero's views on morality which include the concept that morally wrong acts should be prohibited. Rawls has a different standpoint on liberalism. He thinks that the law should achieve fairness or justice.

Not only should the rules that are applied be fair but the law should ensure that that state deals with the laws fairly with each citizen and with each other. He believed in Distributive Justice which is the fair distribution of burdens and benefits among all citizens. He also considers corrective justice, which is concerned with making the balance of good and evil equal when the balance has been disturbed by unjust action. Mill thought that each law should provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people whereas Rawls thought that every law should aim at maximizing the principles of distributive and corrective justice. And, in order to determine if a law is fair, one would have to stand behind the veil of ignorance which means one should "go behind the veil" of not knowing what position they hold in society and then to ask themselves if a law is fair. This is similar to Mill's view that the laws should be equally fair for everyone, however it contrasts with Hobbes' view that the objective of the law is to provide peace and not simply justice or fairness.

After reviewing the views of the philosophers, I have easily come to the conclusion that the law ought to require people to be Good Samaritans. This decision is largely derived from the views of Aquinas who believed the purpose of the law is to promote the common good and from Cicero who stated that man-made law (positive laws) that deviates from what is morally right and / or wrong is irrational and therefore unjustified. And, the Good Samaritan Laws provide for what is morally right and is therefore a good law.