Arguing that laws don't help you live a positive life

I agree on almost everything the article talks about, but the one thing I don’t agree about is when it talks about law and how it is not sufficient to living a good life. The article states examples like: traffic laws forbidding driving over speed limit, driving the wrong way on a street, and concerning people as well to forbid assaulting, robbing, raping, and how all of these laws do not provide a “positive” guidance for living a good human life. I absolutely disagree with this statement. First and foremost, laws forbid a lot of morally wrong things such as rape and murder, and if we take those laws away then people will be not get punished for the morally wrong things they do. Would that be living a “positive” life if people are getting raped and not justice is being served? I don’t equate living a life of fear that I may be murdered any second, living a positive life. I think laws are essential in living a positive life because it is forbidding you to do these obscene acts of cruelty. If they were not present, then we will live a life of turmoil.

Later in the article, it gives an example how one person, who has never broken the law or did anything morally wrong, lives a miserable life. Again, I don’t believe that laws and living a good life is similar in that way. Laws were made about, not to restrain people from doing what they want and making them live a miserable life, but to prevent them from doing morally wrong acts upon people. Living a positive/good life should not be dependent upon you following laws; it should be dependent upon your own doing. One should not be living a miserable life because he could not kill his boss that day because his boss made him do certain errands that day at work. It was that person’s fault for living a miserable life because life is what you make it, and if you want to life a miserable life, then that’s going to be the outcome. But it should not depend on following or not following laws. The article states, “laws are necessary for lives to be good, but they are not sufficient.” (9) I agree with the first part of that statement because its keeping people from doing wrong things to the world, which would make it unfit to live on, but, again, I disagree with the second part of the statement. I think laws are sufficient because if they were not present, then horrible things would happen. Granit, some people don’t pertain to the laws that much anyway, but for the most part it keeps them restrained from doing things that would wreck havoc. So laws are essential to living a good life because they keep you focused on helping you live your life. They help you, but they don’t determine how you are going to live your life, that is going to be your choice.