Law And Self-Interest

In Aristotle’s book III of Politics he famously describes “law as reason unaffected by desire”. However, even when examining human beings in a state of nature as these equally rational individuals, self-interest is still a factor of concern when discussing matters such as the formation of civil society. It can be summarized that one of the roles of government is the preservation of civil society. While supremacy according to Locke rests with the legislative branch, a constantly active legislature is neither practical nor advisable as it carries with it the risk for abuses that come with a position of creating laws. To quote section 144 of Book II of the Two Treaties on Government; “…laws that are at once, and in a short time made, have a constant

Or to quote (but not in any way to misdirect the topic of Madison in Federalist 51) “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” This does not mean to say that the Executive power holds control of the legislature in fact such actions to impede legislative actions or even meetings of said legislatures would be an act of war against citizens. There exists in a way, not a control but a trust in a set of actions committed by the executive when the legislature does not have the ability to meet to discuss and execute laws, and by extension, when such procedures, impedes on the immediate welfare of the citizen, such as in the event of an

While the second carries more weight overall and gives us an idea to the complexity that can arise from an already complex and vast set of possible rules, it the circumstances that really test the theory of executive prerogative, and push the functions of power that we see today. The U.S while an ocean away from the problems of Europe in both World War I and World War II, the perception of the threat was strong enough to not only merit action of intervention but along with it (after world war II) was the idea of national security, especially after World War II and most especially when factoring the creation of the atomic bomb, which significantly discredited the Webberian definition of a state as an organization with a monopoly on violence and more importantly posed enough of a threat that it could eliminate most of the populace of any