"Good people do not need laws..." Plato

"Good people do not need laws to act responsibly and bad people will find a way around those laws."

Plato

Many people think that the laws and rules exist only to limit us. And that is partly true. But many laws also tell us the proper way to conduct ourselves in life and business. They express common standards and shared values. In some ways, Plato was right when he noted that good people do not really need laws. Good people tend to be considerate of others, and responsible. They follow the golden rule without any prompting. So one can imagine the reason why laws and rules really exist is for the bad people.

But here Plato was right as well. Bad people will always find a creative way around the laws, find some way to avoid following them, or simply break them because they have no regard for others or society at large.

Apostle Paul once taught that the reason laws exist is to help us understand that somewhere deep inside, we are law-breakers by nature. We would not even know of some ways of breaking God's commandments if those laws did not inform us about those possibilities. Our human relationship with laws and rules is complicated. For some reason, some of us break the laws even when we are trying not to do so. And many fight against the urge to do so daily. What does that tell us about ourselves?