Essay
Legal regulation of human behaviour LNAT essay
This is an A* LNAT essay from an LSE Law student
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Is there any areas of human behaviour that should not be regulated by law?Legal regula ons should aim to change or regulate human behaviour so that a person’s ends
are compa ble to both the long-term bene t of the individual and the welfare of wider society.
In fact, most aspects of human life are regulated by the law: from our decisions as consumers
underpinned by market and an trust laws, to our family rela onships restricted by family law.
This essay argues that all areas of human behaviour should be regulated by law, but a shi
towards the common good and the law’s adap on to people’s values are some crucial
requirements for its successful opera on in society.
All aspects of life should be regulated by the law because it is essen al in a progressive, virtuous
society. The law has three fundamental goals: rst, to protect people from harm as cited in J S
Mill’s Harm Principle; second, to allow people to exercise their own rights while at the same
me preven ng them from transgressing others’ rights; and third, to promote good moral
a tudes within a popula on. Without the rst two pillars, there would be widespread chaos
and lack of accountability. Yet the third one is the most conten ous: regula on of human
behaviour inevitably endorses certain moral values and could be viewed as a form of
indoctrina on. Some have even drawn parallels between economics and the law- since the
intrusion of markets into parts of human life has the e ect of eroding important social values,
this may be also the case for the law. However, the di erence here is that the law should
ul mately seek the welfare of society, in contrast to the economic pursuit of corporate pro ts.
Failing to do so means that the law has failed to live up to its ideal.
Even so, if the law controls human behaviour -thus is not neutral in ma ers of vice and virtue-
raises the fundamental ques on of whether legisla ng morality could risk evolving into coercion
and authoritarianism. Indeed, if the law reaches into all aspects of life and it becomes abused,
then the person or group of people in control will have unlimited power and poten al for the
pursuit of ulterior mo ves that could be detrimental to the popula on. The crea on of a strong
democra c framework so that those at the top can be easily replaced when the people feel they
are not being represented rather than deregula ng human behaviour could be a way to avoid
this. Yet others counter-reason that once the moral values of the legal system have been
ins lled into the ethical criteria of individuals, then the damage of indoctrina on has already
been caused. To solve this issue, however, the moral values of the law could be based on those
of the majority. This may risk an enactment of J S Mill’s tyranny of the majority, but if the values
of the law do not re ect the society it governs, then it surely does not serve its purpose.
Furthermore, the liberal objec on to the regula on of human behaviour is of tantamount
signi cance in this debate. Hayek’s approach to individual rights and the sovereignty of the self
above all undermines the collec ve good that the law aims to achieve through the promo on of
good moral values. Restric ng an individual’s freedom of choice by regula ng their ac ons
violates the key principles of deontological liberalism: jus ce should be following the right, but
not necessarily the good thing to do. Thus, liberals would priori se the primacy of people as a
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