Focused Summary 9/15/20: James Edwards’ ‘Laws that are Made to be Broken’

The passage begins with Edwards stating the problem of what we ought to criminalize and the implications these crimes bring about. He starts categorizing actions between subcategories (reason and permissibility through normative and motivating reasons). Edwards continues to develop the infrastructure of his argument by identifying means and ends of actions and applying them to criminalization. He seeks to identify what is contained within particular actions in order to eventually pick apart what part of a crime causes violations to the established process of one action in accordance with another (or the victim). Edwards then proceeds to outline 5 different ends of the justice system and highlights the meaning of all 5. This creates another subcategory of preventative and responsive acts, of which Edwards defines. This is where his definition of LMF’s, or Laws Made to be Followed, comes about. Through preventative laws like these, obstructions of them make finding potential criminals easier to track. Whether 2 underage people have sex or if a person has information valuable to terrorists on their computer. The concept of LMBs, or Laws Made to be Broken, is defined a little later as laws of conviction that are set up to create a little bit of cultural friction between the morality of said laws in order to provide a light filter upon those who won’t commit. These laws, although known they will be broken, exist as a setup to LMFs, which make the ‘process’ easier for those in favor. Next, Edwards moves onto the Identification Principle, an uprooting of LMBs. He establishes the idea of means of proof and its significance in crime-related activity and the value of equality when looking to create and adjust laws and regulations. Edwards promotes this idea of the world of conformity, and how equality promotes this type of society as a byproduct. He also talks about being ambushed by the law as a result of a lack of transparency of the system. The third reason he offers to support the Identification Principle lies in participation of citizens in the judicial system, itself. Edwards argues in the light of Jeremy Waldron at one point, who says that a government ought to want the people on their side, and to respect them as allies and equals. Edwards’ last section, Identification and LMBs, ties the previous 2 sections together and tests them against one another. A lot of the proofs developed in this section undermine the LMB problems that Edwards puts forth within this section. He uses many case basis to show the extent of the Identification Principle and also expands into how LMBs can violate the Identification Principle quite heavily when it comes to potentiality of criminals versus the actual recognition of said crimes. Instead, the power of conformity is demonstrated to win out against a lot of the pieces that LMBs put forth, and that this system is what Edwards favors.