All of us pretty much live in societies in which there are laws structured for us to obey, as well as written rules that we must follow, of which, the punishment for the breaking of such can be quite severe. Yet, for those that think, they might well want to know why it is that we have so many laws and regulations, as well as the prevailing purpose behind them, because each of us is born free, but are somehow placed within a construct in which that freedom is constrained, which begs the question as to why.
The very first thing that we need to consider is to picture a world without rules or laws, and when we contemplate upon this, it readily becomes apparent that a society without well-reasoned laws would quickly become a society of chaos, confusion, as well as a constant injustice to just about everyone, because when there are no just consequences to our bad acts then the resulting trend is going to be unbecoming of a healthy and wholesome society, mainly because there will be a certain segment of the population which because it will not behave in a responsible way, contributes to the ails of society, and because there is no fair resolution to such, contributes to uncivility and further wrongdoing.
So too, the purpose of laws is to understand that everything that we do has a consequence, and when those actions create an injustice to the other, there needs to be some sort of recompense or else those bad actions will serve to corrupt others, because the others may well feel justified that since there is no punishment for what has occurred they may as well let their guard down too, as they don’t rightly see the upside of restraining themselves when there doesn’t seem to be a consequence that they would serve to compel or urge them not to.
Indeed, one of the reasons why religion is so important in so many cultures, is that religion at its core, teaches people that there are fair consequences for their actions, good or bad, signifying that those that are good, receive the beneficence of that behavior, sooner or later; whereas, those that are bad, will received their due punishment for their wrongdoing, sooner or later, in this world, or beyond.
So then, laws and regulations most certainly have their place within society, and should they disappear or be poorly structured, the people are the very ones that will suffer, for when actions and subsequent consequences are not aligned up correctly, it makes for a dysfunctional society that will suffer duly for not adhering to what we are supposed to be at our core, which thereby necessitates proper guidance from not necessarily those in authority, who may themselves be seriously flawed and unfair, but rather from those that are good moral agents that truly have our best interests in mind, because these exemplars of virtue desire to see us to make good decisions, which makes then for us to have the fair opportunity to have a much better and more fulfilling life.