Walsh Ch.1 Law Its Function And Purpose Test Bank Answers

CHAPTER 1

LAW: ITS FUNCTION AND PURPOSE

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS

1. What is defined as a written body of general rules of conduct applicable to all members of a defined community, society, or culture, which emanate from a governing authority and which are enforced by its agents through the imposition of penalties for their violation?

a. beliefs

b. law

c. values

d. norms

2. Culture is:

a. composed of ideas and values

b. learned and socially transmitted behaviors

c. the totality of learned, socially transmitted behaviors, ideas, values, customs, artifacts, and technology of groups of people living in a common society

d. the totality of learned, socially transmitted behaviors, ideas, values, and customs; but not the artifacts and technology of groups of people living in a common society

3. ______________ may be about things that are tangible and observable and things that are not.

a. beliefs

b. norms

c. values

d. symbols

4. As ______________ change over time, so do the laws that support them, such as laws regarding slavery.

a. beliefs

b. norms

c. values

d. technology

5. Shared ______________ are an important binding force in culture and an important integrative mechanism that combines the disparate parts of our personalities into a coherent self-concept.

a. beliefs

b. norms

c. values

d. symbols

6. Conservatives view fairness as an equal-opportunity:

a. law

b. outcome

c. process

d. rules

7. A norm is:

a. a normative standard shared by a culture about what is good and bad, correct and incorrect, moral and immoral, normal and deviant

b. the action component of a value or belief

c. laws that are not criminal in nature

d. much the same as symbols

8. Norms that have serious moral connotations are known as:

a. beliefs

b. mores

c. values

d. folkways

9. What are habits that many people conform to automatically?

a. folkways

b. beliefs

c. mores

d. values

10. Laws that arise from the norms and customs of a given culture is known as:

a. positive law

b. human law

c. natural law

d. legal positivism

11. A hypothesized universal set of moral standards is known as:

a. positive law

b. human law

c. natural law

d. legal positivism

12. What explains law by examining its cultural context and studying the cultural sources of law as it is, without passing moral judgments?

a. positive law

b. human law

c. natural law

d. legal positivism

13. The essential feature of law for most ___________ is its coerciveness or authoritative power to command compliance, not its moral quality.

a. natural law theorists

b. relativists

c. conflict theorists

d. positivists

14. Since there is no objective way of determining truth and error, ______________ relieves us of the burden of being in error.

a. positivism

b. naturalism

c. multiculturalism

d. relativism

15. Anthropologists and sociologists often refer to nonmaterial culture as ___________ culture.

a. normative

b. concrete

c. symbolic

d. technological

16. The ___________ surrounding the law helps those who observe it to "feel" its majesty and awesome power and thus helps to legitimize and sustain it.

a. belief

b. values

c. symbolism

d. technology

17. According to Vago (1991), different stages of technology affect law in all of the following ways EXCEPT:

a. it supplies technical refinements that change ways in which criminal investigations are made and the law is applied

b. it allows the legal process to move at a faster pace

c. technological advances in media may change the intellectual climate in which legal process is executed

d. new technology presents the law with new conditions with which it must wrestle

18. What is a vast repository of information about culture and is in effect the "storehouse of culture"?

a. symbols

b. norms

c. language

d. technology

19. Words mean what they mean because ___________ defines the meaning they denote.

a. laws

b. culture

c. custom

d. technology

20. Language:

a. is unrelated to the law

b. is often used to justify new cultural irrationalities

c. provides us with the ability to formulate, articulate, and understand rules of conduct

d. is not useful in discussing abstract terms

21. The more complex a culture becomes, the more it relies on ___________ codes of conduct.

a. natural

b. symbolic

c. normative

d. written

22. Which of the following was long acknowledged as the oldest known written code of law?

a. Twelve Tables

b. Code of Hammurabi

c. Magna Carta

d. Model Penal Code

23. What early legal code was a set of judgments originally pronounced to solve particular cases?

a. Twelve Tables

b. Justinian Code

c. Code of Hammurabi

d. Napoleonic code

24. The administration of law under the Code of Hammurabi was:

a. reserved for law enforcement

b. almost exclusively in the hands of the priesthood

c. rather loosely configured and largely ineffective

d. exercised by the correctional authorities

25. For Plato, ___________ are not subjective mental images confined to our minds but are real essences wholly independent of our knowledge about them, which contain the only true and ultimate realities.

a. laws

b. symbols

c. beliefs

d. forms

26. Which influential thinker believed that because human beings as they exist in the transitory world are imperfect copies of the idea of humanness, their behavior is less than perfect.

a. Rawls

b. Marx

c. Plato

d. Aristotle

27. Which philosopher argued the state was virtuous?

a. Plato

b. Rawls

c. Hobbes

d. Locke

28. Which philosopher argued that only through the state could the behavior of the citizenry be regulated?

a. Aristotle

b. Locke

c. Plato

d. Hobbes

29. Plato's concept of positivist law and of its necessity due to the insatiable and selfish appetites of human nature would be given its greatest impetus by which later influential individual?

a. Marx

b. Hobbes

c. Locke

d. Rawls

30. Plato's view of human nature was later given impetus by which individual?

a. Rawls

b. Marx

c. Durkheim

d. Locke

31. Aristotle was a famous philosopher:

a. and contemporary of Karl Marx

b. who favored a system of government in which the rulers would be subservient to the law

c. who favored the concept of a “philosopher king”

d. who was anti-utilitarian

32. Which influential thinker thought the social contract was necessary because the state of nature (i.e., pre-civilized life) was a "war of all against all" and was “nasty, brutal, and short”?

a. Plato

b. Aristotle

c. Hobbes

d. Rawls

33. Which influential thinker considered humans to be a selfish lot concerned only with their own interests?

a. Marx

b. Hobbes

c. Rawls

d. Locke

34. Which influential thinker argued for a strong sovereign capable of enforcing the social contract and thus providing security from disorder and anarchy?

a. Rawls

b. Locke

c. Durkheim

d. Hobbes

35. Which influential thinker believed that justice is identified with positive law, the form of which was to be determined by a strong sovereign (in the moderns sense, the state), rather than with some set of universal principles?

a. Durkheim

b. Aristotle

c. Hobbes

d. Locke

36. Which philosopher believed that our minds and personalities are like "blank slates" when we arrive in this world?

a. Hobbes

b. Plato

c. Rawls

d. Locke

37. For John Locke:

a. human beings enjoy freedom and independence in the prepolitical state of nature

b. human beings have to surrender their liberty to live in a political state

c. government needs to restrain individuals to prevent chaos in society

d. he had little influence on the Framers of the U.S. Constitution

38. Which influential thinker alluded to natural law when he compared law to a scientific theory?

a. Rawls

b. Hobbes

c. Locke

d. Aristotle

39. Which of the following is NOT one of the six social institutions identified in the text?

a. family

b. health-care

c. economic

d. political

40. According to Max Weber (1905/1978), which of the following is one of the fundamental ways in which law if different from other kinds of rule-following behavior?

a. regardless of whether or not persons want to and habitually do or do not obey the law, they face external pressures to do so

b. external pressures involve the threat of coercion and force

c. threats are carried out by agents of the state charged with that specific duty

d. all of the above

41. According to Weber's fourfold typology of legal decision-making, what procedures rely on logic?

a. irrational

b. formal

c. substantive

d. rational

42. According to Weber's fourfold typology of legal decision-making, what refers to decision-making on the basis of established and inflexible rules and implies the independence of the legal system from other social institutions?

a. rational

b. formal

c. irrational

d. substantive

43. Which of Weber’s legal decision-making typologies is the least rational of the four types?

a. substantive irrationality

b. formal irrationality

c. substantive rationality

d. formal rationality

44. Which of Weber’s legal decision-making typologies is based on case-by-case political, religious, or emotional reactions on the part of a nonlegally trained person acting without a set of legal principles?

a. substantive irrationality

b. substantive rationality

c. formal rationality

d. formal irrationality

45. The process of oath-swearing, used to settle cases in some Islamic countries, is an example of which of Weber’s legal decision-making typologies?

a. formal irrationality

b. substantive irrationality

c. formal rationality

d. substantive rationality

46. All Western legal systems fall into which of Weber’s legal decision-making typologies?

a. substantive-irrational

b. substantive-rational

c. formal-irrational

d. formal-rational

47. Durkheim’s basic theme is:

a. that all societies exist on the basis of a common moral order

b. that society is based on rational self-interest as implied in the “social contract”

c. substantive irrationality

d. formal irrationality

48. According to Durkheim, in nonindustrial societies, social relations were based mostly on ____________ group interactions.

a. secondary

b. tertiary

c. primary

d. collective

49. Which of Durkheim's types of social solidarity grows out of sameness-out of a commonality of experience-and produces a very strong collective conscience or collective consciousness?

a. consensus

b. organic

c. mechanical

d. conflict

50. According to Durkheim, with the onset of ____________ and the factory system came a broad division of labor, which resulted in a shift from mechanical to organic solidarity.

a. World War I

b. the Industrial Revolution

c. World War II

d. the Korean War

51. According to Durkheim, in an organic solidarity society, ____________ is weakened because of the basically unemotional pattern of temporary and goal-directed interaction.

a. collective consciousness

b. organic conscience

c. secondary solidarity

d. social interdependence

52. Which of Durkheim's types of social solidarity grows out of differences and a sense of social interdependence rather than from shared experiences and a common identity?

a. conflict

b. organic

c. consensus

d. mechanical

53. What did Durkheim call the pattern of response to violations of the collective conscience that were characterized by harsh punishments and moral outrage?

a. normative justice

b. repressive justice

c. mechanical justice

d. organic justice

54. Which type of theorists emphasize how society is structured to maintain its stability and view it as an integrated network of institutions that function to maintain social order and the system as a whole?

a. mechanical

b. conflict

c. organic

d. consensus

55. The conflict and consensus models are examples of what sociologists call:

a. ideal types

b. rules

c. competing societal values

d. concrete types

56. Under which perspective is law viewed in a manner analogous to the immune system of the body in that it identifies and neutralizes potential dangers to the social body before they can do too much damage?

a. conflict

b. consensus

c. critical

d. mechanical

57. Underlying the ____________ perspective of the law is the view that law functions to preserve the power and privilege of the most exploitive and duplicitous, not to protect the weak and helpless.

a. conflict

b. mechanical

c. organic

d. consensus

58. Which influential thinkers argued that society is divided into two classes: the rulers and the ruled?

a. Plato and Aristotle

b. Marx and Engels

c. Durkheim and Rawls

d. Hobbes and Locke

59. Marx and Engels asserted that the working classes have accepted an ideological worldview that is contrary to their best interests, known as the idea of:

a. false values

b. false consensus

c. false consciousness

d. false social class

60. Which school of legal thought emerged during the tumultuous years of the late 1960s and early 1970s in law schools and challenged the status quo and rejected much of positive and natural law?

a. consensus theory

b. critical legal theory

c. conflict theory

d. false consciousness

TRUE/FALSE QUESTIONS

1. The word law itself has come from a variety of Latin and Nordic words meaning "to bind" (people together).

a. True

b. False

2. Beliefs are ideas that we have about how the world operates and what is true and false.

a. True

b. False

3. Values are basically the same across cultures and time.

a. True

b. False

4. A norm is a law that is not criminal in nature.

a. True

b. False

5. Less serious norms are called values.

a. True

b. False

6. A hypothesized universal set of moral standards is known as natural law.

a. True

b. False

7. Concrete physical signs that "stand for" and signify abstractions are norms.

a. True

b. False

8. Risk is conceptually different from danger or hazard in the sense that it is bound up with human control and particularly with the idea of controlling the future.

a. True

b. False

9. Language is a vast repository of information about culture and is in effect the "storehouse of culture."

a. True

b. False

10. The Code of Hammurabi was long acknowledged as the oldest known written code of law.

a. True

b. False

11. Plato came up with the concept of the theory of forms.

a. True

b. False

12. Plato argued the state was virtuous.

a. True

b. False

13. John Locke equated law with justice and favored an egalitarian system.

a. True

b. False

14. Aristotle's ideas were later given impetus by Jeremy Bentham, who popularized the "greatest happiness for the greatest number" principle in the early nineteenth century.

a. True

b. False

15. Aristotle considered humans to be a selfish lot concerned only with their own interests.

a. True

b. False

16. John Locke believed that our minds and personalities are like "blank slates" when we arrive in this world.

a. True

b. False

17. John Rawls alluded to natural law when he compared law to a scientific theory.

a. True

b. False

18. John Rawls was uneasy with the idea of equal opportunity as a nondiscriminatory process.

a. True

b. False

19. Max Weber argued that formal irrationality is the most common form of rule-making in most governments.

a. True

b. False

20. Weber’s formal rationality legal decision-making typology is the least rational of the four types.

a. True

b. False

21. Weber’s formal irrationality legal decision-making typology is based on such concepts as religious dogma, magic, oath-swearing, and trial by combat or ordeal.

a. True

b. False

22. Weber’s formal rationality legal decision-making typology combines a high degree of independence of legal institutions with a set of general rules and procedures applicable to all

a. True

b. False

23. Emile Durkheim was interested in the relationship between types of law and types of society.

a. True

b. False

24. Durkheim defined natural law as the degree to which people feel an emotional sense of belonging to their groups.

a. True

b. False

25. Mechanical solidarity grows out of sameness-out of a commonality of experience-and produces a very strong collective conscience or collective consciousness.

a. True

b. False

26. Organic solidarity is characterized by secondary relationships.

a. True

b. False

27. The conflict perspective argues that social stability is also achieved through cooperation.

a. True

b. False

28. Underlying the consensus perspective of the law is the view that law functions to preserve the power and privilege of the most exploitive and duplicitous, not to protect the weak and helpless.

a. True

b. False

29. According to Marx and Engels, "the exploited" do not recognize their exploitation due to the idea of false consciousness.

a. True

b. False

30. Critical legal studies (CLS) theorists look almost exclusively at what they consider customs in the law.

a. True

b. False

ESSAY QUESTIONS

1. Briefly discuss the six primary characteristics of culture. Which of these do you think is the most important characteristic in relation to law? Justify your answer.

2. What is legal positivism? Do you agree with this theory? Why or why not?

3. Compare and contrast Plato and Aristotle's views about law.

4. Identify and define Weber's four methods of legal decision-making.

5. Compare and contrast Durkheim's two types of social solidarity societies. Provide real life examples of a place that fits each type (city, town, etc.) and why it fits that type.