Legalism and Human Freedom: Personal Authenticity on Trial

This paper examines the concept of legalism as it relates to human freedom and authentic existence. It argues that even though legalism makes for peace and stability in society, its insistence on slavish observance of laws, whether codified or not, forecloses the individual's initiatives and the ability to make pragmatic decisions as the need arises. Given the claim that love and service to humanity form the major aims of the law, the paper argues that the inability of people under a rule-based ethical system to actualize these aims in the face of extra-ordinary circumstances gives legalism a stamp of contradiction. In conclusion and by way of proffering solution to this dilemma, the paper submits that since man is ontologically a free being, the only system that will give him a sense of self-fulfilment and authentic existence is a system that gives him the latitude to always use his initiatives to make decisions and take actions based on the prevailing circumstances. Such a system must be one that focuses more on humanity rather than on laws and abstract principles.