Social Norms: Legal, Moral, and Religious

• A norm is a rule or mandate that establishes required or allowed behavior in society.
• Types of norms include legal, moral, social, and religious norms.

Characteristics of Legal Norms

• Bilateral
• Heteronomous
• Coercible
• Exterior

Characteristics of Moral Norms

• Unilateral
• Autonomous
• Non-coercible
• Interior

Characteristics of Social Norms

• Heteronomous
• Bilateral
• Non-coercible
• Exterior

Characteristics of Religious Norms

• Heteronomous
• Unilateral
• Non-coercible
• Interior

Heteronomy

• It's a characteristic of norms from an external authority that must be obeyed.

Autonomy

• It's the capacity of individuals to create their own rules without external intervention.

Coercibility

• It is the possibility of enforcing a norm through force.
• According to García Máynez, law is a set of imperative-attributive legal norms governing external human conduct in society.
• A legal consequence is an effect or result produced by either complying with or breaching a legal norm.
• A natural law is a principle describing natural phenomena without human intervention

Elements of a Legal Norm

• Subject
• Hypothesis
• Legal Relationship
• Legal Consequence
• Substantive law is the set of norms establishing rights and obligations.
• Adjective law is the set of norms regulating procedures to assert substantive law.
• Sources of law are real, historical, and formal.
• Real source of law refers to social, political, and economic factors influencing the creation of legal norms.
• Historical source of law refers to ancient documents or texts containing past legal norms.
• Formal source of law refers to the processes through which legal norms are created.

Formal Sources of Law

• Legislation
• Jurisprudence
• Custom
• Doctrine
• General principles of law
• Legislation is the process by which laws are created and enacted.
• Jurisprudence is the interpretation of the law by courts when resolving specific cases.
• Custom is a repeated practice that becomes binding within a community.
• Doctrine refers to the opinions of legal scholars influencing the interpretation of law.

Stages of the Legislative Process

• Initiative
• Discussion
• Approval
• Sanction
• Publication
• Entry into force
• An act is any action carried out by a person with a specific purpose.
• A legal act is a declaration of will producing legal consequences.
• The hierarchical structure of norms was created by Hans Kelsen in his pure theory of law.

Pure Forms of Government

• Monarchy
• Aristocracy
• Democracy

Impure Forms of Government

• Tyranny
• Oligarchy
• Demagoguery

Explore the characteristics of legal, moral, social, and religious norms. Legal norms are bilateral, heteronomous, coercible, and exterior. Moral norms are unilateral, autonomous, non-coercible, and interior. Social norms are heteronomous and exterior.