RELIGION AND SOCIETY

Religion and Society ~ 391 ~ academically sound, have been abandoned simply because people did not want them. Alcohol, for instance, was prohibited for some time in the U.S.A, but this law was eventually repealed because of public pressure. The death sentence in Britain was commuted for similar reasons, and homosexuality has had to be legalized despite opposition from judges and other responsible members of society, who recognized it for the evil it was. Gustav Radburch (1878-1949) observes that the desired law can only be adopted by concession, and not for the reason that it is ‘scientifically known’. Radburch’s views are not an exception, and on this basis a permanent school of thought had come into existence known as the Relative School of Thought, according to which, “absolute judgements about law are not discoverable.” What the law seeks relates directly to human values, and that is precisely where the human intellect has failed to find a universal solution. Yet man’s instincts about right and wrong are so strong that neither the mechanical philosophy of the eighteenth century nor the utilitarian Russian system could destroy them. They are so deeply rooted in human nature,