In most legal and political discourse today, law is often understood in formalistic or institutional terms—defined by who enacts it (parliament), how it is enforced (police and courts), and where it is written (statutes, constitutions, precedents). At best, this view treats law as a set of rules; at worst, it reduces it to power cloaked in legality. What is often missing from this understanding is the purpose of law—its function. Why do we need laws at all? What are they for?
A functionalist view gives a much clearer answer: law exists to resolve and prevent conflict. In this light, law serves the same purpose in society that medicine serves in the body. Where medicine aims to restore or maintain physical health, law aims to restore or maintain social health. Just as there are different medicines for different ailments—some preventive, some curative, some palliative, and others rehabilitative—laws, too, can be classified according to the kind of conflict they address and how.
The consequences of misunderstanding this analogy are serious: lawmakers prescribe the wrong law for the wrong conflict, just as a doctor prescribing heart medication for a broken leg would be committing malpractice. By reframing law in medical terms, we can develop more precise, just, and effective legislative frameworks.
Law Is Medicine for Society
A functioning society—like a healthy body—requires equilibrium. Conflict is the symptom of imbalance: between citizens, between citizen and state, between institutions, or between states. Law is the primary instrument through which this imbalance is treated.
Just as no serious hospital treats all illnesses with a single drug, no serious legal system should treat all conflicts with one kind of law. And just as any medical intervention begins with correct diagnosis, so must legislation begin with correctly identifying the market—that is, the domain of human activity where the conflict arises.
Is the conflict political, economic, social, or administrative? Does it affect citizens, corporations, or civil servants? The species of the market determines the species of law. You do not regulate the behavior of governments with the same law you use for shopkeepers. You do not treat constitutional failure with traffic fines.
Typology of Law
Like medicines, laws can be classified as preventive, curative, palliative, and rehabilitative. Each has a distinct role to play in conflict management.
1. Preventive Laws: Vaccines for Society
These are laws that aim to prevent conflict before it arises. They define rules of engagement, establish rights and obligations, and create institutions of accountability.
Examples:
- Electoral laws that ensure fair competition.
- Environmental regulations that prevent pollution.
- Anti-monopoly laws that prevent market dominance.
- Civil rights protections that prevent social discrimination.
These laws are like seat belts and vaccines—they may feel inconvenient, but they save society from catastrophe. However, for them to work, they must be properly designed, or else they themselves become the source of conflict.
2. Curative Laws: Emergency Response Systems
These are laws that resolve conflict after it arises. Criminal statutes, civil courts, and arbitration mechanisms fall under this category.
Examples:
- Penal codes that punish theft, assault, or fraud.
- Civil liability laws for breach of contract.
- Anti-corruption courts that try public officials.
But just like medical surgery, curative laws must be precise. Overcriminalization or vague statutes do not heal; they aggravate. Many societies suffer from bloated criminal codes that criminalize poverty, dissent, or minor infractions—doing more harm than good.
3. Palliative Laws: Painkillers and Damage Control
These laws acknowledge unresolved conflicts and attempt to contain damage. They are stopgap measures when structural reform is politically difficult or slow.
Examples:
- Rent control laws in housing-crisis cities.
- Temporary subsidies during inflation.
- Amnesty laws for minor tax defaulters.
They are not long-term solutions, but they can prevent suffering. Overreliance on them, however, is dangerous. It’s like prescribing morphine instead of treating the tumor. Many authoritarian regimes survive by using palliative laws to mask structural decay—handouts instead of rights, censorship instead of reform.
4. Rehabilitative Laws: Social Therapy
These laws focus on restoring individuals or institutions back into society. Their aim is reintegration, not punishment.
Examples:
- Probation and parole systems.
- Affirmative action laws.
- Truth and reconciliation commissions post-conflict.
- Reforms for bankrupt but viable businesses.
Rehabilitative laws are crucial in post-conflict societies and in criminal justice. A system that only punishes without rehabilitating is like a hospital that only amputates but never trains for mobility.
What is Just Law: Five Rules
Before diving into types of legal medicine, we must first understand the principles of proper lawmaking. Here are five rules—rooted in both constitutionalism and market logic—that must guide every legislator:
- No One Should Be a Judge in Their Own Cause
This is foundational. No one—no individual, party, or institution—should legislate rules for themselves. Political parties must not draft electoral laws; sitting governments must not amend constitutional provisions that affect their tenure; corporations must not write tax codes; religious bodies must not define public morality. To allow otherwise is to invite tyranny masked as law. This is the equivalent of a pharmaceutical company approving its own drugs. - Law Must Regulate the Whole Market
Every market has six essential elements: product, value, price, producers, consumers, and intermediaries. A law that only regulates one aspect—say, product quality—but ignores price manipulation or middlemen corruption is incomplete and unjust. For instance, housing laws that regulate tenant rights but leave real estate speculators untouched create a lopsided market. Comprehensive regulation is like a full-body diagnosis. - Each Market Requires Its Own Law
Conflicts in the labor market differ from those in the citizenship market. Citizenship, for example, arises from the social contract—a mutual pledge between individual and community. Therefore, it may be denied when that contract is violated (e.g. treason, undermining democracy), but not merely because someone committed a felony. Conflating civil law with constitutional law is like using antibiotics to treat depression. - Law Must Evolve
Like viruses and social behaviors, conflicts evolve. A stagnant law is like an expired medicine: potentially dangerous. Legislators must build in mechanisms for regular review and update of laws. Digital privacy, for instance, requires constant legal rethinking in response to technological changes. - Law Must Be Tailor-Made
Universal, one-size-fits-all laws often backfire. What works for regulating Facebook might not work for local radio. What applies to federal contracts cannot apply to village-level procurement. Like precision medicine in modern healthcare, precision law in modern governance is indispensable.
Why This Analogy Matters for Legislators
Legislators today often pass laws without clear diagnosis or treatment plan. They confuse the domains: they use palliative laws to address structural collapse, or preventive laws to punish past actions. They legislate without understanding the market in question. The result is the proliferation of bad law—unjust, ineffective, or even harmful.
By thinking of laws as medicine, lawmakers are forced to ask:
- What exactly is the conflict?
- What kind of medicine does it need?
- Are we overprescribing or misprescribing?
- Are we treating symptoms or causes?
This perspective brings humility, discipline, and functional rigor into lawmaking.
Final Word: Towards a Legal Science
Just as medicine evolved from superstition to science through method and function, law too must evolve from ritual to rationality. Legislators must become diagnosticians, not just ideologues. They must learn to distinguish between a fever and a cancer—and prescribe accordingly.
A good society is not one without conflict. It is one that knows how to heal. And in that society, lawmaker is not a king—but the physician of justice.