Philosophy explores the big questions of human existence: what it is to be a person, how we can know anything, and how we should live. In fact, one major branch of philosophy is devoted to trying to understand "the good life" – a way of living so that we are happy, true to ourselves and fair in our treatment of others. This branch is called ethics, or moral philosophy, and focuses on concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, and justice and injustice. Morals are the beliefs about what is right and wrong that guide us in our behaviour.

When an individual acts in ways their community considers immoral, that community has various ways of responding to that individual depending on the severity of the misbehaviour. Within moral philosophy, thinkers have pondered the relationship between a community's values, or morals, and its formal laws – the rules it writes down and expects its members to follow, and the way it treats those who do not follow them. This includes rules about what behaviours are, or are not, acceptable.

While many kinds of behaviour might be seen as immoral, it is only those that break these formal laws that are considered criminal. Philosophy also considers how we define what behaviours should be seen as criminal or as non-criminal, so law has historically been an area of great interest to philosophers. In fact, legal philosophy is an area of study unto itself, often called "jurisprudence", which comes from the Latin words juris (of law) and prudentia (knowledge).

One big question philosophers have wrestled with is deceptively straightforward: Where does law get its authority? Why do people obey rules, like laws, if this means losing a certain degree of freedom? Wouldn't we be happier if we did as we pleased and followed our desires all the time, rather than following rules?

Think about your own experience as a student: in Canada, the law says that young people must go to school.

a) Do you think this makes people more or less happy?

b) Do you think it makes Canadian society stronger?

In response to questions like these, philosophers developed the idea of the social contract. It suggests that without rules, people are in a state of nature – largely free to do as we wish, but also subject to violence, exploitation, unpredictability and disorder. By entering into a social contract with one another, people agree to give up some of our freedom in exchange for some amount of security against these various kinds of harm. As part of this social contract, we also agree to abide by the laws that surround us. For instance, we agree to respect other people's property on the condition that they will respect ours.