Hammurabi: Hypocritical, Unfair Or Unjust?

1750 B.C., in the land of Mesopotamia, where a fallen society from a lack of reason and authority took place, a king named Hammurabi arose and set forth a code of laws to convey a righteous rule, keeping the people in order. However, the laws created for their society turned out to be unfair and unjust. The prologue of the Hammurabi Code states “Anu (king of Anunaki) and Bel (Lord of Heaven and Earth) called by name me Hammurabi, the exalted prince…to bring about the rule of righteousness in the land to destroy the wicked and evil doers so that the strong should not harm the weak so that I should rule over the black headed people like Shamash and enlighten the land to further the well-being of mankind.” It is said in the prologue that the laws
Having no say against these laws is also an example of injustice. Who would want to live under a code of laws that are hypocritical, unfair, and unjust? First of all, if a person of a higher class hits a slave, he pays half of the slave’s value, which was probably low considering the fact that they saw slaves as just property. If a person hits the same person of his social class, it is an “eye for an eye.” This injustice shows no protection whatsoever for the weak because the strong can basically harm the weak and not have as much done to them in return. The ones of higher social classes would think twice about putting out the eye or breaking the bone of a man’s slave if the “eye for an eye” rule applied to all regardless of social class. Second of all, if a physician performs an operation, accidently killing a freeman or cutting his eye out, the hands of the doctor would be cut off, whereas with a slave, it is simply a replacement. This rule means that the doctors would have to be more careful when operating on the freeman. Providing protection, in this situation, for the weak, would mean to be just as careful during an operation as you would on a person who is