Relationship And Differences Between Law And Morality

Relationship And Differences Between Law And Morality

Though law and morality are different, they are closely related.

Law is essentially a set of rules and principles created and enforced by the state whereas moralsare a set of beliefs, values and principles and behaviour standards which are enforced and created by society.

Two innocent truisms about the law lie behind much of the difficulty we
have in understanding the relations between law and morality. The law can be
valuable, but it can also be the source of much evil. Not everyone agrees to these truisms, and there is nothing inappropriate in challenging them, or examining their credentials. They are, however, truisms in being taken by
most people to be obviously true and beyond question. In other words, they express many people’s direct reactions to or understanding of the phenomena, an understanding which is open to theoretical challenge, but has to be taken as correct absent a successful theoretical challenge.
There is no conflict between the truisms. People and much else in the world can be the source of both good and evil. Trouble begins when we ask ourselves whether it is entirely contingent whether the law is the source of good or ill in various societies, or how much good and how much evil there is in it.

There has, of course, been enthusiastic and persisting support for claiming that the connection between law and morality is not contingent. The support comes from contradictory directions. Some strands in political anarchism claim that it is of the essence of law to have features which render it inconsistent with morality. Hence the law is essentially immoral.
A clear example of this in recent times has been Robert Paul Wolff s argument that the law in its nature requires obedience regardless of one’s judgement about the merit of the obeying conduct, and that this is inconsistent with people’s moral autonomy which requires them to take responsibility for their actions and to
act only on their own judgement on the merit of their actions.

Diametrically opposed to this variant of anarchism is, e.g., a variety of Thomist natural law views which regard the law as good in its very nature.

https://newsbell24.com/ legal

IS LAW BASED ON MORALITY?

The fact a culture might be wrong about what is morally correct, and instantiates laws to reflect their views, does not mean their laws are not based on morality, but that the moral views on which they are based are simply wrong. The laws can be immoral while still being based on accepted, but wrong, moral principles.

The Concept Of Law

Every society comes into being for some purpose, i.e., a society is a unity of order determined by its goal, and different societies are classified according to their different goal. Law is an enactment made by the state. It is backed by physical coercion. Its breach is punishable by the courts. It represents the will of the state and realizes its purpose. There is an essential relationship between political society and man’s nature and purpose; and only in the order of the community can the individual welfare be secure. Laws reflect the political, social and economic relationships in the society. It determines rights and duties of the citizens towards one another and towards the state. It is through law that the government fulfils its promises to the people. It reflects the sociological need of society. Law and morality are intimately related to each other. Laws are generally based on the moral principles of society. Both regulate the conduct of the individual in society.

Laws are essential in any society because they are necessary means to attain the end of the State, and the goal to which all laws aim is the common good, i.e., the attainment of the end for which a society exists. In most societies, this goal is that of affording the individual an opportunity to live a full life. Hence, the immediate common good of a state is peace, while the ultimate common good of the state is the life of reason for the whole community, i.e., the assurance of the opportunity to follow the law of reason to individual perfection. The common good is not superior to the private good in a quantitative sense but rather differs and is superior in a formal sense, i.e., a common good, as such, is communicable, while a private good is not.

All of the characteristics of law, in its generic sense, are contained in the classic definition: “Law is an ordination of reason for the common good by him who has care of the community and promulgated”. Because the types of law differ in their casuality, it can be seen that the term “law” is predicated analogously and not univocally of the types of law eternal, natural, divine and positive; i.e., the term law is used in a variety of meanings having an essential similarity of meanings and not as having one meaning only, because the sources and applications differ.

Law regulates and controls the external human conduct. It is not concerned with inner motives. A person may be having an evil intention in his or her mind but law does not care for it. Law will move into action only when this evil intention is translated into action and some harm is actually done to another person.

The Concept Of Morality

Ethical quality might be likened with request and has as its question human activities that are requested to each other and to some end. Value (great or end) is the essence of any ethical framework since the idea of significant worth is an essential idea in the request of our down to earth ideas, i.e., extreme in its sort.’ The benefit of anything rests principally in its flawlessness and in its demonstration, i.e., in the full advancement of its particular nature and the achievement of its own impossible to miss flawlessness. Subsequently the idea of significant worth is the start of profound quality, a thing goes up against the presence of an end since it is great and the end is the frame which a thing accept when it goes into connection with a hunger.

Therefore, the reason why an object becomes the object of an appetite lies in its goodness and value, and every appetite is directed towards the perfection of the subject. Hence the moral act is a combination of the subject that makes the act (rational and free act) and the object that is intended (objective goods and values that result from this activity) ; objectively the moral act is made up of three elements-the object, the end and the circumstance.

The moral act derives its quality from its agreement with some norm and since man has the seal of Divine Intelligence inscribed on “his heart” in the form of general principles of action by which the ends of his strivings are measured, then the proximate norm will be human reason and the ultimate norm will be the eternal law.

Therefore rational human nature is the norm of morality, and morality is the transformation of a known order of values. To put it quite succinctly, morality is nothing more than conformity with the rule which regulates human life: namely, the rule of reason. Thus the essence of morality is man’s approach to his goal; man’s particular goal is the perfection of his spiritual and moral nature and his ultimate goal is union with God.

https://newsbell24.com/ legal

Specific Relationship Between Law And Morality

Law and morality are intimately related to each other. Laws are generally based on the moral principles of society. Both regulate the conduct of the individual in society. They influence each other to a great extent. Laws, to be effective, must represent the moral ideas of the people. But good laws sometimes serve to rouse the moral conscience of the people and create and maintain such conditions as may encourage the growth of morality.

The precise areas of relationship between law and morality can be stated in the following manner:

1) Law is related to morality in the setting forth of those virtues that are related to the common good. This does not mean that positive human law should prohibit all vices nor command all virtues: rather it prohibits only the grosser failings of mankind which threaten the very survival of society and commands those virtues which can be ordained by human means to the common good.

2) Law is related to morality by the moral obligation imposed, i.e., by the necessity of an act in relation to a necessary end-since law as the command of practical reason necessarily implies an obligation. Thus obligation flows from the essential notion of law as an effective dictate of practical reason, i.e., a connection of some necessity between the act commanded and the end for which that act is commanded. However, positive human laws’ obligation is not in that same manner as morality’s obligation.

3) Law is related to morality inasmuch as law is subject to and cannot contradict moral principles, i.e., natural moral law.

4) Law is related to morality inasmuch as both stem and are directed by the same source: practical reason or prudence. A keener insight into this particular relationship can be ascertained by determining the nature of politics; politics is a human work of art, i.e., a work of experience and prudence-and as prudence, politics is intrinsically related to ethics.

5) Law is related to morality inasmuch as justice is a moral concept which is meaningless outside the area of morality. Essentially, justice consists in the recation of equality.

Difference between Law and Morality:

(1) There is a marked distinction between law and morality. The first point of difference is that laws are enforced by the state whereas canons of morality are followed at the call of institution. If one disobeys the commands of law or violates the laws, he is liable to be punished by the state but if one fails to observe the scruples of morality, he is not liable to be awarded physical punishment. The severest punishment that can be awarded to a person for not observing the scruples of morality is his social boycott.

(2) Morality is concerned with both internal and external affairs of man whereas law is concerned only with the external affairs of man. Hence, law punishes only those persons who violate laws by their external actions. For example, law punishes a person only when he-commits a theft or dacoity or murder or any other physical crime.

Law cannot punish a person for telling a lie or for abusing some-one. Telling lies, condemning someone, showing disgrace to others, being ungrateful and many other internal actions of man are sins but they are not crimes.

(3) There are many things which are not illegal according to law but are unacceptable to morality. For example, telling lies, showing disgrace to others, feeling greedy, being ungrateful and not helping the poor, are not against the spirit of law, Not only this, sometimes the adoption of immoral policies by the state for the cause of common welfare is not illegal in the eyes of laws. Machiavelli maintained that even the immoral practices are legal, if they are applied for the benefit of the state.

(4) Similarly, there are many things which are illegal in the eyes of the state but are acceptable to morality. For example, it is not a sin not to keep to the left or to drive the vehicle fast in the market. The fact is that the canons of morality are concerned with the moral duties whereas the laws of the state are concerned with the legal duties.

(5) Another point of distinction between law and morality is that laws are certain and universal and they are universally applicable to all citizens whereas the canons of morality are quite uncertain.

Not only this, many time’s different races have different canons of morality in a society. For example, a large number of people think it immoral to eat meat and drink wine. But at the same time, there are people in India who think it quite moral to eat meat and drink wine.

(6) The government should, at first, arouse the moral sentiment of the people and then enforce the laws. The laws which are not based on the sentiment of morality are less effective and less permanent.

https://newsbell24.com/ legal

Conclusions

Despite the fact that there are particular zones of connection among law and profound quality, it doesn’t pursue that courts will think about good components in the use of the positive common law. The-degree of the heaviness of good thought in the utilization of the positive law will be dependent upon numerous components: specific weight is given to moral contemplations in the extension of lawful rights and in the translation of constitutions and resolutions.

Hence, as far as substance, ethical quality is naturally identified with law in determined regions and can be a controlling component in a particular actuality circumstance. Therefore, an entire separation won’t improve for a comprehension and this can be seen by the even minded distinction it will make concerning which see a legal advisor grasps in his training:

1) He may utilize in his arguments the further recognition or embodiment of moral principles.

2) He will, assuming a conflict of authorities so that an application to a specific fact situation will produce different results, be able to utilize moral principles in his arguments.

3) He may utilize moral principles in constitutional or statutory construction.