Some examples depend on the cultural context. Think of Singapore, where it is illegal to sell chewing gum, not because it is immoral, but to promote public cleanliness. And until recently, it was illegal for women to drive in Saudi Arabia, in part because it was considered religiously immoral. This is in stark contrast to Western customs, where driving is commonplace, and in the United States, it is a rite of passage for all 16-year-olds, including women. Morality is a set of principles that attempt to define what is good and bad behavior. Moral principles can be based on culture, religion, experience and personal values. An action is considered moral if it meets these standards, even if everyone has different standards. Have you ever been caught breaking a law by doing something you thought was moral? We`d love to hear about it in the comments, and don`t forget to rate all the answers you found most offensive. This is dangerous because morality has this absolute claim to direct its own actions. Ethics gives us rules that we must follow unconditionally, without ever questioning them: we must not steal, we must be honest, we must be loyal, etc. But unconditionally obeying state laws is rarely a good idea. Laws are made by a parliament, and it is not a body inspired by God or superior wisdom.
The people who make our laws are fallible, they can make mistakes; Quite often they are greedy, perhaps corrupt, they may be bribed and pressured, or they serve certain interest groups. So that in the end, the laws made by such people are not necessarily worth obeying unconditionally. Sometimes laws seem to protect the rich and the rich at the expense of the poor and disadvantaged. Sometimes laws seem unfair, so is it true that sometimes a good person has to break the law to get the right thing? Can it be morally right to break the law? Or is ethics the same as the law? 03. The death penalty is also legal in many states, but many people consider it unethical. After all, individuals sometimes have to intentionally break laws to combat discrimination. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested five times in his life for fighting for equality.
Susan B. Anthony was arrested in 1872 for voting in New York City. In 2020, more than 17,000 people were arrested during Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd. In times of injustice, something illegal may be the best way to illustrate your strong morality. As society evolves and opinions change, so does what is considered moral. If you look back in history, there are many examples of laws that were clearly immoral by today`s standards. Among other things, the United States stole Native American land, enslaved blacks, and discriminated against homosexuals. As society becomes more informed and open, citizens demand that their laws reflect their new definition of what is moral. While not everyone agrees with the decisions, changing the laws is a big step toward changing general social views. The amendment to the law provides the company with the new definition of what is acceptable. Law and morality interact with each other and often cause each other`s change. Ultimately, when laws are unjust or outdated, people must stand up and fight for what is right.
Jens Beckert is Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute for Society Studies in Cologne. Matías Dewey is a senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. You are co-editor of The Architecture of Illegal Markets: Towards an Economic Sociology of Illegality in the Economy. 02. Keeping money that someone has dropped is legal, but again, many would find it unethical. Are there such actions? Are there actions that are morally just but prohibited by law? 04. Smoking cigarettes in public is legal in some places, but some find it disrespectful and unethical. Where I live, euthanasia. They had to watch a parent being wasted because they couldn`t eat properly, had no idea who they were or who someone else was, and were so scared.
What is the moral choice to let them live or wait until they starve or become dehydrated? The fundamental distinction between legal and moral is easy to identify. Most people agree that what is legal is not necessarily moral and that what is immoral should not necessarily be illegal. Imagine taking a walk in your city one evening. You arrive at an intersection with a traffic light. The pedestrian light says stop, but the whole street is empty. You wait and wait before finally deciding to cross the road. There are no cars coming, and you keep walking. Technically, what you did was illegal. But if you asked the average person if what you did was immoral, they would probably say no.
In many countries, exposing the government`s malicious and corrupt actions would certainly fall under the moral category, but illegal. Bad governments provide other examples. In Nazi Germany, there were all kinds of laws made to deprive the Jewish people of their basic human rights. Aiding or even providing medical treatment to a Jewish citizen if you were a non-Jewish doctor was prohibited by law. But, of course, we would not regard such actions as immoral; Quite the contrary. Here, it would be morally reprehensible to follow the law. In many countries, it is illegal to be LGBT. Loving someone or being yourself is against the law. Examples of ethical standards. Legal and ethical considerations.
Legal and ethical requirements. List of unethical behaviour in the workplace. What are the legal and ethical considerations? What does ethics mean? The next reason Dr. Decety cites for us to be “wired for morality” is the fact that even babies show early signs of morality. Psychologists who study human development find that babies begin to establish social relationships before they are even one year old. And toddlers at 18 months recognize when their mothers are upset and try to comfort them by petting, hugging and sharing toys. Impressively, babies even understand the concept of fairness at the age of one. When a group of 1-year-olds witnessed the distribution of cookies to a group, they understood and expected everyone to receive the same amount. It is better to ignore many of the laws of a particular country than to follow them blindly, and so one must be critical and skeptical of the laws and always ask oneself whether certain laws are morally right or not. So what is the relationship between legality and morality, between conformity and ethics? And what does it mean to give someone a passport when they do something that is legal but makes us cringe morally? We want to catch the bad guys and promote justice. But how can this happen if we don`t denounce immoral behavior, even if it`s legal? Perhaps our willingness to give people carte blanche when they do bad things, even if they are legal, undermines the likelihood that people will follow the rules, let alone the spirit of the rule. We reached Dr_vinci to find out where the inspiration for this post came from, and he told us that he had heard the question elsewhere and was so curious that he decided to start his own discussion about it.
When asked if he trusted law enforcement, he told us that he always does, but that the government sometimes makes questionable calls. “I`m pretty happy with the laws we have, other than some gun regulations.” He also notes his frustration with the ban on airsoft weapons and the Black Rifle Coffee Company because of his name. While gun control laws are a controversial issue, Dr_vinci don`t consider them a moral issue. “I don`t think there`s a problem with us having better weapons or switch blades,” he told us. Whether you agree with him on these matters or not, this is an excellent reminder of moral relativity. Others fundamentally disagree. You say that you have done nothing morally wrong by crossing the street, since you have no general moral obligation to obey the law – this law or any other law. Where should this moral obligation come from? Have you ever promised to follow all the laws? Do you owe the government obedience to the law? Many of the laws mentioned on Reddit may seem harmless at first, but they can disproportionately target poor and homeless people. In the United States in particular, homelessness has been notoriously criminalized, even though there are more than 550,000 homeless people.
Being homeless per se is not illegal, but there are many restrictions where individuals can camp, loiter, and beg. Many companies also don`t allow people to use their toilets without buying anything first, so homeless people don`t have access to toilets and running water. So we can see that legal and moral justice are two completely different things. There are actions that are legally just but morally reprehensible; There are actions that are morally just but illegal; And then there are also more or less broad areas of regulation in which legal and moral coincide. It is therefore not correct to say that, for example, abortion is morally reprehensible because it violates the law. This is a bad argument, because the law itself could be an immoral law in this case. One might think, of course, that abortion is morally wrong (or just), but this must be justified by an argument based on ethical theories, not just the laws of a particular place.