Law and Morality Essay Example for Free

Law and morality Essaythither has been an ongoing repugn about the relationship between uprightness and pietism. Numerous writers and philosophers take proffered arguments on how rectitude is affected by righteousness. The question it is believed is no longer if piety affects law, it is to what extent is law affected by faith? And should at that place be any limitations on the relationship between law and morals? The law and morality conflict has been persisting for worldly concerny a(prenominal) years. Both the vivid law theorists and the positive law theorists would withstand that in that location is a relationship between law and morality. The argument has now moved to what degree morality should play in law?The obvious indication that this has been laid to comfort is HLA stags grant made at the onset of his book, Law, Liberty and Morality. He said that thither is a definitive effect of yes, that historically and casually law has been influenced by moralit y. In his book Hart focused on the sub judice en eventment of morality and desirewise this essay is concerned with that question. It is believed this is the entirely debatable divide between law and morality. The debate became a hot topic in the 1950s after the creation of a commission to enquire and cogitation back on intimate moralities.The commission conduct to the publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957. The report at it outset defined the purpose of distressing law as .. to preserve the public rank and decency, to protect the citizen from what is offensive and injurious and to provide sufficient safeguards against exploitation and corruption of others especially the vulnerable, that is the young, weak in body or mind, inexperienced or those in a state of physical, official or scotch dependence. The Law should not intervene in the private lives of citizens or seek to enforce any token pattern of behaviour further than necessary to carry out the above purpose.Before embarking on the watchword proper, a definition is required for morality and for what law is. Morality according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary is (a) a belief or system of moral conduct (b) particular moral principles or rules of conduct or (c) amity to ideals of right hu gay conduct. Law on the other hand is defined as a stuffing custom or practice of a community a rule of conduct or litigate prescribed or formally recognized as binding or enforced by positive authority. That is morality is not enforceable by its definition while law is.Moralities atomic number 18 normative rules employ to a hunting lodge or a sub-group of ordering that does not bind them in a courtroom of law. The provided enforceability of morality by its definition is from the group applying peer pressure. There be two important schools of thought in this divide between law and morality, the natural law theorists and the positive law theorists. The natural law school bases much of their ideas of law in their religious beliefs or other transcendental force such(prenominal) as nature. While positivists argue that law has no necessary basis in morality and that it is simply impossible to assess law in terms of morality.Opposition Supporters of the legal positivist school, such as Hart and Mills, purports that law should be in a different sphere from morality. Utilitarianism, a subgroup of the positivism, believes that laws should totally serve for the maximization of utility or happiness for the majority. John Stuart Mills said that instead of inn imposing morality on members of a society, the singles should be free to choose their own conduct. Utilitarians are not concerned with the morality of law. They believe that law should only play a nominal role in an individuals life.Persons should be free to do whatever they want as long as it does not harm another. This is referred to as the harm principle. Mills said the only purpose for which power can rightfully be exercised over any member of a civilise community against his forget is to prevent harm to others. Mills went on and said that not even for the individuals own good should such power be exerted. This argument is re moreovertable in that not because there was no immediate physical harm to another, there was no harm.It could be argued that someone taking drugs or proliferating pornography causes ripple effects that whitethorn result in harm to others. Pornography promotes women as sexual objects and thereby promotes sexual violence against women. Drug users, by their combined effect, have led to the growth of enceinte underworlds that not only supply drugs but commits direct victim crimes such as murder. If Mills possibility is to be adhered to, this would mean that even in a situation of explicit sadomasochist sexual practices that could result in the injury to participants, the law should not get involved to prevent harm.This is because the individuals consented to such acts and no one will be harmed except the willing participants. In this light R v Brown would have been trenchant incorrectly. Hart said that the judges in Shaw v DPP, where the defendant was convicted for conspiracy to corrupt public morals after publishing a booklet containing details of prostitutes and their sexual practices, seemed willing to pay a superior price in terms of the sacrifice of other values for the establishment or re-establishment-of the court as custos morum. The value Hart was referring to is the legality principle of Lon Fuller.He was suggesting the ruling made the law imprecise and thereby itself immoral. Fuller suggests that for law to be moral there must be eight elements referred to as the internal morality of law or principles of legality or procedural natural law. The eight elements are generality, promulgation, non-retroactivity, clarity, non-contradiction, capability of compliance, constancy and congruence. These elements Fuller suggests are what a good le gal system should aspire for but no one system has or is expected to perfect all elements.However, significant lack of these elements may mean that a system is an immoral legal system and could support absolutism. Fuller said that tyranny is a result of the break down of the internal morality of law and was the circumstance in Nazi Germany. Hart made that very connection between the principles of legality and tyranny when he suggested that there was no adherence to the principles of legality in Shaw v DPP and by extent was in itself immoral law. The central caper with morality is whose morality is the right morality to enforce.Nazi Germany is the best example of law enforcing morality. This is why caution must be used with the continued growth of the court making moral judgements and pronouncing itself as the custos morum. Hart said that there are several(prenominal) flaws with the use of law to enforce morality and if no such enforcement exists it would not necessarily star topology to the disintegration of society. He said that society can support several different and sphere of morality. What is considered moral in one surface area is not necessarily the same in another.On a smaller scale, what is considered moral in one religion within a coun accent may not hold true for another, yet they can exist in relative consonance through mutual respect. He too said that by using law to enforce morality will result in the stagnating of morals in time. It is evident that morality tilts with time and what was immoral years ago would not be immoral today. Sometimes the live laws do not match changes in societal. In the representative R v R, where a husband was charged with attempted rape of his wife, the existing law at the time was outdated in respect of the current moral standards of society.If the courts had followed the law as was, they would directly contradict the will of society and the husband would not have through anything illegal. In that case t he court made a value judgement, one based in morality to adapt to the change in the morality of society and found that a husband could in fact rape his wife. This case demonstrates the role morality plays in law. If courts did not have any moral basis, then this may lead to disconnect between the law and society. In R v R the courts had a choice any observe an immoral precedent or to adapt itself to the changing morality of the society.Although the judges may try to propound that they only declared what the law was, this judgement is one on moral basis. Should the judges have followed the law at the time that a man cannot rape his wife? Wouldnt that have led to an infringement on the womans individual right? Are judges the right quite a little to expound morality? Supporters The idea that morality has no place in law has been refuted by many theorists such as Hyman Gross and Lord Devlin. Gross contended that Law and morality are one and the same.Laws are inherently moral and that is why acts like murder, rape and theft have been made illegal. Law and morality cannot be separated as the society creates law based on the foundation that the behaviour world address has to be immoral or undesirable by the reasonable man. The problem with this view is that this cannot develop acts that are prohibited by law but not immoral or the reverse. Sex extraneous of marriage brings a very strong social scourge but no one believes that adultery rise to the level for legal reprimand.Devlin argued that there is an underlying moral web that keeps society together and it should be protected by law. His approach has some aspect of social slim theory, which suggests that everyone in society is there by agreement. He said that to exist in a society there must be some general principles that members have a consensus on. It could be said to be analogous to a family. In a family there may be several different personalities, but what keep them functioning like a unit is that ther e are underlying similar values that act as a cohesive bond between members.Devlin said in The Enforcement of Morals (1959) that Societies disintegrate from within more oft than they are broken up by external pressures. There is disintegration when no common morality is observed and history shows that the loosening of moral bonds is often the first stage of disintegration, so that society is confirm in taking the same steps to preserve its moral code as it does to preserve its politics the suppression of vice is as much the laws business as the suppression of subversive activities. Former curate of Justice of Jamaica, Senator Harding, in his speech at the inaugural lecture at the Institute of Law and economic science said it would have been helpful if Lord Devlin had provided examples of some modern societies which have disintegrated because of the loosening of moral bonds. And it big businessman be a better thing for some societies to disintegrate by loosening its moral bonds . Nazi Germany comes to mind those societies disintegrate from within more frequently than there are broken up by external pressures Devlin said that it is morals that hold society together and should therefore influence the development of law.He goes further and said that even if private acts are considered to create sufficient public disgust, that is if the reasonable man finds this act so unacceptable then it threatens the moral fabric of society and should be subject to criminal punishment. He describes a limit of tolerance as to how much of an immoral act society or the reasonable man can tolerate. Once society passes this limit then something must be done to intervene. Lord Devlin did not suggest that it is all immorality that should be sanctioned.He suggested that the ones that bring right-minded man to disgust should be. It is not believed that Devlin was out of touch with the state of developing individual liberty. It is how far those individual liberties will be allowed to infringe on the general public morality and liberty? There needs to be a rest between the individuals right and the general publics. Lord Devlin asked if society has the right to make judgment on individual morality. He answered yes, and this seems to be the accepted approach in R v Brown and Shaw v DPP.There is no where in the past were law has essential in an abstract. Law has developed along with the social changes as R v R Devlin excessively proposed a guideline for the implementation of statutes. He supported individualism and suggested that persons should have the maximum amount of freedom to do as they wish, except when it conflicts with the societys integrity. He also said that law should only be created to sanction behaviours that are gross, not just merely immoral. And finally, the law should only set the minimal basic standards expected of individuals.Conclusion Morality is important to the integration of society and if the mythical social contract theory has any we ight it is in fact as Devlin suggest the web that holds it together. However, it can also be dangerous and may also be the underlying reason for actual disintegration of society as in Nazi Germany. There is no correct answer or side. The answer rest in the balance the balance between the individual right and that of society, the balance between the positivist and the naturalist, the balance between the heterosexual and the homosexual.The individual should have the right to do as he feels but there has to be limitations. The extremes of either side of the debate are the danger zones but the answer lies in the indefinable, unascertainable shadows of the gray that rest between the divide. Bibliography 1. MDA Freeman, Introduction to Jurisprudence 8th interpretation (Sweet Maxwell) 2. Httpsixthformlaw. info/01_modules/other_materials/law_and_morality_/08_hart_devlin. htm 3. HLA Harts, Law, Liberty and Morality (University of Stanford Press) 4. Dwight Bellanfante, Keep the law out of G ays Bedroom (The Jamaica Observer October 31, 2004).5. Elliott Frances Quinn, position levelheaded frame eleventh Edition (Longman-Pearson, UK), 6. Criminal Law, Clarkson and Keating, (Sweet Maxwell), 2007 7. Gary Slapper And David Kelly, The English Legal System 11th Edition (Routledge, UK) Page 1 . Law, Liberty and Morality, H. L. A Hart, Stanford University Press, 1963. Page 1 2 . Catherine Elliott Frances Quinn, English Legal System 11th Ed (Longman-Pearson, UK), Page 657 3 . http//www. merriam-webster. com/dictionary/morality, accessed 20th October 2010. 4 . http//www. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/law, accessed 20th October 2010. 5 . Gary Slapper And David Kelly, The English Legal System 11th Ed (Routledge, UK) Page 6 . Catherine Elliott Frances Quinn, English Legal System 11th Ed (Longman-Pearson, UK), Pg 655-656 7 . Law, Liberty and Morality, HLA Hart Stanford university Press, 1963, page 3 8 . Ibid 9 . Catherine Elliott Frances Quinn, English Legal System 11th Ed (Longman-Pearson, UK), Page 656 10 . 1993 2 All ER 75 11 . 1961 2 W. L. R 897 12 . Law, Liberty and Morality, HLA Hart Stanford university Press, 1963, page 7 13 .1961 2 W. L. R 897 14 . Catherine Elliott Frances Quinn, English Legal System 11th Ed (Longman-Pearson, UK), Pg 658 15 . Ibid 16 . 1992 1 A. C. 599 17 . 1994 1A. C. 212 18 . Criminal Law, Clarkson and Keating, sweet Maxwell, 2007 19 . Keep law out of gays bedrooms says Harding, Dwight Bellanfante, Observer stave reporter Sunday, October 31, 2004 20 . 1994 1A. C. 212 21 . 1961 2 W. L. R. 897 22 . 1992 1 A. C. 599 23 . Catherine Elliott Frances Quinn, English Legal System 11th Edition (Longman-Pearson, UK), Page 658.