Are you one of those who think that being immoral is being illegal..?

Then I must say that all this while you were simply wrong, because being moral and abiding by the law are not all the same. Just like an act could be moral but illegal similarly it could be immoral but perfectly legal…!!

Take an example, entry of refugees into a country is illegal while it is morally correct to provide food and shelter to them. Curses like slavery, paedophilia, child marriage though immoral were once accepted, but now they are universally held not only to be immoral but also illegal. The death penalty is considered immoral and illegal in many countries, but not in all. Smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol are not only dangerous for health but also considered immoral in my country yet they are legal. Euthanasia is another issue where the morality clashes with law. There are many such examples.

To understand this better first let us know what is moral and what is law ?..

Morals are the principles of right and wrong and the goodness or badness of human character that may vary from person to person, religion to religion, country to country and so on. Morality governs personal interactions in the society. In other words morals are a set of beliefs, values and principles and behaviour standards which are enforced and created by society. They are surely not enforceable in the court of law, it is entirely the wish of an individual to follow it or not.

Law on the other hand is the system of rules that a particular country or community recognizes as regulating the actions of its citizens or members and may enforce such laws by the imposition of penalties. Law demands an absolute subjection to its rules and commands. Law has enforcing authority derived from the state. So there are many areas of conflicts between morality and legality. They are surely not the same.

There are different theories which deal with moral and law. Like according to John Stuart Mill the law should not be used to enforce moral principles on society but to protect harm to its citizens. Lord Devlin said that society may use the law to preserve morality in the same way that it uses the law to safeguard anything that is essential to its existence. Professor Hart’s theory is that the law should only intervene in the private lives of citizens to prevent harm to others and harm to oneself. He did acknowledge that there was a difficulty in defining harm but did acknowledge that it did not include moral harm to oneself. If you examine these theories we can infer that though in law morals have no special position but certainly law depends on moral principles at times. It is true that some laws mirror the majority of society’s moral view, for example, that murder is wrong and it is illegal too.

Perhaps we can say that morality is that which basically requires the people to honor the rights of others. Legal are those that do not violate the rights of others. So at this point only may be legality and morality intersect.

Thankfully all immoral acts are not illegal..! Otherwise imagine if every immoral act was illegal then even by telling a small lie we could end up in the jail..!!