Legality and morality

[sabotabby]

[Poll #1493330]

Comments

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I think it's unethical that you were writing this so early in the morning!

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

I choose all my battles and win all of them.

You are so nerdy as of late.

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

The benefit of theocracies is that they at least try to make "ethical" and "legal" the same thing. Unfortunately for them, that state of affairs is a chimera. Liberal democracies, on the other hand, should be shooting for minimal prior restraint, so they have to allow a wide variety of unethical behavior to be legal. It's best when non-coercive social-consensus tools handle ethics, and the law is by definition coercive. Unfortunately for us, our social-consensus tools are falling apart (cf. Bowling Alone) and so there are a dangerously high number of our laws that are simply enacted for the convenience of the powerful with no relationship to ethics or the common good.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

I would say that theocracies make "moral" and "legal" the same thing -- but not ethical.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

"social-consensus tools" - there's an expression I clearly needed in the last post! I am worried that people don't have social-consensus tools to replace laws, and that much needed social consensus tools would be more easily developed in smaller communities.

[thebigbadbutch.livejournal.com]

Your coworker must have really upset you.

[sabotabby]

Hahaha. This is actually stemming from a paper I'm currently reading on the authoritarian personality. The two are somewhat related, though.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Ethics are tricky, and there's definitely a disconnect between what I believe to be ethical from experience and empathy, and what I've absorbed about ethics from culture and upbringing.

I am also neither as bad or as good as I think I am.

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

What is legal, and what is ethical, sometimes overlap -- but not always. In both directions -- there are things that are illegal that I consider quite ethical (using drugs), and there are things that are legal that I consider unethical (certain business practices).

I try to avoid violating my ethics on big stuff, but sometimes compromise on the small stuff. My ethics, and awareness of them, has evolved over time, though, and I have done things in the past that I would not do now.

[kaelynn.livejournal.com]

Sounds like me on all counts. I think a lot more than I used to before doing things, like the music post before (it's my husband who made me start to care, I'm not sure if I care myself or just care what he thinks now, it's so melded together in my brain). I'm also pretty foggy lately though with health issues, so sometimes just reverting back to legal or instinct or even just save my own ass is what gets me through a day.

[firinel.livejournal.com]

This is also true of me, as well.

[effexorrx.livejournal.com]

I'm an animal rights advocate and I love all animals to incredible degrees, to the point that the cliche about prefering animals to people is actually true, and yet I eat meat. Doing so, I believe, is ethically inappropriate and, particularly in my case, hypocritical.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

I sympathise, apart from thinking you are very bad indeed for eating meat! No, really, I sympathise because I realize I am a hypocrite for not being vegan rather than vegetarian, so feel guilt over every ice cream and chocolate cake and cheesy bake, and I eat rather a lot of them all. Being good is hard.

[porphyrios.livejournal.com]

What is legal SHOULD be determined by what is ethical, but the reality is much messier than the ideal. According to Aristotle, the purpose of laws is to encourage the majority of people to develop good ethics. As Aristotle said, "I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law."

I wish that I could have answered that I never have violated my ethical code, but there have been a couple of times where I have done so out of personal weakness. These were times during which my emotions had risen to a deafening roar, and I felt more like a cornered animal than a rational human being.

[rbowspryte.livejournal.com]

Excellent quote and I have to say I agree you that it's far messier than what Aristotle might say! I have a lawyer friend who put it far better than I when he said "Ethics and law are like two forbidden lovers. They meet with the same intent but can never marry".

I thought that was cute.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

I like your last sentence. Me too. Alas.

[rbowspryte.livejournal.com]

My answer to the first would be "less than occassionally". Maybe "a few times here and there". I also don;t think that what is legal is necessarily or at all ethical to come at it from the other direction. There are lots of ilegal things that I think are ethical or important but they are rare lest I be in jail right now.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

I waste significant amounts of virtually every day on the internet, which behaviour I consider to be unethical. It's an addiction thing.

The law for the most part should not and does not attempt to regulate people's personal relationships, but this is an area in which ethics is intensely important. Thus even an ideal legal system would not equate the legal with the ethical. As it is, the law permits much that is grossly evil, while in some cases forbidding that which is, at the least, not unethical.

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

There may be an ethical requirement to follow the law, even if the law is not itself moral - but of course there can be no ethical reason to obey a law which demands what is immoral or forbids what is morally required.

Most laws don't have any real moral content at all. They're there for organizational reasons. And most moral rules have limited presence in legal categories if any at all.

[ironed_orchid]

I admit that I don't always choose the most ethical option, even when I can see what it is. For instance I still eat animals, even though I think there is no ethically sound defense of doing so.

But what I do try to avoid is that ultimate hypocrisy of claiming that my pragmatic choices were in fact ethical. Which is precisely what pisses me off about the sort of libertarian claim that looking after ones interests is actually ethical.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

I don't think I can be bothered to look for the Scientific American article, as I read it around the year 2000, and it was an old edition from the 90s, but it was about a psychologist who said only a tiny proportion of people are capable of thinking beyond equating ethics/morality with the law. So, for example, most people assume something is wrong if it is illegal, and assume something is ethically ok if it is legal.
I'm not sure if that can be right, as many people see certain sexual practices as wrong despite their being legal, and many people break the law in petty ways every day without worrying about it.
But I have met many people who do seem to equate legality and morality. Many who are anti drugs are perfectly happy with legal drugs being legal.

[apperception.livejournal.com]

I think this proves that most people think of themselves more or less the same way regardless of how they actually act. I find it hard to believe everyone has an equally strong superego, and yet that's what these results appear to indicate. Yet I easily believe that everyone has a view of themselves as more-or-less good. Even villains tend not to think they're evil, after all.

So where are all the people who are less ethical than the average person? Perhaps they're all over on my LJ.

[sabotabby]

You strike very close to the point I was aiming to make.

[pluvka.livejournal.com]

ok, i picked 'never' but then i remembered that i'm no longer vegan. then again i'm very confused about my own ethics on the matter soooo. let's stick with 'never'.

[gillen.livejournal.com]

I do things that I believe to be unethical by other people's systems, sure. I don't bother trying to conform to any personal system of behaviour.

*drive by comment*

[teh-bug.livejournal.com]

You might find this link (http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=469)entertaining/interesting. :) It was a fun realization for me.

Re: *drive by comment*

[sabotabby]

I love A Softer World.