Relationship between law and morality

Law and Morality are two systems that govern the way humans
behave. Law is a body of rules and regulations that all people
are mandatorily obligated to adhere to. Morals, on the other
hand, refer to general principles or standards of behavior that
define human conduct within society but are not compulsory to
be followed. The relationship between law and morality is a
complicated one and has evolved over the years. Initially, the
two were considered equivalent but with time and
progressiveness, it is highlighted that the two are different
concepts, but with certain inter-dependency between them.

Morality as the basis of law

Throughout history, no clear distinction has been made
between law and morality. By virtue of a lack of distinction, all
laws found their origin from what was considered morally
correct by the people in a society. Eventually, the state picked
up what was morally correct and gave it the form of laws or
rules and regulations. Therefore, the law finds its origin and is
based on the values that float amongst the people, creating a
similarity between the two concepts, i.e. law and morality. For
example, it is morally wrong to kill someone or to rape
someone. This value has taken the form of a law. Morality may
with time have been distinguished with laws, but it remains an
integral part of legal development. Law essentially involves
certain basic principles such as the principle of fairness and
equality, and these principles are derived from ethics and
morals.

Morality test of law

The entire purpose of the existence of laws is to ensure justice
in society and do what is best for the welfare of all the people.
Since the principle of justice is well under the ambit of
morality, many jurists are of the opinion that there must not be
any contradiction between law and morality. Any law which
does not abide by moral standards should be removed and
whether a law is right or wrong can be evaluated based on
whether it is in consonance with moral values.

Morality as ends of law

As stated before, the end goal of enacting laws is to maintain a
society that is based on principles of justice, fairness, and
equality. The entire purpose of having certain moral standards
is also to maintain some sort of order in the society which
would lead to fewer conflicts. This shows that more or less, the
purpose of both these phenomena is the same. It is believed
by jurists that if the law is to stay involved in the lives of
people, then it cannot ignore morals. If there is a law that is
against moral standards, people may be hesitant to obey it
which will create further conflicts within the society.

Difference between law and morality

Law and morality may be interdependent to an extent and
have certain similarities such as the same goals, but there are
certain factors based on which the two concepts can be
differentiated:

1. Law is derived from an external source which means that

it is obtained through rules and regulations. Morality
emerges from internal sources, i.e. it comes from the
individual mind of a person.
2. Law treats all people in the same manner and doesn’t
change from person to person but morality is a subjective
concept.
3. Morality has influenced the creation of laws but morality
existed in society since even before legal implications
were discussed.
 4. Disobedience of the law leads to punishment but there are
no repercussions of doing anything morally wrong.
5. Laws lay down mandatory behaviour that is expected out
of the people who are governed under the said law.
However, morality does not lay down strict guidelines of
how one should behave but is a more personal concept.
Hart-Fuller debate on law and morality
The Hart-Fuller debate is one of the most interesting
exchanges of ideas and opinions between Lon Fuller and H. L.
A Hart on the intriguing interdependency between law and
morality. This was published in the Harvard Law Review in
1958 and essentially highlighted the difference in opinions in
the positivist and natural law philosophy. To understand the
points put forth by both these ideologists, it is important to
analyze their beliefs and the reasoning behind them separately.

H. L. A Hart
Hart is a positivist and is thereby of the opinion that while
there may be a close relationship between law and morality,
the two are most definitely not interdependent. That being
said, Hart does believe that law has been heavily influenced by
the morals that prevail within the society. According to him, a
clear distinction needs to be made between what law should be
and what it ought to be. This is where Hart brought in the
problem of penumbra which refers to determining meaning
where the law is ambiguous. Fuller in opposition to this stated
that in situations where the law is uncertain, the judges make
decisions based on morality, basically from what ought to be.
To this Hart responded by saying that determining what ought
to be must be understood from a legal sense, and not from a
moral one. Essentially, interpretation of the law cannot come
from outside of the legal world.

The law has primary rules and secondary rules. Primary rules
impose certain regulations on the citizens and secondary rules
provide power to the state to make and implement these rules.
This means that the law doesn’t have to align with moral
standards. Despite making a clear demarcation between law
and morality, he also believes that the two are bound to
intersect at some point.

Lon Fuller
Fuller is a naturalist who believed that there exists a strong
necessary connection between law and morals. According to
him, all legal norms are based on moral norms. In simplest
terms, no law can be deemed as valid if it does not pass the
test of morality which is based on ethical ideas that people
have. Fuller has further categorized morality into two aspects;
Morality of aspiration and morality of duty. The former is
concerned with moral norms that are followed by a person for
their individual best interest. The latter on the other hand is
more relevant to the smooth functioning of society by
prescribing standards that all people must follow. Fuller also
elaborated on two concepts which are “Internal morality of
law” which deals with the procedure of framing laws and
“External morality of law” which is more about the essence of
law which is used to make decisions.

Dudley and Stephen case

One of the most famous cases that deals with the age-old
debate between law and morality are R v Dudley and Stephens
(1884). Whether cannibalism, which was considered a highly
immoral act could be committed when there is a question of
necessity and helplessness was discussed in the case. The facts
of the case involved four men who were stranded in a boat, in
the middle of the sea, far away from land. The men had no
way of contacting any person and were stuck in the boat
without any food and water. After torturing themselves for
seven days without food and water, the captain of the ship,
Thomas Dudley, found an immoral solution. He suggested that
one of the four men would have to make a sacrifice so that the
other three could survive by eating his flesh. Edward Stephens
agreed while Ned Brooks refused to go ahead with this plan,
and Richard Parker, the cabin boy was not consulted.
Eventually, the boy was killed by Dudley and Stephen following
which the three men fed on the boy’s flesh.

When the men were rescued, the two men were tried for
committing the grave offence of murder. While prima facie it
appeared that a crime was committed, the case discussed
whether, at that moment, the man being morally right for
saving his own life could be excused from the shackles of law.
However, a clear distinction was made between law and
morality and it was observed that personal inconvenience or an
attempt to save your life by killing another cannot be used as a
justification.

Challenges due to interlink between law and

morality
The two concepts of law and morality may be different for a lot
of reasons, but the one thing that they have in common is that
the two affect the way we live our lives. Both morality and law
are ambiguous concepts without any definite meaning. Both of
these notions have evolved with new ideas that emerged with
time. Nowadays, it has appeared that the idea of morality has
started to differ from one person to another. This means that
morality in itself has become subjective; what may be morally
incorrect for one could be morally correct for the other. When
there is no fixed standard of what may be morally right, how
exactly can the lawmakers base laws on morals? The modern
world is witnessing a clash between law and morality and there
are multiple issues where these two concepts must not
overlap, and the new laws must entirely depend on the existing
legal framework. A progressive outlook, which may not be
entirely in line with morals, is required to enact laws that will
ensure justice.