If something is legal, can it also be immoral?

[El Jefe]

A moral I like is "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". I am aware that its origin is religious but it seems an eminently good moral code and as an agnostic I have no problem using it myself.

most of the 10 commandments are common decency, and are not exclusive to Christianity or indeed religion as a whole. And yes, they might well be easily summed as "do as you would be done by".

But the interpretation of those common sense guidelines is infinitely variable and the law can never hope to appease all viewpoints. So of course the legal can be immoral.

But you know this

 

[kittyP]

So morals are subjective and not general and,

Laws are general.

(trouble is I don't know what subjective means

Be dumbly simplistic please

A moral I like is "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". I am aware that its origin is religious but it seems an eminently good moral code and as an agnostic I have no problem using it myself.

I like that moral too but that's me and it really is over simplifying the issue.
Yes, ideally, if someone doesn't think you should kill , then they should not kill but the death penalty in other countries prove that this is not the case.

I know its a wiki link but - subjective

Morals are something that we feel and are therefore particular to us. Even if they are created by religion they are still shaped by our experiences and our personalities.
Laws are created by the state and are, well, yes, general to the state rather than the individual.
Again this is over simplifying, for my own needs.

I thin you have already answered you own question from the OP.

 

[kittyP]

most of the 10 commandments are common decency, and are not exclusive to Christianity or indeed religion as a whole. And yes, they might well be easily summed as "do as you would be done by".

But the interpretation of those common sense guidelines is infinitely variable and the law can never hope to appease all viewpoints. So of course the legal can be immoral.

But you know this

I think you possibly do.

 

[weltweit]

jesus

in a society with any number of conflicting moralities, any legal system is going to be a compromise, an aggregate, an attempt to paper over the cracks. That's even before you take into account the extent to which laws are largely arranged to suit the usual power bases (ruling class, industry etc etc).

Abortion is legal. Many many people, not just the religious, believe this is immoral. So there's a conflict between law and morality.

And there are almost as many examples as there are laws.

You are saying there are conflicting moralities and then also there is the law which cannot please everyone.

Yet I recall from reading Dawkins, he mentioned a study of morality (and of moral dilemmas) done by a bloke called Hauser in which different groups of people (religious and atheists) were tested on their reaction to moral dilemmas. They then adapted their dilemmas and questioned the Kuna a small isolated Central American tribe.

There were no significant differences in how the atheists and religious people, or the Kuna, reacted to the moral dilemmas.

Could there not at the core, be one core human morality?

 

[kittyP]

<snip>
Could there not at the core, be one core human morality?

To some extent yes but that again is still going to be subjective to the individual looking at it.

 

[El Jefe]

Could there not at the core, be one core human morality?

no. No matter how much overlap or common cause there is, there are some issues about which a consensus is likely to be impossible.

How can a pacifist ever find common moral ground with someone who supports violence in self-defence, for example? Or the aforementioned abortion issue? Or animal rights. Or private property.

and so on

 

[ivebeenhigh]

A moral I like is "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". I am aware that its origin is religious

no its not. its the foundation of civilisation and existing well before religion.

 

[kittyP]

OK, eating my tea but should be back in a bit.

 

[weltweit]

Ok, so I think the OP question:

If something is legal, can it also be immoral?

has probably been answered YES !

But I am intrigued by the idea that there may be a common set of morals or perhaps moral reasoning which was indicated by that study which I mentioned above.

Sure if you believe thou shalt not kill (or shall not murder) then you are going to have trouble with a country that has the death penalty and perhaps also abortion.

But the study examined moral dilemmas and what choices people made when faced with them.

I have the book to hand as it happens: Dawkins, The God Delusion. And the study was from Marc Hauser Moral Minds: How Nature Designed our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong.

Hauser says, "Driving our moral judgements is a universal moral grammar"

Hauser questioned three groups of people, religious people, atheists and a remote tribe.

The first and most simple dilemma was called Denise.

There was a runaway railway wagon running down a track towards five people trapped on the line. Denise is next to a set of points and can divert the wagon down a siding but unfortunately there is a single man trapped on that siding.

Most people, in all three groups thought it was morally permissable or perhaps even obligatory to throw the switch and save the five people at the cost of the life of the one man trapped on the siding.

The dilemmas become more complicated but still the three groups of people respond the same as each other. There was no statistically significant variation.

Of course the object of Dawkins's book at that section was to prove that you do not need religion to be moral and ethical. However, further, this study suggests you do not need modern civilisation either.

 

[El Jefe]

none of which relates to your point really

 

[weltweit]

none of which relates to your point really

I have given up on the point about

if its legal can it also be immoral?

because the answer is plainly yes!

 

[ivebeenhigh]

I have given up on the point about

if its legal can it also be immoral?

because the answer is plainly yes!

you have a really odd writing style.

 

[weltweit]

you have a really odd writing style.

thank you

 

[revol68]

this is one fucking retarded thread, it's max freakout levels of tardation.

 

[JimW]

Of course the object of Dawkins's book at that section was to prove that you do not need religion to be moral and ethical.

This is pretty much the entire context of Axial Age Chinese philosophical debate - morality was always understood to be situational and collectively generated; Confucius famously did not talk about "extraordinary things, feats of strength [personally think 'powers' is a better translation here], disorder, and spiritual beings." A lot of the debate was around whether humans incline to good, evil or neither by nature.

 

[weltweit]

Hi JimW, so do they think there is a common kind of moral reasoning like that guy proposed. Of course that does not always mean you will end up with the same moral values.

Good and or evil by nature, as opposed to nurture I am guessing.
That could be quite contentious.

 

[6_6]

cigarettes?

 

[weltweit]

cigarettes?

The government is as hooked on the tax revenue as smokers are on the fags!

No one comes out smelling of roses.

 

[T.H.R]

I can't understand how law and morality could be confused by anyone, apart from despots who seek to subjugate the population. There are so many insignificant laws that have no relevance whatsoever to questions of moral perspective. As people have already pointed out, there are screamingly obvious examples that expose this theory as flawed, like slavery, when that was legal, or how about the various forms of legal but deceptive practices employed by banks and big businesses in order to extract more and more money from their customers, that would be called theft or at least fraud if used by self-employed 'cowboys'.

Just think about the people passing these various laws, do they really represent some modern day incarnation of the church? It's too simplistic to argue we have replaced one form of moral beacon (the church) with a newer version (government). If we're talking about the church's role as moral guardians of the past, I'd find it hard to suggest any modern day alternatives which have filled that role. I think the most successful occupant of the public sphere in the wake of religion's relative demise has been consumerism - nothing to with moral rights and wrongs.

 

[weltweit]

I can't understand how law and morality could be confused by anyone, apart from despots who seek to subjugate the population. There are so many insignificant laws that have no relevance whatsoever to questions of moral perspective. As people have already pointed out, there are screamingly obvious examples that expose this theory as flawed, like slavery, when that was legal, or how about the various forms of legal but deceptive practices employed by banks and big businesses in order to extract more and more money from their customers, that would be called theft or at least fraud if used by self-employed 'cowboys'.

Well it was confused by me, but thankfully this thread has removed that now, but still rules to live life by, morals, laws I can see how one might muddle them up.

e slavery, no system of laws / morality is going to be perfect, people have different morals to one another and some people are misled. When the British arrived in Australia it was proclaimed that no humans lived on the continent and so Aboriginals were denied all rights and were abused horribly. Was that morally right at the time when it was legal, that is hard to tell.

Capital punishment was relatively recently in force in Great Britain as was hanging drawing and quartering, was that morally wrong at the time? hard to know.

Just think about the people passing these various laws, do they really represent some modern day incarnation of the church? It's too simplistic to argue we have replaced one form of moral beacon (the church) with a newer version (government). If we're talking about the church's role as moral guardians of the past, I'd find it hard to suggest any modern day alternatives which have filled that role. I think the most successful occupant of the public sphere in the wake of religion's relative demise has been consumerism - nothing to with moral rights and wrongs.

But you agree that for a largely atheist / agnostic population, the church does not provide effective moral guidance. Even so, representatives of the church still have an input into lawmaking.

So who are the moral guardians of today. Personally I got my moral code from my parents and probably my school teachers (when I was listenning) but they could not be called moral guardians because their reach was small.

 

[berniedicters]

My argument is that it is now legislators who are the moral guardians and they encode their moral values into laws for the rest of us to follow.

Gone are the influences of religion on moral codes, we have the law now.

Hence modern morals are codified into laws, enforced by the police.

Hence the question: If something is legal, can it also be imoral?

I think that there is a huge overlap between what is legal, and what is moral. Indeed, you'd expect that to be the case, given that the law is to some extent a codification of basic societal, er, moral norms.

But there are things that are moral that are not legal, and I think there are things that are, vice versa, legal but not moral.

That could be difficult to argue, because a lot of morality is subjective, but if we took something that could be generally regarded as immoral, let us say, killing someone, it isn't that hard to find situations where it is legal to kill someone - religionists, after all, consider abortion immoral, yet it is legal. On the other side of the coin, there are plenty of examples of acts that are claimed as moral, but which are illegal. A notable case of that working in favour of the "moral" side was Clive Ponting's acquittal in 1985 on official secrets charges. As far as he was concerned, there was no doubt that he had broken the law, and he was expecting to be convicted. However, the jury presumably took account of his defence - essentially, a "public interest" defence, and thus moral - and acquitted him.

You said that you thought "legislators...are the moral guardians and they encode their moral values into laws for the rest of us to follow", and I agree, to an extent. I certainly think that they consider themselves moral guardians, and there does seem to me an increasing willingness to resort to legislation to solve problems, rather than looking for more integrated, perhaps morally-based solutions. I'm thinking about things like drugs laws - to me, drug addiction is more a moral issue than a criminal one, for example - or the rush to drink-free zones, ASBOs and so on to try and legally enforce the kind of restrictions on behaviour that a reasonably functioning society should be able to establish by habit and repute. These things are often dressed up as moral ones - "to make old ladies feel safe at night" - but they're essentially about trying to crowbar behaviour by brute force rather than subtlety and guile

And I think that "we know what's best for you" message we are hearing quite a lot of at the moment is probably driving the "treat 'em like kids, and they'll behave like kids" truism along very nicely - nobody likes being fingerwagged at, and the general response in adults is much the same as in kids, a thumbing - albeit metaphorical - of the nose the moment Authority's back is turned. But when we subscribe to moral codes, we tend to do it much more as a choice we've made, not one that is inflicted on us. And I think that has a bearing on how likely we are to stick to the rules...

So yes, something that is legal can be immoral. To some people. Some of the time.

 

[weltweit]

I think that there is a huge overlap between what is legal, and what is moral. Indeed, you'd expect that to be the case, given that the law is to some extent a codification of basic societal, er, moral norms.

But there are things that are moral that are not legal, and I think there are things that are, vice versa, legal but not moral.

That is my thought also, the legislators must codicy laws based on their own morality, if not on what basis could they make law.

You say there are things that are legal but not moral. Would you include adultery in that? however adultery is cause for divorce so in law it has a negative connotation.

That could be difficult to argue, because a lot of morality is subjective, but if we took something that could be generally regarded as immoral, let us say, killing someone, it isn't that hard to find situations where it is legal to kill someone - religionists, after all, consider abortion immoral, yet it is legal. On the other side of the coin, there are plenty of examples of acts that are claimed as moral, but which are illegal. A notable case of that working in favour of the "moral" side was Clive Ponting's acquittal in 1985 on official secrets charges. As far as he was concerned, there was no doubt that he had broken the law, and he was expecting to be convicted. However, the jury presumably took account of his defence - essentially, a "public interest" defence, and thus moral - and acquitted him.

I read on here recently that the commandment thou shall not kill is better translated thou shall not murder. That gets out a lot of lawful killing like by the armed forces for example.

On abortion, surely those pro-choice argue that the foetus is not yet a living thing before a certain date. Do they not justify their position that it is not yet killing because the foetus has not yet developed enough to feel pain. To them the foetus is just a bunch of cells with the potential to become life. So they can argue that they are anti killing / murder yet pro abortion.

You said that you thought "legislators...are the moral guardians and they encode their moral values into laws for the rest of us to follow", and I agree, to an extent. I certainly think that they consider themselves moral guardians, and there does seem to me an increasing willingness to resort to legislation to solve problems, rather than looking for more integrated, perhaps morally-based solutions. I'm thinking about things like drugs laws - to me, drug addiction is more a moral issue than a criminal one, for example - or the rush to drink-free zones, ASBOs and so on to try and legally enforce the kind of restrictions on behaviour that a reasonably functioning society should be able to establish by habit and repute. These things are often dressed up as moral ones - "to make old ladies feel safe at night" - but they're essentially about trying to crowbar behaviour by brute force rather than subtlety and guile

I do think the legislators might think that they are the new moral guardians. Certainly their laws have a great deal of bearing on the lives we are all permitted to lead. While the church is represented in the house of Lords, and has still some influence it is not now seen as the guardian it once was.

Interestingly government has decided that it is not permitted to discriminate on the grounds of gender, but the church managed to get an opt out for itself in that discrimination legislation so that it is still legal for the church to discriminate on gender grounds. It seems incredibly hypocrytical to me that action and, well it says a lot about what the CofE think of women and equality.

And I think that "we know what's best for you" message we are hearing quite a lot of at the moment is probably driving the "treat 'em like kids, and they'll behave like kids" truism along very nicely - nobody likes being fingerwagged at, and the general response in adults is much the same as in kids, a thumbing - albeit metaphorical - of the nose the moment Authority's back is turned. But when we subscribe to moral codes, we tend to do it much more as a choice we've made, not one that is inflicted on us. And I think that has a bearing on how likely we are to stick to the rules...

Indeed, I will break the speed limit when I think it is safe to do so, I ignore the regulation and instead decide myself based on safety how fast I can drive. The nanny state has only one limit for all conditions which is plainly silly.

So yes, something that is legal can be immoral. To some people. Some of the time.

Yes, that is what others have said on this thread so far.

Interestingly, I think I got my morals from my parents, from school and a bit taken from the 10 commandments. But there are those, Richard Dawkins in particular that argue there is no need for religion in order to be moral. That we are able to work out ourselves our own moral code and that in many or most instances our moral reasoning will be the same as others.

I probably need to read more of his books to see exactly where he is coming from.