Define Morals in Legal Terms

Any definition of “morality,” whether descriptive or normative, is a code of conduct. However, in the case of ethical or relativistic group relations or individualistic relations – all of which are considered relations of morality in the descriptive sense – morality often has no special content that distinguishes it from non-moral codes of conduct such as law or religion. Just as a legal code of conduct can have almost any content as long as it is able to guide behavior, and a religious code of conduct has no substantial limits, most relativistic and individualistic reports on morality set few limits on the content of a moral code. Of course, the current codes have certain minimum limits – otherwise the societies that characterize them would not have the minimum level of social cooperation required to maintain their existence over time. On the other hand, for moral realists who explicitly believe that morality is an informal public system that all rational people would propose to control the behavior of all moral agents, it has a rather specific content. Hobbes (1660), Mill (1861) and most other non-religiously influenced philosophers in the Anglo-American tradition limit morality to behaviors that directly or indirectly affect others. The ideal situation for a legal system would be for it to be a public system. But in any large society, this is not possible. Games are closer to being public systems, and most adults who play a game know its rules, or they know that there are judges whose interpretation determines the behavior that gambling prohibits, requires, etc. Although a game is often a public system, its rules only apply to those who play it. If a person doesn`t care enough about gambling to follow the rules, they can usually stop.

Morality is the only public system from which no reasonable person can get out. The fact that you cannot renounce morality means that there is nothing you can do to avoid being legitimately punished if you violate its standards, except by ceasing to be a moral agent. Morality applies to people simply by being rational people who know what morality forbids, requires, etc., and are able to direct their behavior accordingly. Things that are illegal but are considered moral (for many)! Things that are (for many) immoral but not illegal. Many public policy issues form a crossroads between legal and moral law, including euthanasia, assisted suicide, same-sex marriage and the death penalty. Explicit attempts by philosophers to define morality are hard to come by, at least since the early twentieth century. One possible explanation for this is the combined effect of early positivist concerns on the metaphysical status of normative properties, followed (or amplified) by Wittgensteinian concerns about the definitions of any significant term. Whatever the explanation, when definitions were proposed, they were aimed more at the notion of moral judgment (Hare 1952, 1981) than at morality itself. However, to the extent that these definitions of moral judgment are appropriate, they could easily be transformed into definitions of morality in the descriptive sense. For example, the morality of a particular person could be seen as the content of the basic moral judgments that that person is willing to accept. Etiquette is sometimes included in morality and applies to norms considered less serious than the types of norms of behavior that are more central to morality. Hobbes expresses this kind of view when he uses the term “little morality” to describe “the decency of behavior as one man should greet another, or how a man should wash his mouth or cut his teeth before society,” and distinguishes it from “those characteristics of humanity that affect its coexistence in peace and unity” (1660 [1994]: Chapter XI(1).” When etiquette is included in morality, morality is almost always understood in the descriptive sense.

One of the reasons for this is that it is clear that the rules of etiquette are related to a company or a group. Moreover, there are no plausible conditions under which we could choose the “right” rules of etiquette as those that would be accepted by all rational beings. However, morality also strongly influences the emergence of laws. For example, crimes and other acts identified as illegal under the law are those identified as immoral by morality. Therefore, morality is the basis for the emergence of laws. Ethical principles, mainly upheld by followers of Christianity, influenced the development of American secular law. As a result, Christian moral law and secular law overlap in many situations. For example, murder, theft, prostitution and other so-called immoral behavior are also illegal. Moral depravity is a legal term used to describe a crime that shows depravity in public and private life, as opposed to what is accepted and common. Those convicted of this crime may be disqualified from government offices, lose their bar permit, or be deported (in the case of immigrants).

Medical science is an area where the development of technology can cause moral crises that have legal consequences. The American Medical Association sponsors a Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs that discusses issues such as assisted suicide, organ harvesting on family objections, and whether HIV status should be included in autopsy reports. Some supporters of the legalization of abortion, as well as some critics, believe that the current legal situation is inadequate. Protecting the rights of the pregnant woman or the rights of the fetus is a moral matter that the individual decides for himself. But the extent to which people should be allowed to act according to their beliefs and exercise their rights is the subject of debate in the area of legislative and judicial decision-making. An important example of a moral problem that is still not solved by the informal public system of morality is whether fetuses are impartially protected by morality and whether or under what conditions abortions are allowed. There is an ongoing disagreement among fully informed moral agents on this moral issue, although the U.S. legal and political system has provided fairly clear guidelines on the conditions under which abortion is legally permitted. Despite this important and controversial issue, morality, like all informal public systems, requires agreement on how to act in most moral situations, for example, everyone agrees that killing or seriously harming a moral agent requires a solid justification to be morally permissible. No one thinks it`s morally justified to cheat, deceive, hurt, or kill a moral agent just to make enough money for a fantastic vacation. Moral issues are often considered controversial because everyday decisions about which there is no controversy are rarely discussed. The extent of the agreement on rules that are moral rules and when it is justified to violate any of these rules explains why morality can be a public system even if it is an informal system.

Given the way Gray et al. Think of models, even if their hypothesis is correct, it would not mean that our psychology forces us to look at morality in such a way that it always includes intentional agents and perceiving patients. In accordance with this, and despite some omissions in which they suggest that “moral actions can be defined in terms of intention and suffering” (2012:109), their thoughtful view only seems that the dyadic model corresponds to most moral situations as we imagine them. Moreover, the link between immoral behaviour and suffering, which they invoke to defend their general point of view, is sometimes so indirect that it undermines its meaning. For example, they integrate violations of authority into their suffering-based model by stating that “authority structures pave the way for the peaceful resolution of conflicts” and that “violence occurs when social structures are threatened.” Similarly, they explain the judgments that promiscuity is bad by making gestures about the suffering of sexually transmitted diseases (2012:107). The first legal code, the Code of Your-Nammu, was developed in Mesopotamia around 2000 BC. The Code lists prohibited acts and the sanctions associated with them. The law had the support of the ruling power and was enforced throughout the empire. The Codex of your-Nammu was remarkably modern with a mix of physical and financial penalties. The current laws are still inspired by the structure of the Codex of your-Nammu.

Klenk (2019) notes that anthropology has taken an “ethical turn” in recent years by recognizing moral systems and ethics in general as a separate object from anthropological studies. It is a break with the Durkheim paradigm and involves the study of personal development, virtues, habits, and the role of explicit consideration when moral breaks occur. Klenk`s overview of anthropologists` attempts to study morality as an independent field, however, leads him to conclude that their earlier efforts, when “morality” is used in their normative sense, do not need to have either of the two formal characteristics essential to the moral concepts to which the descriptive meaning refers: that it is a code of conduct, that is established by a corporation, group or individual, or that it is accepted as a guide for the conduct of members of that corporation or group or by that person. In fact, it is possible that morality in the normative sense has never been advanced by a particular society, by any group, or even by an individual. This is partly a consequence of the fact that “morality” in the normative sense is understood in the sense of a condition that is probably counterfactual: it is the code that would be supported by any fully rational person under certain conditions. The subject of this entry is not – at least not directly – moral theory; Rather, it is the definition of morality.

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