Morality

• Law - Comes from rules and there are sanctions in place for any law which is broken. Fuller believed that the purpose of law is to achieve social order

  Morality - 'A particular system of values and principles of conduct especially one held by a specific person or by society.' According to Mary Warnock, they cover what is 'right' and 'wrong' in different situations
• 1. The distinction between law and morals

  • Many of society's morals are derived from religious beliefs and have been influenced by religious texts
  • Durkheim believes the reason why society's morals have changes is because our society is less influenced by religion and there is an increase in ethnic diversity
  • The law surrounding abortion has drastically changed, in 1861 (OAPA) an abortion led to max life imprisonment, to abortions being allowed in 1929 to preserve the life of the mother and then in 1967 more grounds for abortion were approved, the final decision is up to the doctor
• 2. The relationship between law and morality

  • Both law and morality are concerned with setting standards to govern behaviour/the way people are supposed to behave and distinguishing between right and wrong
  • Some legal rules have no obvious moral content and there are some moral rules which are not covered in law, like adultery
  • Natural law - Aquinas: The law must conform to a higher authority to be valid (law is based on morals)
  • Legal positivism - Bentham: There is no philosophy behind the law (should be made by a recognised legislative power)
• 3. Pluralist society

  • Diverse society where minority groups maintain their independent cultural traditions and all members of society tolerate each other's beliefs even when they don't match their own
  • Ireland has always had a strict view on abortion as it is considered murder in the Catholic faith - Irish Supreme Court ruled that organisations were not allowed to give information about abortion options in the UK. Northern Ireland decriminalised abortion in October 2019, The Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations Act 2020 made abortion legal up to 12 weeks
• 4. Legal enforcement of moral values

  • The Hart-Devlin debates discusses how involved the law should be in enforcing the states morality on us
  • Hart - Citizens can behave how they want, the law should only interfere in extreme circumstances
  • Devlin - Any act that deviates from the morals of society should be punished, even if they are done in private; 'any behaviour which the reasonable man would regard with intolerant, indignation or disgust'
  • R v Brown - Hart: as long as this does not harm society, the law should not be involved, Devlin: law should be involved