Are We Dancing Around with Immorality while Avoiding Criminality?

Harvard Law School ^ | November 2001 | Steven Shavell

[Great Awakening]

It is evident that both law and morality serve to channel our behavior. Law accomplishes this primarily through the threat of sanctions if we disobey legal rules. Morality too involves incentives; bad acts may result in guilt and disapprobation, and goods act in virtuous feelings and praise. These two very different avenues of effect on our actions are examined in this article from an instrumental perspective. The analysis focuses on various social costs associated with law and morality, and on their effectiveness, as determined by the magnitude and likelihood of sanctions and by certain informational factors. After the relative character of law and of morality as means of control of conduct is assessed, consideration is given to their theoretically optimal domains – to where morality alone would appear to be best to control behavior, to where morality and the law would likely be advantageous to employ jointly, and to where solely the law would seem to be desirable to utilize. The observed pattern of use of morality and of law is discussed, and it is tentatively suggested that the observed and the optimal patterns are in rough alignment with one another.

[Great Awakening]

I'm interested in discussing the effects of Culture, Religion & Government in the Politics. Who & why do we cycle back & forth in the establishment then breakdown of a civil society? Is there a paradoxical conflict between the individual & society? What are the underlying causes of our current social problems?

[Biggirl]

This all goes back to the feel good 60s.

[I want the USA back]

Before discussing this, define “morality.” Is it what the law says? what colleges say? what the ordinary folk think? what atheists like bammy say?

No definition, no discussion.

[gloryblaze]

Well, it looks like Chicago’s new mayor doesn’t think lawbreaking is too serious in the Smollette case.

https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/chicago-mayor-elect-lori-lightfoot-confirms-jussie-smol-1834046133

[circlecity]

"Before discussing this, define “morality.” Is it what the law says? what colleges say? what the ordinary folk think? what atheists like bammy say? No definition, no discussion."

And such a discussion will lead you to the fact that apart from a transcendent God there can be no objective morality. There can only be legal, illegal and personal preference. These are all subjective and can change from day to day.

[reasonisfaith]

This comment suggests the author doesn’t think very carefully:

“These two very different avenues of effect on our actions”

Morality and law are not “very different.” In fact, one of the primary goals of the immoral is to deceive people into thinking they are different.

Law always comes from morality.

[Grampa Dave]

Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means — to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retribution!!

– Louis Brandeis (1856-1941)

[Olog-hai]

“Your notion that the Constitution is in some sense law must rest upon an obscure philosophic principle with which I am unfamiliar.”

— Unnamed Harvard Law professor to Robert Bork, from “The Tempting of America” (1990)

That is pretty much the measure of what comes out of Harvard Law School, with few exceptions (and former dean Elena Kagan was not one of those exceptions).

And welcome to FR.

[reasonisfaith]

Whenever you hear someone say “You can’t legislate morality,” you can be sure they are either lying or they’ve believed a lie.

Legislation always originates from moral thought.

[AppyPappy]

Yet God is not in the morality business. We cannot be “good”. We can only be “bad”.
Morality is a pretty obvious thing. Don’t enslave people. Don’t murder people. Don’t treat people as being lower than you. Don’t lie in order to gain or hurt. Don’t cheat. Etc.
The problem is that man tries to justify his bad behavior.

[reasonisfaith]

Agreed. First, define morality.

[reasonisfaith]

Moral law can only come from God.

[AppyPappy]

“Legislation always originates from moral thought.”

Yep. It’s all morality. It’s morally wrong to murder.

[reasonisfaith]

Although man’s law when built on God’s law is objective.

[reasonisfaith]

To Steven Shavell I would say you can identify moral questions if they start with the word “should” or the word “ought.”

From there the connection with law is fairly straightforward.

[ShadowAce]

You need to make up your mind

Yet God is not in the morality business.

and

Morality is a pretty obvious thing. Don’t enslave people. Don’t murder people. Don’t treat people as being lower than you. Don’t lie in order to gain or hurt. Don’t cheat. Etc.

The second statement is pretty much straight from the 10 Commandments.

Which God gave to us.

And HE defined.

So I would say that God is all about "the morality business."

[reasonisfaith]

I agree wholeheartedly.

[MrEdd]

I remember a time when most of America defined morality as a system of standards defined by a religion, and ethics as a system of standards defined by society.

Sad that once common definitions are now challenged.

[circlecity]

Who says God is not in the morality business. His word to us is steeped in the morality business. And no morality is not so obvious. Apart from God there is nothing to establish anything as objectively “right” or “wrong”.

[AppyPappy]

Short of God speaking from Heaven, you will never get a consensus on what is God’s Law. To some, eating shellfish is immoral. To some, it is not. To some, stoning someone for saying they are the Messiah is moral. To some, it is not.