ASSIGNMENT

Topic-: LAW AND MORALITY- ITS RELATIONSHIP AND DISTINCTIONS:

Submitted By
MOHAMMAD ZIYA ANSARI
BALLB (HONS)
SEMESTER-VI
ENROLLMENT NO- GI- 6492
FACULTY NO- 17BALLB- 72
1st - GCT

Submitted To
Dr. GAURAV Sir
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law
Aligarh Muslim University
ALIGARH-202002 (INDIA)
 SYNOPSIS

1- INTRODUCTION.

2- BASIC DESCRIPTION OF AND ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT LAW AND

MORALITY.
2.1-LAW
2.2-MORALITY

3- MORAL AS A PART OF LAW.

4- RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LAW AND MORALITY.

5- DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LAW AND MORALITY.

6- INFLUENCE OF MORALS ON LAW.

7-CONCLUSION.

8- BIBLIOGRAPHY.
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS A DEEP SENSE OF

THANKS & GRATITUDE TO MY PROJECT GUDIE Dr
GAURAV SIR FOR GUIDING ME IMMENSELY
THROUGH THE COURSE OF THE PROJECT.

I ALSO THANKS TO MY SENIORS FOR THEIR MOTIVATION &

SUPPORT. I MUST THANKS TO MY CLASSMATES FOR THEIR
TIMELY HELP & SUPPORT FOR COMPLETION OF THIS PROJECT.

LAST BUT NOT THE LEAST, I WOULD LIKE TO THANKS TO ALL

THOSE WHO HELPED ME DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY TOWARDS
THE COMPLETION OF THIS PROJECT.

THANKING YOU
MOHAMMAD ZIYA ANSARI
BALLB-3rd Year GI-6492
17BALLB-72
1-INTRODUCTION1:
Law is a system of checks and controls that serve a very important role in a society, and that is to
maintain order. Laws are written rules and regulations that define the accepted behaviors and
actions of the members of the society and the punishments that can be meted out to people
showing deviant behavior. Morality is another important concept in all societies and cultures that
guide the behavior of the members. It refers to an unwritten code of conduct about what is right
and what is wrong. Though the purpose of both law and morality is similar, there are many
relationship and differences between the two that will be highlighted in this assignment.
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. So too, on reflection, does
morality involve incentives of sorts. When we do the things, we may suffer guilt and
disapprobation, and when we do the right things, we may experience virtue and enjoy praise; the
push and pull of the moral forces constitute an important influence on our conduct.
The presence of these two very different avenues of effect on our actions naturally raises the
question of how they compare. In addressing this question, I will adopt an instrumental approach: I
will assess the various costs associated with the establishment and use of legal and of moral rules;
and I will examine the effectiveness of the rules in regulating conduct—as determined by the
magnitude of legal and of moral incentives, by the probability of their application, and by certain
informational factors. In so doing, I will be making conjectures about a number of issues, and it is
quite possible that the reader’s judgment about some of them may differ from mine. But this should
not unduly disturb the reader nor cause him or her to discount the analysis, for its main purpose is to
stimulate systematic inquiry about law versus morality as regulators of conduct; in writing an article
of such limited compass, I could not realistically aspire to do more.

2-BASIC DESCRIPTION OF AND ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT LAW AND

MORALITY2

2.1. Law
By law I of course mean the body of rules that we term legal, that is, the rules that are
determined and enforced by the state and that are intended to channel behavior and to resolve
certain adverse events. Thus, a legal rule might forbid littering in the park and impose a $50
fine for a violation, might impose expectation damages for breach of contract, or might declare
murder a crime and punish it with a sentence of at least ten years of imprisonment.

1-www.legalservicesindia.com/article/1931/Theory-of-Relationship-between-
Law-and-Morality.html
2-ibid.
The establishment of legal rules will refer to the process by which the rules are formulated and
communicated to the relevant public. For example, an ordinance against littering in a park might be
considered by city government, passed by its council, and then promulgated in written form and
posted on signs in the park. In this example, and in general, social costs are incurred in the
formulation of legal rules and in apprising the public of them3.

The enforcement of law will refer to three stages. The first is the identification and reporting of
violators to the state. This might be done by private parties who bring suits for violations or by public
enforcement agents, for example, safety inspectors or police officers. Second, law enforcement requires
adjudication. Third, law enforcement involves imposition of monetary sanctions or imprisonment (for
simplicity I am not considering other forms of sanction). Law enforcement entails social costs in
these stages: the time and effort involved in suit or public enforcement, adjudication expenses, and
the resources devoted to the actual imposition of sanctions. The effectiveness of law enforcement
depends, other things being equal, on the magnitude of sanctions and on the probability with which
they are imposed for violations. The magnitude of sanctions is chosen by the state and can be as high as
the wealth of a violator if monetary and as high as a life term if imprisonment. The probability of
sanctions depends on the actions of private parties who might bring suit if the violation is civil and
on the effort of public enforcement agents, otherwise.

Written rules that are enforceable in courts are called laws. These laws mostly stem from the
constitution of a country that is written keeping in mind the hopes and aspirations of the people of
that country. However, there is another source of law, and that is the legislative assembly of the
country. Members of the assembly propose, debate, and pass legislations that finally become laws
of the land after securing seal of approval from the President. Laws are rules and regulations that
ensure compliance and prevent deviance from the members of the society as they are backed by
the coercive powers of the courts of the land. Members of the society, whenever they violate a law
can be punished and sentenced to prison. This fear of punishment serves as a big deterrent and
maintains order in a society.

2.2. Morality

Consider next morality, by which I refer to rules of conduct that are associated with certain
distinctive psychological and social attributes. In particular, a moral rule has the property that,
when a person obeys the rule, he will tend to feel the sentiment known as virtue, and, if he disobeys
the rule, he will tend to feel the sentiment known as guilt. A moral rule also has the property
that, when a person obeys the rule and is observed to have done so by another party, that party
may bestow praise on the first party, who will enjoy the praise; and if the person disobeys the
rule and is observed to have done so by another party, the second party will tend to disapprove
of the first party, who will dislike the disapproval. Behavior that comports with moral rules,
so described, will be called good, and behavior that deviates from the rules will be called
bad. (Moral rules may sometimes differ among subgroups of a population. For instance, for one
segment of our population, abortion is regarded as immoral, whereas for most of the other
abortion is seen as a woman’s right. I will not discuss such differences in moral rules, because
their existence, although important, is tangential to my chief object, comparing the functioning
of moral rules with that of legal rules, given some agreed-upon conception of social welfare.
3-ibid.
3- MORAL AS A PART OF LAW4:
There are some who assert that even if law and morals are distinguishable it remains true that
morality is in some way an integral part of law or of legal development, that morality is "secreted
in the interstices" of the legal system, and to that extent is in separable from it.

Thus it has been said that law in action is not a mere system of rules, but involves the use of
certain principles, such as that of the equitable and the good. By the skilled application of these
principles to legal rules the judicial process distills a moral content out of the legal order, though
it is admitted that this does not permit the rules themselves to be rejected on the general found of
their immorality.

Another approach would go much further and confer upon the legal process an inherent power to
reject immoral rules as essentially non-legal; this seems to resemble the classical natural law
mode of thought, but it is urged, the difference is that according to the present doctrine it is a
matter of the internal structure of the legal system, which treats immoral rules as inadmissible
rather than as being annulled by an external law of nature.

If value judgments such as moral factors, form an inevitable feature of the climate of legal
development, as in generally admitted, it is difficult to see the justification for this exclusive
attitude.

Value judgment which enter into law will require consideration of what would be a just rule or
decision, even though not objective in the sense of being based on absolute truth, may,
nevertheless, be relatively true, in the sense of corresponding to the existing moral standards of
the community.

Whether it is convenient or not to define law without reference to subjective factors, when we
come to observe the phenomena with which law is concerned and to analyze the meaning and
use of legal rules in relation to such phenomena, it will be found impossible to disregard the role
of value judgments in legal activity, and we cannot exercise this functional role by stigmatizing
such judgments as merely subjective or unscientific.

4- RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LAW AND MORALITY5:

“The state is founded on the minds of its citizens, who are moral agents”, says; Professor R.N.
Gilchrist, “…. A bad people mean a bad state and bad laws”. It is true that law is the subject of
study in Political Science and morality is the subject- matter of Ethics, yet there is a close affinity
between the two.

4- ibid.

5- https://www.politicalsciencenotes.com/articles/relationship-and-difference-
between-law-and-morality/290
Here we are to deal with the close intimacy found between law and morality. Law and
morality are complementary to each other.

It shows them the distinction between truth and a falsehood. It makes us aware of the wrongness
and rightness of our actions. Ethics enables us to think in moral terms and upgrades us in moral
terms. It helps us in raising our moral standard. Laws framed by the state also aim at the same.

The ultimate end of the state lies in promoting the welfare of the people. The state aims life.
Political Science also enables individuals to come out as good citizens, individual can become an
ideal citizen only when he follows the Code of conduct by morality. So, there is a close affinity
between law and morality.

Ideal citizens are to be an ideal state. A state can become an ideal state only when it operates
through ideal laws of morality. Morality is the basis of ideal laws. If the state operates through
ideal laws which are based on morality, it will help the emergency of an ideal state.

For example, laws framed with a purpose of eliminating such evils and malpractices as drinking
of wine, gambling, theft, dacoity and murder are moral laws. They arouse our sentiment of
morality and enable us to become ideal citizens. Only those laws which are based on morality
remain permanent.

A state within moral laws cannot make a progress. In a state where crimes are given impetus
people will remain busy in committing crimes and will not be able to think of their own progress.
As a result, they will degenerate into the primitive savage. In this connection, Plato has very
aptly remarked, “The best state is that which is nearest in virtue to the individual. If any part of
the body politic suffers, the whole-body suffers”.

A bad state will have bad citizens and a good state will have good citizens. So, it is the sole
function of the state to keep a good standard of morality. This is the reason why the Government
of India is trying its best to eliminate the evil of untouchability. It has already framed laws
against untouchability.

It is rather a sin to adopt the policy of discrimination on the grounds of caste and creed, colour
and race, clans and tribes, groups and classes. The government is taking measures to prohibit the
drinking of wine. Drinking is a sin and at the same time, it is illegal and child marriages were
prohibited.

The foregoing discussion makes it very clear that law and morality are very closely related to
each other. One is the complement of the other. Gretel maintains that the law which are not in
accordance with the moral concept of the people cannot be possibly applied and the laws
sanctity….” Generally, laws are the image of morality.
Democracy does not generally have any such law as opposed to morality. Wilson has very
correctly observed that the law of a state is the result of the development of morality in the state.
This is the reason why the sovereign law-making authority pays due attention to the code of the
intimacy between law and morality that “the margin between the illegal and immoral is not
clear”.

“We regard the state”, says MacIver, “as the condition of morality. The state and law continually
affect both public opinion and actions; in its turn law reflects public opinion and thus acts as the
index of moral progress”.

5- DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LAW AND MORALITY6:

(1) There is a marked distinction between law and morality. The first point of difference is that
laws are enforced by the state whereas canons of morality are followed at the call of institution.
If one disobeys the commands of law or violates the laws, he is liable to be punished by the state
but if one fails to observe the scruples of morality, he is not liable to be awarded physical
punishment. The severest punishment that can be awarded to a person for not observing the
scruples of morality is his social boycott.
(2) Morality is concerned with both internal and external affairs of man whereas law is
concerned only with the external affairs of man. Hence, law punishes only those persons who
violate laws by their external actions. For example, law punishes a person only when he-commits
a theft or dacoity or murder or any other physical crime.

Law cannot punish a person for telling a lie or for abusing some-one. Telling lies, condemning
someone, showing disgrace to others, being ungrateful and many other internal actions of man
are sins but they are not crimes.

(3) There are many things which are not illegal according to law but are unacceptable to
morality. For example, telling lies, showing disgrace to others, feeling greedy, being ungrateful
and not helping the poor, are not against the spirit of law.

Not only this, sometimes the adoption of immoral policies by the state for the cause of common
welfare is not illegal in the eyes of laws. Machiavelli maintained that even the immoral practices
are legal, if they are applied for the benefit of the state.

(4) Similarly, there are many things which are illegal in the eyes of the state but are acceptable to
morality. For example, it is not a sin not to keep to the left or to drive the vehicle fast in the
market. The fact is that the canons of morality are concerned with the moral duties whereas the
laws of the state are concerned with the legal duties.

6- https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-law-and-vs-
moralitity.
(5) Another point of distinction between law and morality is that laws are certain and universal
and they are universally applicable to all citizens whereas the canons of morality are quite
uncertain.

Not only this, many time’s different races have different canons of morality in a society. For
example, a large number of people think it immoral to eat meat and drink wine. But at the same
time, there are people in India who think it quite moral to eat meat and drink wine.

(6) The government should, at first, arouse the moral sentiment of the people and then enforce
the laws. The laws which are not based on the sentiment of morality are less effective and less
permanent.

For example, Sharda Act is quite ineffective these days. In the end, we can say that morality
cannot be thrust upon the state. And it is also clear that law cannot cover all the ground of
morality. “To turn all moral obligations”, says MacIver, “in legal obligations would be to destroy
morality”. “There is thus a legal conscience as well as a moral conscience, and they do not
always coincide”.

6-INFLUENCE OF MORALS ON LAW7:

Law and Morals act and react upon and mound each other. In the name of ‘justice’, ‘equity’,
‘good faith’, and ‘conscience’ morals have in-filtered into the fabrics of law. In judicial law
making, in the interpretation of legal precepts, in exercising judicial discretion moral
considerations play a very important role. Morals work as a restraint upon the power of the
legislature because the legislature cannot venture to make a law which is completely against the
morals of the society. Secondly, all human conduct and social relations cannot be regulated and
governed by law alone. A considerable number of them are regulated by morals. A number of
action and relations in the life of the community go on very smoothly without any intervention
by law. Their observance is secured by morals. So far as the legal rules are concerned, it is not
the legal sanction alone that ensure their obedience but morals also help in it. Thus, morals
perfect the law. ‘In marriage, so long as love persist, there is little need of law to rule the
relations of the husband and wife – but the solicitor comes in through the door, as love flies out
of the window.’

7- Supra note- 3, same pg.

7-COCLUSION:
Generally, legal rules are composite and are derived from heterogeneous source. In India, if we
examine all the legal perspective, we shall find that some of them have come from personal laws
and local customs, a good number of them are based on foreign rules and principles, some are
based on the logic or political ideology and so on. Secondly, public opinion which greatly
influences law is made up of a number of things- political ideas, economic theory, ethical
philosophy etc. These directly and indirectly influence law. Therefore, when so many elements
work in shaping the legal percepts, the matter cannot be put in such a simple way as the” relation
between law and moral”, because a number of factors join hands in influencing law, and morals
is only one of them. However, some observations can be made about the relationship between
law and morals.

8- BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1-www.legalservicesindia.com/article/1931/Theory-of-Relationship-
between-Law-and-Morality.html

2-https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-law-and-vs-
morality/

3-https://www.politicalsciencenotes.com/articles/relationship-and-
difference-between-law-and-morality/290