Law and Morality
Courts should refrain from imposing social values in their interpretation of the law, since doing so can have dangerous consequences.
The imposition of social values through the criminal system is a tempting, but unjustifiable, activity that should be guarded against at every level in the legal system. Generally social values are derived from belief systems, worldviews, or religious preferences. Although notions of right and wrong and moral preferences may be entirely reasonable at the level of the individual, or even a group, however a justice system based on equal treatment under the law has no room for justifying legal proceedings that are based on social values alone since social values are highly subjective to begin with. This analysis will outline some of the dangerous consequences that can occur when subjective interpretations are allowed into legal sphere. Although it can be argued that all judgments have some subjective component to them, those that are based upon moral or religious opinions have a much larger subjective component than those that are based on sole consideration of the public good and how best to maintain a functioning society with individual rights and freedoms.
Morality in Criminal Law
The temptation to use the legal system to impose social constructs that are deemed moral has been persistent ever since the first legal system was created. When power is concentrated then those in authority may wish to engage in social engineering to try to carve out the type of society that they personal deem as an ideal society. Unfortunately, when this is the case then the ideals of the lawmakers can be entirely based on unfair discrimination against various individuals or groups that practice beliefs or engage in activities that may seem morally offensive to those in a position of authority. However, at the same time these beliefs or activities may not cause any physical or other damage to the general public good. Thus the question become that of balancing individual rights with a set of rules that should ideal represent...
A tax professional would not face jail time for committing a crime if he or she is not informed of the client's deceit. They may however, have to endure years of auditing to ensure this does not happen again, resulting in a need for charging excessive fees to compensate for time lost during auditing. This is damaging to the tax professional and the person (s) filing their taxes. As Calhoun,
Law and Philosophy Holmes' "bad man" theory offers insight into the difference between the law and morality. The bad man is not concerned with morality but he is as concerned about the law as any "good" man because in knowing the law, he can avoid getting into trouble. The bad man would lie, cheat, and/or steal if it weren't against the law because he cares not for the morals that underlie
Oliver Wendell Holmes states that justice is subjective and changes according to the viewer's prejudice, viewpoint or social affiliation. But a set of rules is needed to make society function and these rules must be carried out. This philosophy of law applies to Ann Hopkins' case. The senior partner and admissions committee had the prerogative of setting out the rules with which partners should be selected. Their sense of justice
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Morality in America Morals are defined as a set of principles of right action and behavior for the individual. The traditional morals of any given society are the set of moral principles by which the majority of its members have lived over a long time, a consensus which that society has reached on what is considered correct and decent behavior. It is the way one's society expectsone to behave, even if
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