Difference Between Morality And Legality

The difference between morality and legality is can be described in a few ways, while still having a close relationship between the two. In short, the difference is that legality or “Law” is described as absolute rules prescribed by government representatives. Laws are designed to regulate behaviors of individuals and to specify what exactly is illegal. The purpose of morality can be seen as to ensure the honesty of an individual’s conscience. The purpose of the law is to ensure the common good, not the individual good, or to protect social living. Morality is described as personal views by someone on whether something is right or wrong. There is often a close relationship between the two in that laws often represent the majority societal …show more content…
For example, it isn’t so much a law now but back in the day slavery was very immoral and violated my sense of justice a lot. Many laws back in history violated many people’s moral judgement which takes me back to saying how laws change with change in societal views, such as slavery. There are also Some Laws today that I don’t necessarily agree with or that violate my morality. One example is the death penalty. That violates my morality because I find taking someone’s life whether what they did was wrong or right I find very unjust and very immoral. Another Law I personally consider unjust or immoral but others might not, called the “Zoning Law.” This law pretty much regulates how the landowners use their land. These laws are mostly used for regulating land so more central business districts, and offices can be built. This is very immoral in the obvious way of violating human rights to private property, and in a way it just makes the land owned by the government or city not the landowner. The landowner buys the land with their own money and hard work then the government just does what it wants anyway, making this law very immoral to me. Another example, from the book, that caught my attention was the Lester Zygmanik case. This case is unique to me because a loved one of his family had asked him, out of love, to put him out of his suffering. In this particular case I think that this is ok. His brother was suffering, was not happy, and asked him to do it, he didn’t just shoot him out of nowhere for no reason. I can see why others would disagree but if it is out of love and you are asked beforehand by that person to do it so they cannot live in misery anymore then I don’t consider that to be Murder but an example of Euthanasia. Euthanasia is still considered illegal but I disagree and I don’t believe they should be punished. Another example I disagree