This Blog is written By Miss. Isha Baloni, Student of Maharishi University of Information Technology, Noida
Introduction
Everyone
have a perception of the relation of morality and law. Why we all are obliged to
follow the law? Because of moral duty or the fear of punishment from legal bodies.
A rare common approach becomes a turning point for the relationship between law and
moral virtue. Then the question arises whether it is virtuous for being obligatory to law. William Edmondson is one of the best supporters of the
statement and also achieved its possibility. He defended an account of law-
abidance as a virtue for pursuing it. Law should have built a virtue for all by
establishing an example that everyone has one good reason to emulate. If the law can
pursue it, then everyone can include artifacts, films, plays, and novels. Law is
a model in itself as to express how it is a legal obligation on everyone
and one of the sources of establishing morality in people’s lives.
Law
reflects the moral values through people who obey it because of fear of punishment.
Society is obligatory towards it because it is complex, supports justice, and
expects from its officials and guards to follow it honestly. But when the law will
bend towards injustice it will no more seem like a virtue model to the people
and it cannot help them in any way. If it is good enough, then it can build
virtue. Virtuous law focuses on the mandate
of character and individual’s excellence or virtue to the question on the
content and judgment of the law.
Issues covered by the
virtue Jurisprudence
·
Virtue ethics can be
applied for the account of ends of legislation. If the law is ambitious towards
opposing maximizing utility then how should be the content of the laws
applied?
·
Virtue ethics can be
applied to legal ethics. Trending approaches to legal ethics focuses on the theory
of deontological moral i.e. respecting client for his autonomy and duties which
are obligatory towards them. These approaches are also highlighted in various
professional conduct by lawyers and legislators.
·
In natural Justice
Theory by Aristotle and Aquinas’s, there are applications mentioned for the
debates between legal positivists and natural lawyers over the law’s nature.
·
Requirement of
particular excellences by judges are described by the virtue-centered theory of
judging.
Theories based on
Judgment
The
judicial virtues are the virtues of the best legal minds in their respective
area of study on the nature of law and it’s relation to morality. It invites
the excellence that can make a good judge in a particular topic. These
include judicial temperance, judicial intelligence, judicial courage, wisdom, and the quality of serving justice. These theories of virtue have a
distinguished significance from others.
These
theories also have a lot of criticizers:-
·
Virtuous law does not
provide good guidance for making decisions regarding law. Sometimes legal minds
disagree with the judge who is a supporter of virtuous law as it gives birth to
various unedifying debates. It invites inappropriate attacks on the judges.
·
Virtuous law requires
blind trust in the capacities of judges. As India is a country of democracy, so
the legal decisions should be fair enough that can be accessed by the citizens.
Judges who follow the virtuous theory and involve their own view in the
judgments, sometimes they are not acceptable by the society.
·
In modern societies,
nobody agrees upon the set of moral values a good judge must possess. Some
values like wisdom, impartiality, fairness, etc are not controversial but the
sympathy part for the underprivileged is rigorous and cannot be accepted in
legal decisions.
·
The argument is that
rules play a vital part in law than the ethics because the law is obligatory to
citizens and violation of it will lead to punishment. Ethics are not binding on
people and it also differs from individual to individual for eg, going to night
outs is ethical for one person and not for others. One thing or act that is
ethical for one might be unethical for others.
·
One of the arguments is
that virtue theory can lead to illiberal values and mislead attempts to
legislate moral values.
Virtue as the end of the law
There
are few thoughts by legal positivists like Aristotle stated that implementing
virtue theory will lead to the end of law but Aquinas said that virtue theory
can be taught by true laws in which particulates of best virtues planted. Those
who haven’t pursued this level of virtue can be forced into the obligation of
law and this might enable them to become a person with virtue.
A
statement found in the writings of Robert George, he argues for the promotion
of this topic virtue as the end of law and against the different views of
people that law aims to the general happiness and protection of rights. He
wrote it in his book ‘Making Men Moral’.
Conclusion
Law
and morality is somewhere connected to each other either in a direct way or
indirect way. The function of law is not to perform all virtues and also law
somewhere teaches virtues in its own way. Some people follow the law as an obligation
because of fear of punishment but some follow it as a moral value that if they
will do that particular act this will be wrong and against to their ethics.
Law establishes a code of conduct that should be followed by society for peace
but ethics are defined as an individual’s morality. Law says that drinking
alcohol is not a crime or punishable offense but when we talk about ethics, it
is wrong. There is a huge difference between a good person and a good citizen
like a good citizen will pay tax because of legal obligation but a good person
will do it willingly as his responsibility. Though some people will always
criticize it as not everyone accepts everything. Virtue theory also plays a
very significant role in serving justice in some complex cases while legal
precedents play this role in the maximum number of cases. The usage of both depends
upon the situation.
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