In a Healthy Society, the law of the land and ethics of the people play significant role in defining the Health of the society and Social life in the society. As the saying goes, “A chain is no stronger than its weakest link” if either of law or ethics is lax then it leads to the debasing of the health of the society. The “Book of the law” grows bigger as the basic ethics of people deteriorates. In fact, if people themselves are ethical then there would not have been a requirement for the law of the land. Unlike law that is enforced on individual Ethics cannot be forced. This calls for a need for law. This Writing mentions some of the key differences between Ethics and Law.
Ethics are the basic principle of an individual. It doesn’t depend on the legality involved in a matter. Of course, there can be dilemma or conflict of interest in some special cases that involves contradictory arguments. That is because of the complexity of the matter and non-obvious arguments involved. One such example is “Using animals to perform experiments and see how they react for poisons.” Although legally there exist, no conflict in this scenario a philosopher wouldn’t definitely see a conflict of interest involved. A morally ethical person would perhaps deny using animals in such a scenario. He would in fact use human beings, who are on death bed, who volunteers for such an experiment. Thus, Ethics are always a hand higher than law of the land. In fact, the law is always a derivative of Ethics.
On the other hand, Laws cannot handle all conflicting situations, unlike ethics that answers most if not all. Law is a set of rules that must be obeyed. A famous story of paradox, “When once two persons, a senior lawyer and a junior practicing lawyer get into an agreement stating that the practicing lawyer would pay the fee to the Senior lawyer once the practicing lawyer wins his first case”. Everything goes well until when the senior lawyer becomes indignant because the practicing lawyer didn’t pay him his fee for many years and so appeals in the Court. The practicing lawyer argues against senior lawyer defending that he doesn’t have to pay as he hasn’t won any case until then. Now the paradoxical situation arises if the practicing lawyer wins (i.e., he doesn’t have to pay senior lawyer as per court) this case, as this is his first case and ends up having has to pay senior lawyer his fee as per their agreement. Should the Junior Lawyer, then pay his Senior Lawyer or not ? Had it been an ethical issue this could have been solved easily, rather than being a Law issue. Thus, Ethics is the superset of Law and plays significant role in defining the law of the land.
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