Several nations of the world operate a democratic system of government, where the Law is Supreme. You would hear things like the rule of law and * no one being above the law*. As a matter of fact, these are great views but do we even understand how these laws came to be?
Laws are not just mere words that citizens are to obey. They carry a foundational backbone that is societally accepted, hence making the citizens under the law to be law abiding. Two major backbones of the laws of a nation are Ethics and Morality. Without these two pillars, the law would crumble to dust as people won't believe in it nor abide by it.
Speaking of ethics and morals, I have come to understand that they are interwoven and cannot be clearly separated. Ethics refer to the study of morals and good principles that govern individuals throughout life while morality refers to values, principles and norms that guide individuals in distinguishing right from wrong.
With this,it should be clear that ethics and morals should be considered when making the laws of a country. But here's the catch, Should something that is ethically and morally wrong be considered illegal?
The answer to this is subjective. Even with morality and ethics in view, preference is also there. The saying one man's meat is another man's poison standout clearly here. Some people consider killing a thief as morally right and okay while some people feel otherwise. It now rests on the laws of a country to set in place a decisive measure that borders the morals and ethics of its nation to determine the fate of the thief.
Another case study is euthanasia. Morally and ethically, it is not right to carry out but in many countries, euthanasia isn't illegal. I believe this drives the point home.
In conclusion, just because no crime was committed or no one was hurt doesn't give anyone the right to do whatever they want regardless of the moral bankruptcy of such an act.
I believe in do unto others what you want to be done to you. Just because we have freedom of speech does not mean that any mouth can wag and spit out nonsense, simply because no crime was committed. The cost of that kind of freedom is too high and it will eventually lead to turmoil.
Be your brother's keeper is another fancy proverb that buttresses my point. If we go about doing anything anyhow we want, without considering the feelings of others who might be watching us or looking up to us to uphold high moral principles and values, then it shows that our morality and ethics was never on the right side to begin with.
In physics, I was taught a particular law that states that ”For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”....... Newton's 3rd law.
This shows that our actions might hurt someone even though they're not illegal. For example, stepping on someone's toes while trying to alight from a commercial vehicle , without offering any apology is not illegal but it shows moral bankruptcy of the one who committed the act. Probably he or she didn't do it purposefully but the one who stepped on felt some amount of pain. The ethical and moral thing to do is to render an apology to the one who was stepped upon. This would lay the matter to rest and keep the world balanced.
Thank you for reading through. This is my entry to the hivelearners weekly initiative for week 168 e2.
Images source: Meta Ai.
