Pious Khemka, Class XI A
‘Morals’ and ‘Laws’ are two distinct concepts in my outlook. A law is a rule or a system of rules, that a particular natural or scientific phenomenon always occurs if certain conditions are present. Likewise, human laws direct us to act in a certain manner in certain specific conditions. Morals on the other hand pertain to the principle of right and wrong behavior.
I would like to discuss this in the light of ‘Ethical Relativism’. Ethical Relativism is the doctrine that there are no absolute truths in ethics and that what is morally right or wrong varies from person to person and from society to society. What’s more, it can even change with the passage of time. Herodotus, the Greek Historian observed that different societies have different customs and that each person thinks his own society’s customs to be the best.
Thus, if I say that practices such as polygamy and honour killing are right within a society, they are so only for that society. If these are considered wrong in another society, then it is wrong for that society.
There is no such thing as ‘really’ right or universally acceptable. In a country like India, where we accommodate such diversity, making laws on the basis of morals of a certain society would be disastrous indeed.
Circumstances also affect the determination of what is moral. For instance, whether it is morally permissible to enter a house, depends on whether one is the owner, a guest or a burglar!
As a consequence, there is no way to justify any moral principle as valid for all people and all societies at all times.
So, if morals are not universal, then how can a law be based on them. If they do, then laws would also have the same tendency to evaporate as soon as the thinking of people changes around to a different thought. In my opinion, morals and laws should be parallel and never intersecting.
