In a civilized society, which should be considered more important?
Should the law bend and evolve to accommodate moral justice, or should moral justice work within the bounds of the law?
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I would argue that Law is more important, simply because it's hard-set and officially codified, with clear metrics. Morality is infinitely more malleable, and can easily be twisted to justify anything.
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1 ReplyThe law should [i]follow[/i] from morality. The law itself is not a metric for ethics. Things are not wrong because they are illegal - things (ideally) are illegal because they're wrong. Slavery was legally sanctioned. Segregation and apartheid were legally sanctioned. Even the Holocaust was legally sanctioned. The two concepts aren't exclusive, but it's important to recognize that morality is what guides laws, not the other way around.