Ethics, Law and Legislation:

Just as there is a strong parallel between Ethics and Religion, there is a strong parallel between Ethics and Politics (legislation) and Law.  Some philosophers have thought of politics and legislation as extensions of Ethics - social extensions of individual Ethics.  Jeremy Bentham is a good example of this. His major work is titled: An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.  Here his chief concern is politics, but he sees morals and Ethics as the foundation of Legislation.  Aristotle is another good example, where his two books on Ethics are followed up with his book on Politics. Aristotle’s earliest commentators and his students put the Politics as the third book on Ethics.  And perhaps that was Aristotle’s intention. 

Often in Ethics we refer to the rules we ought to follow or the principles of morality as moral laws.  Kant and others were big on this, making morals like law, but separate in some sense that they are not criminal or punishable by political authorities, leaving morals to the person or God as the case may be.  Thus there is a distinct difference between Sin and Crime.  One cannot over emphasize this too much.  We ought not have a morals police or institutions for the housing and punishment of those who commit moral indiscretions.

However, that being said, there are many places where Law and Morals coincide or overlap.  For instance, those sins which are considered to cause material harm to other persons are considered crimes (rape, and child molestation for instance).  These are crimes because of the material harm they cause and not their moral nature.  This distinction is important to understand and we often base the distinction on what may be considered material harm.  Unfortunately the overlap between morals and law has become, and is continuing to become, much larger as we have calls from some citizens for the punishment of moral indiscretions as criminal. In general philosophers like to keep these two (sins and crimes) separate, and we should always treat them separately in our thinking.

Our founding fathers were anxious for a separation of church and state, because under the British Empire before our independence, often moral indiscretions and heresies against the teaching of the Church of England were punishable, sometimes even punishable by death.  Heresy and witchcraft were often punished by burning at the stake or hanging, and our founding fathers wanted to put an end through our Constitution to these practices.  Despite what you may hear or assume from what candidates for office say, the separation of church and state is a fundamental principle of our nation.  We may talk about some teachings of various religions, but we ought not prescribe those teachings as true for everyone, or normative in the sense that we ought to follow them, unless of course they do material harm to persons, in which case we may proscribe them.  There are no totally false doctrines, and no absolutely true ones either. In fact, we should treat each and every normative statement coming from religious traditions or political institutions as true about that particular religion or political jurisdiction, but only partially true or false as a norm for everyone.  In fact my view is that there is something wrong and something right about every theory, every idea and every moral norm, this is the philosophical position, therefore they all have exceptions. The trick is to seperate what is right from what is wrong, and that takes critical analysis.  That task requires a person to think. One ought to approach everything as a seeker, and not as a dogmatist.