Social Morality, Rules and Laws

In all societies, relations between people are regulated by prescriptive laws. Some of them are customs – that is, informal rules of social and moral behaviour. Some are rules we accept if we belong to particular social institutions, such as religious, educational and cultural groups. And some are precise laws made by nations and enforced against all citizens within their power. It is important to consider to what extent such laws can be distinguished from customs and social rules.

Customs need not be made by governments, and they need not be written down. We learn how we are expected to behave in society through the instruction of family and teachers, the advice of friends, and our experiences in dealing with strangers. Sometimes, we can break these rules without suffering any penalty. But if we continually break the rules, or break a very important one, other members of society may ridicule us, criticize us, act violently toward us or refuse to have anything to do with us. The ways in which people talk, eat and drink, work, and relax together are usually guided by many such informal rules which have very little to do with laws created by governments.

The rules of social institutions tend to be more formal than customs, carrying precise penalties for those who break them. They are not, however, enforceable by any political authority. Sports clubs, for example, often have detailed rules for their members. But if a member breaks a rule and refuses to accept any punishment, the club may have no power other than to ask him or her to leave the club.

However, when governments make laws for their citizens, they use a system of courts backed by the power of the police to enforce these laws. Of course, there may be instances where the law is not enforced against someone - such as when young children commit crimes, when the police have to concentrate on certain crimes and therefore ignore others, or in countries where there is so much political corruption that certain people are able to escape justice by using their money or influence. But the general nature of the law is that it is enforced equally against all members of the nation.

Government-made laws are nevertheless often patterned upon informal rules of conduct already existing in society, and relations between people are regulated by a combination of all these rules. Governments often consider anti-social behaviour not simply as a matter between two individuals but as a danger to the well-being and order of society as a whole.

What motives do governments have in making and enforcing laws? Social control is undoubtedly one purpose. Public laws establish the authority of the government itself, and civil laws provide a framework for interaction among citizens. Without laws, it is argued, there would be anarchy in society (although anarchists themselves argue that human beings would be able to interact peacefully without laws if there were no governments to interfere in our lives).

Another purpose is the implementation of justice. Justice is a concept that most people feel it very important but few are able to define. Sometimes a just decision is simply a decision that most people feel is fair. But will we create a just society by simply observing public opinion? If we are always fair to majorities, we will often be unfair to minorities. If we do what seems to be fair at the moment, we may create unfairness in the future. What should the court decide, for example, when a man kills his wife because she has a painful illness and begs him to help her die? It seems unjust to find him guilty of the crime, yet if we do not, isn’t there a danger that such mercy-killing will become so widespread that abuses will occur? Many philosophers have proposed concepts of justice that are much more theoretical than everyday notions of fairness. And sometimes governments are influenced by philosophers, such as the French revolutionaries who tried to implement Montesquieu’s doctrine of the Separation of Powers. But in general, governments are guided by more practical considerations such as rising crime rates or the lobbying of pressure groups.

Sometimes laws are simply an attempt to implement common sense. It is obvious to most people that dangerous driving should be punished; that fathers should provide financial support for their children if they desert their families; that a person should be compensated for losses when someone else breaks an agreement with him or her. But in order to be enforced, common sense needs to be defined by law, and when definitions are being written, it becomes clear that common sense is not such a simple matter. Instead, it is a complex skill based upon long observation of many different people in different situations. Laws based upon common sense don’t necessarily look much like common sense when they have been put into words!

In practice, governments are neither institutions solely interested in retaining power, nor clear-thinking bodies implementing justice and common sense. They combine many purposes and inherit many traditions. The laws that they make and enforce, reflect this confusion.

The laws made by the government of one country are often very different from the laws of another country. Law today is, to a large extent, a complex of different and relatively independent national systems.