Relationship between Law and Moral Standards

PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

Table of Contents
Part-1................................................................................................................................................3
Part-2................................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................11
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Part-1
Relationship between law and moral standards
Laws are usually based on moral values and principles. The law aims to protect the interests of
humans by regulating individuals’ conduct in society. Morality is regarded as an internal concept
and law, on the other hand, is external. There tend to be no consequences, in case the mortality is
not followed by someone in his actions. However, disobeying laws results in severe
consequences. Law falls under the subject of Political Science and morality and morality belongs
to the discipline of Ethics (Miller and Blackler, 2017). Despite belonging to the two different
fields, both law and moral standards have a close relationship. These two are mutually
reinforcing concepts. Code of conduct is taught to people by ethics. It demonstrates the
distinction between fact and deception. It makes people aware of the wrongness and rightness of
their acts. Ethics allows people to think morally which as a result helps in improving their moral
standing. It aids in the development of moral standards. The same goal is followed by
organisational leaders to promote and conduct professional ethics. The overarching goal of
managers is to promote employees’ well-being as they are the ones who are responsible for
organisational success.
Burt and Mansell (2019) opined that business law shapes the minimum behavioural standards
that are expected from organisations and sole proprietorships. Business ethics is something that
goes beyond simple legality. They interpret the way in which a business needs to behave and the
acts that businesses are legally obligated to conduct. Ethics is considered relative and is not
absolute which means ethical behaviour conforms to the social norms that are generally
accepted. People judge the wrongness and rightness of a specific law and judgement are made on
the basis of legal ethics. Małkowska et al. (2021) stated that moral standards are indicators of
people's effective conduct, proving the results of social behaviour’s non-observance which
includes moral actions that differ from the legal ones. The laws are proper systems of norms to
regulate the relations among people. The outlined laws regulate the conduct of various
companies whose observance is highly guaranteed by the organisations and states. The laws
personify moral principles thereby preserving and guaranteeing primary values along with the
critical force offered by the moral obligations. Effective laws represent people’s moral ideas. As
per the opinion of Melé (2019), people’s moral conscience is reinforced by good laws that create
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and maintain conditions that provide support to the growth of morality. For instance, laws in
relation to the prohibition and spread of different businesses highly influence employees’ moral
conduct who is involved in business activities.
Moral standards therefore cannot be segregated from business operations whose main focus is to
promote the welfare and moral perfection of organisational leaders and other employees. Hence,
it is the responsibility of both states and business firms to come up with important laws that help
in elevating people’s moral standards. Mea and Sims (2019) commented that conforming to the
existing values of morality also falls under the main role of states and businesses and this proves
the effective relationship between moral standards and law. Moral code breaches negatively
impact the law thereby providing an example of the fact that law and morality usually merge.
There is an implicit display of the influence of morals on different laws. Factors that impact the
laws are also responsible for affecting morals. Hence, it is evident that both laws and moral
standards exhibit an influence on each other. This indicates that there is a close relation to mutual
conditioning. According to Haski-Leventhal et al. (2017), moral values and conduct are dynamic
in nature which means that both change with time along with the change in values and attitudes
of people. Laws have to stay abreast with the values that always tend to change.
Law is connected to moral standards for establishing virtues that have a relation to the common
good. This necessarily does not lead to the fact that positive human law should make the
prohibition of all vices or command of all virtues. Laws only prohibit the grosser failing of a
person which threaten the existence of people and commands the virtues that can be appointed
by human means. Delmas (2017) argued that law involves the moral obligations that are
generally imposed and this is done due to the necessity of an act having a relation to a required
end. The obligation comes from the important notion of law as an appropriate dictate of practical
reason. Law has a relation with justice who further relates to the moral concept and it is
meaningless outside the concept of morality. Hence, the discussion conforms to the fact that law
is an area where moral ideas cannot be ignored. Laws which are not conformed to the prevailing
ethical standards are difficult to enforce. A law that introduces certain new concepts related to
legal justice without considering the prevailing social consciousness has the possibility of getting
opposed by the people. Frijda (2017) mentioned that those laws that correspond to social
consciousness are observed willingly by people. The law sometimes also goes ahead of the
existing notions of morality.
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