Law vs. Morality

Abstract

Morality is subjective argument whereas law is objective argument in law. Natural law philosophy finds no distinction between law and morality but positive law philosophers find distinction between law and morality and provide no space to morality. Nevertheless, both are interdependent to perform legal task in society because law is not operated in vacuum. Law should fulfill social needs and expectation. Otherwise, law will be meaningless artifact. It is apparent from Hart-Fuller debate and Hart-Devlin Debate. Fuller is in side of inner morality and Devlin is in side with totalitarian morality whereas Hart is in favor of positive law and believes morality is not a criterion validity of law. However, if issues of morality are included in law it will be better which is visible in the acceptance of minimum content of natural law. Yet, Bentham, Austin, Kelson, Joseph Raz are reluctant to include morality in law. Unwittingly, they reach into ultimate value like censorial jurisprudence, tacit command, ‘grundnorm’, non-momentary legal system that can be equated as moral values. Despite the rejection of morality by some philosopher, it is one of the major realms of human thinking and social practices. If some talks about perfection and comparison, it is not possible without the ground of morality.