The Confusion Between Law and Morality
The Confusion Between Law and Morality and How it Spoils Both
Please join us in Auerbach 320 or online this Wednesday, Sept. 7 from 1-2 for our next meeting of the University of Hartford Philosophy Club as University philosophy professor Brian Skelly presents for discussion the topic: “The Confusion Between Law and Morality and How it Spoils Both”.
To join the meeting online click on this link:
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Some of the most egregious errors of human thought and policy are based on the unfortunate confusion of law and morality. That people on account of this error throw themselves headlong and headstrong into the most counterproductive kinds of contention comes from the mirage such confusion projects that their polemic is a sacred mission definitive of virtue, and that those who decline to join them are cowards. This error is disguised by the moral mandate that we always ought to seek to promote goodness and truth and never its opposite. At the roots of the error is negligence of the fact that enacted law is by its very nature pragmatic, to be judged , therefore by its effects rather than by its witness to ideal truth; in other words, that the moral value of law itself is pragmatic, not ideal.
It is not that law is detached from morality, but that the moral obligation of law is to produce an overall salutary effect. With that in mind, it becomes visible that well-intentioned laws – laws that are based on witness to moral truth – can be bad laws, while laws that fail to witness against actions that we consider wrong may yet be good laws, if only as part of a legislative process leading to better things. (Complete paper attached.)
An ongoing weekly tradition at the University since 2001, the University of Hartford Philosophy Club is a place where students, professors, and people from the community at large meet as peers. Sometimes presentations are given, followed by discussion. Other times, topics are hashed out by the whole group.
Presenters may be students, professors, or people from the community. Anyone can offer to present a topic. The mode of presentation may be as formal or informal as the presenter chooses.
Please be a part of us as we continue this great tradition both in the classroom online.
For more information, please contact Brian Skelly at bskelly@hartford.edu.
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