What is the difference between laws and ethics?

In general, ethics are moral philosophy where a person makes a specific moral choice and sticks to it, whereas law is a system that comprises of rules and principles to govern a society. Though, ethics are based on the goodwill of law, ethics completely differ in their foundation, basis and purpose. Thus, to further understand the difference, we define the terms law and ethics.

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What is Law?
What is Ethics?
What is the difference between Law and Ethics?

There is no universal definition for the term ‘law’, but is it often defined as a system that enforces set of rules and guidelines to govern social behavior. Law is also defined as regulations established by a governing power. These rules describe the way in which people are required to act with each other in a society. They are requirements to act in an established manner in a society. Though, under authority, these laws are widely published, generally accepted and usually forced.

Ethics, on the other hand, is a branch of philosophy that is the study of value or quality. It encompasses the analysis of concepts such as right, wrong, good, evil, justice and responsibility. It attempts to define what is good for the society and the individual. It also seeks to establish a set of duties that a person owes to himself and the others. Ethics is derived from the Greek word ‘ethos’ that means ‘arising from habit’. These values too come from within a person’s moral sense and desire to preserve his self respect.

Ethics concerns itself with why and how one ought to act. It is derived from expansive theories of right and wrong, which gave rise to the rules of conduct. These rules set the standard of behavior of a person with his society. Based on this, law too derived a set of rules to stabilize the society. Though, law is a derivative of ethics, law does not focus on promoting social ideas, it merely promotes the convention of a good society.

Laws help shape politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relationships between people. Ethics, being about actions and decisions, helps to shape an individual’s conscience and character. It consists of learning what is right and what is wrong and doing the right thing. Also, it is interesting to know the various consequences, outcomes, alternatives and personal implications of ethical decision.
Ethics and laws are therefore necessary to provide guidance and stability to people and society as a whole. Though, ethics and law go hand-in-hand, it is a complicated relationship between the two terms. The connection between law and ethics depends on perception, because often what is perceived as unethical is usually considered illegal. Though, such is not the case.

Law does not prohibit many acts that would widely be condemned as unethical. For example, lying or betraying the confidence of a friend is not illegal, but most people would consider it unethical. Also, speeding is illegal, but many people may not have any ethical conflict with exceeding the speed limit. So, law is more than simply codifying ethical norms.

Comparison between Law and Ethics:

	Law	Ethics
Definition	It is defined as a system that enforces set of rules and guidelines to govern social behavior.	It is defined as moral guidelines set, put forth and followed by an individual towards his society.
Codes	These are ethic codes that people are required to obey.	These are moral codes that everyone must conform too.
Rules	These are rules stated by the government to balance the society.	These are rules of conduct of an individual.
Enforce	It is enforced on the people.	It comes from within an individual.
Decision	It directly states of what is right and what is wrong.	Here, a person decides to what is right and what is wrong.
Characteristics	It is enforced. It needs to be published. It is consistent. It needs to be obeyed.	It cannot be enforced. It need not be published. It may or may not be consistent. It is not necessary to obey.
Punishment	There is valid punishment for breaking the law.	There is no punishment for defying one’s ethics.
Judging	Law is judged by judicial standards.	Ethical behavior is judged by moral standards.
Made	These are made by using ethics as a guiding principal.	These come from within a person by his moral values.
Application	Laws depend on the country, state and the place of the crime.	Ethics are universal and can be applied anywhere, all over the world.

Knowing the difference and relationship between them is important though, because they can conflict with one another. If the law conflicts with our personal values or a moral system, we have to act – but to do so we need to be able to tell the difference between them.

Ethics

Ethics is a branch of philosophy that aims to answer the basic question, “What should I do?” It’s a process of reflection in which people’s decisions are shaped by their values, principles, and purpose rather than unthinking habits, social conventions, or self-interest.

Our values, principles, and purpose are what give us a sense of what’s good, right, and meaningful in our lives. They serve as a reference point for all the possible courses of action we could choose. On this definition, an ethical decision is one made based on reflection about the things we think are important and that is consistent with those beliefs.

While each person is able to reflect and discover their own sense of what’s good, right, and meaningful, the course of human history has seen different groups unify around different sets of values, purposes and principles. Christians, consequentialists, Buddhists, Stoics and the rest all provide different answers to that question, “What should I do?” Each of these answers is a ‘morality’.

Morality

Many people find morality extremely useful. Not everyone has the time and training to reflect on the kind of life they want to live, considering all the different combinations of values, principles, and purposes. It’s helpful for them to have a coherent, consistent account that has been refined through history and can be applied in their day to day lives.

Many people also inherit their morality from their family, community or culture – it’s rare for somebody to ‘shop around’ for the morality that most closely fits their personal beliefs. Usually the process is unconscious. There’s a challenge here: if we inherit a ready-made answer to the question of how we should live, it’s possible to apply it to our lives without ever assessing whether the answer is satisfactory or not.

We might live our whole lives under a moral system which, if we’d had the chance to think about, we would have rejected in part or in full.

Law

The law is different. It’s not a morality in the strict sense of the word because, at least in democratic nations, it tries to create a private space where individuals can live according to their own ethical beliefs or morality. Instead, the law tries to create a basic, enforceable standard of behaviour necessary in order for a community to succeed and in which all people are treated equally.

Because of this, the law is narrower in focus than ethics or morality. There are some matters the law will be agnostic on but which ethics and morality have a lot to say. For example, the law will be useless to you if you’re trying to decide whether to tell your competitor their new client has a reputation for not paying their invoices, but our ideas about what’s good and right will still guide our judgement here.

There is a temptation to see the law and ethics as the same – so long as we’re fulfilling our legal obligations we can consider ourselves ‘ethical’. This is mistaken on two fronts. First, the law outlines a basic standard of behaviour necessary for our social institutions to keep functioning. For example, it protects basic consumer rights. However, in certain situations the right thing to in solving a dispute with a customer might require us to go beyond our legal obligations.

Secondly, there may be times when obeying the law would require us to act against our ethics or morality. A doctor might be obligated to perform a procedure they believe is unethical or a public servant might believe it’s their duty to leak classified information to the press. Some philosophers have argued that a person’s conscience is more binding on them than any law, which suggests to the letter of the law won’t be an adequate substitute for ethical reflection.

Laws and ethics are guidelines and rules in society. Ethics originated from the society which leads to the development of laws. These two terms are closely related and slightly different. The main difference between law and ethics is that ethics are the moral values and principles that are adapted socially from the surrounding while Laws are the rules and regulations that are set by the authorities.

What is Law?

Law is a set of rules and regulations enforced by the authority to control human behaviours for the common good. Violation of these rules and regulations tend to result in penalties or punishment from the court of law. Examples of penalties are sanctions and punishment is imprisonment. However, these laws can easily be changed according to the need and demand of maintaining certain conditions in a society.

What is Ethics?

Ethics are moral values and principles that govern the behaviour of an individual. Ethics help to choose what is right and wrong. Ethics are highly susceptible to changes due to new inventions, ideas and information. It also tends to vary from nation to nation, culture to culture and country to country. The good news is that failure to adhere to the ethics do not result in penalties and punishment. However, it fosters one self-respect.

What is the difference between Law and Ethics?

The main differences between law and ethics have been mentioned below:

Laws are a set of rules and regulations enforced by the government or authorities while ethics are morals and principles adapted by society from the environment.
Failure to follow laws can result in penalties and punishment while ethics do not attract penalties and punishment.
Laws are made by lawyers and legislature whereas ethics by religious leaders, philosophers and elders in the family.
Laws are a must to be followed while ethics are values to be considered to be a positive attitude to follow.
Ethics are prone to changes due to new inventions, ideas and information whereas laws can be changed by authorities based on demand and need for maintaining certain conditions in the society.
Laws are made from ethics as a guiding principle while ethics are moral values of oneself or society
Laws tend to be the same in a country while ethics tend to vary from one city to another.
Religion tends to have a direct impact on ethics while it may or may not have an impact on laws.
Laws are in a written document whereas ethics are not written
The court is responsible to decide which law has been broken whereas society judge someone based on ethical issues.
Laws create a legal binding while ethics do not have a binding thing