Relationship between Law and Ethics

Law is defined as an ordinance of reason to achieve a common goal.

Since both law and ethics guide human behavior, they are considered two sides of the same coin and they have reciprocal relationships. Then the question is why law is needed when there is ethics and vice versa. Whether Law is superior to ethics or vice versa.

So even if law and ethics have differences, still both are considered important for ordered and disciplined society simply because:

• • Even if people are ethical, still law will be needed simply because
    • • There may be a lack of consensus on ethical standards which may give rise to conflicts.
      • Law defines rights of people and gives legitimacy for enforcement.
  • Even if people are law abiding, it cannot be effectively enforced unless people are ethical. Law also has both spirit and letter side, but it’s spirit side that is linked to ethics.

Therefore, Law & Ethics are not the same. Both work as guides for human behavior. In the process, ethics is more important than law from a broad perspective. Although adherence to law is an immediate priority of any society, it’s the ethics that work as foundation for law.
“Ethics try to create a sense of right and wrong in the organization and often when the law fails, it is the ethics that may stop the organization from harming the society or environment”.
Although ethics and law are considered two sides of the same coin, they may not have equal effects on human behavior. The way an individual will respond to both also differs.
Ethics and law are both related to human conduct and regulate human conduct, and they aim to improve human conduct and also promote the common good. As far as the objective is concerned, ethics and law both stand in the same arena, still they’re different as explained above.
Ethics try to create a sense of righteousness and wrongness in an organization when the law fails. Law generally has two parts i.e letter and spirit. The gap between the two is the grey area which is exploited by the offenders to avoid and misuse a law. On the contrary, even when the law is followed in its word, it may fail to satisfy the spirit of the law; for instance,

Therefore, laws have their own limitations and failures, where a law succeeds in one aspect but fails in another and vice versa.
Although all organizations have their own code of conduct and regulatory rules, for instance, the Conduct Rules of Civil Services guide the behavior of civil servants, code of medical ethics is in place for medical practitioners, but still they’ve limitations and numerous times these rules and laws are not properly adhered to. Many times, bureaucrats are caught red-handed accepting bribes, and doctors engage in organ-trade. This indicates the low deterrence of the laws, and therefore the role of ethics increases in these scenarios and conditions.
Improving the laws can be a solution, but when the existing law faces challenges in enforcement, there can’t be a certainty of improved law getting its due enforcement.

Example 1:  Companies Act 2013 which talks about corporate governance but organizations fail to follow law. But corporate ethics may help in promoting corporate governance. CSR practice by tatas, TCS 60 percentage profits go in CSR.

Example 2: Environment Protection Act 1986 and its adherence to protect environment may not have been very successful but people take voluntary efforts for sustainable practices. Several companies have come forward to help protect the environment.

Promotion of ethics, morality, value-based education, character building, focusing on improving human behaviour have become much more important. Therefore, even if the law fails, the developed conscience and character of people with good ethics will come to rescue.

However, the relevance of law cannot be related. Law is also important to promote regulation of conduct of people. Law has coercion and deterrence. As Aristotle also argued “Laws are not needed, if people are law abiding”. “Good people don’t need law but some people will always find ways to avoid law”, Plato argued. It shows that both are needed but ethics due to its inherent moral character has greater potential to transform behavior of people and make society better.

What can be concluded is the view of Vivekananda, “No nation is great or good because Parliament enacts this or that, but because its men are great and good”, and the good character comes from ethics.