The normative categories of ethics, morality, and law have direct and indirect connections. If to consider ethics and law, one can find multiple interactions and examples. First, the formation of these two systems is the result of a collective agreement. A law system is predicated on and tends to be modified according to accepted ethical norms. The direct relationship between ethics and law is reflected in certain laws being taken more seriously than others, such as homicide. Meanwhile, society would not judge as much for speeding because it is not as bad from an ethical standpoint. In other words, public acceptance and compliance with ethical principles reinforce the legal system’s reputation and harshness of individual laws. And, vice versa, if the law is not socially approved, its enforcement will be noticeably weaker.
Despite their closeness, the three normative categories have their distinct characteristics. For example, law, aiming to control social relations among individuals and social groups, is objective and formulated in a written form. In contrast, morality and ethics are intrinsically subjective and vary substantially depending on the culture or individual belief. The two, while generally used interchangeably, possess a certain difference. Namely, ethics tend to be established by a collective of people, occasionally professional groups (“Ethic,” 2021). However, morality is often understood as an individually constructed phenomenon (Hazard, 1995).
According to Hazard (1995), these three concepts are different because the law system, unlike the other two, has vivid limiting boundaries. Meanwhile, moral and ethical categories lack a clearly defined scope. As it was previously mentioned, they can vastly differ in counties around the world. Due to these variations in meaning, these concepts, albeit connected, do not imply one another.
The discrepancies between the categories can inevitably cause certain misunderstandings that should be solved. Law cannot regulate conduct in every situation in life. At times, one has a legal right to behave wrongly and inappropriately with others. However, moral values and ethical norms may contradict and disallow to act in this manner. This is where it is a person’s free choice to decide how to behave or respond to other people’s actions. Moreover, community members (more precisely, officials working in the legislative branch of government) are able to transform ethical principles into policies (Hazard, 1995). If they decide that community non-written rules are shared and can benefit society’s life, it would be a plausible explanation for incorporating new laws into the legal system.
It is impossible to say that one normative system controls the other two. They are interdependent and have a constant influence on each other. For instance, law controls ethics to some degree when it establishes legal boundaries on how people can interact. Conversely, in certain cases, ethical conduct can impact how laws are interpreted in court (Hazard, 1995). It is the role of judges to make a fair final decision, which is based on not only laws but their critical interpretation depending on the context.
Personal jurisdiction refers to the court’s jurisdiction over individuals based on the evidence related to their case. It is opposed to subject-matter jurisdiction, in which the court has jurisdiction over the law relevant to the case (Dodson, 2019). Personal jurisdiction proved to be useful in dealing with Internet legal cases. For example, it provides power for US attorneys to sue a website owner who is located outside the country (FindLaw Attorney Writers, 2008). The US attorneys possess the right to bring the company owner to court if a particular international company impacts American citizens through advertising and illegal practices.
References
Dodson, S. (2019). Civil Procedure: Personal Jurisdiction and Aggregation. The Judges’ Book, 3(1), 6.
Ethic. (2021). Merriam-Webster. Web.
FindLaw Attorney Writers (2008). Jurisdiction in Cyberspace. FindLaw. Web.
Hazard, G. C. (1995). Law, morals, and ethics. Southern Illinois University Law Journal, 19, 447–458.