Legality vs. Morality

I'd like to discuss the difference between legality and morality. Legal, according to Princeton University's WordNet, is, "established by or founded upon law or official or accepted rules." Note that the main indicator to legality is the fact that it is, of course, required by law. Moral, on the other hand, is defined by WordNet as, "concerned with principles of right and wrong or conforming to standards of behavior and character based on those principles."

Morality is highly subjective (some groups find music and dancing to be highly immoral, while others see these same things as an integral part of their religious worship). Further, it is based on a specific factor that is lacking in the definition of legal: the component of choice and free will. To quote the historian William H. Prescott in his History of the Conquest of Peru,

"Where there is no free agency, there can be no morality. Where there is no temptation, there can be little claim to virtue. Where the routine is rigorously proscribed by law, the law, and not the man, must have the credit of the conduct."

The gist of this is simple: when you try to enforce morality with law, you remove the very component which defines morality in the first place. A person who does not use drugs because it is "against the law," therefore, is not making a moral decision - only an obedient one. In contrast, a person who illegally carries a concealed weapon when with his family in a crime-ridden neighborhood is not making an immoral choice, only disobeying a law that he believes puts his family in danger.

Here we come to the paradox that I see in legislating morality. I would posit that an act which discourages morality is itself immoral - which, ironically enough, means that those who try to enforce their moral views with laws are themselves behaving in an immoral manner.