Abstract
Several conflicting philosophic positions attempt to describe the appropriate relationship between morality and the law. Relevant legal theories include political anarchism, legal naturalism, and legal positivism. Political anarchism, which is grounded in moral claims of individual liberties, has its roots in the fear of an oppressive state; it advocates individual liberty and bases human flourishing on the ideal of a non-coercive consensus. Legal naturalism is derived by reason from the nature of man who is expressed as having been created by God. The introduction of religiously derived legal doctrine is problematic. Legal positivism, a reaction to legal naturalism seeks to avoid metaphysical and moral beliefs that are inaccessible to objective proof; it does not believe the law should be influenced by moral considerations. Three horrific laws that affected slaves, American Indians, and Jews illustrate the dangers of law when moral consideration is considered irrelevant.
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Steinberg, D. (2020). Morality and the Law. In: The Multidisciplinary Nature of Morality and Applied Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45680-1_8
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