Gardner says that “Morality is gappy and sometimes needs a law to help fill in the gaps. But the same is also true in reverse.” Laws are a set of guidelines formed to direct a group of people or an organization on what is allowed and not authorized. Morality is a set of personal directing ethics for a general opinion on how to behave, whether respectable or not. Gardener says that some gaps in morality need to be occupied by the law. Laws have ethical assertions, and when these assertions become successful, they become ethical goals, and when the goals are achieved, the law becomes morally vindicated.
The nature of the law will justify whether it is worth keeping. Some laws have a moral influence on those who are obliged to follow them. For example, when a law justified by morality is used to grant power to someone, that person has to change and abide by the law. In that case, the law has occupied a gap that was left by morality. Gardener also says that when an authorized rule becomes part of morality, there is a way that the administrators and sources of law also become executives of morality. By being executives of morality, they will want the law to be followed to exercise moral authority.
Some people may argue that morally justified laws are a duplicate of what morality has thought. For example, people may have a reason not to use drugs because they may affect me mentally and my health status. The law terms the drugs illegal, but their being illegal or legal does not matter because people around still use them even if they are illegal. My willingness to accept the law matters because it will help me stay away from drugs. In this case, the regulation’s involvement is morally warranted because it will enable us to do better than what morality has allowed. The law will come in to occupy any gap left by morality. People may decide to use the drug because they are available and their friends are using knowing very well that they are harmful to their mental stability. They will stop the moment they will remember that it is against the law to use these drugs.
Morality may have silent questions or internal battles when needed by someone to make decisions. Law also provides ways to do what morality has permitted us to do. Gardener says that the law adds to the tactics of solving problems and also adds to our wisdom. It also helps us to make strong decisions. A permitted rule naturally repeats the content of an ethical custom that occurs individually but alters the right costs of failure to obey it. This is another way that the law has made morally upright interventions, therefore, adding principles. It is vital to note that not all law contributions are morally justified because people are the lawmakers. Hence, they are not restricted to choosing morality alone. Morally unacceptable laws may support some situations. In such cases, we should treat the law with respect. It deserves to be on the safe side of the authority.
