Law vs. Ethics

People that work with laws every day know that it isn’t an exact science. The reason is not that it has a lot of issues or that it is always affected by politics, instead the main reason is the human factor. People end up changing their minds and everyone one makes mistakes at some point. For example, in legal situations the information that is collected could be incorrect or made up. That is the main reason why law and ethics go side by side. Most people want to make the correct decision whenever it comes to something that deals with law and ethics. When people look at something that is illegal, they automatically see it as unethical. However, whenever something is legal people think that it is ethical. Law is a system of rules of human conduct created by society but enforced by public authority. Being able to understand what is right or what is wrong, plus the ability to recognize the difference between them is called ethics. To have a successful business, employers need to have intensive ethical values as well as an organizational culture run on a set of ethical principles. As a matter of fact, the ethical issue is very important because it could certainly affect stakeholders who are interested in the company. Furthermore, if an organization has high values in terms of ethics, the impression that the stakeholder obtains will be the key in building a trust relationship convincing them stay in the organization longer. Finally, to gain a good reputation in society it is

Ethics is developing a way of determining what values ought to be-how we ought to act embraces characteristics of honesty, fairness, compassion and integrity. Law is rules created by the governing body of a society to maintain harmony, stability and justice in that society. Ethics and law are exactly same in that ethics is what one should or should not do according to principles or norms of conduct. Ethics codes are not produced by democratically elected legislatures and the enforcement mechanisms are usually informal, may be complex and even unconscious. Whereas law is what one must do or must not do according to legal dictates. Laws are created by democratically elected legislatures in democracies and it comes with explicit penalties for infractions and a formal enforcement system.

The dilemma/ethical issue that arises out of this case is in the hands of Jill Lassiter. She is the newly appointed executive director of a charity dedicated to helping single mothers called Good Works for Women. She must get the financial statements in order so that they satisfy Ms. Lyndelle Oakes, the organization’s largest donor. Jill must decide whether to restate her budget using faulty estimates or to be honest about the organization’s difficulties and face losing a crucial donation.

In the United States, the legal system is also called the adversary system. Ethics basically implies the moral philosophy of defining what is wrong and what is right. It is very essential in everyone's life as it helps one to choose what course of action to take in a certain situation. Ethics contain some key elements including standard of value which helps one to compare the actual goals and achievement with the set ones (Dutelle, 2011). Also, ethics should not only consider the emergency situation but also the everyday activities. Generally, there are three major types of ethics namely Meta ethics, normative ethics and applied ethics. Meta ethics is a field within ethics that focus on how people understand, know about, and what they mean when they talk about what is right and what is wrong. Normative ethics is the study of what makes any action wrong or

Law is but a grounded moral imperative. Morality day by day was simply being respectful of others. But that meant a great many things. Respect varied greatly. An action might be completely fine with someone, and completely rude to another.

Debbie: Just because something is legal does not necessarily mean ethical. Laws are generally about social convections referred to as rules or norms we engage in without thinking much about it and these are not always ethical so in turn human laws are not necessarily always ethical either. In fact there is no connection between the two (Elder & Paul, n.d.).

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr (1963:5) states, “the law embodies the story of a nation development through many centuries. The law reflects the intellectual, social, economic, and political climate of its time.” According to the book Law and Society, written by Steven Vago. The law is all walks of life it governs and exists in our every action. Laws protect the spouse, children, private and public property, political, legal system, businesses and social institution. The law originates to protect citizens from injustice events and punish individuals who committed unlawful acts. Sociology and law are concerned with norms rules that prescribe the appropriate behavior for people in a given situation. (Vago, 2011, pg. 3). The law is to embody rules of

Law and morality work together to guide our behavior; while law does it by punishing us if we do something wrong, morality does it through incentives. In their articles, both H.L.A Hart in “Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals,” and Lon Fuller’s reply to professor Hart in “Positivism and Fidelity to Law,” discuss the concept of law post world war II Germany and their re-imagining of natural law as put forth by Gustav Radbruch’s theory. In this paper, I hope to show how both law and morality is needed to create just rules, more specifically drawing from the “grudge informer” case mentioned in Hart’s article. First, I will explain the dilemma of the “grudge informer” case and the contradicting theory laid down by Radbrunch’s.

“Brad is a production engineer at a bicycle company and part of his job includes inspecting broken bikes and drafting the design repairs for their repair” (Bartlett). Brad is considering replacing a broken brake cable with a more durable material, even though the customer did not request it in their order and specifically requested that “No aesthetic changes be made to the bike” (Bartlett). Brad’s manager suggests that his considered actions would go against the company’s policy of “The customer is always right.” Should Brad disobey the manager and the customer to possibly lose his job or go along with

Ethics and law do not always go hand in hand. Not every law is ethical, and even if a law is considered ethical on its surface, it may result in unethical outcomes. "Ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues.”

When it comes to large sums of money, it is not uncommon for the spender to feel they have been ripped off or become over protected. The practice of law is no exception to this phenomenon, and crocked lawyers and paralegals have negatively contributed to the notion. On several occasions law professionals have taken client money for personal use, acting against the law and rules of professional conduct. Although lawyers and paralegals have their own individual rules and guidelines to abide by, they follow the same professional structure of proper conduct. The rules of conduct for paralegals is governed by the Law Society of Upper Canada and is the governing body responsible for reports of misconduct. Further investigations will lay out the proper procedures and tasks that must be completed when a paralegal encounters an accusations of misconduct, specifically when a client accuses a paralegal of misappropriating money from the clients trust fund. When it comes to possible options it is important to remember that by proactively sending a report of the circumstance to the Law Society of Upper Canada with a detailed list of events, bookkeeping and accounts billed to the client will help your case prior to the client reporting you to the Law Society. Should a paralegal choose to ignore the threat of the client, in hopes that the client will not follow through with higher involvement, the paralegal will then face an audit by the Law Society. If the Law Society is apprised that the

When discussing the relationship between law and ethics a lot of things are taken in consideration. But the first thing is to know what each of them mean. In some ways law plays a role in ethical values, while some laws can be influenced by ethical values.

Since we were kids and became conscious of our surrounding, our parents and grandparents instilled in us an awareness of what is right and wrong. In other words, it is a trait of all human beings and fosters from our desire to get along with each other to live a harmonious life. Laws are a set of rules and behaviors set by governments that society illustrate on what people can or cannot do. The purpose of this paper is three-fold: it will identify and define what distinguishes law from ethics and what similarities they share. The second is an analysis of examples of where law and ethics either meet or diverge. Third is the role where law and ethics either meet or diverge.

According to Reference.com (2007), law is defined as: “rules of conduct of any organized society, however simple or small, that are enforced by threat of punishment if they are violated. Modern law has a wide sweep and regulates many branches of conduct.” Essentially law is the rules and regulations that aid in governing conduct,

In every political society it is the law which contributes to its civilized character, but law is the handmaid of social justice, rendering in the interest of society that which is according to law and to which a person or persons are entitled.