Conscience Vs Law

[Mathor]

I was not sure exactly where to put this. The question is, if you disagree with a law, why do you follow it if obeying such a law would be in fact a sin by your own moral standards.

Does the law change our conscience? When normally we'd see something as just, would we then change our conscience to believe it was wrong because the law told us we should do this?

How do you feel about this?

[Gladys]

Does the law change our conscience?

Never! But the consequence of breaking a law may give us pause.

[virginiawang]

Mental health laws have been taken as weapons to persecute people with by psychiatrists and family members of the victims around the globe for quite a long time.

[Granny5]

The only laws that I can think of that would go against my conscience are the stupid sodomy laws in various states here in the U.S. If I were a gay man and lived in a state with such laws, I'd break them because I consider them unconstitutional.

[blazeofglory]

Law is birthed from conscience. Conscience tells us what is good and bad. And what is good and bad is a relative matter.

Laws are good as long as they are framed in our favor. And the same laws are bad if they are not in our favor.

[Lokasenna]

Its probably one of my worse personality habits, but my conscience is my absolute moral guide... if I disagree with a law, then I ignore it and break it anyway. Take speed limits for example: they are so utterly arbitrary that I have no desire to be held by them, and thus I drive at a speed that I deem safe, be it above or below the state sanctioned one.

[ennison]

For fun identify this quote
"The one thing that does not abide by majority rule is a person's conscience"

[Granny5]

I believe it is a quote from Atticus in To Kill A Mockingbird.

[soundofmusic]

There are laws, even in countries where we feel we have total freedom, which interfer with our own sense of morality; I can think of two, both are US examples:

1. A woman, Terry Schiavo, was in a questionable state of consciousness.
She opened her eyes and smiled when her parents visited her. After 7
years in this state; her husband petitioned to have her feeding tube
removed. By law, it was removed and reinserted twice; anyone who tried
to feed her was arrested. She died of starvation and dehydration almost 2 weeks after feeding was discontinued.

If you were the medical professionals, would you have disobeyed this law?

2. Elian Gonzalez was brought to the United States by his mother; who died
in route from Cuba. He stayed with his family in South Florida. After some
pressure from the Cuban government, claiming Elians natural father wanted
him to return; a swat team was sent into the families home where they
grabbed the hiding boy, by force, and returned him to Cuba.

If you were one of the swat team, what would your conscience dictate?

[Hurricane]

If you break the law for moral reasons that's great, but be ready to accept the consequences.

[blazeofglory]

Law is made by man and the origin of it is when man wanted to etrench a system in the tribal community so that the rest got oblized to it,

Today laws are framed by people in power and they represent the people they make laws for. But this is nowhere implimented fully and in point of fact people in power can always break them thru amendments.

[Mathor]

If you break the law for moral reasons that's great, but be ready to accept the consequences.

indeed. Martin Luther King and other such law-breakers for moral good served were imprisoned. To stand up against the law means going to prison in many cases.

[Lokasenna]

indeed. Martin Luther King and other such law-breakers for moral good served were imprisoned. To stand up against the law means going to prison in many cases.

If you look at it objectively, the founding fathers of America were criminals - the signing of the Declaration of Independece constituted high treason to the Crown, the worst possible crime one can commit under British law. However, I don't think anyone on either side of the Pond would suggest (at least today) that such an action wasn't justifiable and, indeed, understandable.

[Virgil]

There are laws, even in countries where we feel we have total freedom, which interfer with our own sense of morality; I can think of two, both are US examples:

1. A woman, Terry Schiavo, was in a questionable state of consciousness.
She opened her eyes and smiled when her parents visited her. After 7
years in this state; her husband petitioned to have her feeding tube
removed. By law, it was removed and reinserted twice; anyone who tried
to feed her was arrested. She died of starvation and dehydration almost 2 weeks after feeding was discontinued.

If you were the medical professionals, would you have disobeyed this law?

2. Elian Gonzalez was brought to the United States by his mother; who died
in route from Cuba. He stayed with his family in South Florida. After some
pressure from the Cuban government, claiming Elians natural father wanted
him to return; a swat team was sent into the families home where they
grabbed the hiding boy, by force, and returned him to Cuba.

If you were one of the swat team, what would your conscience dictate?

Both those laws were travesties to justice. I would have disobeyed both. They can fire me, but I would have done neither.

[blazeofglory]

Laws are consciences enforced and consciences are programs parents or elders instill in the younger and nothing more

[The Comedian]

Conscience, to me at least, is a guide for all those everyday decisions that I have to make.

Law, to me, is a guide for social behavior. People give law a lot of grief, but in most cases, it's a good guide for social behavior -- a guide that needs tweaking from time to time of course, but good.

[blazeofglory]

Laws are good or bad depending upon which geopolitical environment one is in. In a totalitarian country laws are tools for governing people and laws are in the hands of ruling classes and are not framed or legislated by people’s representative or by any principled and constitutional bodies. They are made any time and broken at the whims of the dictators. Therefore I hardly believe that laws are things that are always made and enforced in the interests of the people

[Mathor]

Well as Henry David Thoreau said "Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is in a prison."

[blazeofglory]

In point of fact I want to say that laws are more often than not made to suit particular communities or peoples and mostly they have not benefited people who have been wronged and if laws have punished any criminals they have committed crimes of small nature, big criminals always escape or they are kind of patronized by some political figures. This world is really a place of powerful criminals and criminals even dictate laws and constitutions urging legislators to legislate or frame laws in their favors. We now even military attacks over country takes places in the interests of businessmen.

Therefore deep down I feel at times it is consciences that are more reliable than laws. And if we obey consciences they are likely to give us right decisions, but do we really obey

[loki456]

so now we are talking about justice!
consciousness, morality and law... statements about this don't follow predicated logic, now why would I bring up predicated logic. a guideline for producing a sound statement, it was aristotle who defined such logic, and it was aristotle who initiated the sense of social justice, he obviously had his nay sayers, but it is his literature that has been passed down and followed to this day in western society. his sense of social justice was sub-divided into distributive and corrective - corrective being the fundemental element of this discussion.

however, where the lines get blurred is that a society is made up of individuals. in medicine there is a term known as 'herd immunity' that is, one unimmunised individual can break the effect of immunisations for the whole community - take that statement to mean whatever you will, I just found it very thought provoking when applied to this discussion. in this setting justice mitigates the individual and their individuality is not taken into consideration, even though aristotles 'law of equality' pertains to distributive justice, i think it can be applied here. this law states 'that equals should be treated equally and unequals, unequally according to the proportion of the equality and inequality' where injustic occurs is when equals are treated unequal, and unequals are treated equally. however, this still relates to a social norm.

Socratese maintains this about 'individual justice' - simply put justice is 'one minding his own business', a fantastic and simplistic look at justice. however, it also raises its own questions. I think the problem becomes how do I merge my individual justice, with that of social justice. not merely conscious vs law - the two do not predicate each other, I.e if a=b and b=c then a=c.

i like to think of ethics like this.... lets ascertain for a second that the four greatest ethical principles (and in medicine these are the four ethical principles that doctors should follow and undergo quite loosely on ethical boards), non-malificence, beneficence, autonomy and justice. now many people would agree that this can cause some confusion, how can we produce in some circumstances a benefit without doing harm. e.g. we need to take blood to work out the problem, yet the needle causes harm' oh my what a quandry, whatever am I meant to do? the truth is, justice comes into play. this says, well the study of the human body and its disease state and how to fix the associated problems is my business, so I am justified in doing these tests. so what we find is that justice is the referee between beneficence and non-malifecence. where this falls apart and is the bane of western doctors world wide, is autonomy. this is the patients free will to decide based on informed choices what he/she will allow to happen. therefore even though I am justified in taking this blood, if the patient says NO, then it cannot happen. ouch, take that science!

I read before posting this about psychiatric laws, i'm not sure about the laws where that poster originates from, but here in australia we have two fundementally important psych laws, firstly is the involuntary treatment order (ITO) and secondly the forensic treatment order (FTO). so for people who do not understand, these orders simply force a patient to undergo confinement and/or treatment. having been apart of the preceedings as a younger medical student, I know for a fact these orders are not handed out willy nilly. they are strictly governed by a group of peers, a lawyer, a psychiatrist, a member of the public and a second psychiatrist to ascertain whether the diagnose meets diagnostic criteria.

now, here is what will blow your mind, after this light discussion on medical ethics, does the psychiatric patient on a ITO, actually have autonomy to begin with. the arguement that most people use who oppose these orders is that, they rob the patient of their right to free choice. My argument is that their disease has already robbed them of that, how can you tell me with evidence based medicine as your reasoning that the patient, given informed choices and without the mental disorder will make the same decision? you can't, so with public safety in mind, these orders are a must, and I believe they don't violate ethical principles (people can argue this point, and I don't claim to be right, just my opinion)

therefore in society our justice, should be that of our business, that is, as a dr my business is that of a dr, not a businessman or a butcher provided I use my justice to treat people according to the law of equality. in private, my justice is whatever I want it to be, as long as it doesn't interrupt the justice of those around me, eg, family, girlfriends etc etc. again this is my opinion, and it is a simple guide to peaceful living. if you want change, that is when your justice, overrides social justice.

[soundofmusic]

Both those laws were travesties to justice. I would have disobeyed both. They can fire me, but I would have done neither.

Good man, Virgil, I was a little confused with the Elian case because his father was asking for him and there was some threat to the US, still, the whole swat thing was terrible.
The Terry Schiavo, It was horrible.
Oh, yes, what about the Waco, Texas incident.


Laws are good or bad depending upon which geopolitical environment one is in. In a totalitarian country laws are tools for governing people and laws are in the hands of ruling classes and are not framed or legislated by people’s representative or by any principled and constitutional bodies. They are made any time and broken at the whims of the dictators. Therefore I hardly believe that laws are things that are always made and enforced in the interests of the people

Absolutely Blaze, I believe that everyone; no matter what country they live in, should listen with their eyes, ears...keep a history of our politicians words, compare their promises at the beginning of their service to what is delivered.
So often I hear politicians refer to people who have been made heros long after their service has ended, long after they are dead, in fact, and people have very short memories and often believe anything delivered in a desirable package.

[ennison]

Quite correct Granny 5. Are you a granny of 5?