On The Relationship Between Morality And Law

The relationship between morality and law is one of the basic issues of the philosophy of law. Whether morality and law have essential connection or not, the school of natural law believes that morality and law have substantial connection. Moral principle, which is not only the ultimate foundation of the drafting of law but also the highest standard of appraising the stand or fall of law, is the matter of natural law. The school of positive jurisprudence believes that morality and law have no necessary connection. Morality factors cannot participate in law where only lies in positive law, but no such thing as natural law at all. Reviewing from the angle of history, we know morality produce earlier than law. Morality originated from original tabu and rite, but law confirmed the basic ethics at first, then separated from morality and obtained independent form. The separation needed hereinafter-historical condition: the disorganization of community and the generalization of intercourse, the separation of profit and the formation of many entity groups, the rise of civil society. Morality and law have difference and connection, as two aspects of the human normative world, and also have some common factors: justice, obligation and universality. In realism, morality and law support each other, but this support must hold proper limit.