Moral and law

Abstract

The philosophical problem of relations between the realm of moral life and that of the legal world is bestified by serious and serious difficulties, from many different points of view.
The mere fact that I have chosen as the heading of these reflections the terms "moral" and "law" is a first example of the semantic inaccuracy of the subject. I could also have chosen the "ethics" and "right" ones to refer to the same set of reasoning, but from very different budgets. Simplistically, the term of morality refers more to the community heteronism values that govern behavior, while ethics emphasize the individually internalized values that determine behavior; on the other hand, morality is often more linked to emotional life, where as ethics are usually based on critical, eminently rational and autonomous discourse.
The same is the case with the terms "right" and "law". Talking about law implies a conception of the nature of man and the cosmos that excludes today's most influential view of legal positivism. I have preferred to use the term "law" here so as not to anticipate taking sides, from the beginning of this discussion, in favor of a particular philosophical position; I think the term "law" is simpler and more intelligible to everyone.
Actually, I'd rather start with a terminology taken out as a sociology loan. I think the most universal term "norm," as a behavioral paradigm, is more appropriate for me. And following William Graham Sumner1's classification of folkloric, moral and legal norms, we can try to elucicide the field to be covered in this work.