Law And Morality: Difference And Influence

Oscar Wilde, a renowned poet and playwright from the 19th century, was convicted of Sodomy and ‘gross indecency’. Under the Criminal Law Ammendment Act 1885, Wilde was sentenced to two years hard labour- whilst incarcerated.

The Labouchere Amendment amended the CLAA 1885, prohibiting all homosexual acts between males done in private or in public. The Act stated that any male who commits, and/or is a party to the offence, would be guilty of a misdemeanor. It’s stated that the accused would be liable ‘at the discretion of the court to be imprisoned for any term exceeding two years, with or without hard labour’.2 This amendment was due to the influence of religious morality on the legislation. This section of the essay will explore law and morality, and how they impinge on each other.

The definitions of ‘law’ and ‘morality’ have evolved over time. In the 21st century the consensus is that the law is essentially a ‘system of rules’ that regulates the behaviour of its members, by enforcing penalties for actions deemed harmful or unacceptable.3 The noun ‘morality’ is derived from the Latin word ‘mos’- which means custom/habit/manner etc.4 Morality relates to the individual conduct that one accepts for himself as appropriate.

There are three key differences between law and morality:

  • Firstly, the main factor that differentiates morality from law is that morality is subjective and reflective of personal conduct; in contrast to law which is an objective entity actively enforced on all members of the society in which it is laid. However, Natural Law Theorists have argued that law and morality are connected, and that the validity of the law is dependent on morality. This idea is called the ‘Overlap Thesis’.
  • Secondly, law is primarily concerned with the actions of its members, particularly those that are considered detrimental to themselves or others. Morality is generally about the personal belief system of individuals. Although, ones beliefs are likely to influence their outward behaviour- and therefore their inclination to abide the law or deviate from those rules. This is seen in criminal law, where by the motives of the criminal- ‘mens rea’6, are factors that are considered in their sentencing.
  • Lastly, the law is regulated by bodies of the state, and penalties can be enforced for deviation from the law of the land. In contrast to morality, which is generally down to individual freedom of thought, belief and expression, which in fact is a crime to infringe on. However, this is complex as there are laws that also regulate individual morality, by prohibiting any speech/actions that are considered discrimination.

Overall, law is a man made system of defined rules that derive from predetermined legal rules-i.e Case Law, and morality is more adaptable and susceptible to change. Although, there are areas of law that have been impacted by morality; such as Homosexuality, Abortion, and Euthanasia.

Homosexual practise has likely been present in society prehistorically. However, as heterosexuality was the dominant practise, homosexuality was not the accepted consus. It was deemed unnatural, morally corrupt, and was abhorred. In pre-modern Britain this was largely due to lack of religious freedom for individuals, as it played a large role in society and heresy or deviation from the accepted religious practise was punishable. Under Henry VIII, the Buggery Act of 15338 outlawed homosexuality- described as ’sodomy’ in the bible.

As society became more modern, and diversity has became more universal, attitudes towards religion became more liberal and this ultimately impacted legislation. Religious freedom also lead to a shift in the morality regarding homosexuality as people were given the freedom of thought and expression without fear of persecution. Also, as prominent figures in society came out as members of the LGBT community, this changed attitudes/’morale’ towards homosexuality and encouraged change. This is arguably what shifted the narrative of homosexuality and encouraged the state to change legislation, to adapt to modern society and the radical change that was taking over. This is shown in the way that under David Cameron, a Conservative PM ,and evangelical Christian, same sex marriage was introduced11; and discrimination against individuals for their sexuality was criminalised.12 This shows that morality changed, even amongst Conservatives, who are predominantly religious.

Although Christian churches are increasingly embracing the LGBT community and becoming more liberal in their religious morality13 this is still a slow progression, as evidenced by the Ashers Bakery case.14 Nonetheless, it is evident that morality in relation to homosexuality has changed drastically since the 19th century- when Oscar Wilde was convicted.

Since the Victorian Era, the LGBT community is now recognised in English Law and homosexuality have been given the same rights as heterosexuals, such as: sexual freedom15, marriage rights16, adoption rights17, and are protected against discrimination. This is largely due to religious freedom, but also the Renaissance period- known as the ‘Age of Enlightenment’; that saw a surge in artistic expression and challenged the social constructs of gender.

Overall, wether morality playing a part in the change in the law of homosexuality is a controversial topic. If the law is influenced by morality, and (as has been established)morality is adaptable, this can create uncertainty in the law. This is why we have precedent. However, the adaptability of morality can be advantageous in keeping up with modern society. The issue is allowing moral freedom, without infringing on the rights of others, as evidenced in the Ashers Baking case.

The Reproductive Rights of women is also an area of English law which has been impacted by religious morality. This is due to the fact that in most religions denominations, particularly Catholicism, taking another life or terminating pregnancy is playing God and ‘gravely contrary to moral law’.19 However, in the 1960’s there was a rise in ‘back street abortions’ which was unsafe and detrimental to women.20 As a result of the moral corruption, it was evident there was a fault in the law. The Abortion Act 196721 was introduced, as an ammendment of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.22 Due to medical advancement, abortions were able to be done more safely and this impacted legislation- this is shown in the 1981 Royal College of Nursing case.

Similarly to Abortion, law relating to assisted suicide has also been impacted by morality. The moral consensus is that taking another life, regardless of motivation, is unacceptable. It only matters that there was intent.24 However, in circumstances where it is not morally appropriate to continue treatment which does nothing to salvage the life of an individual, but perpetuates suffering- discontinuing treatment is lawful. This is shown in the Airedale N.H.S Trust case.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WEBSITES

  1. https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private- lives/relationships/collections1/sexual-offences-act-1967/1885-labouchere-amendment/1885-labouchere- amendment/ (Accessed 04/11/2018)
  2. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/law (Accessed 04/11/2018) http://latin-dictionary.net/definition/27301/mos-moris (Accessed 04/11/2018) https://www.iep.utm.edu/natlaw/ (Accessed 04/11/2018)
  3. https://www.allaboutlaw.co.uk/stage/study-help/criminal-law-actus-reus-mens-rea (Accessed 04/11/2018) https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-buggery-act-1533 (Accessed 04/11/2018)
  4. https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Sodomy (Accessed 04/11/2018) https://www.believeoutloud.com/background/christianity-and-lgbt-equality (Accessed 04/11/2018)
  5. https://www.christian.org.uk/case/ashers-baking-company/ (Accessed 04/11/2018) http://www.futurescopes.com/dating/gay-dating/3230/homosexuality-renaissance-period (Accessed 04/11/2018)
  6. http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/christianethics/abortion_1.shtml (Accessed 04/11/2018)
  7. https://www.1900s.org.uk/1900s-abortion.htm (Accessed 04/11/2018) https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/about-sentencing/types-of-sentence/life-sentences/ (Accessed 06/11/2018)
  8. https://fullfact.org/crime/reoffending-short-sentences/ (Accessed 06/11/2018)

BOOKS

  1. Jacqueline Martin, OCR LAW for AS, Third Edition.

The Morality Development In Kohlberg’s Heinz And The Drug

Today, it seems that people live as puppets to society. While most agree that this issue deserves attention, consensus dissolves on how to tackle the problem and how a common ground can be found. Using logic, an entity attempts on how moral values could help determine what is right and what is wrong in a personal situation or any situation for that matter. Morality impacts people’s interactions with the environment because of moral obligations and environmental ethics. People could also describe moral identity as a dependency linked to various social and cultural obligations. People also argue that Western morals emphasize morality that is personally oriented, while people from Eastern cultures find socially oriented as being a higher mean. Using Kohlberg’s stages and his “Heinz and the Drug” scenarios, the six different stages of Moral Development and the individual reasoning behind them is discussed as well as the moral reasoning behind them.

Morality relates to a belief system about what’s correct and right compared to what’s incorrect or wrong. Moral development relates to modifications in moral convictions as an individual grows older and matures. “Moral development is the process through which children develop proper attitudes and behaviors toward other people in society, based on social and cultural norms, rules, and laws.” (‘Moral Development – symptoms, stages, Definition, Description, Common problems,’ n.d.) People could also describe moral identity as a dependency linked to various social and cultural obligations. People also argue that Western morals emphasize morality that is personally oriented, while people from Eastern cultures find socially oriented as being a higher mean. Moral values relate to the principles that guide people throughout his/her lives. From childhood to adulthood, people keep on learning and transforming his/her selves and so do his/her morals. Moral values are important in life because if a person has never learned about moral values then how can he/she chooses between the good and the bad. Moral values can also reflect the character and spirituality of an individual. These values can help in personal as well as professional lives to build good relationships. Moral values can help eradicate problems from one’s life such as dishonesty, violence, cheating, jealousy. Not only that, they can counteract poor social influences such as disregard for females, child abuse, violence, crimes, agitations. They can help you cope with difficult life circumstances. They can be a key to motivating themselves. Morality is setting a good example before others in my private view. In spiritual terms, it is often said that setting a good example is the greatest service you can render to society. Regardless of the scenario or opportunities, it could be in any sector.

Moral values are often personal. He or She loses the very objective of morality if he/she becomes a fundamentalist of moral values. Every individual comes from within his/her own moral values and should not be forcefully compelled down one’s throat. Children may be subjected to certain morality norms, but if he/she attempts to restrict his/her creativity and imagination through the unnecessary bindings of morality, it will not serve any purpose. Individual morality begins with oneself and in one’s existence there may be fresh and comparatively distinct ideas of individual moralities. Obviously, social morality has certain code of behavior and moral values in the community in which one lives. One should attempt as much as necessary to pursue them. Universal morality or a universal approach is required when it comes to spirituality. He/She can not only worry about his/her own self. The concept of being a universal being and not a local chapter has to be opened up.

Kohlberg, an American psychologist developed six stages of moral development. He used “Piaget’s storytelling technique to tell people stories involving moral dilemmas. “Kohlberg’s (1969) stage theory of moral development served this task for decades by investigating how moral reasoning influences moral behaviors in hypothetical situations. While Kohlberg’s theory provided insight about the development of moral reasoning skills, his theory is limited because moral reasoning alone is not a strong predictor of moral action.” (‘Recognizing Moral Identity as a Cultural Construct,’ n.d.) In each case, he presented a choice to be considered, for example, between the rights of some authority and the needs of some deserving individual who is being unfairly treated.” (‘Kohlberg – Moral Development,’ 2008) Obedience and Punishment Orientation or stage one reflects that of moral thought. The child remains good to avoid being punished. This stage is also considered a level one or Preconventional Morality which relates to children younger than the age of nine not having a code of personal morality. In this level, the child believes that a predetermined set of rules is enforced by influential authorities that he or she must obey. Individualism and Exchange or stage two is where children understand that there is not only one correct view provided by authorities, but that different people have different outlooks. These stages are both considered a level one where children in both stages realize punishment, yet they perceive it differently. Stage one punishment is associated with wrongness in the mind of the child such as punishment proves it is wrong to disobey and stage two on the other hand, punishment would be viewed as a threat the child wants to avoid. Stage two would still be considered preconventional though because the children speak as individualized rather than members of society. Next Kohlberg moves to a level two, Conventional Morality. At this level internalization values of moral standards are realized but not questioned. Good Interpersonal Relationships or stage three begins this level. This stage of children is usually teens that believe people should live up to family and community standards and act right. Next in this level comes Maintaining the Social Order or stage four where the person is more cognitive of the law and abiding by them. Level three or Post Conventional Morality defines itself as moral reasoning which is based on individual rights and justice. Social Contract and Individual Rights or stage five is more of a questioning stage where people begin to realize different group have different values and morals. Finally, we have Universal Principles or stage six. This stage relates to values that will be in most agreement whether or not it fits the laws. A great example here could be perceived as political.

Moral values vary with each individual however, when it comes to a dying stranger an individual should not be overly greedy. “Moral values are the standards of good and evil, which govern an individual’s behavior and choices. Individual’s morals may derive from society and government, religion, or self.” (‘Moral Values,’ 2005) A common ground could be found in said drugs or even payment plan option should be available. To allow a person to die is essentially being in stage six and having no moral values, not caring at all, cold. Typically, culture does impact how we “see” the effectiveness of moral values. This goes back directly to parenting styles and the normality about parenting practices affect how kids are brought up. These standards influence what beliefs and values parents teach his/her kids, what behaviors are deemed suitable, and how these values and behaviors are taught as well. Culture also changes how parenting is perceived by the environment in which kids are brought up in. Culture is dwindled down to how kids are grown by his/her parents in distinct cultural situations to act differently. Parents’ habits also impact his/her intellectual, physical, social, and emotional growth considerably. Culture also seemingly plays such a large role in the perception of ‘cold’ or ‘warm’ because society impacts parental forms and behavior. Parents do not parent the way they used to because of morality and kids are essentially “bubble wrapped”.

Morality impacts people’s interactions with the environment because of moral obligations and environmental ethics. Morals seem to be shaped by religion, culture influences, parenting styles, and sociality. Any more people as a whole are negatively impacted with obligations to society, living up to the typical American standards. What happened to self-identity? People learn the majority of morals from a young age stemming throughout his/her lives. Weaker individuals are easily influenced and brainwashed essentially to believe whatever it is he/she is told. Today, it seems that people live as puppets to society. Using logic, an entity attempts to moral values could help determine what is right and what is wrong in a personal situation or any situation for that matter. Using the “Heinz and Drug” situation, the character traits and motives were awful. This storyline comes across as needy, greedy, only caring about oneself and not any other individual. Life should be more important than property or money.

In summary, Heinz should not steal the drug to avoid prison time and cooperate with obedience as in stage one. It is difficult to put into real perspective over a prison sentence or the death of a spouse however, if Heinz was only able to come up with half of the money for the drug it could be very easy to understand the thought of languishing in jail rather than the death of one’s spouse. In theory, Heinz could steal the drug, take the punishment for the crime as call actions have consequences, yet pay back what is owed. Some people focus on what is believed to be the best at his/her best interest or because culture and morality, people try to live up to expectations of the social role. The best choice of Kohlberg’s stages should be stage six, post conventional level of moral development and human rights. The belief that everyone needs to afford the medicine and be saved regardless of his/her resources. According to Kohlberg’s stages, reflection of this stage is that few people reach this point. Moral development tends to focus from infancy throughout adulthood on the appearance, improvement, and comprehension of morality. Morality also evolves throughout a lifespan and is affected by the perceptions and actions of a person when confronted with moral problems through the physical and cognitive growth of different periods. Morality involves the sense of what is right and what is wrong by an individual; it is for this reason that young children and adults have different moral judgement. Morality is often synonymous with “rightness” and “goodness” in itself. Morality refers to some code of conduct from one’s own community, faith, or personal philosophy that governs one’s acts, attitudes, and thoughts.

Spirituality For Morality

Throughout the centuries, there has always been a religion. The belief that there is a God that exists beyond ourselves has profound roots in society, a blessing or curse that humans have face for centuries. Even though from people’s perspective, religion is a dangerous way for manipulative people to lead weaker folks, religion is a true promoter of morality rather than individuals’ rational self-interest. Religion helps guide the lost and provide them with morals, as well as giving people a purpose in life.

Religion has long been positive influence on the world. It has impacted so many people’s lives that it has made them see a different, unique perspective in life. For instance a woman name Brooke Eagles, who is a member of the crow Indian tribe and a grandniece of the famous Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé, mentioned on a book she made about the love of God, and that she has had a relationship with God since her early. She states, “ As a child, my experience with God included everything- a love of the whole beauty around me (Eagles). Many people like her not only have a deep relationship with their God, but they are disciplined by morals they strictly follow. Religious people tend to not be distracted by either peer pressure or humanistic perspective. According to CASA, Adults who do not consider religious beliefs important are more than one and one-half times likelier to use alcohol and cigarettes, more than three times likelier to binge drink, almost four times likelier to use an illicit drug other than marijuana and more than six times likelier to use marijuana than adults who strongly believe that religion is important (Gerdes). Although some may think religion uses scare tactics to force people to act a certain way; God, religion and spirituality are key factors for many in prevention and treatment of substance abuse and in continuing recovery.

Furthermore, when it comes to people who are religious, they have the upper advantage when it comes to having wisdom. The influence of wisdom started in the west of the wisdom literature of the Hebrew people. It consists philosophical parts of the Old Testament that includes Job, Proverbs, and Psalms. Books that were written by many wise men who had relationship with their God, like for instance Moses (Branshard). Religious people are aware of the circumstances of the world that will help save them from sin. Individuals who trust in their own common sense will perish due to the lack of wisdom they contain. Religion lets people gain intelligence of not only their surroundings, but of wrongdoings of humanity. Religious people, whether they are Christians, Islamic, Buddhism, or Hinduism. Each religion have a bible they have as their book of wisdom. It has scriptures that will help guide you into the path of righteousness as religious people would say. Like for instance, in the bible it says love your neighbours as yourself , taking place in Mark chapter 12 verse 31(Bible). Or in philippians chapter 4 verse 13 it says,” I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me (Bible).” These types of scriptures are scriptures that will motivate you and have a kind heart towards people, as well as being aware of sins that are diffusing around the world.

Moreover, many people who are religious and attend church have specific beliefs that leads and controls them into a straight path, meaning having a unsinful healthy life as religious people infer. Some may say religious people are more likely to be judgmental and immortal, or that people hide behind the church and use God as an excuse to do unspeakable things. But throughout history, religion has marked moral advances

Does Morality Depend on Religion?

Introduction

The relationship between religious beliefs and morality is morality and religion. Many religions have useful mechanisms for personal conduct that direct followers in the determination of right or wrong. In this essay we will discuss that Is morality based on religion. Why does this happen? Can morality not depend on religion? Why not? Why not? Is it desirable to rely on religion on our moral rules and principles? Does it need to be? Many people think that the morality of most religious people derives from their faith. And people who are intensely religious should also wonder how atheists can have morals.

Explanation

The word ‘morality’ as in this entry is unlike ‘ethics.’ Philosophers at different times (Kant, Hegel, and later R.M. Hare and Bernardo Williams for instance) have drawn numerous parallels. Etymologically however the word ‘moral’ is derived from the Latin mos., meaning tradition, which is a Greek ethos translation which means almost the same and is the source of the word ‘ethics.’ The term is used for the latter. The two words are synonymous for contemporary non-technical use while ‘ethics’ is somewhat more technically oriented and correlated with the prescribed practices of many professions (for example, medical ethics). In either case, this entry suggests that morality is a collection of customs and practices influencing our thoughts about how to live or what a decent human life is. ‘Religion’ is very divisive. Again, from etymology, we can understand. I think values may be religious-based, but I also think they should not be religious-based. I do not think that people necessarily look at the morally correct or incorrect every day. It’s unusual for the people who do. It all depends on how an individual was brought up, learned, and evolved with or with people with whom they grew up. I believe it is desirable for those people who were raised in a religious household to believe that morality depends on faith. However, I do not think religion for religious reasons is important.

God is designed as a lawgiver, with laws that we are to follow, in the main theistic traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He is not pushing us to comply. We have been formed as free agents so that we can either follow or deny his commandments. But we must obey the rules of God if we are to live as we ought to live. Some theologians also evolved this idea into a theory of the essence of the right and the wrong, called the theory of the Divine Command. Frank Herbert, Children of Dune has beautifully said:

“To Suspect your Own Mortality is to Know the Beginning of Terror; To Learn Irrefutably that you are mortal is to Know the End of Terror.” In essence, this theory says that moral correctness means God’s order, and moral misguided means God’s forbidden. There are a few appealing aspects of this theory. The old issue of ethics is overcome instantly. Ethics is not just a matter of human emotions or social behaviours. It is perfectly objective whether anything is right: it is right if God commands it, wrong if God prohibits it. In addition, the Theory of Divine Order proposes an answer to the recurrent question of why anyone should have trouble with morality. Why don’t you ignore ethics and look after yourself? If immorality breaches the commandments of Heaven, there is a clear answer: you will be held accountable the day of final reckoning.

But there are significant theory issues, atheists cannot, of course, support this, because they do not believe that God exists. But also, for the faithful, there are difficulties. One can wonder how society is if there is no social moral code. It is like society. People will most certainly not feel remorse or anger. For example, in a society that does not comply with the social moral code, there will be no moral duty to remember a birthday or anniversary or that women have the right to fair pay and work. Obligations, obligations, and rights, maybe only in a legal context do not exist. The principles of equality and justice would not exist in a society without a moral code. In essence, people will not judge their own actions or blame others for their behaviour. The French philosopher Albert Camus asked me for his opinion on morality and gave a clear response: ‘When somebody told me to write a book on morality, it would take a hundred pages and 99 would be zero. On the last page I will write: ‘I know only one responsibility and that is to love.’ And for the rest, I say no.’ (Camus)

“You cannot believe in god until you believe in yourself.” It seems clear that without faith and moral code it is possible to live. Suppose these same people file into their worship site every day to pay homage to God (you may believe in many gods or a powerful creator of heaven and earth). Often you can hear yourself praying to God for support and praising Him for your good fortune. They also offer God sacrifices, often in the form of money used for the building of beautiful temples and churches, and sometimes by acts that they think that God would allow such support for those in need. If people derive their moral values from their conception of God, it may be more like thinking about God’s thoughts than about their own convictions.

So, from where, if not from religion, do our values come? This is a complex question: genetic and cultural elements tend to exist. Certainly, these cultural elements are influenced by religion. Even the athletes who always take up the mothers of their society are very affected by religions that they do not even attribute to. So, religion is not morals, it is only morals that influence religion. Religion is not religion as well. When granted moral dilemmas, atheists do not rate differently from religious people. Obviously, we have all got morals. Morality comes from the same position whether you are religious.

Conclusion

In the end, though many people feel religion-based to be a moral person, this is not the case. Morality and faith are not mutually dependent. Moral choices should be taken through rational consideration and recognition of the repercussions for unethical conduct, whether they be disgust, remorse, incarceration, or even the fear of God. Many people still feel that they do the right thing since it is only the right thing to do. The point of this dilemma is that the gods are irrelevant to the moral problem, either because they give arbitrary moral instructions, or because they apply to an independent standard of moral values that also is available to people. This last argument is a significant contribution to the general well-being of mankind from philosophy. In short, without religion, you can be healthy. Understanding this has freed people, religious or not with good thoughts so that they can unite in a more equal, fairer, and fairer world. They can do this generally by living a healthy life. They will do so more directly by promoting human rights and better world organizations. Thinking people know a long time ago that morality is separate from religion because it comes from human empathy and universal fellow feeling. This is a crucial mindset among those who recognize themselves as humanists.

Motivation And Morality

Every second of your life and every decision you make is being influenced by your motivation and your morality. These concepts are very important and very different for every individuals, every society, every organization and every country. Motivation is the need or reason to do something (“Cambridge English Dictionary”, z.d.). Job motivation is needed for an employee to correctly execute their tasks within the organization. Morality are the norms and values for a person. Values are on a more individual level and are about principles a person sticks to and norms are at a more national level and can be formal and informal.

Both Job motivation and morality is highly relevant in the public sector. It is important to keep the system running efficiently, to keep being trustworthy for the citizens and because they need to make laws, policies and rules. You could even argue that public official should have an exemplary function, because they have such a big function in a country and deal with the citizen’s living conditions and money.

In this paper the motivation and morality of a public servant will be discussed based on a interview with the program manager in the ministry of in ministry of infrastructure and water state, Inspection Living environment and Transportation (ILT). The name of the program manager is José van der Linden-Valkenburg and she has been working for the government for a long time. She studied governance and she worked in the second chamber as a public official for a long time. When she managed a big project in the second chamber and did this very successfully she was asked to work as program manager in the ILT.

The paper will be divided into two parts. The first part is about motivation and the second part is about morality.

Motivation

Why do public officials work for the government? Is it because of the security they get with it or is it because of the greed for more power? Motivation is different for everyone, but are very similar as well. Motivation can be influenced very easily, but also strongly comes from inside. The first theory that will be discussed in this paper is the theory of Frederick Herzberg. “Frederick Herzberg (1959) distinguished between motivators (satisfiers) and hygiene factors (dissatisfiers)” (De Vries, 2016). Motivators are factors that increase motivation and hygiene factors are factors that decrease motivation.

The motivator factors are about achievement and recognition. José van der Linden said she is an idealist and she works hard for results. A motivator she mentioned is: “My supervisors and colleagues react very positively to the things I achieve in this organization. They support me and have a problem solving mentality which motivates me a lot. Especially compared to my previous job where people were very egoistic and unfriendly.”

She mentioned that her salary is necessary and very important, but she really emphasized that the support she got from her colleagues and supervisors are the biggest factor.

A dissatisfier she mentioned is: “ The working conditions in the organization are not very convenient, because they use the system called flex work. I think this is inconvenient, because when I am not at work early in the morning, I will not be able to have my own office and that can be very hard if I need to write a lot of documents or call with a lot of people. When I need to do these tasks I would rather stay home to do them.”

So the motivators motivate her to go to work and the motivators are in the majority for mrs. Van der Linden, because she thinks more highly of the support and only sees the dissatisfier as a inconvenience for certain tasks. She is also very self-motivated, but that can’t be measured with this theory, because this theory measures the external factors.

Theory of Douglas McGregor (theory Y X) And William Ouchi (theory Z)

The theory of Douglas McGregor is a theory that, in contrast to the theory of Frederik Herzberg, does measure the motivation of the person themselves and uses external factors as factors that can help keep the job motivation high, depending on the self-motivation.

Theory X assumes that employees want to put as little effort into a job as possible in order to earn their salary, and they need constant external incentives to perform (De Vries, 2016). This theory argues that a lot of external factors need to be involved like: rewards, punishments or intimidation.

In Theory Y the employees are very self-motivated and will improve and perform their best. In the public sector the managers want to have as much employees with self-motivation. Mrs. Van der Linden is very self-motivated and stated:

“Even though I am just a small part of the public sector, I want to make a difference. I feel like I do contribute to the society, because when I see the results of my work I feel like I contributed.”

This is however in circumstances where there are as little dissatisfiers as possible. If there are dissatisfiers the self-motivation can decrease.

Based on her comment the conclusion can be made that mrs. Van der Linden is very self-motivated and feels rewarded by just doing her job well. Theory Y applies to mrs. Van der Linden and this is why she is very fit for working as a public official.

Morality

According to De Vries (2016) : “Morality relates to the values and norms people adhere to at the individual level.” Morality is the norms and values people grow up with or get taught. The principles in your head that tell you what is normal and what is not are the values and the habits, traditions and laws are the norms you grew up with. Norms can also be informal, like expected behavior.

Norms and values are very important in a country and in the public sector. The morality in the public sector determines how the government is designed this determines how decisions, laws and policies are made. The most important moral according to Mrs. Van der Linden: “I think transparency is the most important for my job. I deal with a lot of government money and transparency is necessary to make sure the money is used lawfully.”

The next norms and values she considers important are: representing your and the organization’s vision and mission and making sure to separate your private opinion and professional attitude. According to Mrs. Van der Linden a public official should have a exemplary function and if a public official does not have a good moral compass the person will be selected out of the system, because of the relevance of morality in a organization.

To prevent deficient motivation and morality it is very important to have a strategy as a organization to keep the employees motivated and loyal. To achieve this the organization needs more control to steer and direct employees with low motivation and morality. Another way to do this is by preventing corruption and low-morality, because this is something that can become a standard very fast and will become a big dissatisfier very big problem.

Last but not least to improve motivation and morality in a organization, an organization can use codes of conduct. Codes of conduct are principles set to make a clear expectation for the public administrators and to make them aware of their commitment.

The code of conduct in the public sector in The Netherlands is the oath of office. The public officials have to swear an oath to office. This oath makes the commitment to the job even more binding. Mrs. Van der Linden swore the oath of office and told me a public official can choose two ways of swearing the oath of office. You can swear the Christian oath or the non-religious type. Mrs. Van der Linden swore the non-religious type.

So the morality of public officials is highly relevant in the public sector to keep the performance at its best without corruption or abuse for personal gain.

Conclusion

The motivation and morality of public officials and the public sector means a lot and influences the performance of the organizations. Based on my findings and the interview with Mrs. Van der Linden the Inspection of Living environment and Transportation has public officials with high motivation, because of the motivators, people and teams there are, however they could change the work environment to reduce the dissatisfier -mentioned by Mrs. Van der Linden- and improve the motivation even more. Based on the findings on morality it can be concluded that there is a very high morality standard in the Inspection of Living environment and Transportation and especially Mrs. Van der Linden is a very hard working public official who is ready to sacrifice a lot to get good results and to stand for the vision and mission of the organization. The method of doing a interview to get a good inside look in the organization is very helpful, but also frames the story and perceptions of one person within the organization. The conclusion based on this interview and based on the theories fitting the statements in the interview the organization has very high motivation and morality which means that the organization is performing very well.

References

  1. Cambridge English Dictionary. (z.d.). Geraadpleegd 11 november 2019, van https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/motivation
  2. De Vries, M. S. (2016). Understanding Public Administration (1ste dr.). Geraadpleegd van https://bookshelf.studystore.nl/#/books/9781137575463/cfi/113!/4/4@0.00:0.00

Understanding and Applying Morality: Haidt Moral Foundation Theory

When I reflect on life from child to adulthood, I reflect on all of the moments this life entails. The good, the bad, the ugly and the gloomy. All in all, I never forget the understandings and teaching from those around me. Constantly employing the perspective of stabilization and morals. “Learn to think before you do”. It is with this thinking that I moved through life. Mistakes were made and I’ve learned to grow from these.

Morality is known as the principles that distinct right from wrong and good from bad. Johnathan Haidt’s moral foundation theory was grounded in the idea that moralities differ while still sharing the same fundamental characteristics of life. Haidt essentially believes that as individuals we are all equipped with the ability to distinguish emotion through approval and disapproval. “Intuitive Ethics” is what he refers to it as, this is our minds intuition to react to human behavior. Haidt envisioned Moral Foundations theory as “facilitating new approaches to resolving and understanding moral conflicts, through the recognition that cultures built their unique moralities on top of a foundation of shared, universal intuitions.”

He centralized his theory on five themes. Harm/care related to our innate instinct to protect others, Fairness/Reciprocity related to our instinct to punish those who cheat, Ingroup/Loyalty which intertwines with our ability to maintain closeness and share a sense of devotion, Authority/Respect which entails our innate ability to know when to obey those above us or in high positions and Purity/Sanctity which refers to our distaste against things that are against our beliefs. Throughout the course of this paper, I aim to relate each of these themes to various aspects of my life and I will explain in depth how these themes guided me through my own personal quest of morality.

Harm/Care

It’s interesting because whether we realize it or not, we employ all five of these themes in our daily lives. When Haidt first proposed this theme, he correlated it with a mammal’s adaptive challenge to caring for offspring. “Rather, mammalian life has always been a competition in which females whose intuitive reactions to their children were optimized to detect signs of suffering, distress, or neediness raised more children to adulthood than did their less sensitive sisters.” (Graham,J., Haidt, J., Koleva,S. , Motyl, M. Iyer, R., Wojck, S.P., & Ditto, P.H. 2012) Most mothers have an innate ability to protect their children, this in return increases their sense of watchfulness which allows them to build a different type of bond with their offspring. I look to new parents and most of them have the same mindset, “I will do anything for my child” and I think to myself, “Wow, How on earth could anyone love someone, a stranger, so much to where they would go to the ends of the earth just to protect them”.

Haidt believes that we as mammals instinctively have the ability to care for one another whether without having to put in much effort. In life, we see things every day that evokes this theme from within us. Whether it be a Facebook video that just shows a Samaritan helping a homeless person and we get that warm and fuzzy feeling inside or the mistreatment of people on the news and social media where feelings of anger and protection arise. This is our distinctive ability to care about other people resurfacing.

Ingroup/Loyalty

I feel as though, this theme goes hand in hand with the harm/care theme mentioned above. The theme of loyalty “Underlies virtues of leadership and followership, including deference to legitimate authority and respect for traditions.” Truthfully, as previously mentioned, I can’t speak from the standpoint of a mother, but I can say that from the perspective of an offspring – the sense of loyalty that my mother in particular has towards her three children is like no other and vice versa. Throughout life, I have gone to great heights to protect my mother, even when she felt as if she didn’t need it. It is with this learned sense of loyalty that I began to instill it in everyday relationships. Before allowing myself to open up to an individual I have to have 100% assurance that they are just as devoted to me as I am to them. I make sure that this be the case with anyone who I encounter and consider a close person. This being the focus of Haidt’s loyalty theme, it is with this mindset that I will hope to instill in my future children.

Ideally, I would prospect that the virtue of loyalty helps shape the political ideology that I hold near and dear. I’m speaking from a sense of varying social movements rather the political party I associate myself with. With this theme, I am able to assert my beliefs into varying aspects within the political world. Whether it be my acquired allegiance to the #TimesUp or #BlackLivesMatter movements. I truly believe that the leaders who commenced these movements resonated a sense of loyalty within me because their dedication to said programs. I believed their sense of urgency which encouraged me to follow them on their journey to find truth and resolutions. This allowed me to place more faith into the organization so much so to where I can speak and fight alongside other people who share this same allegiance.

Fairness/Reciprocity

This is a theme that we were all well acquainted with growing up. “Treat others the way you would like to be treated”. This was plainly what was to be said in our morning pledge every day in elementary school. This theme is fairly self-explanatory, with whatever you may venture through in life, always maintain a positive sense of justice and impartiality. In the Pragmatic Validity of Moral Pluralism it was stated that “The original triggers of the Fairness/cheating foundation involved acts of cheating or cooperation by one’s own direct interaction partners, but the current triggers of the foundation can include interactions with inanimate objects (e.g., you put in a dollar, and the machine fails to deliver a soda), or interactions among third parties that one learns about through gossip. People who come to be known as good partners for exchange relationships are praised with virtue words such as fair, just, and trustworthy.” We as a society have become so familiar with the idea of just action and equality that we label not only people as so.

Authority/Subversion

Now, it took me a while to actually gain the mindset to apply this theme to my everyday life. According to Haidt in his NYU stern journal , he realized that with Authority and Subversion “ the challenge of negotiating rank in the social hierarchies that existed throughout most of human and pre-human evolution made it adaptive for individuals to recognize signs of status and show proper respect and deference upwards, while offering some protection and showing some restraint toward subordinates.” It is with this that humans or mammals have the innate ability to understand rank and respect. Relative to my life, the idea to “respect authority” was always a central part of teachings instilled in me and my siblings, but I had a hard time actually conveying this principle. My mindset was always, “why should I respect someone who doesn’t respect me”? A snarky child I was. For the life of me, I couldn’t fathom the idea that we were to respect people simply because they were older or simply knew more than me.

It wasn’t until I started to move through adolescence that I understood why. It’s not because Haidt said it to be or even because my mother said that was just what we were to do. It is viewed as morally correct. Granted, I don’t always agree with what someone above me thinks to be correct but there is a right and wrong way to disagree and even as a young adult, needless to say, I am still learning and coming to grasps with this theme.

Purity/Sanctity

The final of Haidt’s five themes employs the idea of both disgust and contamination. Haidt believed that this foundational theme allows for individuals to live life in both and elevated and noble way. He believes that ultimately our body is like a temple therefore we should treat it as such. He relates this to varying pathogens and contaminates we may come across and the profound disgust we get towards things immoral or distasteful. Disgust and the behavioral immune system have come to undergird a variety of moral reactions, e.g., to immigrants and sexual deviants (Faulkner, Schaller, Park, & Duncan, 2004; Navarrete & Fessler, 2006; Rozin, Haidt & McCauley, 2008). This theme can relate to our aversion to things taboo-like. For instance, sexual deviants like bestiality or incest. In a society where we are taught that these things are just morally wrong – any person or thing that goes against this has an ethical and moral uncleanliness to them.

Denominationally, I related this most to the bible and its similar thinking that we should treat our body as a temple. Having been raised as a Christian, a vast majority of the people around me harped on the notion that our bodies are sacred thus we should treat them as such. Granted they referred to outside influences like, body markings like tattoos and piercings etc., As Haidt stated, this theme can be applied to varying aspects of life.

Works Cited

  1. Graham, Jesse and Haidt, Jonathan and Koleva, Spassena and Motyl, Matt and Iyer, Ravi and Wojcik, Sean P. and Ditto, Peter H., Moral Foundations Theory: The Pragmatic Validity of Moral Pluralism (November 28, 2012). Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2184440
  2. Haidt, J., & Graham, J. (2009). Planet of the Durkheimians, where community, authority, and sacredness are foundations of morality. In J. Jost, A. C. Kay & H. Thorisdottir (Eds.), Social and psychological bases of ideology and system justification (pp. 371-401). New York: Oxford.
  3. Horberg, E. J., Oveis, C., Keltner, D., & Cohen, A. B. (2009). Disgust and the moralization of purity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(6), 963–976. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017423
  4. Moral foundations and Loyalty. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/exploring-our-moral-foundations-haidt-loyalty/.
  5. Schaller, M., & Park, J. H. (2011). The Behavioral Immune System (and Why It Matters). Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(2), 99–103. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411402596

Reason as the Basis of Morality

I would argue that morality is the reasoning behind a human’s action rather than the action itself. Therefore, all humans have morality, but we all have different standards of morality. This could include what the right thing to do is, what it means to be good, and how this helps society function. I believe that we are moral, and should be moral, because we all have the ability to be a good person, and by being a good means having unselfish motives behind actions.

To be moral can mean many things to different people. Some can choose to focus on how morality can lead to being a good person, while others believe that morality focuses on making the right decision. Being a good person and making the right decision, however, don’t always coincide. Being a good person can mean you support others unconditionally, whether or not that means you are making the just decision. For example, if a village wants to kill a nomad simply because they are a nomad, then they have no real reasoning on killing this person except for that fact. This does not make the decision on killing him just, for this nomad did nothing to disrupt peace in this village, or harm any villager. By agreeing to kill the nomad you are pleasing the village, which can make you a good person in their eyes because you are not controversial. However, this is not the right thing to do, because you are killing an innocent human. This is where those two points can clash, being good and doing the right thing don’t have the same meaning. Doing the right thing means putting aside your ultimate feelings aside and doing something that benefits the bigger picture, whether that be sparing the life of an innocent person, or doing something that benefits the greater good of society.

Immanuel Kant believes that morally good actions have special value, but what does he mean by morally good action? Kant defines being morally good as being an action that you do based on the maxim for why it is done, it is good in itself. Kant believes that we are moral because we all have reason, and because we have reason we, therefore, have a basis for morality. Now, he is not saying that all reason serves a greater purpose, there are some action that is motivated with self-interest. For example, A worker in a company working harder and improving the overall quality of the job production and the outcome of those goods, their goal was to help the company prosper and help the community, however, they benefitted from the outcome with possibly a pay raise. While the action was done with the intent for good, there was still a bit of self- interest that was gained from that good. Kant believes that morally good deeds are one that you don’t benefit directly from the action itself, but this can be hard to come by as most actions have some form of self-interest. Whether that be physically, financial benefits, or because it makes you feel good. I agree with Kant when he states that the reason behind our actions ultimately determine our genuine morality.

Kant’s view on morality, mirrors much of my own view. I believe that we should be moral because it makes us a good person. Being good means to do something, or say something, because it is good within itself. There are no ulterior motives, or benefits directly meant to be gained. Rather, being moral counts, based on what our inner principles are in our actions, not the action itself. For me, my view on why we should be moral resides in how I was taught to treat others growing up. Treating other people with respect and kindness, and doing a good deed all for the sake of being nice and good is how I know to be a good person. I would also define being a good person as someone whose intentions look towards the greater good of society, rather than looking towards self-interest. Once societies need are met, then it’s only natural that your own needs too will be met because you are a part of society. By sacrificing one good or need in order to help society function and be just for all, that makes you a good person because you’re giving up what you need in order to look out for others. You receive the benefits of this from society, however, you are not seeking out this good for yourself, rather society.

Kant believes that we are all moral because we have reason, and that in itself is the basis of morality. While I agree with Kant that we all have reason, and our reasoning behind our actions, whether that be self-interest or universally good, determines our morality, I also believe that being a good person makes you moral. We as human beings all have the ability to be good people, make the right decisions, and function collectively for the greater good of society. By respecting others, being kind, and doing something in order to serve someone else rather than yourself, you are moral. This justifies why we should be moral, and more specifically the steps I look towards in determining my morality, and why I, personally, should strive to be moral.

Piracy, Corruption, Morality and Law: Exploring Bindingness of Law in Adverse Social Morality of South Asia

Abstract

Why does the law bind people, and which law is binding? The answers that are attempted to this question often lead to discussions on interaction and relation (or lack thereof) of law and morality, and relate to the question of effectiveness of a law. The current paper aims to present these much trodden jurisprudential questions albeit in a novel setting. Focusing on issues of infringement of intellectual property and corruption as two examples, the paper aims to discuss whether the social morality of South Asia is adverse to the concept of ‘intellectual property’ or ‘offence of corruption’, and how much it affects the effectiveness of relevant laws.

Introduction

Traditional jurisprudential analysis concerned with law and morality and their interrelation (or lack thereof) has given rise to a great body of work. ‘Law might ‘claim’ to be morally justified or to have moral authority; it may be true that the ideal or central case example of law is morally justified lawor that there is an ‘inner morality’ to the rule of law to mention just a few possible relations. Further relations between law and morality are suggested by claims that (at least) some laws have moral content; that (at least) some laws have moral consequences; that moral reasoning may be needed to interpret some laws; that law ought to be morally justified; or that law seeks moral behaviour in its subjects.’

The resultant body of jurisprudential literature, broadly reflected through the two persistent and dominant traditions of natural law theories and positivist theories, proceeds with certain postulates of ideas about law and morality, the modern iterations of which are shaped by the phenomenon of law in modern nation-states. The theoretical dialectics though entails some practical effects, one of the less-discussed issues within the law-and-morality discourse that may have more practical resonance is the impact of prevalent morality on effectiveness of a legal rule.

Whatever may be the exact nature of law, whether containing a minimum ‘moral’ part or not, its effectiveness ultimately relates to factors some of which are external to itself. Exploring the well-trodden question of reasons behind a ‘moral duty to obey the law’ provides answer such as consent, fair play, associative obligations, common good or gratitude; however it does not deal with the concurrent issue of effect of morality in obeying and disobeying tendencies.

It is in this context that the present paper seeks to contribute. Acknowledging that word ‘morality’ has differing and even contradictory meanings and contents, the paper limits its scope to consider morality in terms of prevalent social and ethical mores, hence the term ‘social morality’. The paper further proceeds to consider the question whether a legal rule entailing obligations not recognized by social morality would be effective. The effectiveness is illustrated through contrasting examples within the context of South Asia. The idea of property in product of human intellect, or intellectual property rights (IPR), is arguably foreign to traditional social morality of South Asia, which may be one of the reasons behind lack of effectiveness of IPR laws; however, the law can be regarded as having a subsequent effect on creating moral norm for respect of intellectual property in future. On the other hand, the widespread reach of traditionally abhorred practices of corruption may represent a contrasting trend, where a once morally prohibited practice becomes tacitly accepted, leading to erosion of effectiveness of anti-corruption legal rules.

Nature of Social Morality

The word ‘morality’ is used in two senses,an objective and a subjective one. The objective sense denotes that morality is rules of conduct and behaviour which is accepted by all rational persons as being appropriate, whereas the subjective sense denotes a code of conduct put forward by society as appropriate way for behaviour. Thus morality, in practical sense, is vague and variable, and its exact contours is hard to define even without recourse to moral relativism. The subjective sense, that is the ‘morality’ that the society accepts and considers as appropriate, is regarded as the meaning of the term for the purpose of this paper, and is referred to as ‘social morality’. It is variously related to the concept of law, though the two are not entirely the same.

Effectiveness of Law Depends upon Acceptance in Social Morality

The classical libertarian view of relation between law and morality is expressed by Mill as that law or power can only justly exercised to prevent harm to others. This is also known as harm condition. The opposing view holds that religious and moral rules acts as a real constraint on human conduct as much as the legal rules. These opposing strands tends to reflect more centrally on the questions of ‘validity’ or ‘bindingness’ quality of law, and is different from the empirical bindingness aspect of it.

Law is now associated with enactments of lawmakers of one kind or another. People distinguish between legal rules, which is enforced with the assistance of the courts, and moral rules, which are enforced by social sanctions and pressure as well as personal convictions. This was not always the case. In fact, the notion that law can be enacted by a specific legislator is alien to many traditional societies which considered that customary rules of conduct were binding upon them, although it was impossible to say how those rules were established.

In the natural history of humankind, deliberate law-making is a relatively recent activity, and considered as ‘unusual’ by anthropologists. It is not easy to separate law and morals when the law takes the form of social custom. Indeed, the history of development of modern families of legal systems, such as the Common Law and Civil Law, reflect how the social norms and mores of morality became subsequently accreted into a form of rules enforced by courts or legislated by legislators.

The genesis story of modern laws, thus, reflect the important role played by social morality (which is different from ethics) in determining legal rules and in creating social acceptance for them. As the law mostly reflected customary and social norms, the laws became traditionally accepted as binding. The positivist theory of seventeenth century and afterwards, in their attempt to define and describe a ‘pure’ theory and conception of law distinct from morality, gradually made the discussions on role of social morality in formulation of law in practice disappear. However, modern positivism recognizes morality a source of standard for assessment of legal rules.

The effective rule of law requires that citizens comply with the regulatory rules enshrined in the law and enforced by legal authorities. Most recent discussions of such compliance rest upon the idea that lawbreaking-behaviour is deterred by the risk of being caught and punished for wrongdoing. A law-abiding society is one in which people are motivated not by such fears, but rather by a desire to act in socially appropriate and ethical ways. Such a society is self-regulatory, since citizens within it take onto themselves the responsibility to follow the law. Thus, from a psychological jurisprudence perspective, morality plays a great role to produce law-abidingness and increase effectiveness of law.

Furthermore, Economic models also show that the enforcement of law itself depends on people’s morality, which determines their willingness to get involved. The importance of morality for effective abidingness of law is also explained by Lon Fuller’s exposition and differentiation (in another context) of morality of aspiration from morality of duty.

Morality of duty relates to the fundamental and essential moral duties consisting mainly of forbearances or negative injunctions such as ‘Do not murder’ or ‘Do not steal’. Morality of aspiration is the morality of striving towards the highest achievements open to human beings. A person is usually condemned for violating morality of duty, such as not stealing, but not praised for observing it. In contrast, a person is usually praised for displaying morality of aspiration, such as plunging into raging sea torrent to save a neighbour’s cat, but not condemned for the lack of it. If we imagine a vertical moral scale, the lower half will occupy the morality of duty and the upper half the morality of aspiration, ‘somewhere along this scale there is an invisible pointer where the pressure of duty leaves off and the challenge of excellence begins.’

This is a fluctuating pointer, hard to locate but vitally important. Social attitudes about rewards and punishments are important indicators of where the pointer rests. Fuller’s overall position was that law may fail by some standard of aspirational morality but will still be law. A law that fails the morality of duty is not law at all.

Even if someone does not agree with the contention of Fuller that the law that fails morality of duty is no law, one cannot fail to appreciate that such a law is less effective and binding.

Bindingness of law in adverse morality of South Asian: two examples

We now turn to explore the Bindingness or obligatory quality of law within the context of South Asian, with focus on the more prominent countries in terms of population and economy. The traditional values and social morality of people in South Asia came to direct reappraisal through interventions and interactions from the seventeenth century onwards by different colonial powers, most notable the British power. The modern South Asia that was born after the end of political colonization is still trying to find its own voice and approach towards various challenges that results from modernity. The duality and dichotomy of tradition and modern outlook to life is also reflected in the challenges faced by societies of South Asia regarding the role of morality in law or vice versa.

In exploring the role of social morality in creating Bindingness and effectiveness of law, two contrasting examples may be helpful. The first one relates to concept of ‘intellectual property’, which is absent in traditional morality, and introduced in this region chiefly during and after the colonial period in order to promote innovation, trade and commerce. The other example relates to perceptions regarding corruption, and how the ‘development’ fever turned it into something in the quality of ‘morality of aspiration’ without ‘morality of duty’ (as defined above), degrading the Bindingness and effectiveness of anti-corruption laws.

(1) Perceptions of ‘piracy’: moral respect for intellectual property

Despite being credited as one of the earliest cradles of mankind and longstanding heritage of advanced civilizations and glamorous cultures, the South Asian region never quite developed legal protections for expressions of culture. In this way, it in similar position to the adjoining Chinese civilization, which though invented the paper, ink and moveable type, did not provide protection for expressions on that paper, through that ink or type.

As the perception of morality changes from country to country, achieving a consensus on morality of IPR infringement is difficult. Jurists assign different types of justifications for modern intellectual property laws such as copyright, patent and trademark that developed in the West primarily. Among them the moral justification is a major one. This justification relates to the libertarian philosophy espoused by philosophers such as Locke, and the idea that a person owns his own self and ought to be able to exploit the profits of his intellect exclusively.

However, whether infringement of IP right is morally wrong in itself or for other external objectives remain a core debate. Also, the right of the actual creators vis-à-vis the right of intermediary corporations achieving disproportionately high profits (even considering the investment) is also another objection present intellectual property law regimes by its detractors.

Going into the moral aspect of protection of knowledge and intellect, one can see that the people in South Asia indeed was acquainted with the concept of theft of intellectual ideas. The presence of the word कुम्भिल ‘kumbhil’ and its cognates in Sanskrit, referring to a plagiarist, bear testimony to the presence of this concept. However, though it was morally reprehensive to steal another’s expression and pass it as one’s own, the idea of violation of intellectual property merely by use and share of ideas and expression did not take hold in reality, contrary to what some Scholars hoped that any advance in technology would, as a matter of evolution, mean advance in intellectual property protection.

Indeed, it may have been rather regarded as a virtue, as an effort ‘to share knowledge’ among people who deserved receiving it. There are anthropological modern interpretations of copyright piracy as ‘social banditry’ to contest existing capital accumulation system, or other various combination of social, psychological and cultural factors.

The exact nature and scope of intellectual property right is debated, and states have taken various degrees of approaches based on their economic status, cultural traditions and advances in trade, commerce and technology. The obligations of international trade and commerce has expanded the intellectual property rights’ ambit throughout the world, particularly through organizations such as World Trade Organization (WTO) and agreements such as that on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS).

Debates abound even in West around the use of intellectual property without violating what is termed as ‘moral right’ of being attributed or credited. The digital revolution that began through internet made the previously separate public and private spaces of sharing and use much more converged and intertwined, resulting in what may be described as overarching reach of intellectual property law.

In such a social morality that is at best ambivalent towards acceptance of concept of an intellectual property, it is indeed difficult to make the laws work and be effective. That is why the countries of South Asia consistently falls behind indices on intellectual property rights compliance. For example, in a study on 45 countries representing 90% of global economy, India and Pakistan from the South Asian region ranked 43 and 44 respectively on the global level in protecting IPRs.

The mere ‘import’ of laws and accession to international agreements due to trade pressure does not reflect in the reality of social acceptance and awareness about intellectual property rights. Nevertheless, same as the effect of morality in law, the law also has an effect in promoting and developing social and moral norms. As part of ‘diffusion of laws’ globally with evaluations of ‘success’ and ‘failure’ of different legal systems, the intellectual property law also is promoted.

However, adoption of intellectual property protection mechanism in the legal regimes of South Asia that is sensitive to, and addresses adequately the demands of, traditions and cultures of South Asia may slowly change the terrain and introduce a new respect of intellectual property in the social morality of this region, as recent surveys show that the perception around intellectual property is changing towards rights-based protection.

Indeed, the current IP debates promises to be wide in scope and full of heat, encompassing issues such as traditional knowledge, incentives to innovation, industrial development, trade policy, access to available technologies, and effective commercialization in the age of knowledge-intensive industries.

In this wave the virtues and flaws of the system will be emphasized, discussed and celebrated.

(2) Anti-corruption laws and morality

“The common good of any society consists not only in its material possessions but in its shared ideals. When these ideals are betrayed, as they are betrayed when bribery is practiced, the common good, intangible though it be, suffers injury.”

Equally important, bribery and corruption are deeply at odds with the moral basis of most of the world’s great religions, which have often provided the moral underpinnings of the modern state, as is clear, for instance, by reading the U.S. Constitution and other such founding documents. However much the economists may disguise corruption in terms of costs and benefits, it still has a moral aspect to it. It is criminalized in virtually every country, although enforcement may be weak. The symptoms for considering the corruption as immoral or unethical reflects in the need for secrecy, for deception, and the use of euphemisms (gifts, contributions, speed money etc.) by the perpetrators.

Countries of South Asia (with exception of Bhutan) consistently rank even beyond 70 in global indices of corruption. Indeed, in a survey, two-thirds of people of this region responded that corruption increased in the previous two years in their countries. The reference to South Asia in international plane hardly passes without mention of the need to fight corruption in the region. Despite this, the corruption is on the rise, and is attributed as the reason for prevalence of poverty despite economic growth.

The reason is not lack of laws, rather lack of effectiveness of these laws or the will to make them work. To define corruption is a complex task. The official World Bank definition focusing on abuse of public power for private benefit does not actually reflect the true nature of the whole range of spectrum covered by the term. bribery, graft, embezzlement, kickbacks, nepotism, favouritism, extortion, fraud, bending of rules, gifts and ‘considerations’, and ‘commissions’ – all are grouped together under the same term, without reflecting on the dichotomy of public and private acts and motivations for them.

However, the idea of corruption as immoral or unethical behaviour no more corresponds to reality in much of today’s complex world, including in South Asian regions. Ethnographic study on West Bengal of India found that corruption is accepted as everyday practice, with justifications abound as exchange, reciprocity, and peer applause define this practice.

Other studies on areas such as Karnataka , and Jharkhand in India, reveals the lack of social constraint on every day corruptions. It represents a consequence of political economy of historical experience of the state as a remote entity, to be dealt with a medium. Ideas of morality in this instance are thus historically constituted, managed and reproduced. ‘The moral aspects of corruption have to be seen in the context of values such as negotiability, hierarchy, greed, and above all, uncompromising loyalty to one’s own caste or community.’

The trend can safely be deemed to be same everywhere else in South Asia, due to shared history, experience and culture. The ambivalent attitude towards immorality of corruption may be said to be a major contributing factor in the inefficacy of anti-corruption laws in South Asian countries. Much of the laws aimed at combating corruption have the underlying philosophy of eliminating the opportunity for corruption by changing incentives, by closing off loopholes and eliminating misconceived rules that encourage corrupt behaviour.

Such approach is ineffective and expensive, needing institutional infrastructures for monitoring and enforcement that generates far more corruption, in an ever growing circle. Anti-corruption legal drives are likely to be far more effective if they are also supported by efforts to buttress the moral and ethical foundation of human behaviour in the long-term perspective, addressing the issues and creating awareness at the same time about the place of individual in today’s society, relationship between state and a person, government’s changing role from ‘ruler’ to ‘representative of people’, as well as corresponding civic responsibilities of individuals. Because, however may be the prevalence of corruption, its tacit acceptance is still tainted by a sense of immorality-paving the way for a possibility for a universal definition of corruption.

Conclusion

The process of law-making and law-implementation should consider the relevant social morality and actual reality on the ground in order to be effective. Such a realist attitude, if it may be called, is not a call to surrender the law to regressive views of the past, rather to increase the effectiveness of law. Such an exercise and perspective is also healthy for detractors of uniform universalism and promoters of cosmopolitan pluralist jurisprudence.

Two contrasting examples discussed in the paper elucidate this point. IPR violation was not present in the moral sense of people of South Asia in the past, and that contributed to lack of effectiveness of laws protecting IPR; however the perception is changing and with that the compliance rate too. On the other hand due to widespread practice, corruption, though viewed as immoral from objective ethical sense, gains acceptance in social morality and regarded merely as ‘morality of aspiration’; which leads to corrosion of bindingness of anti-corruption legal rules.

Law and Morality: A Quintessential Predicament

Introduction

Differentiating a human from mere animal existence gives them the benefit of the freedom to do or omit from doing an act, but when a legal duty is imposed on the individual by the State, the individual loose his freedom of choice, automatically consenting with the rules laid down. Evidently, rules and regulations merely facilitate adherence with the acceptable code of conduct and standards followed by society.

Therefore, human conduct exists by virtue of multiple factors combined to effect a code of mannerisms. Each act of an individual encompasses a form of choice made from a cast of varied types of conducts that could have been chosen. This choice made innately sheds light on the conscious will of the individual on account of the individual’s mental and physical capabilities motivated by their ethics.

Broadly Defining Law

The vast, all embracing definition of law includes in it all forms of rules, principles, standards or norms which humans have formulated as part and parcel of their obligatory depictions in their relationships with other humans. Therefore, a large part of defining law attracts major features of the definition of morality.

Fazal Ali, J. demarcated the purview of law to contain any enactment, ordinance, regulation, order, bye-law, rule, scheme, notification or other instrument having the force of law in the whole or in any part of the territory of the nation. The expression “procedure established by law” in Article. 21 means a law which is right, just and fair and not arbitrary, fanciful or oppressive. Therefore, valid Law shall not be repugnant to the fundamental rights guaranteed under the basic structure of the Constitution, thereby having some firmness, emanating from the legislative competence of the Legislature enacting it but must also not be repugnant to any of the fundamental rights enumerated in Part III.

Such ‘Law’ though inclusive of customs or usage having the force of law, is State-made law and includes constitutional, substantive and procedural law that bears substantial shades of the meaning of natural justice, clothed with the principles of natural justice that underlies positive systems of law. However, there has been an acceptance of law as an instrument of social change, evolving by a gradual and continuous process.

The glued concept of law and order, a wedged expression includes public order, public peace, public tranquillity and orderliness within a State, either of which if disturbed, would lead to a complete breakdown of the peace in society. Therefore, non-existence of public order affects the general public life.

Defining Morals

It would seem clear that human conduct doesn’t just happen. Each human act involves some sort of choice among alternative course of conduct found or believed within the capabilities of the individual actor, or at least between doing or refraining from doing the particular act. Whether made consciously or subconsciously, this choice reflects the will, or the reason, or both the reason and the will of the individual actor. This aggregate of techniques, patterns, and standard of conduct to which men refer choosing courses of action may properly be called morals.

Morals are seen to be the exact opposite of anything that is obscene, indecent, offensive to modesty, lewd, filthy or repulsive. Hence indecency refers to the non-conformance with accepted standards of morality. There is no such restrictive and uniform standard, however courts tend to adopt tests use as the Hicklin’s test, to decide what is moral and what is not based on such moral persuasiveness.

As per the Hicklin’s test, the effect of a publication, on the vulnerable sections of society that could be influenced, particularly the age groups having access to such publication, is studied and kept as a determining factor. However there has been a transformation from this test to the “likely-reader test”. The most recent trend is the that of “aversion” wherein an obscene depiction is made not to instigate lust or arouse sexual desire, instead to sow the horror and depict the human story.

In the Bandit Queen case, the frontal nudity of Phoolan Devi, was featured to arouse sympathy towards the victim of such a gruesome rape, who was stripped of every shred of dignity. Another such illustration was that of the film Schindler’s list where men and women in Nazi concentration camps were shown, their naked bodies being lead to a horrific death. Such depiction was made to show and condemn such social evil.

It is pertinent to note that morals maybe secular or unsecular. The choice to adopt a set of morals is placed on an individual, who can do so out of their own free will. This is seen as a result of the fast-changing standards of contemporary society.

Defining Morality

In Krishena Kumar v. Union of India, the Supreme Court dived into the aspect of morality stating, “Is the art of directing the actions of men in such a way as to produce the greatest possible sum of good. All actions, whether public or private, fall under the jurisdiction of morals. It is a guide which leads the individual, as it were, by the hand through all the details of his life, all his relations with his fellows. Morality commands each individual to do all that is advantageous to the community, his own personal advantage included. But there are many acts useful to the community which legislation ought not to command. There are also many injurious actions which it ought not to forbid, although morality does so. In a word legislation has the same centre with morals, but it has not the same circumference”.

The purview defining morality includes within it the entire body of law. Morality would “include all manners of rules, standards, principles or norms by which men regulate, guide and control their relationships with themselves and with others.”

The concept of positive morality combines etiquette pooled in by a large public opinion, having no sanction to back it. This opinion becomes the rule of law once imposed by the State. Therefore, there is a symbiotic relationship between the rule of law and morality wherein morality lays down the limits within which the legal system is formulated, conforming to the specifications of the prevailing norms of morality.

It is quintessential to acknowledge the importance of morality in society. Conviction of a person in a crime involving moral turpitude impeaches his credibility as he has been found to have indulged in a shameful, wicked and base activity. Moral turpitude is anything opposed to honesty, modesty, justice or good morals. In Pawan Kumar v. State of Haryana, the expression “moral turpitude” and it was observed as follows: “ ‘Moral turpitude’ is an expression which is used in legal as also societal parlance to describe conduct which is inherently base, vile, depraved or having any connection showing depravity.” Therefore it signifies a sense of wickedness of character associated with improper conduct with member of the society, contrary to the accepted rule of law.

Brief Co-Relation Between Human Rights, Morality and Law

The French Declaration of Rights of Men and Citizen in 1789 states that, “The aim of every political association is the preservation of natural and inalienable rights of men; these rights are liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression.” These rights spread to rights of women, rights of racial minorities, homosexuals, right of self-determination, etc.

As rightly put forth by Jeremy Benthem, “right is the child of law, form real law comes real rights”. These rights differ from country to country, based on the varied notions and standards of morals observed in such societies having a social disparity and cultural diversity, with widely erratic standards of moral acceptability. What maybe seen as a morally sound piece of art or literature in India, may be considered as harmful to public order and morals in another SAARC country.

Brief Co-Relation between Biosciences, Morality and Law

The fields of biosciences, technology and other forms of Research and Development directly and indirectly are guided by the confines of morals to the extent wherein these morals have been backed by a law.

A restriction is imposed on the subject matter and method of research if such subject matter falls under a prohibition placed under a legal sanction. The human body is seen to receive the highest form of protection from being used as an instrument of commercial gain. An illustration of such prohibition placed is that of the insertion and implantation of a human clone, into the body of a woman. Yet another mild form of constraint seen over the field of research and development is the eventuality that the techniques of research can be manifest as long as they come within the narrow road of what is morally sound and what is morally incorrect.

Viewing Moral Rights in Copyright Law

Intellectual Property Right laws, have boomed, round the world. With the advent in the rise of creativity and ingenuity, the legal system sought to protect the rights of the creators for their works. Moral rights has found its place in Copyright Laws, which is in accordance with Article 6bis of the Berne Convention. These are defined as the author’s or creator’s special right owing to the right to paternity and the right to integrity.

These moral rights flow from the fact that a creators work is a reflection of their own personality, body and mind thus being an invaluable part of the creator. Therefore, various rights are automatically attributed to the creator, permitting him to restrain or claim damages in the event of any distortion, mutilation, modification or any other untoward act done to his work.

The Variegated Relationship of Law and Morality

There lies a strange difference between legal and moral duties and rights. This difference arises from the recognition or formal induction of moral duties and rights, into legal duties and rights. The presence of moral duties and rights outside the ambit of law goes on to show us how an act or omission can be done or should not be done, rather than how such act or omission has to be done or cannot be done.

Conversion of a moral obligation into a legal one depends solely on the law makers who can include such morally binding obligations into legal obligations. Therefore, this relationship between morality and law is an osmotic one even though morals grow into a law through a parasitic relationship. Furthermore, even if a law may be one that is morally weak it is the duty of the Courts to interpret and apply such law in issue in such a manner that is morally secure or amended.

There is always a minimum moral content to each set of rules that are formulated by a State, in the interests of the citizens. The public and citizens at large have a deep rooted legitimate expectation that laws formulated by the Legislature and enforcement by the Courts will be done in a manner such that the assume the role of guardians of the prevailing forms of morality, reinforcing the values advocated by that particular state through it’s historical development, the religious institutions etc. A sense of social responsibility is placed on law-makers.

However, even a secular state may find within it a division based on the laws formulated on the principles of prevailing morals amongst particular sects of society. A society becomes good or bad based on the ethical values of individuals. These ethical values are placed on citizens who are expected to follow them regardless of whether there would be a penalty placed on them for any derogation from such values. These values and ethical principles are inculcated into legal sanctions to promote and achieve justice and equality in society.

Morality is a commonly seen term of multiple Indian legislations, where in not only is it the duty of a citizen to safeguard public order and morality, the rights of a citizen can be curtailed and limited to the ambit that the right does not cross the boundaries of public order, decency and morality. However it must be noted that moral neutrality does not essentially mean moral indifference.

India, a democratic nation allows it’s citizen’s 6 unrestricted fundamental rights of freedom with constitutional safeguards put in place, to disallow such freedoms from being curtailed. However, one exception placed on the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution of India, lies in the restriction placed to protect decency and morality.

Any form of obscenity or immoral act, exhibited over a platform accessible to the public at large, either through a performance, a documentary, a song, a film, an advertisement, a publication etc. that is published or transmitted, representing an indecent exposition, is prohibited and made a punishable offence, particularly under the Indian Penal Code.

The prevailing trend in SAARC countries, leans towards the stringent protection of any indecent or immoral act against a woman or an indecent representation of a woman’s body, figure or other forms of her, in a manner of being derogatory towards a woman, and triggering a corrupt imagination of the woman. Such prohibitions have been put in place by the Indecent Representation of Women Act, 1986 and various other legislations, to the extent that any indecent or immoral post is strictly prohibited from postage under the Post Office Act, 1989.

The Dynamically Changing Relationship of Law and Morality

The concept of values, in the developing society has recently seen a fundamental change, wherein a value which may have been previously taken into strict applicability, following it religiously, the same value may now have faded away, the moral compass of society steering in another direction with time and other complex dilemmas that they may face, pursuant to an outdated moral value that finds no place in today’s society.

The Naz Foundation case opened out a new avenue for the transformation of law as per the evolving standards of morals in the nation of India. The judgment showed a tug of war between the two sects of society that voraciously debated on the morality and acceptability of homosexual behaviour. The defences taken on either sides were that of the penal provisions placed under Section 277 of the Indian Penal Code, criminalising consensual sexual acts of adults in private backed by moral and religious sentiments. While the argument against this were the violations of Article 21 and 14, guaranteeing citizens equality and the right to live.

This landmark judgment decriminalising same sex activities showed the large steps being taken by citizens, away from the previously prevailing order of nature that discriminated on the basis of historically prevailing morals and religious views that birthed social stigmas around concepts of homosexuality, identifying it as an “unnatural” sexual activity. However, after the said judgment, the law, being amended, rationalises such consensual sex as a normal and natural activity.

Thus, what was morally incorrect has now been made legal by the enforcement of law. It is pertinent to note that even though laws are derived on the basis of what is morally correct, as the purpose of such law is to preserve social order and sanctity in the nation. Yet, the effect of law is that even if an act, socially considered to be immoral, is made lawful by the legal provision, such an act can be openly committed in public, regardless of it’s moral repercussions.

Morality And Love In Oedipus Rex

Oedipus is an ancient Greek text that questions whether or not something is moral if you have no clue of what you are doing. The text is a classic example of greek tragedy as well as a good example of what ideals were held in Greece during this time. The ancient greek culture surrounding this story is shown through the themes of family, friendship, power, and morality as well as loyalty. All of these are also reflected in the characters and how they act throughout the story.

The story of Oedipus is a well known one. It is the first of three plays. It is about a son of a king and queen, who when he was born was prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother. As a reaction to this, his parents sent him to die but the man they sent could not go through with it, so he left him in the woods. A neighboring king found him and adopted him until years later, the son, Oedipus, learned of the prophecy. Upon hearing this he leaves so he does not harm the man he believed was his real father. During his travels, he unwittingly kills his actual father and goes to the kingdom he was born in. There he marries his mother and has children with her, the whole time he has no idea what he has done. All of this goes unknown by everyone until a plague comes down on the city and the gods say the killer is living in the city, leaving Oedipus and his wife/mother to deal with their fates. In the end, she kills herself when she learns the truth and he pokes his own eyes out to repent for his sins, he then banishes himself to never return to the city he once ruled.

The writer of this story is named Sophocles. He was born in Athens in 469 b.c. and wrote 123 plays, with Oedipus being his most well-known one as well as being one of his only seven surviving plays. Not much is known about him if at all, mostly because almost everything we know about him is his plays. Of the dates given by ancient theaters, very few of them are known about him(Scodel, 25). His inspiration came from the Homeric epics. He is considered one of the three great tragic playwrights along with Aeschylus and Euripides. He came from a wealthy family and was stated to have had grace and power. He had the most wins within the greek drama competitions, having 24 victories out of 30 competitions and it was rumored he never placed below second (Woodward).

During the time this play was presented Athens was going through a plague of its own, which is mirrored within the play in the plague that has consumed the entirety of the city of Thebes. This could be Sophocles using what is going on in his world and giving justification for said disease (Martin, 91). To this day, it is still unconfirmed as to what disease it was but many people died.

This same period was during the start of the Peloponnesian war. This was a war between Spartans and Athens because Athens had economic sanctions over an area called Megara, a colony of Corinth who was an ally to Sparta (Martin, 88). Sparta disliked this and gave Athens an ultimatum, which Athens then repeatedly rejected, causing the war. The tension of war is at least somewhat relevant within Oedipus as well. The conflict shown within the story is of a war, not just between Oedipus and himself but Oedipus and Creon. It’s a war between him and his people.

The culture and religion tie into his story as well. Greek religion is based on polytheistic ideals, with each god having a specialty. The main three are Zeus, Poseidon, Hades. There are many other worshipped and they are each different. These gods were a way for ancient Greeks to explain things and give a reason to the unexplainable. Apollo is the one to tell Creon what must be done to get rid of the disease and the priest is a key figure to the decisions made by Oedipus in both the beginning and the end. Almost if not all of the greek stories in the time as well as being the main idea that is focused on throughout the entirety of their lives and even their everyday decision making because of how important these gods were to the Greek people.

Ancient Greeks saw women as submissive and unceasingly loyal, this was shown in not only the wife/mother of Oedipus, Jocasta but also the other stories through ancient Greece. Stories such as the Odyssey show this through Penelope. The loyalty in Oedipus is shown through how Jocasts’s willingness to stay with him until she found out the truth for herself about whether or not he was her son and if he killed her husband. Loyalty is shown in other ways, such as the bond between Oedipus and Creon, except in this instance it is strained because even though Creon has been nothing but loyal, Oedipus doubts him. Oedipus starts accusing him of trying to undermine his rule by starting rumors of the murderer of their original king, Oedipus’ father, being in their town and that being why their town is in such a dire situation.

The question of morality comes into question in a rather odd way. What Oedipus did was no doubt wrong but if he did not know what specifically he was doing and the dire consequences it would cause then how could it be immoral? His wife killed herself because of learning that she had married and had children with her son, who killed her first husband and his father. He in turn blinded himself as a punishment for his actions and then banished himself. Moral dilemmas after the fact are much harder to cope with after the wrong decisions are made and the one making the decision realizes it is wrong. This is not even including socially immoral behavior that this brings to light, such as having children with your mother, even if it happened unknowingly.

Guilt also plays into morality. Oedipus feels guilty for his actions despite having no prior knowledge of his actions. He defiled the very kingdom he swore to protect after his actions toppled the ladder of power. His killing his father and marrying his mother had such dire consequences to the point his wife killed herself and he blinded himself as punishment.

Family plays a big part as well. Family is a building block of this story and in the end, it was also the downfall of Oedipus and his wife. Learning not only that the woman he had married was his mother but also that her and his father had abandoned him in the woods so he did not kill his father and marry her had to be devastating as much as her finding out that he was her son and that the prophecy of him killing his father came true.

Friendship is a smaller part but important nonetheless. The friendship between Oedipus and Creon, his wife’s brother, brings this theme into the story. The tension between them even though they are supposed to be equals is a key factor in how the rest of the story plays out. It also shows friendship in a familiar way such as between Jocasta and Creon and how their brother’s sister relationship resembles a friendship.

Oedipus reflects in today’s society through Sigmund Freud in which he states that all boys want to marry their mothers after killing their fathers. This statement is ironic because Oedipus had no idea what he was doing. This had nothing to do with hidden urges but with blissful ignorance. It also hits home with the ability of the mind to be a contradiction. Looking at Oedipus he is a stranger in a familiar place. His mind which had been set in a way and was used to his life was uprooted and he had to adapt to the familiar becoming twisted in front of him while also destroying his world.

In today’s world, whether or not something is moral is very important to most people. Some people just do not care but the average person wants to be considered good and have it be said that they make morally conscious decisions. This reading brings up the question that can nag at people, is it moral if I have no idea what I am doing? This is something that nags at the back of people’s minds. It shows people that reality and what you think can be very different and cause a little chaos. It makes people think of the unintended consequences of their choices and actions, maybe not as extreme as what takes place within the pages but still, it is there and relevant.

This play is a timeless classic because it tells a story that, at least some parts, can resonate with people and make people understand at least the morality of their choices better as well as decide what their next step in a given situation will be. The play has survived this long and has the potential to last much longer

In conclusion, Oedipus is a story of morality and love with connections to the world it existed in and some of the themes, such as loyalty and family are still at least somewhat relevant to today. Oedipus has been such a staple because the questions of morality and family are connected to the human psyche. It connects to not just people in the time it was written but in today’s world as well. Today’s society still reads this because of the influence it can still have and still does have on us as a society.

Works Cited

  1. Martin, Thomas R.. Ancient Greece : From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times, Yale University Press, 1999. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezlfcc.vccs.edu:2443/lib/lfcc/detail.action?docID=3420399.
  2. Puchner, Martin. The Norton anthology of world literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. Print.
  3. Scodel, Ruth. “Sophocles’ Biography.” A Companion to Sophocles, Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, pp. 25–37, doi:10.1002/9781118350508.ch3.
  4. Woodard, Thomas M., and Oliver Taplin. “Sophocles.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 6 Feb. 2020, www.britannica.com/biography/Sophocles.