The term “morality” can be used either; descriptively to refer to certain codes of conduct put

forward by a society or a group (such as a religion), or accepted by an individual for her own
behavior, or normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would
be put forward by all rational people. The codes of conduct referred to may be in the form of a
golden rule, religion or cultural moral code. The idea of enforcing something would mean to
give force to or strengthen, meaning that one may be forced in some way to follow through.
States use law as an enforceable measure to correct right or wrong. And most probably use it as
a code of conduct in society to correct behavior.
One may assume that morality and law are more likely similar. Different law scholars have
different views when it comes to the relationship between morality and law. Liam Murphy
examined the line separating morality and the law in "The Boundary of Law." Legal positivism
(used to explain the relationship between law and morality) on the other hand contends that
the line dividing morality and law is sharp and exclusive. In other words, the questions of what
the law is and what it should be are wholly independent of one another. Judges are thus
prohibited from using their own moral standards to interpret the law.
There are the precise areas where law and morality interact:
1) In laying forth those values that are relevant to the common welfare, law and morality are
related. This does not mean that positive human law should forbid all vices or compel all
virtues; rather, it prohibits only the most severe human flaws that threaten society's basic life
and requires only those virtues that may be ordered by human means for the benefit of all.
2) The moral obligation imposed by law, or by the need for an act in connection to a necessary
aim, is how law and morality are related since law, as the command of practical reason, always
entails an obligation.
3) Law and morality are intertwined in that they are both subject to and incompatible with
moral standards.
4) Insofar as both arise from and are guided by the same source, practical reason or prudence,
law and morality are related. By understanding the nature of politics, which is a human work of
art based on experience and caution and as caution, politics is integrally linked to ethics one can
gain a deeper understanding of this relationship.
5) Inasmuch as justice is a moral idea that has no validity outside of the context of morality, law
and morality are related.
Law is enforced by states vis national law (eg constitution of Botswana) and international law
(eg, Treaties such as the UN Charter). But can morality be enforced? This can be further be
clearly clarified if we first know and understand how does it implement on law enforcement
and Is it possible to make decisions about legal regulations without any moral judgment
whatsoever, if moral judgment is necessary in deciding what qualifies as applicable damage,
does it follow that general enforcement of morality is appropriate? With a few day-to-day life
instances, we shall conclude understanding and knowing what morality is and how it can/will
affect law enforcement. Therefore, knowing if it is applicable to enforce it, and if this sort of
judgment is necessary or not and perhaps to imagine a legal system with regulations based on
an assessment of negative consequences that considers only on overall individual preferences,
happiness, or ability to pay, without relying on others moral judgments, that is when deciding
that only preferences, happiness, or ability to pay should be considered by itself as law
enforcement.
If someone conceives the grounds for legal regulations as restricted in any other way, would
the grounds for that legal regulation seem more limited than the grounds for moral judgments
in general because morality is a complicated problem, as some people accept its principles
easily while others may refuse to follow them as morality in one may not be morality on
another. This princple was highlighted in the case of Gillick V Norfolk and Wisbech Area Health
Authority (1986) where Mr Gillick sought a deceleration that what she saw as an immoral
activity (making contraceptive advice and treatment available to girls under the age of consent)
was by nature of its morality, illegal. This was moral conflict as some saw this immoral that it
encouraged early sexually activities while others felt it was moral because young girls would
engage in underage sex but contraceptives would prevent unwanted pregnancies and diseases.
It’s a set of values common to society which are normative specifying the correct course of
action in a situation and limits of what society considers acceptable. Therefore, these values
can change over a period of time as the society repetition to perceive consequences that differs
with instances so this will affect on the law to keep changing with these values with time that is
if future consequences that are likely, but not certain, position a more complex problem.
Suppose evidence strongly suggests that if the use of a particular psychedelic drug became
legal, most people who began to use it would eventually become addicted and would, at that
point (because of cost and physical effects of the drug), be unable to perform family
obligations. Further, once people used this drug extensively, their desire to consume it would
be more intense than if they had never or seldom used it and would this harm; be a proper
basis for forbidding all use of the drug or all use of the drug by parents of young children? If a
high percentage of parent-users would eventually neglect their children and no one could
determine, in advance, which parents would be the neglector; forbidding all use, at least by
parents of young children, would make practical sense. Certainly, a consequential perspective
warrants such a restriction. And if otherwise these consequences were different the law will not
change or cause the restriction to take course depending only on the resulting from the cause
of the morality in the society. To justify legally restricting an act considered immoral, if that
consideration does not stop any harm (to others or self) and offense the act may cause?
Sometimes this seems to be the issue about legal enforcement of morality, but conceptual
clarity is not easy. Part of the difficulty is that claims that such enforcement of morality is
improper dissolve into rather different kinds of arguments.
Moral judgment is needed to determine what counts as relevant harms and to decide what is
appropriate bases for legal regulations but whether law should enforce some aspects of
morality is genuinely disputed. And to discourage behavior may be justified as an even
prohibition unless it is linked to a belief that action is immoral. Various reasons may explain
why societies should punish acts that people regard as immoral, even when no identifiable
individuals are harassed. The strongest of these arguments rest on undesirable consequences
to society, even these are much easier to emphasize than to support with convincing factual
theories. If this essay has a dominant point is the need to avoid openness when addressing
whether, and when, the law should enforce morality because sometimes we could say that the
law is like a fight between perfectionist morality and absolute freedom. Enforcement of
morality by the law is a part of legal order, therefore my submission is that morality must be
enforced.

REFERENCES
• Rawls, s. J. 2000. Lectures on the history of moral Philosophy, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
London
• Havard University Press.
• www.lawenforcementandmoralityhistory.com
• R. Dunkin, rupre note 0, at 1001
• J 5.. Mill, UTILITAREANISM (Bobb.Merrill ed. 1957)

•The Definition of Morality, First published Wed Apr 17, 2002; substantive revision Tue Sep 8,
2020

 The Boundary of Law: Law, Morality, and the Concept of Law