Lawful but Immoral

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I would say the gay right to marriage issue would be an excellent one to do an essay on especially with the recent ruling in New York.

Personally I think bullying should be an offence. It's as harmful as any other abuse. I hate the fact people can make someones life a living hell for literally years and then just walk away and go and have a great life while the other person suffers anxiety problems and depression.

Driving other adults and children to near suicide or to violently snap is as twisted as any other crime. Then the perpertrator wanders around thinking it's perfectly alright to do that to people. It's disgusting.

 

[Lesd3vil]

You can't really have a 'today's standards' since there isn't really a blanket morality like there used to be with catholicism anymore.

Morality is the sense of what is right and what is wrong; it's subjective, it comes down to your personal beliefs... I could say I believe that selfishness is wrong, and then that I believe the government are selfish twats, and by that argument I could justify saying that I believe ALL laws are immoral >>

However, morality ALSO refers to codes of conduct that define what we find socially acceptable, and by that definition anything that we allow someone to get away with is completely moral. That dude cheating on his wife with your girlfriend? Completely fine, unless you have something to say about it. This also depends on your social habitat, I've been blasted for liking Cee-Lo Green by my friends because 'it's wrong for a metalhead to like that shit'. (Yes, unfortunately people are narrow-minded, stereotyping wankers. This is also morally acceptable, apparently.)

People really need to stop bandying words around when they clearly don't understand the meanings of them -.-

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

laws against prostitution. What right does the goverment have to deny someone of a job when they aren't hurting anybody?

 

[Dys]

Most people seem to be talking about things that are moral yet illegal (or the law itself being immoral).

Things that are legal yet immoral are somewhat difficult or at least how I understood the question they are).

The laws surrounding ownership and accountability are immoral:

A shady businessman can put his entire fortune into his wifes name, bankrupt the business and the wealth under his wifes name is legally distinct from his, and therefore cannot be claimed in damages.

One can marry, give their previous wealth away (to family members or whatever), then divorce and claim a stake of their partners pre-relationship assets.

A murderer can be legally free after being convicted (or in many cases, simply not convicted at all) more quickly (or more often) than a tax evader.

Recently it's become apparent that reporters can be prosecuted/publicly persecuted for publishing material leaked from certain organizations.

Allowing Tony Abott to be leader of the liberal party, voting for the Australian 'family first party' etc

 

[lovestomooch]

You should focus on the legality being a function of (i.e. derived from) morality argument and how it is often switched around. We should base our laws on morals, not base our morals on our laws. So many legislators remain ignorant of this fundamental difference and has lead to a lot of harm in the past and today.

 

[Pontus Hashis]

Prostitusion prohibition laws.
They stop people from improveing ther economical situaion, while at the same time asking them to spend money on education. (To be overly simplistic)

 

[SouthpawFencer]

Well the big difference between polyamory and cheating is that polyamory is done with the consent of you other loved one, as opposed to cheating. So actually it differs quite a lot from cheating.
It's the difference between stealing a cookie from the jar and asking for a cookie from the jar.

I agree completely. It's also quite possible to cheat in a polyamorous relationship, and for the other people in that relationship to be justifiably pissed if you do.

However, a lot of people are likely to find polyamory to be immoral because it is not a MONOGAMOUS relationship. Current societal standards still generally hold that it's immoral to be involved with more than one person at a time, even though the stigma of premarital sex and even homosexual relations have been greatly reduced.

 

[Asti]

Managers can pay themselves outrageously high salaries, even if it means that the company has to cut back on customer service and infrastructure. (Yes, Deutsche Bahn, I'm looking at you. ò.Ó)

Oh, and a lot that is going on on the stock market.

 

[dfphetteplace]

Drug prohibition.

What moral right does the state have to tell me what I can and can't ingest into my own body?

Every right if said drug can have a negative effect on society, eg..Imagine a country in which everyone took cocaine. Extreme example, but resonates my point well.

No, your example is ridiculous.

If the principle you're basing your justification on is harm prevention, then you're way off.

Prohibition causes much more harm to society because it puts control of the market into the hand of organised criminals. Turf wars, gang violence, all would be reduced drastically.

Legalization leads to acceptance of the practice. Would you want your child to go to a heroin bar when he turns 21?

 

[cgaWolf]

So, my fellow Escapists, would you be kind enough to help a fellow, and post the laws that you think aren't moral by your standards?

The question is in what legal system / countries you can pilfer laws from.

For the USA, i'd say double jeopardy protection even if new evidence turns up is questionable, even though that's the law of the land. In a completely unrelated manner, in Austria you can test a human embryo for genetic markers (that reveal genetic diseases), yet you're not allowed to do so with a fertilized human egg from in vitro fertilization before it has been implanted into the uterus.

Both of these cases seem absurd at first, and that's a very good tool to point you towards stuff that would nowadays be considered immoral: stuff that made sense 200 years ago (or even 40 years ago) can be absurd & downright wrong. Look for stupid laws, if you're looking for immorality in law.

(english common law countries lend themselves better when looking for stupid laws, since judges make law there; countries based on roman law have their share of idiocy, but usually lack absurdness)

 

[Isan]

lawyers.




Making a deal with one member of a gang in order to gain convictions against the other members?
(Go watch Law Abiding Citizen... it might help, and if not its a good alternative to working )

 

[Blue_vision]

Yea, have you considered that the government might be trying to save MY life by not allowing YOU to take a hallucinogen? For some reason, I'm ok with this. They are trying to negate the possibility of second hand smoke inhalation as well by forcing smokers to smoke in designated places. So don't start with the "it's not fair" argument. If you want to get into this PM me.

I don't get it... is this trying to say that someone on hallucinogens is an imminent danger to others around him? Clearly, you've never seen someone on hallucinogens.

You should focus on the legality being a function of (i.e. derived from) morality argument and how it is often switched around. We should base our laws on morals, not base our morals on our laws. So many legislators remain ignorant of this fundamental difference and has lead to a lot of harm in the past and today.

Oh my god, I totally agree with this. This would make an amazing article, OP.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Frivolous lawsuits where x-defendant is suing for damages caused by said x-defendant's lack of common sense because y-product did not have warning labels. e.g.: McDonalds hot coffee lawsuit.
Or criminals being able to sue victims for being hurt in the home of said victim while committing a crime.
I think that most lawyers in general use "legal" as a way of doing immoral things to people.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

ZYNGA!
They're a social networking company whose business practices are completely immoral and outrageous, yet they just about toe the legal line to avoid copyright infringement.

For their craptastic business pratices go to this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zynga and scroll down to "controversies."

Basically they have made billions (company now worth $15-20 billion) by taking other peoples social games, (easy to understand but unneccessarily super grindy) ripping off the game mechanics and looks, and changing just enough to avoid plaigerism. Then they fill the game to the brim with microtransactions, spam the social networks with as many adverts as possible for their games and file bogus lawsuits against the original companies games, which are almost invariably independant indie developers, and can't afford to fight the lawsuit, forcing them out of business.

From wikipedia: "The launch of Mafia Wars sparked a lawsuit from the makers of Mob Wars. An attorney for Psycho Monkey, the creators of Mob Wars, said that in making Mafia Wars, Zynga "copied virtually every important aspect of the game." The suit was settled out of court for $7?9 million.

Ars Technica noted that Zynga's Cafe World and Playfish's Restaurant City were "nearly identical"; Cafe World was released six months after Restaurant City. Its gameplay, design, graphics, avatars, and even in-game items are almost identical to the ones in Restaurant City. Many players who have played Restaurant City and Cafe World have noticed the extreme similarities between both games. In addition, journalists have remarked that Zynga's FarmVille is similar to Farm Town, with Peter Jamison calling it "uncannily similar.""
I actually played Farmtown for a while with friends, and it took me about a month to realise that all the spam for Farmville was in fact a different game, they were that similar.

 

[B-rad747]

I had a law class a few semesters ago and my professor brought up some examples immoral laws. One being the FDA has approved that if a certain food has less than .5 grams of trans fat in a serving a company can advertize it as having no trans fat. Say you have 2 servings of this food you have consumed a gram of trans fat eating a food that claims it doesn't have any. I think they also have a law that does the same thing but with high fructose corn syrup.

 

[rossatdi]

In terms of lawful / immoral - corporate behaviour and tax law is probably an easy win.

Selling Power Balance wrist bands. Its legally making money by using techno-babble to hide the fact it does nothing.

What moral right does the state have to tell me what I can and can't ingest into my own body?

Unless you factor in public health care which the users of damaging drugs (legal and illegal) are happy to fall back on.

Taxation on legalised drugs theoretically off-sets the public health impacts. Prohibition of the most dangerous to remove social impact (again, theoretically).

I certainly don't think drug prohibition has been done properly (LSD is one of the most illegal drugs in the UK despite being essentially harmless physically).

Drug prohibition is unlawful moral in some circumstances but not lawful immoral as the OP asked.

 

[Kair]

There are so many laws that are immoral in the immoral society that I will not bother to start listing them.

 

[rossatdi]

Yea, have you considered that the government might be trying to save MY life by not allowing YOU to take a hallucinogen? For some reason, I'm ok with this. They are trying to negate the possibility of second hand smoke inhalation as well by forcing smokers to smoke in designated places. So don't start with the "it's not fair" argument. If you want to get into this PM me.

I don't get it... is this trying to say that someone on hallucinogens is an imminent danger to others around him? Clearly, you've never seen someone on hallucinogens.

Seconded, hallucinogens are pretty far down the scale of 'danger to the wider public'. Anything extremely physically addictive that can lead to dependency, and on to crime, that's a fair thing to legislate against.

 

[Xanadu84]

Read anything on the contributing causes to the economy downturn, and you are going to find a wealth of information. Shady business practices, irresponsible investments, lots of stuff that take advantage of a complex modern world. Actually, there is a pretty good metaphor to use here: In game terms, there are a lot of legal but immoral actions that act like video game exploits. Putting legal weight behind stopping these immoral actions amounts to bug fixes.

 

[rossatdi]

There are so many laws that are immoral in the immoral society that I will not bother to start listing them.

He's asking what's lawful and immoral not what's an immoral law.

Legally discriminating between races = immoral law
Legal right to sell pseudo science as healthcare (homoeopathy / power balance) = lawful immoral