Law v. Ethics
In law man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.
Immanuel Kant/Friedrich Kaehler (1777/8)
Maybe there is a law against parking on railways, maybe not. Here the bike was probably parked on a whim - or less than a whim. Laws, rules, conventions, obligations, pressures, discomfort, unease, these run from the external laws which are social and public, to that which is internal, mental and private. It seems reasonable to propose that complex
urban mega-cities
The debate about the virtues of countryside versus the vices of cities is old.
need laws where a village might manage on
conscience
The notion of conscience has evolved in line with the ‘objects’ of conscience.
and social pressure; so is there a dimension running from the internal individual conscience to the law of the land? Certainly, as the state encroaches on parental child protection, committees replace professional responsibility, and solicitors champion our health, some feel we are sliding away from the personal. But the slide is complex. Today, maybe more clearly than in Kant’s time, we see communities’ needs balanced against the individuals; the effects of divergent upbringings, and the complications of varied
viewpoints.
Kant’s psychological approach to philosophy, makes viewpoint of less importance to him.
Social and psychological
pressures
The importance to human social life of the way members conform with one another.
mould action, and operate on village and metropolis alike. Such considerations fog Kant’s lucidity, and question the notion of a sequence from ethics to law.
This quote is from notes taken by Johann Friedrich Kaehler in 1777/78 on lectures given by Kant. These have been translated by Peter Heath and published by Cambridge University Press in 1997 as Lectures on Ethics, page code 27:434.
Motorbike parking in Hà Nội on the main line to Lào Cai and China.
Above, hovering on blue introduces a link: click to go, move away to stay.
Saturday 16th August 2025
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