Law and Ethics: Are All Laws Ethical?

Law and Ethics: Are All Laws Ethical?

        “Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do” (Potter Stewart). A law is simply defined as what one must do, whereas ethics is defined as what one should do. Ideally, law and ethics would go hand in hand, but in reality, they sometimes contradict each other and what is lawful is not always ethical. The United States was built on a foundation of laws, stemming from ethical beliefs and principles. However, some theories of ethics show certain laws to be unethical. Three such laws include: Blue Laws, physician-assisted suicide laws and Affirmative Action. Although enacted with good intentions for the wellbeing of our nation, these laws are unethical in several ways and should either be abolished or modified to become more ethically agreeable.  

One set of laws that can be considered unethical are Blue laws. Blue laws are religious laws that forbid particular activities to take place on Sunday because it is a holy day within Christianity. Some of these prohibited activities include: some shopping, purchasing alcohol, and purchasing groceries or cars. The Blue Laws were originally established in the 1620’s (during the colonial period) in order to encourage all citizens to attend church services on Sundays. The concept is that by eliminating the possibilities for alternative activities—by making them illegal— citizens would be motivated to go to church instead. Since their establishment, Blue Laws have been abolished in certain states, but they are still in place in some states, including: Alabama, Indiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia.

In a Syracuse newsletter article entitled “Alcohol sales on Sunday morning? State Considers Lifting archaic ‘blue laws’”, New York state officials propose modifying the part of the law referring to purchasing alcohol on Sundays. Officials including Governor Cuomo recently suggested that we modernize this old law. One possibility is lifting the current ban on alcohol sales between 4:00AM and noon on Sundays (Cazentre), and instead allow alcohol sales starting at 8:00 AM, just as on other days of the week. Bars have many customers on Sunday mornings, who would like to watch sports and enjoy alcoholic beverages, but because of current Blue Laws, people must wait until noon before ordering any alcoholic drink.

From a libertarian approach, we can say that the government should not be dictating how citizens spend their Sunday mornings. Having to wait until noon to purchase an alcoholic beverage because the law disapproves of secular activity over religious observance, seems a bit intrusive on the citizen’s own liberty. Mayor Fiorella H. La Guardia recently commented on these intrusive laws, saying that people should define Sunday’s “rest” for themselves, and that they  “should enjoy the freedom to attend church if they so desire” (Roberts). Clearly, while the Blue Laws remain in place, people are deprived of these (natural) freedoms.

 In addition to posing great inconvenience (and violation of personal freedom) to citizens who wish to shop or enjoy a bar during their free weekend time, the Blue Laws also violate Milton Freedman’s free market ethics theory, which says that the main purpose of a business, simply, is to maximize profit (Halbert and Ingulli 1). By forbidding retail activities, these governmental laws essentially require businesses to follow and abide by the schedule of a purely religious activity, bringing economic loss upon many businesses. Baumgartner, a bartender in Syracuse, said “it would be a tremendous boost” to their business (Cazentre) if they were allowed to sell and serve alcohol all Sunday (as alcoholic drinks tend to be more expensive than non-alcoholic drinks).  Just as no business is required to give charity according the free market ethics theory, no business should be required to follow the religious standards of a certain faith at the great expense of their profit.

Furthermore, The First Amendment of the United States Constitution says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (US Const., am. 1). The Blue Laws do not establish Christianity as the national religion per se, but they do indirectly encourage people towards that religion. The restrictions by the Blue Laws are meant for Christians, as no other religious group attends church on Sunday mornings. Even if we disregard the fact that the Blue Laws somewhat contradict our strictly kept separation between church and state, we can still consider them unconstitutional, as they disregard the Religious Liberty clause set forth by the First Amendment.

During the time when these laws were established, they might have seemed sound. But given that American life has changed so drastically since the colonial period, and many religious citizens practice faiths other than just Christianity, we now have reason to reconsider Blue Laws. Especially when the United States of America values freedom of religion so deeply, it is wrong to require the entire country to live by a Christian schedule every Sunday.  For all these reasons, the Blue Laws are unethical, and should be completely abolished.

Another similarly unethical law is physician -assisted suicide. It was first legalized in the United States in 1994, when Oregon passed its Death with Dignity Act. The Act specifies that a doctor “may prescribe a lethal dose of medication to terminally ill people under certain conditions (Canick). However, it is important to note that the term “physician-assisted suicide” also includes giving patients information on how to commit suicide, or even a means to do so with something other than a prescription. Assisted suicide, or “physician aid in dying” (PAD), is legal in the states of Washington DC, California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington.

        Physician-assisted suicide differs only slightly from euthanasia in that the patient, instead of the doctor, carries out the final step leading towards the patient’s death. Making this distinction originally served the purpose of giving patients the opportunity to end their lives, while preserving their dignity. However, with the technologies we have now that help patients end their lives with great ease, the line between “physician –assisted” suicide, and euthanasia is often blurred. There is often a “slippery slope” that begins at physician assisted suicide, and ends at actions that are nothing short of euthanasia (Canick). And for good reason, euthanasia is illegal in our nation.