Criticism
Not everyone accepts that there are laws without ethical content. Few would dispute that there is no ethical reason to prefer one side of a road or one system of units over another, but that does not necessarily mean that the law itself has no ethical value.
Although the subject matter of a law may not be an ethical issue, the law exists to form a consensus for the benefit of society, and may be understood to gain ethical value from that purpose. Legal positivism would counter that this ethical value is derived from context and not from within the law itself. If it isn't unethical to drive on the wrong side when there are no other cars on the road, then it cannot be the law itself which has ethical value.
Many, such as Robert Alexy, argue that since laws curtail individual freedoms, albeit for the benefit of society as a whole, all laws are ethically relevant. John Gardner argues that "Every legal issue, however superficially technical, is a moral issue, for its resolution inevitably has important consequences for someone."
Read more about this topic: Laws Without Ethical Content
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“To be just, that is to say, to justify its existence, criticism should be partial, passionate and political, that is to say, written from an exclusive point of view, but a point of view that opens up the widest horizons.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance. He becomes a source of blessings rather than wages. Criticism is sacrilege, doubt is heresy.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)
“It is ... pathetic to observe the complete lack of imagination on the part of certain employers and men and women of the upper-income levels, equally devoid of experience, equally glib with their criticism ... directed against workers, labor leaders, and other villains and personal devils who are the objects of their dart-throwing. Who doesn’t know the wealthy woman who fulminates against the “idle” workers who just won’t get out and hunt jobs?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)