[ExI] the law

[William Flynn Wallace]

This is to everyone, though my thoughts started in the political group as a
result of Spike's posts about following the law.

No one responded to my post about Kohlberg, so I will do it myself.

Most people do not make it up the moral scale past the "It's the law,
dummy, and you always have to follow the law."  Kohlberg stage 3 or 4.

There are two stages above that, both dealing with issues of personal
conscience.  The standard moral question used in tons of studies:

"Say your wife has an illness and the pharmacy has drugs for her cure, but
the price is way out of your ability to pay."

Nowadays we might go to a fundme kind of site to raise money.  Let's assume
that you can't do that.

The usual answer is that you have to steal the drug - your wife's life is
more important than the law about robbery.  In the last moral stage you
would steal it publicly so that everyone would see the disconnect between
morality and the letter of the law.

The law is highly important and of course I didn't have to tell you that.
But morality calls upon higher laws at times, and what's in the legal code
is irrelevant.

bill w
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