I toyed with several versions of today’s headline. For the drift of this commentary, one can easily replace ‘sister’s husband’ with ‘bro­ther’s wife’. And in the liberal, progressive nirvana we live in, one can also substitute ‘sister’s husband’ by ‘sister’s wife’ or ‘brother’s husband’ or son’s/ daughter’s girlfriend/boyfriend.

Ours, after all, is a society that believes that things should not be defined by their nature but by our perception of the way things ought to be or by cultural conventions. Culture is definitely considered over nature in this post-modern world.

To a culture that believes that reality is constructed by humans with hardly any reference to nature, Pope Francis in the en­cyclical letter Laudato Si’, like his predecessor Pope Emeritus Benedict, preaches that we cannot disregard the message contained in the structures of nature without paying a hefty price. The disregard is running rampant and the price is heftier than ever imagined.

But even in the current societal environment of culture-over-nature and relativism galore, all the above-mentioned scenarios are considered to be indecent and unsavoury even though they are perfectly legal. None of them is considered to be something someone should be proud of doing.

The reason is very simple. Fortunately many people do not judge human activity only on the basis of legality. Many people still tend to judge behaviour on the basis of ethics. We know that it is decent to consider ‘what is right’ as being a more dignified way of living our humanity than simply ‘what is legal’.

A society that tries to regulate its public life basing itself only on the law while disregarding ethics is a doomed society

Law establishes the minimum required to live together with others. Fortunately it only regulates a small area of our existence. Society would descend into totalita­rianism if every aspect of behaviour and relationships is regulated by law. But at the same time we know that if we want to live our humanity to the fullest we should transcend this legalistic limitation. As members of the human race we are expected to care about happenings in the environments we live in.

Refusing to feed a hungry man will not land one in court but it is surely considered to be reprehensible. Not visiting one’s parents living in an old people’s home (unless you live in China) does not earn one a fine but it earns one the scorn of decent people. There are many such actions that will not land us in prison but will make us worthy of the contempt, ridicule and shaming by others. And if we still have a shred of humanity, such actions will bring with them a feeling of guilt and disappointment with ourselves.

This is the proper role, however, of ethics, which urge us to go beyond the minimum established by law, particularly in current culture, and tend to be more and more positivistic. Laws become laws just because enough MPs say it is the law of the land. Slavery, torture and racial discrimination have all been legal. Abortion and euthanasia still are. We still laugh at Caligula for pretending to have the power to elevate his horse Incitatus to senator.

History and current practice are dotted with worse examples resulting from the application of a positivistic concept of the law.

We cannot fully live our humanity and form part of civilised society if we do not strive to go beyond what the law mandates. Faced by the question ‘What should I do?’, those conveniently guided only by the law would try to see what they could get away with legally. The way forward should be deciding what to do in the light of what ethics ask or even require one to do.

The thrust of my commentary last Sunday was that the case of MUMN officials against this newspaper probably had good legal basis, as there must have been in the decision of the presiding judges. But it was definitively not ethically decent to use the narrow interpretation of the law to put pressure on the exercise of free speech.

There are also cases where the media hide behind the fig leaf of the law, and in their utter disres­pect of media ethics tarnish people’s characters. Such actions are equally reprehensible.

Another case of law against ethics was the reaction of the Minister for the Economy to the public outcry against the appoint­ment of an 18-year-old as director, secretary and legal representative of an important government-owned company. The minister said it was legally permissible to appoint an 18-year-old to such posts. Had this lad been a prodigy, people could have been pacified, but given that this young man barely out of his boyhood had nothing to show for his nous but the party flag, the impropriety of the appointment screamed to high heavens.

The stance of law-over-ethics could give people a very myopic vision of corruption. A politician who is caught greasing his hand with euros is rightly considered to be corrupt. But should we not also consider politicians or political appointees to be corrupt if they dispense on the chosen few conveniently made-up jobs and other juicy plums? The bestowing and reception of privileges not de­served is also a cynical form of corruption as the recipients of this largesse are kept on a short leash, knowing full well that they could only enjoy the gift bestowed by satisfying the whims of whoever unethically conferred it.

The recent shenanigans about the defective concrete at Mater Dei evidences the corruption of sectors of the entrepreneurial and business community. Such fraudulent acts are illegal. But examples of unethical behaviour also abound.

Faced by such a reality one understands the frustration of a University lecturer who stated that when he started teaching a course in Business Ethics, students looked at him at if he was someone from outer space teaching about things that have very little to do with real life on Planet Earth. The reaction of the faculty in question was to demote the course from a compulsory to an optional one. I shudder to think what kind of business these students will eventually operate.

A society that tries to regulate its public life basing itself only on the law while disregarding ethics is a doomed society because it ends up by not even respecting the law. The signposts are already in place, it is our duty to remove them.

joseph.borg@um.edu.mt

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.