Law and Morality

In today's Philosophy of Law lecture i had some intriguing thoughts...

Firstly though, a few things i've thought about in past lectures on the same module...

1) It's amazing to see, even in myself, the lack of any practical knowledge of what the law actually is. Try and think of something that's an actual law... it's really difficult. Without many examples, other than 'Don't kill anyone', it's very difficult to discuss the functionality of 'law'.
Although i now seem to be doing alright if i just think of Law as a concept, rather than a conceptualization.

2) It's also amazing to see the complete lack of knowledge on our current legal process. We were asked that if there is an immoral law, do we have the duty to obey that law? I got thinking about this for a bit, and realized that our system allows one to appeal, if the law is unjustified. Basically... there might be an unjust law, but it'll never be changed, until someone is charged with that law, and then the judge realises that the law is infact, really dumb. Isn't this how it works?

Anyways, my thoughts today were about the functionality of the law in relation to morals. I think the 'law' aims to treat everyone equally in it's eyes, but we all know that there are lots of ways of breaking any single law. There is no 'black and white', there's also lots of grey inbetween. I think appealing to the notion of 'morality' allows a judge to give the law flexibility, by ascertaining the defendents situation, i.e. history of mental health, or whatever. So the law itself, aims to be completely consistant, but as long as we can appeal to morality, it will remain flexible.

Hmmm... doesn't sound that much of a big deal anymore...

Let me explain a case study we studied.
There were 4 men, and in my story, they're in a boat, stranded at sea.
I'm sure that's how it went.
Maybe they're on an island... who cares... i want them at sea :P
They've survived a sinking boat, and there's 3 sailors and a cabin boy.
The youngest, the boy, falls unconscious.
Days go by, and without water or food, they know they're going to die.
2 of the remaining 3 come to the conclusion that they must eat the boy.
They kill him, the last person in the boat doesn't partake.
They then methodically eat their way through the boys carcass.
On their rescue and return to England, they regail their story,
not thinking that they had done anything wrong...
...they needed to survive.
They are charged with murder (the two that did it).
The judge, if he appealed to the law as it stood,
would have to of let them free...
...for there was no law covering this type of incident.
The judge on the otherhand, makes many examples of self-sacrifice,
like soldiers, or captains of ships, to save the innocent.
They are both sentenced with murder...
...but only jailed for 6 months.

Questions i thought of were...
...if i was the 4th guy, the one who survived, but didn't murder the boy.
Would I of eaten the boy?

People say you can't 'say' what you'd do in a situation like that.
But I can speculate.
I don't think i'd kill the boy, or eat him if the other guys did.
Mainly because it's outright sick to think of eating uncooked human flesh.

I don't think i'd kill him for the following reasons...
> I don't want to kill anyone, ever.
> He could wake up.
> His being 'unconscious' could allow him to survive.
> We could be rescued anytime soon.
> I'd always have hope of something happening,
and believe that if nothing happens, then i was meant to die then.

Tell me...
...what would you do?

There were infinite circles,

Drawn on the wall,
And to some they were sacred,
To others, a scrawl.

- - - - - - - -

I keep spotting many cycles in life,
patterns of various kinds,
all probably rather subjective,
but let me share this and see what you think.

- - - - - - - -

As Laughing is a sign of Happiness,
Crying, is a sign of Sadness.

And in the Cycles of Life,
The Circle of Laughing and Crying meet together...

Where you can feel so Sad,
Your Crying sounds like Laughing to others...
Or you can feel so Happy,
You Cry.

- - - - - - - -

Just a quick edit:

I've also been thinking more and more about contrasts.
You need sadness, in order to know what happiness is.
But my recent idea about them being in the same circle...
...relates them more to each other.
Part of the same 'whole' as it were.

In Equilibrium Sean Bean's character says...
...in a matter of speaking...
...that all the negative emotions are a price he'd gladly pay,
for all the positive ones.

I agree.