Rights, Wrongs, and Laws

            Numerous heinous acts are morally reprehensible by virtually anyone’s code of ethics.  While society chooses to protect itself from offenders with an array of legislation and punishments, it is rarely the threat of legal retribution which deters the typical citizen from such indecent treatment of our fellow human beings.  Were murder to be legalized tomorrow, I suspect that the overwhelming majority of our species would still abstain from cold-blooded killing, as their consciences would serve as every bit the deterrent of criminal prosecution.  At the opposite extreme, there are countless details within our legal system for which the law and its consequences do guide action – cases in which morality is not our principal decision-making mechanism.  We choose not to park our cars where a sign dictates that we cannot because we would prefer not to pay fines or have our cars towed, not because of some obvious inherent immorality in the act.

            This weaves an odd tapestry of our ethical sense of right and wrong, the structural facts of a civilized and regulated society, and which mechanism truly guides our behavior.  Unfortunately, just as there are acts which are illegal, yet not glaringly disdainful morally there are also acts which are not illegal, yet patently wrong when placed against a backdrop of ethical conduct rather than the laws of our land.  The latter causes rage, disgust, betrayal, and hatred.  It is hardly illegal to fornicate with a secretary while a spouse sits quietly at home, ill with cancer.  It is hardly illegal to disown a homosexual child on their eighteenth birthday.  It is wholly legal for a corporate executive to send thousands of hard-working people living paycheck to paycheck to the unemployment lines while paying themselves multi-million dollar bonuses.  These types of actions boil our blood in a manner that the countless murders and other damnable crimes of the day do not because the perpetrators often slink off unscathed, free to continue their utterly disgraceful behavior without the slightest reprobation.

            These acts are constant, hidden, and virtually unavoidable in a free society.  We are left only to judge, to assign lesser value to those whose actions we despise.  What then when the immoral (but not illegal) act is the work of a human being whose track record of moral behavior spans decades and is thoroughly unassailable?  Into what category shall they fall?  What is their true character?  It is a cliché to state that character is that which we do when we believe that no one is watching and yet, our only knowledge of human beings is, by definition, what they do when we are watching. 

            Resolution of the disparity between our previous perception and the new evidence we believe we have gained challenges our very view of that which we considered certain, the character of someone in which we believe, in whom we have faith.  We question the facts, we question accusers, we question ourselves.  We realize that the best of us are flawed.  We hope that we will not be remembered for the worst decision of our lives.