Laws are symptoms of social morality, not its cause

Evidence

It is far from obvious what lies behind all these movements and countermovements. They begin in the dark and mysterious world of social attitudes. If we knew what brought on the “sexual revolution,” we would understand more about the legal reaction, too. Many people feel that loose laws on personal behavior weaken family life, endanger public morality, and threaten the very health of society. This may or may not be true. But again, even if it is true, it is probably a mistake to blame the laws—​or to assume that tightening up the laws will bring about a renaissance of sound morality. The legal system plays a part, to be sure, in the moral constitution of society, but it is a secondary, sym­ bolic, and derivative role. The laws are symptoms; they are not the disease. Law responds to social movements, to forces that come and go, to deep rhythms and great powers that lie outside of the legal system itself. — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 823

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Dense, synthesizing claim about law’s derivative, symbolic relation to morality — ties directly to the book’s general thesis about law as social response.
• XREF: connects to: Legal change on sexual morality tracks shifts in the larger society — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 1436; A late-nineteenth-century crusade criminalized victimless vices like obscenity and gambling — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law: An Introduction, 818; Law is coextensive with society and mirrors its aims and contradictions — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 4405 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Sociology reduces morality to derivative products of non-moral social institutions #expands (0.88) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 481
• Moral rules cannot be created or altered by deliberate human enactment #corroborates (0.85) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 443
• Law is coextensive with society and mirrors its aims and contradictions #corroborates (0.82) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 4405
• Law shapes society while remaining society’s creation #qualifies (0.80) — Lawrence M. Friedman and Grant M. Hayden, American Law, 1333
• Law loses its legitimacy when detached from embodied moral sensibilities. #qualifies (0.78) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1155
• Severing law from embodied moral tradition makes state force its sole authority #complicates (0.75) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 1155