Once power and law separate, morality loses structural grip and becomes merely subjective.

Evidence

A further consequence of that secondary codification is that the problem of closure (in older European terms, perfection) of the power-code can no longer be articulated in moral terms. Morality associates code-symbols with conditions in which people can mutually respect one another. But when two disjunctions have to be related to one another without entirely overlapping, when, in other words, the highest power-holder has to be someone who can do wrong, the glow of his glory can no longer be portrayed in a unitary formula of perfection which is at the same time subject to qualification. The moral demand on the power-holder to do no wrong remains intact but it loses its relevance for societal structure. It no longer designates at the same time the nature of the society and the real perfection of power, but becomes a matter of ‘mere morality’, for which an autonomous grounding must be sought in the subjectivity of consciousness. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 693

Categorization

• XREF: Directly illuminates Stevens’s ethical abdication: once Darlington’s power is structurally decoupled from rightness, ‘mere morality’ retreats into Stevens’s private consciousness and loses any grip on his conduct.
• DEEPTHINKING: Caps a dense causal chain — secondary codification detaches morality from social structure, reducing ethical demand to subjectivity — one of the most load-bearing moves in the trust/power argument.