I have been thinking about these two moral components of characters recently. In the stories I'm writing now my protagonist, Dennis, is the sort of person who respects (*most but not all*) legal limitations in his world, i.e common laws - don't kill, rape, rob, etc. or else you will go to jail. But he has no respect for (*most but not all*) ethical limitations - i.e things you should not do because they are commonly agreed upon in a western society as wrong. It would probably be boring to have a character who is purely one way and not at all the other. Though some Hollywood action films have attempted this character type. It would also be boring to have a character who is purely BOTH. Most characters - fuck, most people - are a mix of mostly respecting ethics vs. not having as much respect for the law or the other way around. Which side do your characters MOSTLY fall on?
All the ones you mentioned are both legal and moral imperatives, if by kill you mean murder. Killing in self defense of course is different, or killing plants or animals for food (assuming the animals are 'in season'). And probably the majority of laws are designed to keep modern societey from crumbling into anarchy and savagery—for instance traffic laws. You can't have people going as fast as they want, or driving the wrong way in a lane, or etc, without traffic becoming insane and unworkable, likely resulting in fighting and riots or deaths. In this sense most laws are created to keep a society functioning, and breaking them is breaking a mass social contract, so they're still based largely on morality. Except for those laws that were created for other reasons—say for instance laws made when there were no cars but horses and buggies on the roads, and are still on the books. Or laws that aren't actually aimed at keeping a massive society from getting out of hand. Such as maybe those created by bureaucracies to complicate things (red tape). But most of the major laws, the ones that get people sent to prison, are aimed at preserving morality in a large society. Unless they're poorly worded or poorly interpreted. Even littering is basically immoral. Would you appreciate it if someone threw their trash in your yard? Of course not, and neither would they if you do the same. It's a much smaller moral imperative than murder or rape, but it's still an immoral act, and being permissive of small immoral acts leads to people losing all respect for each other and committing larger acts. Just presenting my ideas on the subject, do with them what you will.
I can see where for instance some hunting restrictions (restrictions on killing that isn't murder) seem arbitrary, like the idea that you can't shoot animals on your own property for instance. The idea is that you might own the property, but the state owns the animals (unless they're your animals legally, like livestock or pets etc). So they can only legally be hunted during their proper season. So I would say the spirit of most laws is designed to preserve ehthics or morality, but often the letter of the law is riidculous or abitrary. So in that sense people could argue that a particular speed limit is too low or too high, or that people should not be required to come to a complete stop at interestions if there's no traffic on the other streets. But there still needs to be some kind of law governing the behavior of drivers at interestions, and how fast they can go in certain areas. I guess I'm doing my philosophical thinking thing—thinking around the perimeters of the idea to try to get a feel for its overall shape. I like to do that before I dive in and get involved at a details level.
But there are other laws that aren't aimed at ethics, such as the need to obtain a license or permit to do certain things. These would be laws made by a bureaucracy (red tape), and often aimed at the governemnt getting more control or money. Why do I need to register a pet for instance, and pay money to the government in order to have it? Red tape, and a form of taxation. There are a lot of laws of this type.
I guess you are talking about two different types of activities: legal but unethical vs. ethical but illegal legal but unethical - cheating on your spouse, breaking promises, habitual lying ethical but illegal - drinking under age, driving over the speed limit, smoking marijuana, cheating on a tax return (for some)
Interesting thread. Vast majority of people are ruled by their own ethics over law IMO, unless the risk being caught is too high. So, they will opt not to steal from Wal-Mart not because theft is wrong and hurts society as a whole, or because it's illegal, but because they might get caught. I think the challenge a character would face while being unethical but letter-of-the-law is that he'd consistently make enemies, to the point that the wrong kind of enemies might gang up and beat the crap out of him if they feel he has wronged them sufficiently, or worse not help him start his car when the battery dies. If the phrase wasn't so loaded these days, you could call it social justice. Even the worst people you can imagine usually have some loyalty for the people they have to work with else they face poor circumstances. The ruthless dictator is subservient to the oligarchs, that kind of thing. Even an 'only while I need you' Machiavellian mindset would create a bad reputation over time.
I think most people (and characters) have respect for laws and ethics. I'm not saying people are perfect, but I also don't quite understand the divide you have created here in terms of character development or how these things can make a character boring or interesting per se. I guess what I'm saying is there's more to the story, or at least I should hope so.
I agree. As stated this idea is pretty vague and nebulous, not the kind of stuff story or character are made from. It might work better to shift it to something like the goody-two-shoes teacher's pet types, who say "That's WRONG! I'm telling!" vs the more laid-back "Whatever man, if nobody sees it then we're golden" types.
But it's more interesting than that really (life I mean), because most of us might be laid back and ethically relaxed on some issues, but much more uptight on others. Personally though I wouldn't try to build characters or a story from the top down this way (from ethical standpoints), but by thinking about people you've known or seen and how they interacted when it comes to some of these issues. You want to get out of the purely intellectual exercise stuff, which is philosophical rather than visceral, and into real meat-and-potatoes stuff, the stuff character interaction is built on. And that requires thinking about specific characters (people), rather than about traits. And even more specifically, people who disagree strongly on the topic at hand (whatever your main theme is). I know that seems to go against the character web concept, but not really, because when you're creating characters you think of people who fit the types you're looking for. I suppose you could call it 'starting from the traits,' but you then leap instantly to actual people or characters.
