Natural Law holds that Law & morality are connected law is not simply. What is enact in statutes & if legislation is not moral. There is not law & has or authority.
ST.Thomas Aquinas termed law (under the natural law theory) such as,
“Nothing else than an ordinance of reason for the common good made by him who has a care of the community promulgated.”
Positivism emphasizes the separation of law & morality legal positivism regarded law as a system of clearly defined rules, posited by the legislature.
When law & morality is compared in large scall a various differences arise, such as law is recognized by the society where as morality comes from individual principles or performance. Law is applied by courts; morality by the society law is a system of social norms backed up by threat of prisons, where as morality is simply a system of norms backed up by social condemnation.
Also legal rules can be changed by enactment but morality changes only gradually if at all. Disagreements about law can be resolved by the opinions of the judges whereas there is no certain way of resolving moral disagreements.
Even though law & morality are two different aspects, they after overlap. Law is not based upon moral but when statutes are made; morality fails under consideration.
The obscene publications Act-1959, the punishment of incest Act-1908, tell us that it is illegal to make & deal pornograpts this is one moral rule to affect the statute.
The race relations Act-1966 is another law which has been influenced by morality. It states that any abnormality discrimination based on a persons colour is morally legally wrong.
R v Dian Pretty was an elderly patient suffering from moto neuro disease during her struggling stages she asked her husband to give her freedom by death. Under her right of euthanasia.
However, the court prohibited the practice of euthanasia thereby giving effect to the supposed moral rule that deliberately killing another human being is wrong even when that other person has consorted to the killing.
However in many cases law has a different result than to what morality would have preferred.
Even though morality may regard abortion & birth control as killing the abortion Act-1967 has legalized such practices.
Homosexuality which also is said to be immoral in Mary parts of the word & also in parts of England is now legal. Such is also in the case of prostitution.
Airedale health Authority v Bland (1993) in the above case the patient Mr. Bland was suffering from severe disease & was under life supporting machine in such case if the doctor aids the patient to die he would not be hold lisade legally even thought the entire matter results in immorality.
Hart Devlin Debate,
The issue of whether or not law should follow morality was debated during the late -1950’s the government set up a commission to 100 at whether the laws on homosexuality & Prostitution should be changed.
Much debate started by publication of the commissions findings know as wolferden report cenrral to this debate wese the writtongs of Lord Devlin who opposed the reports finding & professor Hart who approved the findings.
The wolferder committee recommended that homosexuality & prostitution should be legalized with some restrictions. The reason is very like that of mill leaves people to make thire own choices so long as they do not harm etothes. This was supported by professor Hart.
Lord Devlin apposed to this approached the argued that some for from of common morality was necessary to keep society together. The law has it right to uphold that common morality. Devlin argued that we can judge immorality by the standard of the right.