WESLEY AKUM-OJONG (U6)
The contrast between what constitutes a good person and a good citizen is one that has been debated since ancient times, with Aristotle holding ‘the excellence of a citizen must be an excellence relative to the constitution’, while the good person ‘is a man so called in virtue of a single absolute excellence’. Often what is legal - what a good citizen should follow - and what is considered moral - what a good person should follow - deviate to a great extent. For example, 70% of South Africans feel homosexuality is ‘wrong’ (Sutherland, 2016) - i.e. immoral, despite the country having broad legal rights and protections for homosexuals. This is a clear example of a situation where the beliefs of the good person and those of the good citizen would diverge, and exploration of similar cases and contradictions reveals the difficulties in being both the good citizen and the good person.
Being a good citizen necessitates following the law, even where it may cause harm to other people for no good reason, which would naturally come into conflict with morality, and it is mainly for this reason that the good citizen cannot always be a good person, and vice versa. Of course, there is significant overlap between what the law and morality mandate, but the areas of difference mean that it is near impossible to follow both all of the time. Arguably the existence of morality and its conflict with the law mean that a person can only ever be a ‘good-enough’ citizen - total adherence to the law could come into conflict with their morality. In democracies it can be argued that the law is simply the sum of the collective moralities of society, which would indicate the chasm between the good person and good citizen can be bridged, yet the sometimes unrepresentative nature of democracies also arguably prevents the two - the good citizen and good person - from being able to coexist as one person permanently.
Law effectively exists as a means to control the conduct of people (Shavell, 2002, 227), and to encourage citizens to act in a desirable manner, yet the following of law does not necessarily correspond to following morality. A good citizen in a totalitarian police state, for example, would fulfil their duty as a good citizen by reporting their peers for any dissenting behaviour, even where their conduct may not be ‘immoral’. It could be argued that there is a ‘general moral obligation’ to follow the law (Koch, 2019), so as to ensure stability and wellbeing within society. Almost any conception of the social contract rests on citizens following the laws of their society as a moral obligation to maximise the utility of that society and enhance the position of their fellow citizens. Under this assumption, being a good person necessitates being a good citizen, indicating that a good citizen’s following of law would be a following of morality. Despite this, an absolute conception of morality independent from law would allow for contradictions between the law and morality to prevent a good citizen from following morality and being a good person. Where the law may prioritise the interests of the state and control, one’s morality may prioritise the protection of oneself or other people. For example in the 2019 Hong Kong Extradition Bill protests, activists wished to promote greater democracy and rights, protecting themselves from harm (Phu, 2020), yet if they were to follow the law, and therefore what would be needed for them to be ‘good’ citizens, they would not protest and instead would acquiesce to the wishes of the Chinese government. Situations like this help illustrate the difficulties in maintaining morality while following one’s duty as a good citizen, casting further doubt on the idea the good citizen is always a good person.
The defining characteristic of the good person is arguably their adherence to a moral code above any other others, for example any legal code. This would, it seems, act as a limitation on the good person’s ability to act as a good citizen. In fact, under Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, the highest (postconventional) stages of moral development first involve reinterpreting the law and aiming to follow the spirit of it (stage 5), and then in the final stage (stage 6) developing a moral code independent of, and above, the law (Sonnert & Commons, 1994), an indication of how the good person’s following of morality places them on a collision course with the law and therefore being a good citizen. Of course, it is possible for the good person to sometimes be the good citizen, especially where the law doesn’t require action from a person or where it aligns with a person’s morality, but the notion of morality being placed above that of law is something that precludes the good person from always being the good citizen. Morality is something that can be seen to exist independent of law, and this allows for it and law to come into conflict quite easily, meaning the permanently good person may find their morality prevents them from always being the good citizen.
It can be argued that, in a democracy with popular sovereignty, the law is the summation of the collective morality of the franchise in that democracy, which would therefore provide for a situation where the good citizen is always the good person. Ideally, laws and policy would reflect the morality and desires of the citizens as people, since those laws are the result of debate and discussion between presumably moral people. For instance, some of the most basic laws in our society, such as the illegality of murder under common law, effectively are the result of centuries of sustained moral judgements, indicating that perhaps where morality and the law align there is a possibility for the good citizen to also always be a good person. In practice, however, this is often not the case. The moralities and desires of citizens are often not reflected by rules set down in law, especially when democracies become unrepresentative or where opportunities for change are ossified by a relatively inefficient political system. For example, 61% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases (Pew Research Center, 2022) according to a poll taken in June 2022, yet the Supreme Court was able to remove federal protection for abortion in that very same month, an action that therefore could be seen to be against the morality of the American franchise. Inconsistencies like this cast doubt on the idea that law can be seen as the collective morality of the people - it can just as well disregard the morality of the people. If the law cannot be seen as the collective morality of people, then the idea of law and morality as fully separate concepts is foregrounded, making it difficult for the good person to always be the good citizen and vice versa.
It is clear that the law and morality are two intertwined concepts, both regulating the conduct of people in different ways, although they cannot truly be seen to be the same thing, and this prevents the good person from always being the good citizen and vice versa. The needs of being one can often come into conflict with the needs of being the other - following the law can come into conflict with one’s morality, and one’s morality can, in certain situations, justify not following the law. Indeed, under H.L.A. Hart’s notion of legal positivism (Hart, 1958), the law and morality are completely separate, and what is legal need not necessarily be moral, and vice versa. This separation of legality from morality is what allows for the good citizen and good person to not always necessarily be the same individual performing the same actions, and perhaps indicates the futility of classifying individuals as either good citizens or good people, as individuals are always bound to be heavily influenced by both law, and morals.
References
Hart, H. L. (1958, February). Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals. Harvard Law Review, 71(4), 593-629. JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/1338225
Koch, P. (2019, December 20). How should we balance morality and the law? - Baylor College of Medicine Blog Network. Baylor College of Medicine Blog Network -. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://blogs.bcm.edu/2019/12/20/how-should-we-balance-morality-and-the-law/
Pew Research Center. (2022, June 13). 61% of Americans say abortion should be legal. Pew Research Center. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/13/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases-2/
Phu, S. (2020, May 20). Resistance Isn't Futile: A Case Study of the Hong Kong Extradition Bill Protests | Natural Sciences and Mathematics. College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. Retrieved June 28, 2022, from https://science.du.edu/research/showcase/resistance-case-study-hong-kong-protests
Shavell, S. (2002). Law versus Morality as Regulators of Conduct. American Law and Economics Review, V4(N2), 227-257. http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/shavell/pdf/4_Amer_Law_Econ_Rev_227.pdf
Sutherland, C. (2016, September 9). Progressive Prudes (South Africa) | The Other Foundation. The Other Foundation |. Retrieved June 25, 2022, from https://theotherfoundation.org/progressive-prudes/
Sonnert, G., & Commons, M. L. (1994). Society and the highest stages of moral development. Politics and the Individual, 4(1), 31-55.