The Person Who Appeals To Legality

Beware the person who appeals to legality to "prove" the veracity of a moral idea only to suddenly admit that morality, if it exists, transcends the dictates of human legal systems.  Now, they likely do not even realize the inherent distinction between the concept of a moral obligation and that of a law, much less care about whether they are compliant with any actual moral obligations that might exist.  Their explanation for why something they do or want to do is justified starts and stops with whether it is legal in their community to do so.  At least, this is where it starts and stops before it suits their preferences to abandon this idea for something else.

Hypocrisy is the defining trait of an individual who fits this description.  When this kind of person wants to avoid criticism of their moral stances, they shallowly assert that the activity in question is legal, and when this kind of person feels that a law is unjust (for they clearly base their moral actions on preferences and emotion), they say that a deed is still moral or immoral in spite of the law.  There is not even any loyalty to one position or another based on mere emotion, just willingness to randomly switch stances in accordance with preferences.  Which thing they will say or perhaps even believe depends on their circumstances, feelings, and whatever personal benefit a certain act might bring them.

All it takes is one inconvenient or unexpected experience and they will continuously revert from one position to another!  Their stupidity is evident in their utter hypocrisy.  The same is true of their insincerity.  It is one thing to be inconsistent but at least somewhat thoughtful and concerned about truth, including truths about morality, but it is another thing to be ideologically tossed to and fro, consistent only in that changing circumstances motivate a backsliding worldview.  Going back and forth between a sort of societal law-based relativism and moral realism as is personally convenient is one of the most asinine ways someone could approach the concept of morality.

Laws reflect moral ideas, and those moral ideas are true or false irrespective of what laws or customs any culture erects.  Either no laws are just or some laws are just, but they cannot all be simultaneously correct, as the laws of different countries and even sometimes of the same country contradict each other.  Of course, legality and morality are objectively distinct concepts, and anyone is capable of realizing this completely on their own.  In no case does a law have actual philosophical authority just because a ruling class or "the people" support it.  The person who appeals to legality only betrays himself or herself in an elusive effort to fit into the changing cauldron of arbitrary cultures.