Ethics and Law: Two Dimensions of Humanity

Abstract

“Ethics and lawfulness: two dimensions of humanuty” is a reflection which tries to deal with the relationship between ethics and law. It is a binomial which has been rising to uneasiness among scholars since ancient times and is nowadays parto f our human reality: man recognizes himself as being subject to ethics and law, able to discern between evil and Good (with a responsable conscience) and set in a network of interpersonal relationships which make him understand that he is a subject among other subjects. This binomial has a complex history: some authors have understood it as a clear separation, others as being superposed; finally, others who take the right stance, understand it as a just and wise integration. More recently the reflection tends to understand it in terms of equity and “epiqueya”. To avoid making this reflection on a mere theoretical level it is necessary to develo pan education which integrates in the new generations the personal conscience (the ethics) with a sense of inter-subjectivity (the law).