On law and morality

Laws are rules created and recognised by the state, or the society, which regulate the behaviour of individuals by imposition of penalties for their violation. They exist as legal laws, social norms, organisational ethics, etc.

When we are younger, we tend to see law as guide to morality. We equate legal with moral and illegal with immoral. As we mature and our interactions with the law increase in various domains of finance, work, marriage, etc., we observe another side of laws as inflexible entanglements which lack gradation, consideration, empathy. To meet our objectives, we figure out our workarounds, the choice of which depend on resources we can afford to expend. We weigh our options and process the guilt, the conflict that arise from the sudden negation of our long held childhood belief of "legal is moral". As we process our conflicting values, we gradually reach a broader understanding of laws and their utility.

Laws began as instruments of social control, that fixed responsibility by defining who is to be punished and to what extent, when expected behaviour is not observed, thereby eliciting order in society. Laws derived their legitimacy and impactfulness from the sources of power (whether the powerful want them) and popularity (whether the society as a whole believes in them). A ruling establishment referred to as the 'state' came to existence in some form, but the state exists at social as well as organisational/ governmental levels, and the laws permeate deep into society and individual psyche. They are reminded of, reinforced, and maintained through social interaction, sanctions or punishment. Punishments are not always as visible as a fine or a sentence,  they often exist subtly in the emotions of fear, shame, and guilt.

Laws not only have the noble intent of helping the social system control the individuals, it also has limiting side of absolving the state/society of responsibilities that it doesn't have resources to deal with. For example, parents restrict their children the freedom not merely to protect the children but also because they do not have time and attention that would be required to support the child in new adventures and territories. Another example is that of prohibition of liquor; the state bans alcohol not just for the noble intent of reducing alcoholism and domestic violence, it does so for the reasons of it's own limitations. The state wishes to reduce financial burden that arise due to treatment of patients of alcohol abuse in government hospitals, rehabilitation and drug de-addiction centers, mental health and counselling services, etc. After alcohol ban, a patient would fear a doctor for turning him in to police, as opposed to going to him for help. Similarly, in case of prostitution, due to its illegality, a prostitute would fear approaching police or courts when she encounters abuse or violence, rather than seeing hope of justice from the institutions designed to uphold justice and human rights. Thus, laws limit responsibility, and have intended as well as unintended outcomes, in other words, law has latent and manifest functions. Latent functions are those occurences which are intended, easily acknowledged and popularly understood. Manifest functions are those which are visible only through the outcomes, i.e. which are manifested in some form in the results. 

Laws also have dysfunctions, i.e., occurences which cause results that go against, or negate, the intended outcome of the law or the objectives of the society.

When laws entangle and one seeks ways to work around, corruption fosters. Discreet violation of law, done to evade punishment, or with objective of furnishing self interest, often systematically, is referred to as corruption. Corruption, as a system, may have latent and manifest functions, and dysfunctions.

Functional perspective on corruption: Corruption, in a social system or an organisational system, exists because it addresses certain needs of the system which the laws are unable to meet. Laws are sometimes narrow, inadequate, out of tune with reality, unfair, and too inflexible and inconsiderate to be able to work with. In such situations, corruption enjoys silent approval or legitimacy from the situationally aware section of society, thereby allowing the creation and sustenance of a parallel system, which augments the main system in pursuance of objectives that the main system itself set out to pursue but fell short of due to its own limitations. The parallel system, in this sense is functional and complementary to the main system, i.e. the law. Example of functional corruption: when children lie to explore their freedom but grow and develop in the process, thereby violating one rule set by their parents but achieving core objectives of growth, development and security awareness, and slowly earning approval of parents due to favourable outcomes.

Unintended outcomes, or manifest functions of corruption are seen in forms such as alienation of individuals from society (aloofness, disconnection from shared values), deactivation of feedback mechanism of a social or organisational system that slows down its adaptation and evolution, causing it to decay because participants chose to build parallel tunnels instead of communicating their dissatisfactions to the system. Corruption is dysfunctional when it hinders the pursuance of objectives of growth and development of the society. For example: a child fearing telling his needs to parents, and hence growing emotionally distant from parents.

Whether something is functional or dysfunctional depends on the perspective and objectives one evaluates it against. What is functional from one perspective may be dysfunctional from other. When competing or conflicting social interests are involved, what is functional for one social group, may be dysfunctional for the other. We should, hence, see law not as sole guide to distinguish wrong from right, but as one of the several perspectives of looking at how things ought to be, and focus rather on effective functionality in line with the underlying vision and broader objectives of common good while evaluating our actions.