Whether the law should regulate immorality, and not just harmful behavior, is the issue about whether legal moralism is defensible. A classical liberal view (sometimes associated with John Stuart Mill) is that liberty may be restricted to prevent harm, but not to enforce morality as such. In evaluating legal moralism, one important question is what would count as harmless immorality. Legal moralism used to be debated about whether the state should prohibit pornography or homosexuality. But, of course, it is questionable whether pornography or homosexuality is per se immoral. You mention the case of infidelity. It’s an interesting question whether infidelity causes harm. One might think so, in which case it presents questions of harm prevention, as well as legal moralism. Most would agree that it is immoral, but many liberals would deny that the state should regulate. A clearer case of harmless wrongdoing might be a case in which a minor promise is broken but with no ill effect or someone borrows a friend’s property without his permission. Here too many would think that the law has no business intervening. But we might want to distinguish two different explanations of this fact. On one view, there simply is no reason to regulate immorality as such. On another view, there is reason to regulate immorality (to improve the moral quality of the world), but there may be even stronger reason not to regulate if legal intervention is an inefficient tool and causes more harm than good. The first view rules out legal moralism, but the second does not. If there are some cases where there is sufficient reason, on balance, to regulate harmless wrongdoing, then that provides some support for the second view. Some might think that punishing unsuccessful criminal attempts (cases in which it was only luck that prevented the completion of the criminal attempt) was justified, even though they caused no harm. Though harmless, someone might insist that criminal attempts risk harm and that harm prevention allows us to regulate the risky as well as the harmful. Other cases of harmless immorality that many would think we should legally regulate include desecration of the dead and bestiality. A consistent rejection of legal moralism would presumably have to abstain from regulating such harmless wrongs. If we find this kind of abstention hard to accept, we may be attracted to a form of legal moralism that says that there is always some reason to regulate immorality but that whether regulation is on balance best depends upon various other considerations, such as the gravity of the immorality, the prospects for successful prevention of immorality, and the costs of various kinds in regulation.

No. That would be a form of discrimination and discrimination is both illegal and morally wrong.

This is a very interesting nest of questions!! The relation between law and morality has received considerable discussion from philosophers and is a fascinating topic. I treat the first question that you raise, and then turn to the very different question with which you conclude.

I myself am not inclined to think that being law abiding has anything to do with one's moral consciousness. In order to be law-abiding, one need only obey the laws. And in order to do this, one need only know the laws, one needn't even understand them. So even basic legal knowledge is not a condition for being a law-abiding citizen. Indeed, it may even be the case that law and morality can come into conflict, in which case moral consciousness would not only not be a sufficient condition for being a law-abiding citizen, it might even lead one to break laws. (Cases of civil disobedience are relevant here. If you haven't read it already, I recommend that you take a look at Thoreau's "Resistance to Civil Government," just one of many pieces relevant to the topic, but a classic that merits being read.) Although one might respond that at least a minimal moral consciousness is necessary to recognize the authority of the state, I'm not even inclined to think that this is the case.

The question of how much law we need to know--or perhaps better, should know--in order to be good citizens, and what relation our moral consciousness has to being a good citizen, is a very different question indeed. I'm inclined to think that the more one knows about the laws of the land in which one lives, the better a citizen--because a better-informed citizen--one will be. However, one may not therefore come to be a law-abiding citizen, especially if one comes to recognize that there are conflicts between one's moral commitments and the law, in which case one may have to choose between obedience to the law and one's moral commitments. (This conflict receives an excellent treatment in Sophocle's play, Antigone.) Nevertheless, I'm inclined to think that being a good citizen--as opposed to merely a law-abiding citizen--requires that one recognize the possibility of conflicts between the requirements of law and those of morality, and to try to think through how those conflicts should be resolved, if and when they do arise. How to resolve such conflicts, though, is a deep and difficult question, that goes back to the very beginning of Western philosophy, for it is engaged in Plato's early diaglogue Crito: but regardless of how one resolves this sort of question, I'm inclined to think that reflection on it will actually make one a better, because more reflective and engaged, citizen (although, again, such reflection may not lead one necessarily to be a law-abiding citizen.)

I don't think there is a hard-and-fast rule to give here. Do you call the cops when you see your kid litter? Of course not! Just make them pick it up and give them a good lecture about why that is unacceptable behavior. But if you see them commit murder? Well, yes, then it seems appropriate. If I caught one of my children shoplifting, I would try to come up with a way to make them repay the store--but I don't think I would be supportive if people at the store gave me an indication that they aggressively prosecute every case of shoplifting.

I think our responsibilities change in different relationships. I would also try to "correct" minor misdemeanors (like littering) when done by friends or more distant family members. The worse the crime, the more it seems to me to call for a legal report. But I think we are, in a way, much more responsible for the behavior of our minor children than we are after they have reached the age of majority, and we are much less responsible for distant relatives, acquaintances, and the like. So my own culpability in failing to report some law-breaking is relative to the degree of my responsibility for the behavior of that other person.

Do I call in every case I see of someone speeding past me on the freeway? No. That's not my responsibility. But if I see evidence that they are seriously impaired in some way (weaving dangerously, etc.), well, yes, I would call that in.

I think the only good advice I have to give here, beyond such rules of thumb, is that you exercise the best judgment of your own level of responsibility (to the criminal, to his or her victims, and to your fellow citizens) and of what you can do that is most likely to provide the best available resolution to the situation.

As I understand it, the issue at stake here is that people (and not just women) want to be able to regard their workplace as just that--a workplace. The minute someone in that place begins to give sexual attention to someone else in that workplace, the environment is changed--and changed in a way that makes the workplace no longer an entirely comfortable place to work.

There are obviously degrees of sexual harassment, and I frankly don't think that giving unwanted sexual attention (that is in no way coersive) on a date could count--either ethically or legally--as harassment. But it is different in a workplace. If you find someone's sexual interest or expressions thereof unwanted on a date, you can always refuse to go out on another date with that person. But if you have to deal with this at a workplace, your only option is to try to find another job--which these days can be a major problem, and which a good worked should not have to feel that he or she has to do, to avoid someone acting in a way that is inappropriate for a workplace. So this is not simply a "freedom of speech" issue. It has to do with making the environment of a workplace no longer comfortable for some other worker working in that place. Please respect this!

It is often not precisely what someone did that is significant in the case of the law, but how it is classified. However many people saw him do it, the issue is often what it is that they saw

Right now I am banging away at the keys of my computer, but I could be blackmailing someone, sending a love letter, slandering a politician, or responding to a question for askphilosophers. A thousand people may be watching, and not just my cat, but in criminal law what the court will want to know is what precisely happened, not just the actions of the individuals concerned. So we should hang on to the "allegedly" term at least if the plea is a not guilty one.

Philosophers sometimes use the terms "perfect duty" to refer to duties that persons have which they can be compelled to obey, as distinct from imperfect duties which cannot compel obedience (these duties might range from a duty to be nice / not rude to acts of amazing courage which we regard as 'above and beyond the call of duty). Some duties seem obviously perfect duties like the duty not to commit homicide or rape or steal and so on, otherwise one would not have a society. Other duties seem to be imperfect, though highly important for democracy such as the duty to vote. I believe that citizens in a democracy who can vote (they are of age and of sound mind) should vote, but evidently this is not something that the USA and other democracies believe they can force citizens to do. You might check out Joel Feinberg's excellent book Rights, Justice, and the Bounds of Liberty.

I am in full agreement with the precept that an accused person is to be presumed innocent until proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be guilty. But this precept is not violated when your defense attorney declines your case or resigns from it. This is so because the presumption applies to the state and its agents and agencies. The precept does not forbid citizens to form the opinion that some accused person is guilty. Nor does it forbid citizens to act on such opinions. You are perfectly free, for example, to change your mind about buying Joe's used car or to warn your daughter against dating Joe, on the sole ground that you have just learned of a criminal case of fraud against Joe and of the evidence presented against him.

I agree that an accused person is entitled to be represented by a qualified attorney. But again, this right is not violated when one attorney declines or resigns. Compare: your right to get married is not violated when the person you have chosen as your spouse declines -- or even if many potential spouses turn you down. You'll have to keep trying until you find someone willing to get married to you. And, similarly, as a person accused you need to keep trying until you find a lawyer willing to take your case along with the plea you want her to enter on your behalf.

I also agree that jurors must examine the totality of the evidence placed before the Court and may bring a verdict of "guilty" only if they are fully satisfied of the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. Perhaps you can go from there to the proposition that a defense attorney should not be influenced in the way she conducts the defense by her own beliefs about her client's guilt or innocence. But even if this is right, it's irrelevant to my point which was not about how your defense attorney should conduct your defense once she has taken it on, but about whether she should be defending you at all. Do you wish to say that defense attorneys are morally free to turn down only those clients who have been shown beyond reasonable doubt to be guilty? This is surely false. A defense attorney may resign when she becomes convinced that you don't have the money to pay her. So why should it be impermissible for her to resign when she becomes convinced that your "not guilty" plea is false to the facts?

To put this in perspective, let's think about a concrete case with you in the role of top-of-the-line defense attorney. A potential client comes to you and offers you a large fee for defending him against a rape charge. Talking through the details of the case with him, you become convinced that he has committed the crime. He does not deny this, but he wants to plead "not guilty". He believes that, as a star attorney, you can surely create reasonable doubt in the mind of at least one juror. You agree that you can achieve his acquittal by creating some doubt about whether the victim had not signaled consent after all. You could do this by delving into the victim's previous sexual encounters and by getting her confused or angry in a way that undermines her credibility for at least one of the jurors. You conclude that, if you take the case, then he will be acquitted.

Most would say (though you seem to disagree) that you do nothing wrong when you turn down the case. In particular, you do nothing wrong by turning it down for the reason that you do not want to help someone you deem guilty of rape to escape punishment. It might be said against this that, if every attorney turned down this case, then the accused would have no attorney. In response, I don't think this hypothetical is relevant in a context where there are plenty of other attorneys willing to take the case. If the hypothetical were morally relevant, then analogues of it would lead to rather absurd conclusions. For example: is it morally permissible for you to turn down a case because you want to preserve enough leisure time? Presumably not, because if all attorneys were as busy and as protective of their leisure time as you are, then the defendant in question would find no defense attorney. This implication is absurd in a world where in fact plenty of defense attorneys are looking for clients. And just as you may turn down a case because you want to preserve your leisure time, you may also turn it down because you don't want to contribute to what you regard as a miscarriage of justice nor inflict emotional injury and humiliation upon a person you regard as a rape victim.

Once it is accepted that turning down the case is morally permissible, I don't see a good rationale for denying that this is what you ought to do. If you accept the case and mount a successful defense, you will contribute to what, according to your own best judgment, are substantial harms: you will contribute to a miscarriage of justice, you will contribute to enabling and encouraging your client to re-offend, you will contribute to reducing the deterrent effect of criminal statutes (esp. those against rape), and you will also inflict further injury and humiliation upon someone you regard as a rape victim. Turning down the case, on the other hand, comes without significant moral costs. The accused has to look for another attorney, that's all.

A final remark. While, for the reasons given, I don't think much of the line of argument you press, I recognize that it is prominent in legal circles. I would explain this mainly by one factor: money. Defense lawyers want to earn money by achieving acquittals for persons they strongly believe to be guilty and they don't want to be thought unethical for doing this. So they work up a special professional ethic that justifies their conduct and even celebrates it as their moral duty. The mere fact that the members of a profession deem some conduct they engage in to be ethical does not make it so.

I read your queston as envisaging that the attorneys in question not merely contribute to a miscarriage of justice but do so knowingly -- or at least have strong reason to believe that the outcome they are achieving is the wrong outcome.

I also read you as stipulating that the cases you have in mind happen within a largely just legal system. Within a seriously unjust legal system, an attorney who gets a guilty client (who really did make a joke about the dictator) acquitted has done a morally good deed, and similarly the attorney who gets one of the regime's torturers convicted for a crime he didn't commit.

To be reasonably just, a criminal justice system must not merely punish the kinds of conduct that ought to be punished and permit the kinds of conduct that ought to be permitted. It must also have rules and procedures that are reasonably reliable in ensuring that guilty people get punished and especially that innocent people are acquitted. It is not consistent with such a system that prosecutors pursue and achieve convictions of people whom they know to be innocent. Such behavior either violates the rules of the system (which proscribes such prosecutorial misconduct) or else constitutes participation in an unjust legal system (which permits or encourages prosecutors to go after innocent people).

It could be argued that this sort of reasoning does not apply in the case of defense attorneys: that a criminal justice system can be just even while it encourages defense attorneys to try to get acquittals even for clients they know (or have very strong reason to believe) to be guilty. In view of the enormous damage done by repeat offenders who have been wrongly acquitted earlier, I find this blanket permission hard to accept in the case of serious crimes. Here, I think the analogous argument goes through: a defense attorney who achieves the acquittal of a defendant whom he knows to be guilty of a serious crime is either violating the rules of the system or else participating in a legal system that is unjust insofar as it permits or encourages such conduct. Such a defense attorney should decline the case or resign from it. If such a defense attorney is convinced that her client is a rapist and then continues to defend him vigorously and achieves his acquittal, then she bears some moral responsibility for crimes her client will commit in the future even if she has done nothing illegal or procedurally inappropriate.

This is a wonderful and fascinating question, which goes to the heart of the relation between morality and legality.

It does seem that the moral status of an action might well be determined by the intention with which the action is performed (in part because depending on one's intention, one may well perform the same external act--say, give money to charity--but act very differently--one might give to charity in order to help others, or in order to get a tax write-off, or to impress one's friends--and so it seems to me that the nature of and the respect to which an act reflects morally on an agent can vary depending on her intention in performing the act. Of course, however, it might well be the case that no one but God can really know the intention with which someone acts--agents themselves may not know their own intentions very well, as Freud and empirical psychology have argued--and so intentions cannot be taken into account in determining whether some external act is in conformity with or against some law. (This is not to say that the law ignores intentions: attempted murder is punished, albeit not to the same degree, as a successful murder: but in both cases, the starting point is an external act.) Since law regards only external action, it can--fortunately for it--avoid consideration of the intention with which an agent performs an action: the agent who doesn't steal because stealing is morally wrong and the agent who doesn't steal because s/he fears going to jail have equal standing in the eyes of the law.

Now I myself am inclined sharply to separate questions of morality and legality: many other philosophers have distinguished them. Kant, for example, distinguishes in The Metaphysics of Morals between questions of virtue, which have to do with the intention with which an agent acts and are therefore moral, from what he calls questions of right, which have to do with the permissibility of actions and don't regard intentions at all, but only external acts. One virtue--to my mind--of the fact that the law only regards external actions is that it provides a very clear standard for distinguishing between (legally) permissible and (legally) impermissible actions; matters are not so clear with respect to morality, which is one of the reasons that it is so difficult to be moral. In light of this distinction between morality and legality, I don't believe that the point of laws is to "reduce the incidence of...immoral acts" at all, but rather to ensure that agents do not commit illegal acts. Consequently, one prong of your question can be avoided, because it seems to turn on the question of whether the domains of law and morality can and do overlap.

Now even if you might were to grant that morality and the law have different objects altogether, there remains another issue: can the mere fact of there being laws turn agents away from morality. I'm dubious that this is indeed the case. It's not at all clear to me that just because there are laws that agents' reasons for doing what they do will therefore be centered around conforming to the laws. Suppose that an agent who knows that it is against the law to steal doesn't steal because it is morally, not merely legally, wrong to do so: in such a case, the agent would still have acted morally. So I don't think that I would agree with the suggestion that laws "often reduce" the capacity of agents to act morally.

(If you haven't already read it, you might want to check out the first section of Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, which engages with certain of the issues that you broach in your question and of which I have been thinking in the course of my response.)