Have you ever wondered what makes a law legitimate? Is it just because someone in power said so, or does it need to be morally right too? Are all laws in a society moral, and what decides this morality?
Can a law be truly legitimate if it violates fundamental moral principles? This is a central debate in the philosophy of law, one that is particularly evident in the case of the Nazi regime.
The Grudge Informer Case
During the Nazi regime, in 1944, a German woman wanted to get rid of her husband who was in the army. So instead of filing for divorce like how you and I would, she reported him to the authorities for insulting Hitler – knowing full well that this could get him killed and it did. Under the Nazi law, this was enough. The soldier faced execution for “insulting the government.”
In 1949, after the war, she was tried in a West German courtroom, and this is where things get interesting. Her defense was, “Hey, I was just following the laws at the time!” And technically… she wasn’t wrong.
This case sparked a huge debate that still has legal philosophers throwing shade at each other today, These questions aren’t just for philosophers. They shape the laws you live under every day.
To answer this, we turn to two major legal theories that have shaped debates about the legitimacy of laws: Natural Law and Legal Positivism.
The Great Debate: Natural Law vs. Legal Positivism
Ever thought, “What makes a law a law?”
What if there were a law requiring you to punch every third person you see, would that be a real law solely because it is codified?
This is where our two competing legal theories clash:
1. Natural Law
Supporters of this theory believe laws need to be moral to be legitimate. They’re the ones who’d say that ‘punching random people’ law isn’t really a law at all because it violates our fundamental moral principles.
Their poster child? Martin Luther King Jr, who famously wrote from Birmingham Jail that “an unjust law is no law at all.”
(In the 1960s, during the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans were fighting against segregation laws in the southern United States. These laws were legally enacted and followed the established procedures of legal positivism, yet they violated fundamental human rights. Leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. invoked Natural Law principles to argue that segregation laws were immoral and unjust, and thus, not truly valid laws. His famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” argues that an unjust law is no law at all, positioning Natural Law as a standard for evaluating the legitimacy of laws.)
Natural law philosophers hold that some rights are human by nature and can be realized through reason. They are said to be more basic than Man-made law and are used to determine whether laws are morally valid. According to this view, for a law to be legitimate, it must be universal and apply to everyone. If a law goes against moral principles, it is seen as unjust and harmful to society.
Philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas argue that true law comes from:
– Divine principles
– Rational reasoning
– Fundamental human rights
In our soldier’s case, they’d argue the Nazi statute wasn’t law at all—it was an abuse of justice. The German Court of Appeal later agreed, declaring the law contrary to the sound conscience of all decent human beings.
2. Legal Positivism
These are the “it is what it is” people. They believe that we might not like a law, but if it’s properly enacted, it’s still technically a law.” They separate the “is this legally valid?” question from the “is this morally right?” question.
These people are not immoral, as many might think ; they just believed that morality and law don’t mix. This theory had supporters like Kelsen, who argued for legal positivism. He claimed that laws get their validity from other laws, which get their validity from other laws, and so on until you hit what he called “the basic norm.” which is assumed to be true.
He basically said there’s a legal ‘trust me, bro‘ at the bottom of all laws and there’s no higher authority justifying it and since this foundation is basically just made up, technically anything could be legal, but Kelsen wasn’t saying you HAVE to obey every law.
Bentham, Hart, and Austin followed the same argument: “If it follows the proper procedure, it’s law.” This doesn’t mean blind obedience to rules.
In fact, legal positivism has often protected individual rights by emphasizing clear, consistent procedures. Take the case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), where the U.S. Supreme Court overturned segregation laws. While natural law arguments about human dignity were present, the Court’s decision rested heavily on positivist reasoning: they followed established legal procedures to interpret the Constitution, demonstrating that change can happen within the system through proper channels.
Hart vs. Fuller
The Grudge Informer Case led to a philosophical debate between two big legal theorists, Hart and Fuller. It’s basically like Batman v Superman, but with more footnotes.
Hart (team Legal Positivist) argued that while the Nazi laws were deeply unjust, they were still technically valid laws.
While Fuller (team Natural Law) had a completely different idea and dropped his eight-point checklist for what makes a legal system legitimate:
1. Laws should be general
2. Laws must be public (no secret laws like Nazi Germany)
3. No retroactive laws (usually)
4. Laws should be clear
5. Laws shouldn’t contradict each other
6. Laws should only require possible things
7. Laws shouldn’t change every five minutes
8. What officials do should match what the law says
Interestingly, the Nazi Legal System Was Actually Natural Law Based.
Despite what many people think, the Nazi legal system was actually heavily based on natural law principles, not legal positivism. They believed their laws had a moral purpose – protecting their “Aryan community.” (Though this was extremely racist, it was their version of morality.) They even let German citizens override written laws based on their “innate racial sense of justice.”
Unfortunately, natural law reasoning has been weaponized in the past to justify harmful systems like slavery and apartheid by claiming it was a part of the Natural order.
Here’s where it gets more complicated than some of your moot props, many opponents of same-sex marriage have also used natural law arguments about “natural” human relationships to justify discrimination. These examples remind us that appeals to morality and natural law can be subjective and potentially dangerous when they’re based on particular cultural or religious perspectives rather than universal principles.
The Modern Perspective
After World War II, everyone was quick to say, “Nazi laws weren’t real laws because they were evil!” But some modern legal philosophers had questions like:
• Are we really that much better now ?
• Were the Nuremberg Trials as morally pure as we like to think?
• Does calling something “justice” or “civilized” automatically make it right?
Take Obama’s speech after Bin Laden’s death. He talked about “justice being done,” but where was the trial? The legal process? It’s giving “we’re the good guys so whatever we do is automatically right” energy.
What’s interesting is how often this “justice without a trial” gets a free pass when it’s done by the U.S. or other powerful nations, so the question remains about the principle of justice itself.
Let’s move to India and take the example of Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist from the horrific 2008 Mumbai attacks. Kasab was arrested during the attack, and his capture created a massive debate over the right course of action. He was tried in an Indian court, which followed legal procedure to the letter.
And maybe declaring Nazi laws “not real laws” was partly about countries like America trying to dodge responsibility because if you can say “Oh, that whole system was illegitimate,” it’s easier to ignore the fact that many countries looked the other way for way too long.
The 2003 invasion of Iraq, for instance, was justified by claims of weapons of mass destruction, which later proved to be false. This raises questions about the legitimacy of the intervention itself, even if the initial motivation stemmed from a desire to prevent potential harm.
Conclusion
So where does this leave us? We should focus on having fair, clear legal procedures rather than just declaring things “moral” or “immoral.”
We should be a little suspicious whenever someone starts throwing around big words like “justice,” “civilization,” and “universal morals” to justify their actions. Just because someone says they’re doing something for “justice” doesn’t mean it is always right.
Getting rid of obviously bad laws doesn’t mean we automatically have good ones. The notion of “justice” cannot be an excuse for our moral blind spots, nor can we rely solely on legal procedures to determine what is right. That is why we need to stay critical and keep asking questions – even when (especially when) the people in charge say they’re acting for the greater good.
In a plot twist that nobody asked for but everyone needs to know about is that the wife in the soldiers case was ultimately prosecuted. The court gave a decision, proving that law isn’t a simple equation of right and wrong.
Every case, every statute, every legal argument ultimately asks: What is justice?
The soldier’s wife thought she was following the law. The Nazi regime believed it was creating order. But history judges differently.
I would like to conclude that Moral Law is not just about words on paper. It’s about dignity, justice, and our collective moral evolution to judge the same.
-This article has been written by Divyanshi (1st Year)
