If morality is (are) seven billion utility functions, then a legal system will be a poor match for it (them).
But there are good reasons for thinking that can’t be the case. For one thing, people can have preferences that are intuitively immoral. If a psychopath wants to murder, that does not make murder moral.
For another, it is hard to see what purpose morality serves when there is no interaction between people. Someone who is alone on a desert island iskand has no need of rules and against murder because there is no one to murder, and no need of rules against theft because there is no one to steal, and from and so on.
If morality is a series of negotiations and trade offs about preferences, then the law can match it closely. We can answer the question “why is murder illegal” with “because murder is wrong”.
If morality is (are) seven billion utility functions, then a legal system will be a poor match for it (them).
But there are good reasons for thinking that can’t be the case. For one thing, people can have preferences that are intuitively immoral. If a psychopath wants to murder, that does not make murder moral.
For another, it is hard to see what purpose morality serves when there is no interaction between people. Someone who is alone on a desert island iskand has no need of rules and against murder because there is no one to murder, and no need of rules against theft because there is no one to steal, and from and so on.
If morality is a series of negotiations and trade offs about preferences, then the law can match it closely. We can answer the question “why is murder illegal” with “because murder is wrong”.