The two normative systems of modern society-law and morality-sometimes conflict and sometimes are friendly. The great consequence of this contradictory social phenomenon is to further deepen people's confusion and make it impossible to eliminate it. Even many scholars, both former and current, have interpreted this universal and profound problem in sociology, law, philosophy, politics, ethics, economics and other fields and established their own theoretical system. Although I know something, I still can't reach a harmonious agreement. Still standing in their respective fields and endlessly "arguing", no one can integrate people's understanding. The inconsistency and contradiction of human thinking mode have the characteristics of multi-angle thinking, which determines that debate is inevitable. This also shows that the eternal contradiction between law and morality will be the eternal theme for human beings to explore social harmony and natural harmony.

First, the original state of law.

As a universal norm to regulate human behavior, law is not a "free Bible" brought by human beings. It is produced by its own social trajectory. According to Marx's point of view, law is the product of class, a unique social phenomenon in class society, and a means to adjust interpersonal relations when human society develops into class society. Class does not always exist, it is the product of a specific stage of human history. In primitive society, human beings living in a low and harmonious state have no legal needs in the modern sense. So there is no room. Therefore, we have to ask: at that time, what kept human society in a harmonious state, even in a low state? The interest relationship between people is dominated by "who" and how? And when human beings enter the class society, how can the primitive and harmonious social system collapse, even though it is slowly getting rid of inferiority? At this time, the interest relationship is coordinated by "who", how to coordinate?

When the apes evolved into primitive people, and the group of apes became primitive society, and each group struggled for survival, it was deeply branded with interest stratification (interest stratification is such an architecture: different interests are divided into primary and secondary, high and low, and large). Therefore, according to a certain interest standard, a stepped structure can be formed, in which the interests of human beings always go from high to low, from main to secondary, from big to small. In other words, when human beings choose interests, it is a utilitarian choice after rational thinking. Everyone and every group have their own different interests. Even if they do not show obvious external characteristics, the differences in interests are still real. Due to the congenital defects and harsh natural conditions of primitive people, the productivity is extremely low, so that individuals cannot survive alone. So, driven by instinctive movement, they realized that "social cooperation may lead a better life than anyone who struggles alone", so different people had to seek unity and take the road of common life. Finally, under the control of the most primitive and instinctive survival goal. Although human beings are basically consistent with the same highest interests for the time being, the differences of interests will always exist, which means that the stratification of interests is still playing a role. Even if it is concealed and suppressed by the most fundamental and supreme interests, it is still restless. Therefore, there will be contradictions and conflicts. The problem that arises needs to be solved, not let it be free naturally. So we need some common principles accepted by primitive people to adjust their interests. It was born under primitive conditions, based on the original simple moral concept under the highest interests at that time. Under this realistic and specific historical condition, it undertook a heavy and glorious mission and acted as a coordinator of interests. As Engels said, "all problems are solved by the parties themselves, and in most cases, traditional customs have adjusted everything." This simple moral concept has been working hard and diligently. During the whole primitive society, human beings maintained a natural and harmonious social state by this "most sacred clan law" and made it evolve and develop continuously. Even the practical application of the extreme dispute mode of war is dominated by moral concepts.

The original moral concept has formed a set of basically consistent ways of interest distribution, and at the same time stipulated the principle of appropriate distribution of interest burden generated by social cooperation. Although the universal and primitive moral concept was generated by social needs and operated according to its own laws, it was mainly followed by people in the society at that time without external physical coercion. It is human's recognition of morality, an inherent belief and a universal pursuit of a better life. "The establishment of the ethical system stems from the strong desire of organized groups to create the lowest conditions for social life." And "* * * the same moral norms are conducive to enhancing social cohesion and social stability." A stable and United human society is obviously conducive to the survival and development of mankind, so individuals with justice, courage, fortitude and kindness have every reason to believe that others also act according to this basic system and are willing to allow themselves to be included in the whole society. Living in a harmonious moral society with a peaceful mind also makes the moral coordination of interests tend to be consistent and will not be excessively turbulent.

Human behavior under the constraint of universal moral concepts is imperfect, which does not mean that behavior is always implemented in the direction of moral principle design. Because interest stratification exists forever, and the structure can be changed at any time. Therefore, it is possible and true that human self-discipline is so weak under the occasional extreme instability, which will also undermine moral principles. The kind of "in the low-level barbaric society, the advanced attributes of human beings have begun to appear." Personal dignity, fluent language, religious feelings, integrity, fortitude and courage began to become the same characteristics of his character. "The opposite also appears from time to time. This uncertain and unstable internal psychology urges moral principles to find some external non-material forces to remedy and become a part of it. The prestige of tribal leaders, general social pressure and fear of death all played a role in this regard. It can be seen that moral means is not perfect, and its internal defects are obvious, so external remedies are beyond doubt. But we can't deny that in primitive society, it is indeed an effective rule system, and the harmonious order of the whole primitive society is based on such a rule system. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to call it "primitive law".

However, the glory of order is not eternal. The evolution of human beings and society makes us know ourselves more and more, nature and society, change ourselves gradually and "control" ourselves. Therefore, the development of productive forces is inevitable and the natural environment has been improved. The threat to human survival is gradually decreasing, and the structure of interest stratification system is changing. The status of survival as the highest interest has been replaced by the pursuit of a better personal life based on survival. Therefore, the consortium that was originally unified under the original moral concept is gradually splitting. After three times of social division of labor, individuals finally formed independent producers, which accelerated the change of interest stratification structure and led to the final collapse of the original moral standard system. Because it can't resist the attack of lust, lust, greed and other selfish desires, these are all produced under the condition that the surplus materials are growing, occupied by clan nobles and then privatized. Here we have to admire Mr. Marx's profound insights: private property has a great influence on people's minds and caused the emergence of new characteristics of people's personality; It has become a strong hobby of heroic barbarians. Indeed, the moral standard system called "the most sacred clan law" by Engels is so fragile in the face of those new human personality characteristics that it can be blown away at once. This conflict of social consciousness, which is essentially inconsistent in form, eventually intensified decisively, leading to open and fierce confrontation between the two sides of the conflict and the complete collapse of the original social system. No wonder Mr. Engels said: a degenerate force that left the simple moral peak of ancient clan society broke the most humble interests, vulgar greed, rude lust, humble material desire and selfish plunder of public property-thus opening a new civilized class society; The most despicable means-theft, violence, fraud and breach of trust-destroyed the ancient classless clan system and led to its collapse.

Of course, the retreat of a certain system does not mean the death of the system, and the weakening of some adjustment means is not the failure of adjustment. On the contrary, the law of history is that there will be more favorable systems or adjustment means that are more in line with the new society to ensure the continuity and development of society. And this or these new systems should inherit some reasonable features of the old system and creatively have new features, so as to build a new social structure system.

When the interests are diversified, the content of interest stratification is constantly enriched and the structure is repeatedly adjusted. Therefore, many moral concepts are also divided in this situation, resulting in a contradiction under the same normative system-moral conflict. But they can't adjust their contradictions by restraining themselves. Because moral self-restraint is not enough to restrain the selfish desires of people within a reasonable range. On the contrary, this untimely means indulges people's desires because of its inherent defects. When the "pure moral peak" no longer exists, those external non-material coercive means that have been integrated into morality gradually fail because they rely too much on moral principles. Therefore, under the repeated moral conflicts, in order to survive a relatively stable society conducive to human survival and development, a new effective system that can overcome the inherent defects of morality is inevitable.

History has chosen law. Under this opportunity, law finally comes with private ownership and enters all fields of human life, showing its great superiority and tenacious fighting capacity. "Only when the same interests are divided into numerous individual interests and lead to universal conflicts of interests, and morality, tradition and public opinion alone are not enough to effectively maintain the basic order necessary for social existence and development, the emergence of law becomes necessary and possible." Furthermore, law becomes the coordinator of moral conflict, which is the product of society in a certain historical development stage and maintains social order after its emergence. When the self-operation or adjustment of this society falls into an extremely unsolvable moral "trap", irreconcilable interests and moral conflicts are constantly split, and at the same time, these conflicts cannot be effectively shaken off. In order to prevent these conflicts from destroying themselves and the whole society in unnecessary struggles, and more importantly, this society maintains a relatively harmonious state from the outside to the inside, it will establish a powerful force that seems to be driving the society but actually integrates into the society. This is the law. Its most basic function is to ease conflicts and keep them within the scope permitted by order.

It can be seen that law appears as the coordinator of diversified moral conflicts. When moral conflicts develop to extreme situations, it has to shoulder this heavy historical mission. Because the inner moral consciousness such as "conscience" can't control "privacy" within the scope of not harming the interests of others, even though "those who impose" daily life "should be public morality", the fact is that external rules with coercive force must be used, and its extreme performance is what we now call law.

The law adjusts the complex social interest relationship by virtue of its internal external coercive force. It is this powerful external physical compulsion that urges stakeholders with different moral concepts to follow the code of conduct under the same principle. Because they clearly know that destroying it means giving themselves legal responsibility, and the consequences must be unfavorable, which everyone does not want. Therefore, it is necessary to obey the law. Moreover, although law has replaced morality as the main means to adjust social relations, it has not abandoned the positive role of morality. On the contrary, the emergence of law itself is inextricably linked with morality. Moreover, as a means of social adjustment, morality is not complete, and it is impossible to withdraw from the historical stage. "Morality often becomes the basic material of law, and law often consolidates some morality; Where morality cannot be achieved, it is adjusted by law, and where law cannot be achieved, it is adjusted by morality. " Even the mandatory role of law often needs to be played through people's inherent moral beliefs, otherwise it will be flawed. Only this compulsion makes it more direct, rapid and relatively stable. So the original law showed more similarities with morality, so that it was difficult for us to distinguish it. Although the legal system evolved from primitive morality has new characteristics, the inherent advantages of morality have not been abandoned. It is absolutely necessary to give legal effect to some moral principles, and it is indeed the case. Therefore, the original "law is the witness and external precipitation of our moral life." This argument is not unreasonable.

Second, the contradictory movement-conflict and affinity

The appearance of law temporarily eased the moral struggle of conflict and limited this conflict to the scope permitted by order. However, the law can't eliminate the moral conflict of the whole society in any way, as long as there are individuals or groups with different interests. On the contrary, in the process of adjustment, it was involved in the whirlpool of this conflict and collided with morality. With the development of society, the progress of human beings, the enhancement of self-awareness and social awareness to varying degrees, their conflicts are also constantly strengthening. The original law, born out of the original moral concept, did not cut off the "umbilical cord" of drawing a line with morality and became a completely independent entity. On the contrary, law inherits the inherent superiority of morality, overcomes the inherent defects of morality, and sublates morality itself. It is this inheritance and development that gradually exposes the disharmony-conflict between law and morality with the passage of time.

The conflict between law and morality is essentially the internal struggle of pluralistic value system and the reflection of value conflict in real society. The rapid growth of material resources intensifies the differentiation of interests and inevitably leads to unfair distribution. "Because people are not indifferent to how to distribute the greater benefits generated by their cooperation, this creates a conflict of interest, because in order to pursue their own goals, each of them wants to get a bigger share, not a smaller share." The end result is a more intense conflict of interest. Law and morality reflect different value orientations in their respective positions, so they inevitably collide.

This social phenomenon dominated by value conflict has lost its unified value system, and it is impossible to restore it. Therefore, it will be accompanied by a permanent human society. Because the unified value system is based on a single material and economic living conditions and the same interest relationship. In modern society, the foundation of this reality has long since ceased to exist. The diversity of real material living conditions has been placed in front of us, and the continuous differentiation of interests has prompted the emergence of different values, thus making the firm position of diversified value system in modern society unshakable. Therefore, the value conflict is inevitable.

Of course, we should also see that although conflicts have caused "internal injuries" to varying degrees, they have not weakened their strength as a whole. The struggle of different values has not weakened the diversified value system. On the contrary, the conflict itself is conducive to the role of both sides. As far as the whole value system is concerned, this kind of struggle is a development process of constant self-denial. It strongly embodies the natural law of "survival of the fittest" and self-purification under the principle of "survival of the fittest".

As two different means of social adjustment, law and morality play different roles in adjusting social relations. The diversified value system makes this degree of difference more obvious, and there are trade-offs As far as the content of the whole legal norms and moral norms is concerned, on the one hand, when the moral foundation of some legal norms loses its material conditions, it should die out. Therefore, there is no practical necessity for this legal norm to exist. However, the disappearance of moral norms is spontaneous, while the deletion of legal norms is artificial. "The characteristic of the legal system is that new legal rules can be implemented and old legal rules can be changed or abolished through conscious legislation ... On the contrary, moral rules or principles cannot be introduced, changed or abolished in this way." Therefore, if this kind of legal norm without moral foundation is still in the code and constantly cited by judicial officials, its harmful results will appear before us without hesitation. From a deeper level, it is because the same legal value judgment standard and moral judgment standard have been lost, and the values of legislators and judges have not adapted to this situation.

On the other hand, when some legal norms without moral foundation have been stipulated in the code by legislators, and are constantly applied by the judiciary in individual cases and accepted by the general public, the values embodied in these legal norms will extend to the moral field, thus forming moral norms embodying these values, thus enriching the moral category. However, legal norms are artificially determined, and the expansion of moral norms is difficult to grasp. Therefore, if judges still adopt strict legalism and completely ignore moral principles in handling cases, conflicts will be inevitable and chaos will be caused. Essentially, it is because the extension of values can not adapt to its objective basis-material living conditions and interest relations in a short period of time.

Furthermore, if moral rules still exist, but the corresponding laws are changed or abolished, then these moral rules will become weak and even "degenerate" to the point of nothing in the depths of human hearts. Without the protection of external coercive force, people may often harm the interests of others and the public and undermine moral norms for their own self-interest. If we can't stop the occurrence and development of such things in time, then the moral norms will gradually weaken and disappear in the constant destruction of people. Even at the beginning of fashion, some people accused this destructive behavior, but with the passage of time and the repeated appearance of behavior, people's moral and spiritual sensitivity will be numb and they will not pay attention to this common thing. It can be seen that "although moral rules or traditions cannot be abolished or changed through conscious choice or formulation, the formulation or abolition of laws may be one of the reasons for the change or decline of certain moral standards or certain moral traditions."

Morality is the foundation of law, and law is the institutionalized practice of moral norms. Universal or individual legal principles, such as justice, fairness, equality, honesty and trustworthiness and observing good customs, are themselves a powerful part of human moral concepts. It is precisely because of the moral support that legal principles can play the role of human nature. If the law does not admit or abandon such moral factors, then the law or legal system has great defects, and it is doubtful whether it has vitality or how much vitality it has. Therefore, "regulations may be just a legal shell, and because of its clear terminology, it needs to be filled with moral principles."

Of course, this does not mean that law is morality, and morality is law. As mentioned above, law comes from morality and appears as the coordinator of moral conflict. As two independent entities, law depends on the existence of morality, but it is independent and does not depend entirely on moral norms; On the other hand, this is not to admit that every legal rule needs corresponding moral norms, nor can all moral norms be transformed into the category of legal system. It is called foundation because, on the whole, morality supports the establishment of the legal system and maintains people's general sense of identity with the legal system. Under normal circumstances, legal rules that conform to moral norms are more acceptable and more vital. Then such a legal system will be relatively stable.

The reason why legal norms are observed by the general public is not only because there is a so-called national compulsion behind these norms, that is, people obey the law because they are afraid of being punished by the law. More importantly, these legal norms conform to moral principles, and people believe in their correctness, rationality and justice, that is, laws have inherent moral values. Even if the so-called "psychological compulsion" is realized, it needs to be measured by people's inner feelings and moral standards. "If you want to impose a system of rules on someone by violence, you must have enough members to accept it voluntarily; Without their voluntary cooperation, this creative authority, the coercive power of law and government cannot be established. " Because not all laws are mandatory, and laws are not always reasonable and fair.

At the same time, the important role and other functions of law in building and maintaining social order are often realized through moral functions. Moreover, the best way to realize the legal function is to internalize the value of legal norms into human moral beliefs through long-term social practice, and form a mindset after people generally accept it. And use this mentality to dominate your behavior. Because this mentality is both legal and moral, the behavior under its control will also be legal and moral. Then the ultimate goal of law regulating society will be achieved, and its role will be realized. There is a simple reason. In this case, the behavior of observing the dual regulation of morality and law must be carried out in the direction of the development of social relations, rather than destroying it.

Although the wish is beautiful, it is too idealistic. It is reasonable to expect or ask people to move in the direction of the development of social relations without doing the opposite movement. But it is uncertain whether people's actual behavior follows this point. The only certainty is that without morality and law, the contents of these expectations and requirements cannot become a reality; As long as the reality of morality and law exists, the content of expectations and requirements will be realized one day. Therefore, idealized wishes need to be practiced.