Quote Originally Posted by Peter View Post
Well our ethical framework is related to our legal one. THere is no denying that our collective view of something is influenced by its legality.

I have made a similar point on trips to Amsterdam on seeing friends openly going to prostitutes when they would never dream of doing so at home. As though the law somehow validates the process and makes it more morally acceptable.

I am not sure the different approach to the incident free/dead kid scenario is completely irrational. In one instance you have broken the law but nothing has happened. In the other you have killed a kid. If you wish to show that a certain behaviour is likely to cause a specific effect it is far easier to do so if it actually happens. I would argue the reaction to the dead kid is not essentially a moral one, its a reaction to the fact that you have killed a kid.
But you haven't 'killed a kid'. A kid has died as the culmination of a set of decisions and random circumstances - none of which was taken with the intention of killing a kid. However, they might just as easily have not culminated in any such outcome. That to me seems highly significant from the perspective of moral guilt.

Of course you're right. The law is also there to make examples of people who break it with dire - albeit unintended - consequences. It is also there to be seen to be done. Those things are important from a societal point of view, of course, but they have nothing whatsoever to do with ethics.