“Would you have supported the persecution of the Jews just because it was legal?”

Firstly thats quite a strong example, and secondly it almost tries to make doing the act the same as supporting it, and while neither is something you want to contemplate in the example you gave, there are degrees of severity in crimes. Not only that but if you disagree with a law, it doesn’t mean you have to condone or support it. It doesn’t mean you have to break it though. Bringing it back to the original debate though, what I really mean is that you can disagree with the law without breaking it yourself. You can protest to prove a point and pass comments on injustice rather than breaking the law yourself. While breaking it and saying your piece in court may get you media attention, you get far more by being an unconvicted individual with something to say and an unlimited amount of time to say it.

“Other laws are not ones that i deem to be correct, and i therefore feel i have no duty in adhereing to them.”

Similar response to above really; you can deem a law to be incorrect and protest against it and actively denounce it in public etc. Still doesn’t give you the right to go about breaking it though.

Would you have supported the persecution of the Jews just because it was legal?

In reference to your final point, i have an excellent counter example. Certain members of the CND (campaign for nuclear disarmament) have committed crimes such as Criminal damage to property of sites where Nuclear weapons research is taking place. They have then been arrested, pled guilty in court, paid a fine, served community service, etc whatever the sentence the judge decides to give, but they would STILL claim they did the right thing, in trying to battle against Nuclear warfare.

“Matt’s view was essentially that if it was helping the little people or was selfless, then it didn’t matter if it was against the law becuse it wasn’t as bad as if someone had committed the crime for purely selfish reasons. While one can see his point, there is a flaw in the argument. In order to have a society of laws that works, each law must be upheld as much as any other.”

Ok, there ISN’T a flaw in the argument in the way that you say, although, i accept that perhaps the arguement can be disputed. You make a seperate, and equally valid point, that the need for a well functioning society means there must be laws in place that are upheld. However, while i would agree with you, most of the time, i don’t believe in blindly accepting laws, just because they are laws, particularly if i feel them to be wrong.

Most laws are laws that i can rationalise, on moral or any other grounds, as being just and correct and i am perfectly prepared to accept them. Other laws, (not necessarily the law that prompted the initial debate, for i am arguing the idea of going against any law hypothetically here) are not ones that i deem to be correct, and i therefore feel i have no duty in adhereing to them.

While this does pose a problem to the well-run and orderly society, i think we must always be prepared to question laws, even break them on occasions, if we truly feel them to be wrong. Sometimes this will cause a change in the law, in extreme cases, a change in governement and political ideology altogether! But sometimes this change will be a change for the better, and it is only through our determination to go against wrong when we see it that this can ever be hoped for.

While the charge may be reduced during a trial by a judge who feels that the circumstances covered so far prohibits the original charge from ever having a chance of sticking, usually this does not happen. A jury then has to decide (in the majority of cases anyhow) a simple guilty or not guilty verdict. It is usually at the sentancing stage (if applicable) that an particular motive has the most weight, and indeed can knock years off a sentence, or even prevent prison altogether.

I’m was never saying (and I’m sorry if I gave the impression) that motives didn’t matter, I was more trying to focus on the fact that any breaking of the law, for whatever reason and with whatever eventual sentence (unless it gets thrown out of court etc.) is wrong, simply because it is against the law, and as long as it holds any kind of conviction in the end, it remains wrong, regardless of any motives, considered at trial or unconsidered that the perpetrator may feel vindicates them. If you end up getting a sentence for a crime under law and you admit to the charges and/or haven’t lodged and appeal, then what you have done is wrong, regardless of motive and regardless of what you say retrospectively.

If there is agreement on my last statement then I feel the debate is over, however if there is feeling that you can admit to a crime, serve a sentence and then still say that what you did wasn’t wrong, then the debate isn’t over….

“Matt’s view was essentially that if it was helping the little people or was selfless, then it didn’t matter if it was against the law becuse it wasn’t as bad as if someone had committed the crime for purely selfish reasons.”

Firstly, Matt’s view wasn’t that the law didn’t matter if the cause was just, simply that the law should recognise that as being less an offence then doing it for personal gain (they do….just!)

Secondly, who you calling little!?

“to suggest that a motive should have a serious bearing on the sentence that a crime carries when the actual law that has been broken is the same would be to seriously devalue the law as a whole”

“From a legal angle, you must treat the crimes the same.”

The courts do take your motives (along with lots of other factors) into account. Thats pretty much what they’re there for, apart from establishing guilt in the first place of course. In other words every case is looked at individually, quite the contrary to the second quote. As for your criminal record that can also depend on your motives….

“I could kill someone because they were about to shoot my friend, but would I still be a murderer? Yes, I would. Would I get the same sentance as if I had killed him in cold blood, no.”

That depends on the circumstances. Your lawyer would probably be able to establish (in legal terms) that you had been subjected to provocation; your friend was about to be shot, you feared that they’d die if you did not act. Maybe you didn’t actually mean to kill him or even if you did it was an act of passion - a split second, irrational decission. So you may end up with only Manslaughter, or even Voluntary Manslaughter instead of Murder. All because of your motives In the eyes of insurers, money lenders and employers you would still be a murderer but by most people you’d be someone who made a tragic error of judgement, or even a hero who saved his friends life.

Motives are everything, both morally and in law