Quiz Entry - updated: 2026.07.14
How does Budelacci distinguish the role of law from the role of ethics?
Law sets enforceable minimum standards to keep society functioning; ethics goes beyond law to ask how we want to live and what a human being is.
The two operate at different levels:
| Law | Ethics | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Normative minimum standards | Reflection beyond the legal frame |
| Why it's bounded | Must be enforceable and sanctionable | Asks open, evaluative questions |
| Core question | "What is forbidden / required?" | "How do we want to live in future? What is the human being?" |
Law's reach is deliberately restrictive: to be enforceable and sanctionable, it can only codify a baseline. Ethics is not so constrained — it reflects on the good life and the normative shape of society, asking the bigger questions ("how do we want to live in future?", "what is a human being?") that law cannot. For technologies like AI, the lesson is that "it's legal" is a floor, not the answer: just because something is permitted doesn't settle whether it's good.