Hold the phone: is it always unethical to break the law?

Does being ethical require obedience and adherence to the law? Does being moral mean that you never infringe on the rights and safety of others? Does compliance with the law make you an honest person? And if any or all of these questions must be answered in the affirmative, does that mean that each of us should never break the law, for fear of being immoral, dishonest, or unethical?

It is estimated that 10% of the population will never knowingly break the law, 10% will often attempt to circumvent those same rules, and the remaining 80% will, under the right circumstances, bend or deviate from the law. Three decades ago, a survey in Ontario, Canada, found that almost 82% of citizens would cheat on their taxes, if they were safe, and 38% admitted they had already done so. That is a huge amount of deviation!

But does following the rules make one honest? One individual I know routinely pushes the boundaries of interpreting the law, justifying his mistreatment of others and his habit of maximizing personal gain at the expense of others by saying, “If the government thought it was wrong, I would create a law against him”. However, he knows that his actions cause suffering to others.

A foreign student at the University of Manitoba approached another student and asked him to write his ethics essay for him. It’s hard not to laugh at this all too obvious paradox! Yet in their culture, the political regime tacitly encourages such subterfuge, by meddling so aggressively in one’s life that, in order to maintain a semblance of personal power, people seek creative ways to hide their behavior from the government. In his opinion, the act of cheating in an ethics course was simply a way of expressing power. He didn’t see it as a moral issue.

Then there is the question of whether there are circumstances where not breaking the rules is immoral or unethical.

Last week, my wife had to be rushed to a nearby hospital. Her condition, as I saw it, was desperate, as she tenuously clung to consciousness, her breathing was shallow, she was sweating profusely, pale, and had numbness all over her right side. As I sped down the back roads, exceeding the speed limit, I called 911 on my cell phone. I continued to use the cell phone even after I intercepted the ambulance. I needed to notify her immediate family.

Using a cell phone while driving is illegal in our jurisdiction. So is speeding. I potentially put others at risk with my aggressive driving, even if it was within the letter of the law. However, if I hadn’t reacted so quickly, my wife might as well have died. If she had succumbed and I had not given the family an opportunity to learn about and react to her emergency, she would have caused them undue suffering.

I determined that although I was choosing to break the law, the law needed to be broken in this situation. I did not see my actions as immoral or unethical. How do you interpret supposedly necessary law violations? Now give us an honest answer please!