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Closely related to Is there a term for the belief that "if it's legal, it's moral"?

Is there a term for the belief that if something is illegal, it's immoral? Is it simply a variant on "appeal to law", or does it get its own term?

Edit: To be clear, what's the name of the fallacy present in "It's illegal, therefore it's immoral"? This isn't saying that all illegal things are moral or anything, just looking for the terminology

Selkie
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  • Morality is an independent topic from law. Law is independent from the topic of morality. There are times where there seems to be an overlap between the two independent topics. To outright argue some act x is immoral because act x is illegal runs the likelihood of being fallacious. So to answer the question the answer is NO there is no legit term for it. – Logikal Jun 19 '19 at 16:49
  • Oh of course - legality is not morality, and vice-versa. But I'm wondering if there's a specific term for it – Selkie Jun 19 '19 at 16:51
  • Any name that flows will likely be the name of a fallacy committed by arguing that way. Abortion is a prime example today. A person can be charged with murder if he commits an act which leads to a death of a fetus of a pregnant woman. If the mother is also killed the person will be charged with double homicide. This brings up murder which involves morality. Thus pro life people will try to argue abortion is murder and murder is immoral. There is no direct connection to reality. There are problems with that approach. – Logikal Jun 19 '19 at 16:56
  • The name of the fallacy is what I'm hoping to get – Selkie Jun 19 '19 at 17:08
  • There can be multiple fallacies committed using the style mentioned. Common ones will be non sequitur, equivocation of terms, argument from authority, appeal to pity in the case of abortion, etc. How the person argues matters so there is no absolute answer here to name a specific fallacy that will be true forever and every case. – Logikal Jun 19 '19 at 17:12
  • Specifically, the argument I've heard is "It's illegal so it's wrong", hence keeping the question contained to that. – Selkie Jun 19 '19 at 17:29
  • In deductive reasoning the verbatim fallacy name is typically irrelevant. Will you reject that the argument is fallacious because I dont know the specific name of the fallacy or reject the argument is faulty if I misspelled the name of the fallacy ?That alone would be a fallacy. Someone who is nitpicking like that is functioning irrational to begin with.Basically if you make an error in the argument you lose seems to be the pattern you are bringing ging up now. For rational beings all you need to show is the pattern of reasoning fails. So what if you cant specifically name it. Show its faulty. – Logikal Jun 19 '19 at 17:49
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    This is the converse contrapositive of the linked maxim, i.e. equivalent to "moral is legal". The difference is that while morality is open to opinion what the law is is on the books, so in this form it is just factually false. The more reasonable suggestion would be "moral *should be* legal". That only immoral should be illegal is similar in spirit to the position of libertarians, but it isn't quite it. However, many deontologists believe that law creates, in and of itself, a "moral duty to obey the law". In that case, "it's illegal so it's wrong" is not a fallacy at all. – Conifold Jun 19 '19 at 19:07

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