ABSTRACT
In this chapter attention is drawn to the age-old question of the links between law and morality. Ought the law to reflect morality? Ought it to change as social morality changes? Ought the institutions of the law to be viewed as guardians of morality? The Wolfenden Report of 1957 precipitated an intensive debate on the law and sexual morality in which Hart and Devlin (a former judge of the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords) appeared as advocates of different attitudes to this problem. A question in this chapter considers the arguments for the basis of toleration in liberal democratic states and the ‘natural lawyers’ reply to those liberal arguments.
