"...law is really for children and novices. It is for those who are not yet morally independent, and who therefore have to be propped up by a scaffolding of codes and censures. They have not yet developed the spontaneous habit of virtue, and still see morality in superstitious fashion as a matter of offending or placating some higher authority. They have the toddler's theory of ethics. The law may help them to grow into an enjoyable moral autonomy, but they will have done so only when they are able to throw its crutch away and manage by themselves."
Terry Eagleton, After Theory