liceity
/lɪˈsiːɪti/
Etymology
From Latin licere.
liceity means the legitimacy of an act or its consequences, by opposition to the validity. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
liceity is pronounced /lɪˈsiːɪti/.
Why “liceity” is a great word
LICEITY — [Noun] The legitimacy or permissibility of an act, especially under moral or canonical law, as distinguished from its formal validity. From the Latin licēre ("to be permitted, to be lawful"). Unlike "validity," which refers to formal correctness and legal efficacy, or "legality," which denotes conformity with secular statute, liceity concerns the subtle domain of what is morally and spiritually allowable. It is the silent audit of a priest celebrating a technically correct Mass with a heart full of spite, the quiet doubt of a soldier following an unjust order to the letter, the scrupulous conscience weighing a contract signed without coercion but against principle. It is the ghost in the machine of justice, the whisper that a thing can be done, yet should not be.
noun
- The legitimacy of an act or its consequences, by opposition to the validity.“Validity affects the act, while liceity affects the 'legality' of the act. So if a baptism is invalid, then the baptism never occurred (i.e. one has not been baptized and needs to be baptized). So if a baptism is illicit, then it was not celebrated under the structures that the Catholic Church has defined (i.e. one has been baptized, but the Sacrament was not celebrated in a way directed/authorize”