"the law" isn't all written down, in one place, in unambiguous language. It's often an amalgamation of cases and precedents built up over time, open to interpre

"the law" isn't all written down, in one place, in unambiguous language. It's often an amalgamation of cases and precedents built up over time, open to interpretation, constantly changing and applied in some mixture of "to the letter" and "to the spirit". In which case, we might define "act according to the law" as something like "act in a way which, if it were described in a court of law, would not lead to any prosecution". Predicting the outcome of such a hypothetical court hearing requires anticipating, thinking through and weighing up the possible arguments on both sides. That's basically a description of ethics, so we're back where we started :(