Legislating Morality

[TheGMan]

Okay... here's one thing I don't get. I can understand that people might believe that certain behaviours are immoral even when I don't have a problem with them (or even quite enjoy them). What I don't understand is why they want to legislate against them.

I mean clearly there is a requirement to maintain the fabric of society. Laws protecting person and property are clearly necessary to have any sort of society at all. But there are great number of other things that don't seem to have any wider social implication that people still seem to think should be sanctioned against - drugs, homosexuality, hunting and so on.

Now personally I don't approve of some of these things, I practice others and others still I consider immoral. But I don't think that they should be illegal. I don't see the point of making them illegal. You can't force people to be good. You haven't rid them of the intent. You've only threatened them into not acting on it.

Not quite sure what my question was... just musing.

 

[Toboe]

I think that people want to legislate morality because they want to force and affirm their beliefs on every one.

 

[butterfoot]

I think that people want to legislate morality because they want to force and affirm their beliefs on every one.

What ever it is you believe don't you want that to be the way the laws are?

 

[Toboe]

What ever it is you believe don't you want that to be the way the laws are?

Ok I will give you an example I think that abortion is wrong right but I understand that there are many situations in life in which abortion is neccarsary for the livelihood of the mother and also I don't think that I should force my opinion on someone.

 

[HeyHomie]

ALL laws are legislating morality.


It would be immoral for me to walk up to TheGMan and slap him upside the head. Not coincidentally, that is also illegal. (Not that I want to, you understand. Just giving an example.)

It is immoral for a food distributor to sell tainted meat. Thus, there are laws that regulate the meat industry.

It is immoral for a stock broker to do funny things with my money that enrich him and impoverish me. Thus, there are laws that regulate the financial services industry.

It is immoral to ignore the accomplishments of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Thus, there is a law making his birthday a federal holiday.

...and so it goes.

The problem is when a law exists (or is proposed) that not everyone agrees is moral. For example, in pre-1861 America a good portion of the population of the US felt that there was nothing immoral about owning and selling slaves. An equally good portion of the population disagreed. There was a war; perhaps you've read about it.

For a current example: a good size of the population believes that it is immoral to abort a fetus. Another portion of the population believes that it is immoral to deny a woman this right. Whatever the outcome, the losing side is having the winning sides moral position legislated.

You get the idea?

 

[Voegelin]

I can understand that people might believe that certain behaviours are immoral even when I don't have a problem with them (or even quite enjoy them). What I don't understand is why they want to legislate against them.

I'm against the progressive income tax, redistribution of income and death taxes too.

I'm sick of hearing moralists whine about "the greedy" and "paying your fair share". Let parents pass their farm or business down to their children without confiscatory taxation. Let those who works better, harder or longer than others pay the same income tax rate as those who don't.

Bastiats wrote of the need to purge moralists from the policy making over 150 years ago:

God has given to men all that is necessary for them to accomplish their destinies. He has provided a social form as well as a human form. And these social organs of persons are so constituted that they will develop themselves harmoniously in the clean air of liberty.

Away, then, with quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, chains, hooks, and pincers! Away with their artificial systems! Away with the whims of governmental administrators, their socialized projects, their centralization, their tariffs, their government schools, their state religions, their free credit, their bank monopolies, their regulations, their restrictions, their equalization by taxation, and their pious moralizations!

http://www.constitution.org/law/bastiat.htm

 

[TooCurious]

ALL laws are legislating morality.


It would be immoral for me to walk up to TheGMan and slap him upside the head. Not coincidentally, that is also illegal. (Not that I want to, you understand. Just giving an example.)

It is immoral for a food distributor to sell tainted meat. Thus, there are laws that regulate the meat industry.

It is immoral for a stock broker to do funny things with my money that enrich him and impoverish me. Thus, there are laws that regulate the financial services industry.

It is immoral to ignore the accomplishments of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Thus, there is a law making his birthday a federal holiday.

...and so it goes.

There is nothing inherently moral about driving on the right side of the road in the United States, or driving on the left side of the road in other parts of the world. Yet there is a law which mandates this. Why? To organize traffic in such a way as to minimize the likelihood of collisions and to facilitate the smooth flow of travel from one place to another. It's socially-beneficial for everyone to drive on the same side of the road. It's also morally-neutral. Americans are not morally deficient because we drive on the opposite side of the road compared to other countries. (Insert America joke here ) Laws do not exist for the sake of legislating morality. Some laws are also in accord with certain moral principles. But this is not, and should not be, their primary purpose.

Laws exist to keep society running as smoothly as possible, without unduly interfering with the rights of any individual or group. That is the only moral imperative that should exist in legislation: a lack of undue interference with the rights of the citizen.

Laws prohibiting you from walking up and slapping TheGMan upside the head exist because if people were to go about brawling in the streets, it would be unsafe for other people to go about their daily business. Now, if you were to go slap him, instead of slapping you back, he can find a policeman and take advantage of his legal recourse against you. Much more orderly. Furthermore, knowing that there are legally-enforceable consequences to slapping him, you are less likely to do so (if you had been so inclined to begin with).

Laws prohibiting a food distributor from selling tainted meat exist to help prevent people from getting sick, which is not something that we as a society generally want to happen. People have a certain expectation when they buy food from a licensed distributor, and if that expectation is not met, then the distributor must lose his license, or else the licenses would fail to carry meaning, and people would not know where to buy safe food. These laws promote social order.

Laws that prohibit stockbrokers from stealing your money exist to keep the system of the stock market functional. If you didn't have some general guarantee that your money would not be stolen by your stockbroker--or at least if it were, you'd have some legal recourse--you wouldn't put your money into the stock market, which would be bad for the economy.

See a trend? Laws exist to keep our society generally functioning. Some laws also have the added effect of supporting a specific moral viewpoint, but that is not and should not be the primary purpose of that law. If we were to really "legislate morality," that would imperil the only real "moral" dictate that any legitimate government has, which is to protect the rights of the people. This is the purpose for which governments are created. At least that's what John Locke had to say on the subject, and I'm inclined to agree.

 

[Electric Sceptic]

Okay... here's one thing I don't get. I can understand that people might believe that certain behaviours are immoral even when I don't have a problem with them (or even quite enjoy them). What I don't understand is why they want to legislate against them.

I mean clearly there is a requirement to maintain the fabric of society. Laws protecting person and property are clearly necessary to have any sort of society at all. But there are great number of other things that don't seem to have any wider social implication that people still seem to think should be sanctioned against - drugs, homosexuality, hunting and so on.

Now personally I don't approve of some of these things, I practice others and others still I consider immoral. But I don't think that they should be illegal. I don't see the point of making them illegal. You can't force people to be good. You haven't rid them of the intent. You've only threatened them into not acting on it.

Not quite sure what my question was... just musing.

Becase some people - almost always religionists, in my experience - want to force their morality onto everyone else. One of the duties of all of us, and of society in general, is to ensure that this does not happen, that moralities are not forced on everyone, even when that morality is the majority's.

 

[monkey88]

ALL laws are legislating morality.


It would be immoral for me to walk up to TheGMan and slap him upside the head. Not coincidentally, that is also illegal. (Not that I want to, you understand. Just giving an example.)

It is immoral for a food distributor to sell tainted meat. Thus, there are laws that regulate the meat industry.

It is immoral for a stock broker to do funny things with my money that enrich him and impoverish me. Thus, there are laws that regulate the financial services industry.

It is immoral to ignore the accomplishments of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Thus, there is a law making his birthday a federal holiday.

...and so it goes.

The problem is when a law exists (or is proposed) that not everyone agrees is moral. For example, in pre-1861 America a good portion of the population of the US felt that there was nothing immoral about owning and selling slaves. An equally good portion of the population disagreed. There was a war; perhaps you've read about it.

For a current example: a good size of the population believes that it is immoral to abort a fetus. Another portion of the population believes that it is immoral to deny a woman this right. Whatever the outcome, the losing side is having the winning sides moral position legislated.

You get the idea?

Yes, but these legislate common human decency, protecting the rights and liberites of others. The problem is when religious perception of morality is legislated and enforced, which is wrong, because more often than not, the religious morality contradicts the beliefs of another or just blatently discriminates against a certain group.

 

[gwenmead]

Hm. Well, here's a thought.

I'm right with HeyHomie's and TooCurious' assessments of what laws do and how laws and morality fit together. I have a suggestion to make, however, and that is that most of the time, when people talk about "legislating morality", they're not talking about morals as a general whole, they're talking about sexual morality.

Morals are ultimately the collective rules and traditions which a culture uses to define what's acceptable behavior and what isn't. As HeyHomie pointed out, many are encoded into law; as TooCurious pointed out, law codes are in place to help a society function as smoothly as possible. Morals as a whole aren't exclusively about sexual behavior, they're about all kinds of things. But I think a lot of people forget this.

Can or should we legislate sexual morality? Well... maybe. To a degree. I think, for instance, that it's bad for society when people force themselves sexually on someone else - sexual harrassment, rape, and so on. (Yeah, I know these things aren't strictly sexual, but sexuality is a tool within them, so bear with me here...) I don't think, however, that it's anybody's business whether or not consenting adults decide to have sex outside of marriage - but I know others disagree.

Anyhoo, this is an opinion just garnered from personal observation; I don't have sources to back this up. But hopefully it's at least food for thought. Thanks for reading.

 

[savvy]

The problem with legislating morality is that more often than not it is all about shoving your religion down someone elses throat, whether they like it or not. Ideally, there should only be laws that are absolutely imperative to the wellbeing of those in society (financially, physically-like, don't rob, don't murder, etc.) and citizens should have as much freedom as possible. Why do people feel they ought to limit what other people do with their own lives, on their own property, that have nothing to do with anyone else? I hear a lot of people saying the government should stay out of their religious business, but are quick to try to weasle their theological mandates into secular laws. It needs to stop.

 

[TheGMan]

All good points everyone. Thanks.

To those of you who think all laws are about enforcing morality, my question is "Whose morality?" Who gets to decide? Or rather, who should get to decide?

I suppose I am very much on the 'social function' side of the argument. For instance, I very much oppose the recent law here in the United Kingdom against the hunting of foxes with hounds. On the other hand, I find fox-hunting morally repugnant. But I cannot see the benefit to society of putting in place sanctions against it. This one is quite an interesting example to my mind. It is not of a sexual nature and the ban cut in the other direction... the 'liberal' side wanted the bad, the 'conservative' side wanted to retain the freedom to hunt.

Perhaps this is a good way of crystallising the point... if you believe that something is immoral, are you morally obliged to support legislation against it?

Personally, I can think of a good number of things I believe to be immoral... fox-hunting I've mentioned, but also such things as strident racist speech and literature, abortion, infant circumcision, reality television... but which I do not believe should be illegal.

 

[Governed Apology Exploded]

This appears to be a debate about victimless crimes. Many things that are considered immoral in any culture are victimless and do not directly harm anybody outside of the consenting participants. When people say legislating morality, they are referring to legislation that makes a victimless act criminal, such as fornication and gambling. Punching somebody directly causes physical harm to somebody who did not want to be harmed, while fornication or gambling causes no direct harm (unless the person is cheating or has dependants).

 

[Merlin]

Pretty much all legislation is moral legislation.
The question really is whose morals?

 

[Inconel]

Pretty much all legislation is moral legislation.
The question really is whose morals?

Exactly. Whether it is restricting gay marriage, or banning discrimination, it is always somebody's personal morality being enacted into law.