An atheist can believe laws are based on a belief in God. A moral nihilist can believe laws are based on a belief in morals. Are you really meaning to ask me if I am a moral nihilist?
Abortion Debate - Role of Government
- Context: Civil Rights
- Thread starter MindlessPieces
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SUMMARY
The forum discussion centers on the role of government in regulating morality, particularly in the context of abortion. Participants argue that the government's primary function should be to create a safe, stable, and thriving society rather than enforce moral standards. The conversation highlights the dangers of codifying morality into law, emphasizing that diverse beliefs within society complicate the imposition of a singular moral framework. The discussion references the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution as a guiding principle for government purpose, advocating for individual choice over government-imposed morality.
PREREQUISITES- Understanding of the U.S. Constitution and its Preamble
- Familiarity with the concept of moral relativism
- Knowledge of the implications of government intervention in personal choices
- Awareness of the diversity of moral beliefs in society
- Research the implications of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution on modern governance
- Explore case studies on government intervention in personal morality
- Investigate the concept of moral relativism and its impact on legislation
- Examine the role of religious organizations in shaping societal morals
Individuals interested in political philosophy, lawmakers, ethicists, and anyone engaged in discussions about the intersection of government and personal morality.
An atheist can believe laws are based on a belief in God. A moral nihilist can believe laws are based on a belief in morals. Are you really meaning to ask me if I am a moral nihilist?
I think an explicit bill of rights is an effective approach. That said, one cannot guard against the values of a population at large shifting their values over time. IMO one can effectively guard against aberrant individuals whose value differ from those of a population at large.
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Civil court is not about what is legal or not; it is about resolving disputes. For example, one parent may want their kids to go to private school and the other to public school. They can go to civil court to settle the dispute. Or two neighbours can argue about where one plot ends and the other begins.
That is a naive way of thinking. For example, Hugo Chavez called a public referendum to change the constitution that was limiting his powers:
I remember, at the time, seeing TV news where opponents of the change were going from village to village to convince people to vote against the change (Yep, they needed "convincing"!?). People were saying Chávez did a lot of good for the country, so it seemed OK to them to remove the protection for democracy built into the constitution.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez#Constitutional_reform said:
Look at that, it happens again in El Salvador. The majority never learns.
You cannot protect people from themselves.
No they don't. This is assuming "unruled" people will spend their days murdering, assaulting, kidnapping or raping each other, which is not true. Even if it was true, who from this bunch of thugs, against their own nature, would be able to forbid those behaviors; a minority who knows better and - as a pure coincidence - you are part of? But that wouldn't be democratic, since it is again a minority imposing its views on the majority.
Murder, assault, kidnapping and rape are not normal behavior for human beings and they still happen even with laws in effect. From that point of view, all I can see is that, not only laws don't work, they can be used to legalize those behaviors.
You can't. You never will. You cannot rule for people in the future. You must trust them to make the right decisions according to their needs, which might not be the same as yours.
It is about the values you pass from one generation to the next, not the cages you built for them, supposedly to protect them. Because all of those things you mention about women and gays were meant to protect society and introduced by well-intentioned people; to keep society safe, stable, and thriving, as you say. You just don't agree with them and want to impose your own rules.
And this is why I don't think there is a single law that is good, especially on the long term. It is all about manipulating others to make them go your way.
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Do you think there is a way to change human nature? Religion is not the only source of unrest on Earth. Why are people so bigoted? Why are they so greedy? Why are they so selfish?
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It doesn't, that's the point. Morality relates to the concept of right and wrong behaviors. There is no such thing: from a pure "universe" point of view, if it works, it works.
A "moral" society always ends being one governed by a small group that imposes its views (the "good" and "bad" behaviors) that just happen to favor them. They don't care about the culture/beliefs of the majority. On the contrary, I would rather say that culture/beliefs are influenced by those imposed morals.
Sure, it always starts by the majority accepting the initial concept (who could be pro-murder, right?) but, once in power, once the trust is established, once everybody is ready to follow just because one came up with the concept "let's not murder each other", then more rights and wrongs appear that can be debatable and, sometimes, some murders can become less evil or even a good thing!
Its not really possible to respond meaningfully because whether I agree or not really depends on what you mean by right and wrong behaviors. I don't mean how you'd categorize specific behaviors, I mean what are the attributes of right and wrong as you think the terms are commonly used that make them fundamentally non-existent fantasy?
You argue that the concept of success is a fundamental / extant one (as opposed to right and wrong) without defining success - maybe I'd agree or maybe not - I its not clear what you mean by 'it works' (or doesn't). How does one assess whether something has worked, and kinds of 'somethings' are we assessing? These 'somethings' are neither right nor wrong, just successful or not successful, if I follow your post.
I do agree that human societies change over time, usually becoming more complex, not more simple, and the added complexity, given enough time,usually brings about at least some undesirable things, along with often but not always some desirable things. If you are of a mind that your civil-tort only approach helps this, please expand on that - its not obvious to me how it would. Maybe your post above is not at all related to that, though.
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It makes sense that people are selfish. There are limited resources and we all compete for those.
People are conditioned into morals since very young, many stories, movies, books aim to teach a moralistic lesson, parents also aim to instil children with "good" morals, we are brought up from very young age to look at things and think, "is this the right thing to do?" I don't have too much of a problem with that. The problem comes when people look over the fence and start judging others and it gets worse when they start wanting to create laws or ostracise each other based on their own moral beliefs.
A person comfortably living their life, notices that there are gay people, wanting to comfortably live their lives. This person was brought up to believe gay is a sin or is unnatural or something, so they want a law stopping gay people from marrying, or stopping them being public, they boycott tv shows and movies with gays in it, almost get angry when seeing a person that is obviously gay in public. Refuse to sell cakes to them, refuse to rent a B&B. It really is no skin off their nose, but they feel the need to ruin the lives of others.
I believe some people are bigoted because they are in the majority, they are "patriotic" of their country and they don't want change, they fear a cultural change, and so they strongly resist, they perhaps like the "Christian" values based laws in their country and fear "Muslim" or "Atheist" laws and so they only vote "Christians" into office and they want to minimise the amount of non Christians coming into their country.
Other people may be bigotted because they lack connections with people for a different background to themselves, and this lack of connection causese them to resort to blanket generalisations and fear and catastrophic driven thinking about the differences. "They are not like us?" These people don't share our values, they eat pets, they are lazy, they are into drugs etc
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No, not at all. I am a Nihilist, and a moral Nihilist of course. It's nothing to be scared of, just means I don't believe in any objective purpose or morals, people can and do make up their own purpose and that changes over time, and people can and do make up their own values, morals and ethics to help guide them make decisions quicker.
But ultimately, I don't really care if you are a moral nihilist or not. I am not about to judge you on such things.
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The problem with that approach is you then get the population guarding against a cultural change, for example USA right now are worried about "The Great Replacement Theory", the MAGAs are supremely worried about immigrants, and especially worried about non white, non Christian immigrants. They only ever vote for Presidents that proclaim to be Christian.
It is a real problem. But if you limit the powers of government sufficiently, then it won't matter if Govt have different values to yourself.
Then I don't understand how your question is helpful or adds information, but I will answer it as directly as I can.
Yes, I believe that people
Because I believe the above, as you do, it doesn't mean you or I need to justify hypocrisy. Why would it?
I really did think you were asking me if I believe that an objective moral code exists, and if laws are based on that code, but you said you are not asking me that.
I don't know if that is true of not. I will take your word for it lacking specific evidence.
The reason I would agree is that just having a gun is not ensuring protection. One also has to know how to use it, and how to act accordingly in a compromising situation ie level headed.
The female defensive courses also give a false-sense-of-security, and are pretty much useless in most street situations. Assaults can happen quickly and if not in any way shape or form similar with that as taught in few hour course, the assaultee is overwhelmed on what to do. If the assailant is better quality trained, then you are up s-creek anyways. The courses assume an assailant to be lacking of physical ability. It is stuff good to know, and show off to friends, and will work in mild confrontations only.
Especially knife attacks - run is the best option, and not in high heels and stupid dress ware. Even Bruce Lee would probably recommend to avoid somehow. Some blood is going to be spilt with confrontation. Police don't themselves physically try to take down a knife wielding 'perp'.
Beware of surroundings and avoid suspect locations and situations. Scream if you have to.
That is tautological criticism. You ask me how I would safeguard against a cultural change, then you argue my response is flawed because it would cause people to guard against cultural change. I am not sure what point you are trying to make here.
I've said this in other threads, sorry to those who have heard this from me a lot before. The US implementation of Democracy takes as axiomatic that most of the voting population have enough perceived common interests to prefer losing an election over dismantling the government. If its still the case in the US, its only just barely, and we are seeing the strain of that reality.
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I think you misunderstood my first question. I wasn't asking how you would stop cultural change, I was asking how you would stop govt imposing restrictions on society based on the govt's moral beliefs given that you have no control over whether the person voted into power would be aligned with your own cultural upbringing.
i.e. if you were a founding father of a new society and you took care to think about what scenarios might pop up 200 years from now. How could you build a robust system that will stand the test of time and won't rely on having virtuous leaders or even leaders from a consistent cultural background.
e.g. if a strong Muslim fundamentalist with beliefs similar to Sharia law gets into power, how can your system protect against the desires of this leader to restrict women's rights, to perhaps persecute and maybe even execute gay people.
You could say, well if that's what the people want to vote in, then that's where the culture of the time has come to, and the people get what they want. But that would be a might makes right system, a majority rules where the minorities have no protections.
The USA system today tries to guard against that, with the constitution. Trump and his team are trying very hard to circumvent all the protections, these things happen.
In my view, if you allow govt to impose morality on society then the govt can just make up their own idea of what is right and wrong and then force that onto people. But with a better set of foundational documents, like the constitution, Bill of Rights etc, it limits the power of govt, stops them being too intrusive onto governed people of society. With a proper set of guard rails it won't matter if the president is Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Arab, Mexican, Indian, White etc. Their power would be limited, they would be there only to provide infrastructure, laws to keep society safe and stable, policies to make the economy and the society thriving. They wouldn't be able to enforce morality, they wouldn't be able to impact culture, there would be less of a worry about a cultural shift in society.
One of the basic reasons to enable a state to use force is so that the citizens won't have to. If one requires a firearm to stay safe from other citizens, that in itself is a fundamental problem. If its that way by design (don't make laws protecting women, let them own guns) calling that governance is ludicrous, imo.
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People are more likely to be harmed, killed and raped by familiars rather than strangers.
Women are more likely to be assaulted and killed by their husbands and boyfriends than by a home intrusion or a random attacker on the street.
Many times, women are killed with their own weapon by their husband or boyfriend.
Men get angry, if there is a gun available, sometimes they use that. If there is no gun, then they don't have that to use. Gun are highly effective at successfully killing. Suicide rates go up, and deadly domestic violence goes up.
Owning Guns Puts People in Your Home at Greater Risk of Being Killed, New Study Shows
A new study shows that people living in homes with guns face substantially higher risks of being fatally assaulted.
time.com
@MindlessPieces Am I reading you correctly that you approve of the US Consitution, by and large, as a structure that limits governance to remain outside the sphere of what is moral?
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I think it is a good idea to have such a thing as foundational documents such as a constitution that limits the power of government. I'm not a USA constitutional scholar so I can't really speak of how great or bad the USA constitution is, but I agree with the concept of having such things to limit the power of government.
I just think the general public go too far with their idea of morals and desire to codify moral beliefs into law. I think a constitution ought to protect against the whims of moral beliefs and I think governments ought to be restricted from imposing someone's moral beliefs onto people.
I will set up the following straw man for your critique.
There are probably many ways to define what a moral code is. I will define it as the decision tree a human uses to make any decision they need to make. By this definition, everyone has a moral code.
Can you agree with this, and accept the definition of moral nihilist being a non-belief in objective morals, and can you agree that you, like me, have a fully developed subjective moral code that you use in your own decision making?
If you agree with most or all of that, then you can see the problem with saying only 'Don't pass laws that are based on morality' and leaving the statement at that. According to my own view of what a moral code is, its impossible to comply with that, even if I wanted to - which I couldn't even want to without having my own moral code to make me want to agree with it.
That's a bit overly-meta but I hope my point is clear enough to respond to.
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I like what you are doing here.
I think your definition of a moral code is lacking a few very important essential aspects of "morality". It's not just about making choices. e.g. A choice to drink Pepsi vs water. It's a choice, but not a moral choice. The choice is not right vs wrong, it is a morally neutral choice.
There is also the aspect of the person making the choice being a moral agent. i.e. someone capable of understanding that their decision is between right vs wrong. e.g. most people would consider a mother eating her babies as being immoral, but when a dung beetle eats its babies it's not an immoral choice.
So morality is about being faced with choices that are deemed right vs wrong by the person making the choice, or perhaps degrees of most wrong to least wrong, and the actor making the choice, knowing the choices are between degrees of right vs wrong.. Right and wrong being not in terms of academic correctness but in terms of harm or just/fairness or however the moral actor chooses to define right vs wrong.
Myself, I am a human, I exist in the context of society and relationships with various people, family, friends, work associates, neighbors etc. I understand that they way I carry myself builds up a reputation, and people act differently to me based on my perceived reputation. Would they trust me to go into their house and feed their cats when they are away? Would they trust me with financial arrangements? Would they accuse me if some property of theirs goes missing? It is important for me and for my future to develop a reputation that creates opportunities for me and repels negative consequences. I also have empathy, I get no joy from seeing people experience harm.
I don't of course, spend huge amounts of time making each and every decision, I have developed some guidelines that make many decisions easier and quicker. But while those guidelines apply to me, they don't apply to others. I would not want to impose my own guidelines onto others.
As an example. Joe Biden is a Catholic, I think he doesn't think abortion is moral, however he didn't want to force that onto everyone in society, so he is "pro-choice" even though he possibly wouldn't choose to abort.
So just because a person has a moral code or idea of what is right or moral, and what is wrong or immoral, it doesn't mean they have a need to force their own beliefs onto others.
There are two basic frames on which to base laws.
Code One - limit behavior by defining and declaring what is illegal. The undefined is then legal.
This is somewhat like British common law ( at least the beginnings of it in Anglo Saxon England ), where the court decides a case upon previous decisions, ie precedent. The Common part coming from local customs in that 'what are people in society normally doing in their everyday lives'. Common Law is unwritten law.
Code Two - limit behavior by defining and declaring what is legal - the rest is illegal. Statues and declarations and rules determine the legality. Something not falling under an existing statute encourages a new declaration of legal status, if searching previous cases does not find a similar case. Usually termed Civil Law ( not in contrast to Criminal law ) on how a civil society should operate in all matters ( confusing for what we now distinguish as criminal and civil ).
What we distinguish as Criminal Law and Civil Law are both subject to how the law operates under either of the two codes. Criminal Law determines whether an action of a person has violated the state or its things. Civil Law determines whether an action of a person has violated another person or their things.
For both, the Common Law Code or the Civil Law Code applies to the rights of the accused, and/or victim either through a Bill of Rights or Constitution, or some extra statutes ( ie victim statement at the end of a trial ).
The Criminal Law deals mainly with morality - stealing, murder, assault, prostitution, substance abuse - mostly anything that is considered to have a moral aspect to it in regards to the functioning of the society, at the time when the law as written reflect the moral compass of that jurisdiction. For example, alcohol consumption of a minor, or statuary rape of a minor - in both examples Criminal Law determines what a minor is by reflecting and reaffirming the values, or what the state thinks are the values of society at that time., and prosecuting violators. Criminal Law reflects the morality of the land.
Cival Law can affirm restitution of wrongs. In that it is designed to make people 'whole' once more, there is also some moral character in these laws also in their design, but not to the extent that as that in Criminal Law.
From what you write, I think you have a problem with the what the state thinks are the values of society.
I can agree on that. Some segments may feel prosecuted. Other segments may feel their concerns disregarded. Some segments may feel the justification of an offence is warranted under certain conditions ( ie honour killing, or abortion ).
Since society changes and evolves over time, what was once criminally illegal one day may become legal the next, or the penalty for the violation will deviate from the past. Example - most countries once had the penalty for murder as being death., but have 'reduced' that to a life sentence, or less than that, the reason being that too harsh of a penalty is not reasonable in a moral society.
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You use moral in a sense that applies to those of a religious conviction in which some higher authority has assigned what code of conduct is permitted and what is not. It is of a supernatural origin.
Human authority can prescribe, apart from any higher authority, its codes of conduct, what it will permit, and what it will not. The term ethical is more suitable than moral. These codes must not be arbitrary but based on some universal standard, something all reasonable persons would accept, for example. Behaviors such as undue aggression, stealing, and lying are not permitted since they are not compatible with a peaceful and orderly society. This is rational.
What is moral tends to be ethical, but what is considered immoral may not be unethical.
The American Founding Fathers were wise in trying to keep religion out of government.
How would you deal with a situation where a prosecutor is indicting a woman who took a morning after pill with felony man-slaughter and asking her to plead guilty to the lesser charge of reckless endangerment?
I would deal with it by creating (if I could) a law specifically making the morning-after pill legal. The law needn't say it, but its clear since I am a proponent of the law that my motivation is my moral belief that the morning after pill cannot result in a homicide. What would you do in this situation? That is me legislating my morals in order to prevent a prosecutor from proceding with what my moral code tells me is a mis-use of a general murder statute.
I guess another, simpler way to put it is I assert that what exactly are murder, theft, morally-neutral economic regulations etc are themselves moral assessments.
Nice.
Even though I know better, I even fell into the trap with what I wrote of strangers and the street being the most dangerous. Why is that people think that familiarity means no harm. Interesting question, or answer, on genetics, and behavioral leanings of the human species. The well dressed person is the well behaved moral person, while the bum looking get the scorn, maybe not even real people. Certainly some bias there in everyday thinking.
Leaders take advantage of this bias to sweep people onto their agenda. Sometimes so sad.
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I would ignore the moral aspects of things and instead focus on whether these actions make society unsafe, instable or destitute.
People killing people, makes society an unsafe place for people to live. It also leads to revenge killings and feuds etc and tribal/gang wars etc. To have a safe society, it is essential to make murder illegal.
People stealing other people's stuff, makes society dysfunctional. People will need to stay home and guard their stuff rather than go to work. Also, as they are guarding their stuff, things will escalate to violence and deadly force. It is clear that for a safe, stable and thriving society we need to have property laws.
A woman taking the morning after pill, this doesn't impact society, people can still go to work, it doesn't make society dangerous for people, they are not going to get murdered. Since the zygote didn't have any friends, loved ones or alliances it is highly unlikely there will be any revenge killings. A normal, mentally healthy bystander isn't likely to get upset and aggressive seeing a woman swallow a morning after pill. So since this doesn't impact the safety, stability or thrivability of society, I don't see how it is any business of the government.
So a completely atheist society has more of a chance of being an immoral society than a theist society.
I think we disagree from where moral behavior comes from - an innate evaluation of the human mind, or that sent down from another authority.
A theist society can craft crappy laws appealing to its higher authority. It may believe it is a moral society within its small little world, while others outside may disagree. Murder, infanticide, femicide were all acceptable aspects at one time or another in ancient worlds and we in the western world have seemed to have moved on from that to some degree.
I would say that laws have evolved as a reflection of personal beliefs. What is reprehensible to one may be reprehensible to many, and would need that only for a society to craft a law defining behavior around this belief.
With all its contradictions, as well as the unknown if it was actually written by human authors, I agree.
Religion in itself doesn't have any strangle hold on the claim of morality.
@MindlessPieces I agree with your reasoning.
You haven't said what specific remedy you would pursue. Would you pursue a law exempting the morning after pill from a murder statute, or some other remedy, or no remedy and the let prosecutor and the indicted work it out?
If you would pursue a law, would you be troubled by people telling you that you are forcing your morals on them? I know you wouldn't believe that to be the case, but they would believe it.
You haven't said what specific remedy you would pursue. Would you pursue a law exempting the morning after pill from a murder statute, or some other remedy, or no remedy and the let prosecutor and the indicted work it out?
If you would pursue a law, would you be troubled by people telling you that you are forcing your morals on them? I know you wouldn't believe that to be the case, but they would believe it.
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For me, everything is legal unless there is a proper reason to make it illegal.
What reason would govt have to make taking the morning after pill illegal?
There would be some sort of constitution which would limit the powers of government with regards to what limits they can put onto people within society. If a rogue government tried to outlaw the morning after pill then courts would need to work through the arguments on how taking the morning after pill makes society unsafe., unstable etc. If it can't be proved then the law would be deemed unconstitutional.
A reply to your post is apt, even if it is more in line with the postings o0f the theme of government involvement of individual choices.
Population growth has been a concern for a great many many years. At one time an author was of the opinion that the riff raff of society procreated at a fast rate, and if continued the riff raff would overtake 'us' decent folk, and lead the nation to ruin.
China had several decades previous had a limit on reproduction so as to curb a potential exponential rise in population. The law was repealed after a certain number of years.
Western society, or industrialized society, has a population growth less than that required for replenishment.
Even with benefits for pregnant and families with children, the rate is below the required rate.
Barring immigration, the only other way is for females of child bearing age conceive and birth more babies.
As the nations population declines, economic ruin of the nation ( and the species ) may follow as not enough workers are available for functioning of the infrastructure. Technology may solve the problem ( ie AI workers ), but nothing is sure.
Should a nation then:
Declare that a woman should conceive X amount of children before the age Y.
Declare that non-compliance in a violation of the law.
Declare that a violation will result in the violator's ovaries becoming the property of the state.
Declare that the state's ovaries will be fertilized, leading to conception, pregnancy and birth in a manner the state seems fit.
Declare that violators will be prosecuted
Declare that as a penalty, violators will forfeit all worldly possessions and wealth as a deterrent against non-compliance.
Declare that violators will be removed from society as having not willingly contributed to the well being of the society.
This may be a fiction of a future society, or of earth or of a colony on another planet.
Where does the morality of the woman, the morality of the state concern themselves with the continuation of the species, or the colony due to all the talk about going to the moon, Mars, and the stars.
The woman nay have individual rights ( her body ) in conflict with collective rights ( survival ).
This fiction does show that collective rights can at times trump individual rights. Morality can be a fluid concept in the minds of people when faced with an existence that has a future enveloped in uncertainty, in this case the uncertainty of survival of the collective.