Philosophy Alert: Laws, moral, immoral, or amoral?

[noiseradio]

I posted this in the Gay Unions thread, but it's really a much broader question, and so I thought it might be better as a separate thread. To wit:

Can laws really be completely amoral, i.e completely separate from religious views? Or put another way, isn't every law an endorsement of a moral stand?

I don't have any agenda with this question. It's just something that interests me. If no one else wants to play, we can just keep guessing nouns.

[miss buenos aires]

It's an interesting question, because laws obviously do reflect the morality of a country. Does morality include the priorities of a society? Because most of them, at least in the States, seem to try to define the boundary between individual rights and the common good.

I think the very idea of laws implies some sort of moral code, but I don't think a moral code necessarily implies religious views. Some of the most moral people I know are vehemently atheist.

[bambooneedle]

Obviously you don't have to be religious to be moral.

A law isn't an endorsement of a moral stand. They're only made by governments under pressure exerted from a large enough part of the populace having the power to throw them out if it wasn't made. The laws are just the result of the expression of any majority for a short period of time.

It's impossible for any majority's wishes to be amoral, but this doesn't mean that a law itself is an endorsement, except of democracy.

[martinfoyle]

It's an ecumenical matter.(Fr. Ted joke)
Still, interesting discussion, keep it up.

[pip_52]

Ive never agreed with governed morality because it always seemed to be the government pushing a form of religion on the people. But it can be hard to separate religion and morality. For the president to say something like abortion should be illegal because it is immoral from a religious standpoint doesnt make sense to me, since it seems like such a highly personal decision. And especially for something like that be considered immoral, but killing someone through lethal injection or the electric chair is not only legal, but morally the right thing to do.

And not that I wholly agree with all these things, but following that line of thought, really all narcotics and even prostitution should be legal because theyre basically illegal for moral reasons that stem from religion. Or, they hurt only the person who consents to do them. I guess thats the question of the victimless crime.

Of course all that might be taking morality out of the picture altogether.

[laughingcrow]

I guess morality differs within cultural and geographical regions...to most in the western world, a man being betrothed and consumating his marriage with a girl under 16 is amoral, but to someone in India or Pakistan say, this is an everyday way of life.

I suppose this shows that morals and laws are merely reflections upon the culture and religous background of the area, and to this point, it shows why many bigamist mormons have been imprisoned in the US and UK for their beliefs, which would, in other parts of the world, be accepted.

Some morality is universal though (e.g. killing and stealing is wrong), which underlies the theory that all religions stemmed from one ancient one.

[miss buenos aires]

A law isn't an endorsement of a moral stand. They're only made by governments under pressure exerted from a large enough part of the populace having the power to throw them out if it wasn't made. The laws are just the result of the expression of any majority for a short period of time.

Are you saying that only democracies have laws?

[lipstickvogue]

It has always been my contention that true moral laws are based solely on logic and forethought; religious precepts just muddy the waters.

Of course, I should mention that my understanding of organized religion is that it is a political machine to keep the masses in line and build enough revenue to continue in their position of power.

It would also be fair to say that I find most of the religious zealots who claim higher moral understanding to be hypocritical megalomaniacs (i.e. America's Religious Reich). I'm sure this coors my perception of this issue...and then one's got Arnold Schwartzaneger <spelling?!?>

[shabbydoll]

Some laws are made just to keep order, like traffic laws. There is no real moral intent, unless keeping order is a moral intent.

[noiseradio]

But even traffic laws are in place to protect lives, aren't they? And doesn't it then stand to reason that we think protecting lives is good and allowing chaos is bad?

We don't allow speeding because you might kill someone. Killing is wrong. Morals.

No drunk driving for the same reasons.

Etc.

So doesn't every law basically come back to a question of someone's (whther the people in a democracy, the committee in the oligarchy, or the individual in the monarchy/tyranny) sense of right and wrong?

[HungupStrungup]

We don't allow speeding because you might kill someone. Killing is wrong. Morals. No drunk driving for the same reasons. . . doesn't every law basically come back to a question of someone's . . . sense of right and wrong?

You make a good point, but I simply don't grant that notions of right and wrong must inevitably spring from religion, from some immutable ethical code handed to us by a higher power that we must obey despite our inability to fathom its source. Rather, I think there's an innate sense most of us have of the rightness and wrongness of various behaviours based upon nothing more complex than "I wouldn't want that happening to me or mine."

To me it's nothing more mystical than enlightened self-interest.

I believe that what I was taught to call the Golden Rule is the basis for most if not all laws, and certainly it should guide our behaviour in areas where there are loopholes in the law, or where the law hasn't yet caught up to our fast-changing reality. There would be far fewer Enrons and WorldComs that way.

Maybe you can make a case that God created the Golden Rule for us to follow. Certainly Christians should follow Jesus' teaching on the subject when he boiled the Ten Commandments down to just two (in the Gospel According to Matthew I think it was). But it's to be found in a place of honour in just about every religion's precepts, so perhaps it predates modern religious teachings altogether. A few examples:

Judaism
A certain heathen came to Shammai and said to him, Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot. Thereupon he repulsed him with the rod which was in his hand. When he went to Hillel, he said to him, What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah; all the rest of it is commentary; go and learn.
Shabbat 31a

Islam
Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.
Forty Hadith of an-Nawawi 13

Hinduism
One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself. This is the essence of morality. All other activities are due to selfish desire.
Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva 113.8

and Confucianism
Tsekung asked, Is there one word that can serve as a principle of conduct for life? Confucius replied, It is the word shu--reciprocity: Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.
Analects 15.23

[lipstickvogue]

If you don't eat your meat, how can you have any pudding?!?

[LessThanZero]

Some morality is universal though (e.g. killing and stealing is wrong), which underlies the theory that all religions stemmed from one ancient one.

Maybe they could've got away with a smaller monument in that Alabama Courthouse. One with less writing.

[shabbydoll]

I still disagree about all laws being about morality. Keeping order is a way of making things go smoothly. There is not an inherit right or wrong about one way roads. They are there to channel traffic. I think stemming chaos can be a way to make life efficient. One can preceive anything as good or bad, but just because one can does not mean one should.

[noiseradio]

Hungup,

I wasn't trying to make a case that God did anything at all. But if I understand correctly, you would agree with me that laws are based on a sense of morality. Whether for religious (i.e. faith) reasons or for elightened self-interest, aren't all laws an exercise in morality? And whether or not a higher power even exists, would it not be fair to suggest that laws are still based in some--what, ethic?--that assumes a basic sense of right and wrong? Further, wouldn't it be intellectually dishonest to pretend that just about every culture in human history hasn't been heavily informed by a set of religious beliefs? You quote all of those sources, making the excellent point that the Golden Rule is evident in many religions. But they're still religions, which means that laws in primarily Muslim clutures are informed by Islam, primarily Christian clutures by Christianity, Primarily Jewish cultures by Judaism, etc.... Isn't religion still basically at the center or periphery of every legal system?

[so lacklustre]

I am an Atheist but not an Anarchist, I never break that one way street law.

[El Vez]

Aside from gay unions, another area of contention here is the direction our government is taking us with abortion rights. Not only do we have a secretary of health who wouldn't prescribe single women birth control and who encouraged prayer to help ease PMS, but with the passing of the partial birth abortion bill we are set several steps back by the Bush administration. The wording of this bill is vague enough to allow for highly conservative interpretations....so much so that it could be illegal for a woman to get an abortion during her second trimester, which is when a lot of women have abortions.

[laughingcrow]

HungupStrungup wrote:

Rather, I think there's an innate sense most of us have of the rightness and wrongness of various behaviours based upon nothing more complex than "I wouldn't want that happening to me or mine."

From a Darwinian viewpoint, this innate sense of right and wrong (which is a fundamental argument of the Roman Catholic church as to god's existence - which I'm not refuting by the way), may simply have evolved in a group, because the individual that commits x wrong act receives a bad payoff (is thrown out the group, killed, not helped survive, not mated, etc.) and ultimately dies off, not spreading the 'bad gene'...whereas the individual that doesn't commit the act survives, and receives a higher payoff, and so spreads his 'good gene'. Thus, both the individual and the group benefit from the gene which says 'don't do x'...

obviously, this doesn't explain why not owning a television license is illegal.

[A rope leash]

Tax laws are immoral. It's stealing.

[bobster]

Thanks, Noise for a thread after my own secularist, yet Talmudic, heart. (If only I believed, I could've been a rabbi...If only I really wanted money, boredom and unhappiness, I could've been a lawyer.)

So, here's my take:

In reality, laws are based on all sorts of rationales, good and bad -- including the personal, private morality of the lawmakers and/or their constituencies, as well as for keeping order, repaying politician's "debts," etc. That's why you have those unenforced laws which they use for news humor features, like the ones they have in some areas against women wearing skirts cut above the knee, etc. As long as these laws aren't clearly unconstitutional in some way and brought before the courts, they tend to stay on the books. Still, many laws are based on the personal morality, which is not the way I think things should be in a pluralistic society.

My feeling is that the way laws OUGHT to be made is based not on the golden rule -- which is a perfect moral principle that we all ought to live by, but which can't be legislated in any meaningful way -- but on the principle of "The right to swing my fist ends with your chin." These are similar principles, but there's an important difference....

This is getting long (not that that's ever stopped me before) so..."To be continued"

[bobster]

As I was saying....

The problem with legislating even such a beautiful and just about undeniable moral precept as "do unto others as you would have others due unto you" is that, taken to its logical conclusion that would force the government to legislate against rudeness, verbal cruelty, or just plain being disagreeable. This would actually pretty much destroy any notion of what we think of as a free society, since one person's rudeness and cruelty can be another person's healthy debate, humor, lively discussion, creative endeavors, etc. Too much of it is simply in the eye of the beholder.

In the case of gay rights, using the golden rule, you could argue that "Being gay is an illness. Therefore, if I were gay I would want someone to try and cure me. Therefore, all gay acts, from sodomy to watching 'Mame' ought to be illegal." While I am in no way equating gayness with drug addiction, gambling, drunkeness,prostitution or multiple marriage, this is the logic used to enact most of the laws restricting or illegalizing these activities.

The problem is that it creates a slippery slope from which there is little escape. If it weren't for the 1st Amendment, that same logic could easily lead to laws against being a Marxist, a Scientologist, a watcher of reality television, or someone who spends too much time posting on fan bulletin boards. This may seem absurd but, given the occasional bouts of mass hysteria humanity is prone to -- and, come to think of it, they aren't all that "occasional" -- any group can find their ox gored pretty quickly.

On the other, the the principle of not letting your swinging fist hit the other fellow's chin is less fuzzy. (Though nothing in this world of ours is ever perfectly clear.)

To use a famous case, if the Nazis want to march in Skokie, the principle of "swinging my fist" means they can, but the principle of "not hitting your chin" means they can't molest the residents in any way. It gets a little fuzzy here, however, because many of the residents of Skokie are Holocaust survivors and liable to be frightened or traumatized by the sight of brownshirts marching down their city streets. Clearly, the golden rule dictates that the Nazis should be prevented from marching. However, quite frankly, since the feelings of the survivors are by their nature subjective, taken to their extreme it would pretty much limit ALL debate.

For example, if you go on my pal Bill O'Reilly's TV show and say, as has happened, that 9/11 is partly due to various bad acts of the U.S., he'll kick you off saying that he must do so for the sake of the feelings of the survivors and their families. Now, that's legal (though not right in my view) because his show is a private business.

However, if the government were to use this same logic -- which, sadly, it has -- then the idea of freedom of thought is reduced to a farce because any time anyone speaks up, SOMEONE's feelings are going to get hurt. And clearly, U.S. foreign policy is an issue that needs to be discussed freely and openly and must include ideas some people objectionable or you reduce discussion to a pep rally. (Which is what's happened in way too many media quarters.)'

There are still people who want to legislate these matters. And, while it may seem inoccuous to have a law against burning the flag, that sets up the precedent for other laws against symbollically burning the flag.

Thus, a symbol of freedom creates an opening for the end of freedom. This is what Zen Buddhists called "mistaking the finger pointing at the moon for the moon."

The only way around it is to create a very objective test.

Abortion is another interesting issue in this light, but I'm getting tired....

[A rope leash]

Hemp laws are immoral.

[noiseradio]

Damn, Bobster. Thou stealest my thunder with the swing fist end chin bit.

All really nicely said. Much to mull and discuss.
I love it here.

[El Vez]

Bill O'Reilly once stated on his show that no one from 9/11 was against the war in Iraq. Well, sure enough they found a college professor, Jeremy Glick, who lost his father on that terrible day and was also adamantly against the war. O'Reilly, who boasts that he likes a good debate, had the gentleman on his show and completely lost his shit. Glick was the very picture of serenity. He came on the show with his homework done ready to debate O'Reilly on world politics and the machinations that lead us into the war with Iraq. O'Reilly stopped him at one point, stating "I don't want to debate world politics with you." When Glick asked "Why not Bill, there's nothing more relevant right now than world politics" our favorite pundit replied "Because, number one, I don't care what you think." O'Reilly frequently interrupted his guest (who was calmly, thoughtfully explaining his views) with the words "Shut Up!" and looked like he was about the blow a gasket. After the segment was over, O'Reilly (off the air) told Glick to "Get out of my studio before I rip you to fucking pieces." The staff on The O'Reilly Factor was genuinely concerned for Glick's safety and apologized profusely to him for Bill O'Reilly's conduct. Even now, a couple of months since that episode airs, the image of Glick handing O'Reilly's ass to him (intellectually speaking) is an image that goes great with an ice cold beer.

[bobster]

El Vez --

I read a transcript of that interview -- well, at least I think it was that same interview -- in "Harpers." Reading it, it pains me to say, gave a very different impression. To read it, theguy didn't have a chance to hand O'Reilly any part of his lamentable anatomy, I'm sorry to say. To read it, he ever really had a chance to say very much of anything.

(I also have to say that, from what was there, I sense I would actually disagree with Glick a great deal. He seems to come from the sort of Noam Chomsky/Howard Zinn "America is mostly to blame and therefore has given up all right to do anything" camp on the current world situation, while I'm more in the Marc Cooper/David Corn camp which is more "actually, Al Quaeda is to blame -- but we're partly to blame for Al Queada and let's not act like a bunch of murderous Don Rumsfeldish a-holes" camp, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)

Actually, that story reminds me of another story that Molly Ivins recounted in her column. She was on the now-infamous panel at the American Booksellers convention which turned into a shouting match between O'Reilly and Al Franken. At one point (I'm paraphrasing these quotes, btw), O'Reilly lost it and said "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Franken said "Sorry, Bill, I'm not on Fox."