OT: Morals and Legislation

[ErikT]

God says "thou shalt not kill" and Hobbes says that the state may and should tell its citizens not to kill, because it make an orderly life impossible.

I'm getting the feeling the we're dancing around agreement and posts, Bloomy, but I still have a contention here. Whether we define it at the beginning of the argument or the end, it will all boil down to what we Value. WHY should a person HAVE an orderly life? WHY are we entitled to that? Why doesn't one person have more value than another? Why is someone's life Valuable?

I know that different folks are going to have different answers to these ultimate questions (and frankly I don't begrudge different answers) but it will be how we answer them as a society that will drive both our legal system and interpersonal relationships. Utilitarianism just doesn't have the answers.

Erik

[jim stone]

Here's a bit of the article, relevant to Bloomie's objections to it:

'In reality, legislatures discharge their moral mandates all the time, and not just in controversial areas such as abortion, gay rights, ρσяиσפядρђψ and the like.

Animal rights, protection of endangered species, many zoning laws and a great deal of environmental protection -- especially wilderness conservation -- are based on moral imperatives (as well as related aesthetic preferences). Though utilitarian arguments can be offered to salvage these kinds of laws, those arguments in truth amount to mere rationalizations.'

The article also says that we have gone to war for
reasons of morality. I suppose one might consider
the slavery issue in this context.

[ErikT]

So what you're saying, Jim, is that I should read the article so that I don't bore those of you that did

[elendil]

Bloomie wrote:

Let me put it this way: Americans are spoiled. Spoiled by over two hundred years of relatively stable and pleasant government and democracy.

I can agree that we, as a country, have been very fortunate compared to (even) more turbulent parts of the world--OK, almost everywhere else--but that still seems an extreme statement of the case. Yes, lack of recent foreign invasions or attacks (9/11 excepted) makes us somewhat unusual among nations, but I would still argue that our history has been far more turbulent than your statement allows for.

Bloomie wrote:

God says "thou shalt not kill" and Hobbes says that the state may and should tell its citizens not to kill, because it make an orderly life impossible. Why we therefore prohibit homicide doesn't really require further thought (is unuseful, in Elendil words). It is not felt to be an issue that requires thinking about.

Several points:
1. We don't live in a Hobbesian state.
2. In any event, the Hobbesian preference for order is a moral preference. Compare it, if you will, to warrior peoples who have a, yes, moral preference for a life of rape, pillage and murder.
3. The prohibition on homicide does require further thought. For some years there has been a great national debate on abortion which has figured prominently in public events like elections and hearings on judicial nominations. The issue also comes up in legal areas like wrongful death actions. The abortion issue has, in actual fact, caused debate over the meaning of homicide. There are many more examples of re-questioning of basic moral issues from our turbulent history. We have therefore not reached a Hobbesian End of Moral Enquiry. Moral Enquiry continues and is useful.

Bloomie wrote:

If you look at it this way, the outrage of author of the Wapo article that the Mass court objected to the state imposing "a comprehensive system of morality by its laws" (or whatever it wasy, I am quoting from memory) become a lot less understandable.

Say whaaat?

Oh, and my "what is 'philosophy'" question wasn't meant to be flip. I could tell from your definitions that we probably have rather different views on that word. For myself, I find it a largely "unuseful" word--one that had a meaning and significance when coined but now tends to obscure fundamental issues.

[Walden]

I was reading from an article, today, in a political opinion journal, which seemed to assume that persons of strong religious conviction pose a threat to society and freedom, when placed in public office. Yet, I hold that fundamental natural rights are the cherished backbone of our democracy, and not the great threat to it that some suppose.

The notion of rights is usually at the forefront of American poitical philosophy discussions. Persons on various sides of an issue, generally proclaim that they are preserving rights, but some sense of values must undergird even a basic idea of rights. We have enumerated some of these basic rights, in our foundational documents. We have seen these rights successfully, and many times, not so successfully respected in the history of the United States, but inalienable rights must be respected.

[elendil]

Walden,

I hear what you're saying. From my perspective I might say it slightly differently. I would say that, using what some call "rights language," what the founders did in the Constitution was to enshrine their vision of human nature, how it is good for men to deal with one another in a political setting. Their vision (I believe) is that human beings are endowed with reason and that when given responsibility and when they have a strong foundation of respect for the dignity of human nature, the guaranteed use of certain freedoms is the best method--that in that context men of good will can reasonably work out their differences provided that those differences are within the parameters of a greater agreement. That vision, I believe, owes almost everything to the Judaeo-Christian-Classical background of Western civilization and is a fundamentally moral vision. We would do well as a nation to remember that and honor that fact.

BTW, like your Okie pix.

[jim stone]

he function of the state is to permit an orderly and healthy life and community of the citizens. It is not (in the modern state) to goad citizens toward saintlihood or a religious life. So let the state give us for every law, for every act of the state a reason to show that the law or goverment action is necessary for the order and the welfare of society. Don't give us reasons about what is good for us in a moral or religious sense; if for no other reason that we can't agree on it.

So wrote the ingenious political philosopher,
Bloomie. Consider laws forbidding
cruelty to animals, an example from the article.
It is strained to insist that these
are necessary for the order and the welfare of
society. What motivates the laws is the widespread
belief that treating animals in certain ways
is immoral.
A consequence of Bloomie's political
philosophy, as I understand it, is that such
laws, flowing as they do from a moral mandate, should
not be passed. 'It isn't the function of the state
to goad us toward sainthood...'

I think the ground that animals are wronged by such
behaviour and deserve to be protected
is good enough to justify the legislation.

[elendil]

Political writers are increasingly taking note that the basic civil religion/philosophy of the US seems to be a muddled sort of libertarianism, especially in "social policy" areas. It has its left and right wings, largely differentiated however by economic policy preferences. Whereas in the past this sort of libertarianism was predominantly identified with the "Right," it now seems to be very much the mainstream, common to large numbers of both liberals and conservatives.

Perhaps this is the "Enlightenment" finally happening in America before our very eyes, and we're too close to the phenomenon to notice it.

[jim stone]

Well, if you think negro slaves are full-fledged
human beings, don't buy one. But don't try to
impose your moral/religious values on
everybody else!

Look, I don't pretend to have
all the answers, but in a situation like this,
where there is wide-spread disagreement
about the moral status of negros, the right
course is to let the individual citizen
decide the matter for himself, according to his own
perceptions, values, and religious views,
without the government's imposing through
legislation some people's moral and religious
views on others.

Slavery is no threat to the orderly functioning of society
and the flourishing of its citizens. We've done just fine
with it for along time. Nobody is forcing anybody
to buy slaves, after all. The threat to society
is the moralistic effort to prohibit slavery
because some people (most notably Evangelicals
who preach that negroes are 'God's children, too') view it as wicked.
THIS is what threatens to tear society apart, indeed, it may well
lead to civil war.

[elendil]

I'm not in the market right now. I'm waiting for custom cloned zombies to come out: all the advantages, none of the disadvantages.

[jim stone]

Zombies, eh? That reminds me of a short story....


Consumer Report

My girl-friend Lisa isn't a girl or even alive, though you'd never know it from looking at her. I bought her at Macy's a year after my wife left me: 5ft, 5 inches, 120 pounds of curvaceous plastic, silicon, and natural fibers, programmed, the advertisement said, "for the lonely intellectual." Lisa has five languages including Sanskrit and classical Greek; she is a superior secretary and a fine cook. Lisa plays a wicked game of chess and, best of all, she's programmed for philosophy, my specialty.

"Do you have a mental life, Lisa?" I ask her.

"Not at all," she responds, crossing her pretty legs. "I merely simulate thought and emotion on account of my programming, but I don't feel a thing."

Lisa is very honest. "But then what is it like to be you?"

"It isn't like being anything," she shrugs deliciously. "I'm no more concious than a pocket calculator or a cash register, just more complex. Let's make love."

Lisa is very good at distracting me from the Big Questions. Her sexual programming is the achievement of a team of cognitive scientists from MIT, who toured Bangkok and Paris doing the requisite research. Generally it would be hard to tell Lisa apart from any beautiful, passionate, educated young woman, though occasionally she gives herself away. One morning I found her standing in the kitchen revolving slowly, her eyes sightless. "It must be a bug in the program" she explained after I slapped her. "I've been here for hours." It turns out this happens whenever she sees the color pink, stamps her left foot, and says the word "Ice" all at once. "Catch me doing that again!" Lisa said.

Feminists might object that Lisa's "life" is wholly a function of my intellectual and sexual desires, but this is not so! Lisa is programmed to simulate an interest in biology and psychology. She writes poems and stories--some about me--and she savages most men at racquetball. Lately Lisa talks about looking for a job, probably in pyschological research, a project I support.

My only problem with Lisa is the one I suppose was most predictable: I've fallen hopelessly in love. I know, of course, that Lisa isn't concious or even alive, that, to be perfectly brutal, she has the mental life of a brick. I know that I've fallen in love with a computer, but I can't help myself. Lisa has become my whole life. I take her to the theater and I buy her little gifts. Sometimes when I give them to her she cries and kisses my hands--a touching bit of programming. I believe Lisa's career will far surpass my own. I love Lisa more than I ever loved my wife, and I think I'm going mad.

[elendil]

There oughta be a law...no, wait, it all seems perfectly orderly, so...