Laws and morality are two different things. Morality has a spiritual context, guidelines for how best to exist in the world, how to interact with other people and things around you, rules for person fulfillment and wellbeing, for an existence beyond the physical. Out in the world, morality comes in different forms; different people will follow different moral codes and will disagree about which, if any, are correct, true, best. Morality is internalized and self-enforced; no other person can impose a particular moral code on you, no one but you can enforce what is in your heart.
Laws are external; if you believe in freedom and equality, they are rules that exist to protect you from others and others from you, they establish a balance between the freedoms of the many interacting people in a society. Laws should prohibit murder not because murder is immoral but because it is an assertion of one person’s freedom over another. Laws should not pick a particular moral code and enforce that; if you believe in freedom and equality, governments have no business dictating morality. What if they pick the “wrong” one? What if they pick the “right” one? Laws cannot tell a person what to feel, only morality can. Laws can only specify what to do or not do.
Laws cannot dictate what to believe; doing so only creates insincerity. Laws can be followed without sincere belief in them. Morality cannot. Laws cannot dictate values, but may be influenced by them; morality dictates values. Laws should be minimal to allow for different ways of being, different values; laws should not tell you how to talk to your parents. Morality is all-encompassing; morality does instruct you on how to treat your family, but you’re free not to follow it and accept the consequences instead. Laws come from people and societies trying to find a way to function as a group as a group and protect individuals. Morality can come from many places: religion, introspection, personal experience, nature, logic.
In much of Europe, hate speech and genocide denial are illegal because of the continent’s history with the Holocaust; hate speech is harmful to the survivors of the genocide. In the US, hate speech is mostly protected under the First Amendment. The laws are different because of different societal experiences and needs; mainstream morality on the topics of hate and genocide, however, is likely very similar between the different countries. The laws may change as situations and understandings change, but this is how it should be.
Interesting post. Personally, I don't feel that morality and law can be separated. That is, all laws come from some conception of morality.
ReplyDeleteThat said, morality is (or at least should be) a much broader topic than law. Morality asks what people should and shouldn't do. Included within that is the topic of what people should be able to /force/ other people to do and not do, which is the realm of law. i.e. just because something is harmful doesn't mean that it should be outlawed, for the simple fact that outlawing it may be more harmful in the immediate term, or may endanger well-being in another way, such as by removing freedom or personal responsibility in the long-term. In other words, the act of lawmaking is in and of itself an act which must be morally scrutinized in each and every case.
I agree with you that the goal of law should be the smooth functioning of society. More specifically, it should be structured in such a way as to best enhance social cooperation. The foremost reason why we choose to live in a society is the simple and undeniable (but often overlooked throughout history) fact that we can satisfy our own needs better by working together peacefully with other people than by trying to make it on our own or, worse, by fighting with each other for things.
Since the only mutually beneficial way to get other people to help us (beyond what they would simply do voluntarily out of love) is by helping them in return, I think the job of law is to specify certain rules (rights) to make sure we aren't harming each other in our quest to achieve whatever it is that we place as our goal.
In my third paragraph, "satisfy our own needs" could be substituted with "achieve our own goals" since our goals are not always selfish.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't mean to sound like my views are set in stone on this stuff... In case it sounds like I'm being really matter of fact.
ReplyDeleteheh, finally got around to reading your comments here..kinda slow on that, I know!
ReplyDelete"Also, I don't mean to sound like my views are set in stone on this stuff... In case it sounds like I'm being really matter of fact."
Same here. I understand.
No problemo.
ReplyDelete