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legislating morality

which laws?

  • Total voters
    33
mpg said:
Getting back to the topic of the thread, the three people who voted for the first two options, really need to explain their votes. Actually, if you voted for anything other than option #5, you need to explain your vote. I see people pretending to do that without actually doing it.
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Why should they explain their positions? People often just give cryptic messages or walk away completely if they cannot support their positions in the face of counter-opinion.
 
johndylan1 said:
That is if you believe it a moral imperative to protect individual rights.
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Any other perspective would be counter to the Constitution IMO. It enumerates individual rights: life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. And then many others.
 
sangha said:
Whether I, or anyone else, believes that is irrelevant

What matters is that protecting individual rights can be justified on the basis of mutual self-interest, and the promotion of a civil socoety (which can also be justified on self-interest)
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What if I do not care about a civil society? What if there is a scarce commodity and I find it in my self interest to have it. If morality did not guide my way via law and punishment would I not simply take it?
 
Lursa said:
Why should they explain their positions?
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That's the point of this website?


Lursa said:
People often just give cryptic messages or walk away completely if they cannot support their positions in the face of counter-opinion.
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Depending on the issue, core values are enough explanation. If someone was against capital punishment based on principle, would they need to cite crime statistics to support their opposition? If they said 'two wrongs don't make a right', is that the same as saying nothing at all? Would their opposition to the death penalty be "unacceptable" or "invalid"?
 
Lursa said:
Any other perspective would be counter to the Constitution IMO. It enumerates individual rights: life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. And then many others.
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Absolutely, that is why the constitution is a moral document.
 
All laws legislate morality.
 
johndylan1 said:
What if I do not care about a civil society? What if there is a scarce commodity and I find it in my self interest to have it. If morality did not guide my way via law and punishment would I not simply take it?
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The fact that some people do not care about civil society does not mean the laws that promote a civil society are unjustified on a basis that has nothing to do with morality.
 
mpg said:
That's the point of this website?


Depending on the issue, core values are enough explanation. If someone was against capital punishment based on principle, would they need to cite crime statistics to support their opposition? If they said 'two wrongs don't make a right', is that the same as saying nothing at all? Would their opposition to the death penalty be "unacceptable" or "invalid"?
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The purpose of debate is to support your position, and if you badger other people for answers, then attempt the same courtesy or recognize that courteously, that you only have opinion and nothing else.

And for your example, it depends on the opinion your give. If you are against the DP for religious reasons, you can cite the passage in the Bible about killing. OTOH, that is so widely known that you would not need the citation. However if you based your position on the DP reducing crime...then you'd need to show those statistics. If you based it on how it affected one "person's" rights and not someone else's, you'd have to show how the 2nd person was actually not harmed by the protection of the first's, instead of giving cryptic little one-liners that do not support the position.
 
Lursa said:
The purpose of debate is to support your position,
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That's what I just said.


Lursa said:
and if you badger other people for answers, then attempt the same courtesy or recognize that courteously, that you only have opinion and nothing else.
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obviously



Lursa said:
And for your example, it depends on the opinion your give. If you are against the DP for religious reasons, you can cite the passage in the Bible about killing. OTOH, that is so widely known that you would not need the citation. However if you based your position on the DP reducing crime...then you'd need to show those statistics. If you based it on how it affected one "person's" rights and not someone else's, you'd have to show how the 2nd person was actually not harmed by the protection of the first's, instead of giving cryptic little one-liners that do not support the position.
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What if I rely completely on my core values and my only reason for opposing the death penalty is 'two wrongs don't make a right'?
 
mpg said:
Obviously.

What if I rely completely on my core values and my only reason for opposing the death penalty is 'two wrongs don't make a right'?
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Not that obviously, since I described a common posting behavior of your own.


That's a fairly common position so perhaps no one would ask you to support it further. Dealing with 2 *people* who have *equal* rights. Your stated position is that the court system does not have the right to take the right to life from a "person" that took the right to life from another "person" because they have "equal" rights.
 
sangha said:
The fact that some people do not care about civil society does not mean the laws that promote a civil society are unjustified on a basis that has nothing to do with morality.
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Of course it does, to desire a civil society is a moral base. Why do you think tribal societies have killed without pause? Their moral imperative is to gather scarce resources such as territory, workers, and food. To them it is moral to protect their own tribe. Our society's moral imperative is to respect individual rights and property. There is no concept of civil society apart from morality.
 
Lursa said:
Not that obviously, since I described a common posting behavior of your own.
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if you say so


Lursa said:
That's a fairly common position so perhaps no one would ask you to support it further. Dealing with 2 *people* who have *equal* rights. Your stated position is that the court system does not have the right to take the right to life from a "person" that took the right to life from another "person" because they have "equal" rights.
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If it's OK for the death penalty, why isn't it OK for other social issues such as abortion?
 
mpg said:
if you say so


If it's OK for the death penalty, why isn't it OK for other social issues such as abortion?
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I do say so, and can post many examples. Would you like me to?

I was expanding on your example of a DP position. Re: abortion, that only applies to 'persons.' If you want to discuss that subject, maybe you could return to the thread where you avoided addressing that instead of taking this one off-topic?
 
Lursa said:
I do say so, and can post many examples. Would you like me to?

I was expanding on your example of a DP position. Re: abortion, that only applies to 'persons.' If you want to discuss that subject, maybe you could return to the thread where you avoided addressing that instead of taking this one off-topic?
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off topic? ____ing hilarious
 
mpg said:
off topic? ____ing hilarious
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Ha you're right....I thought I was in a death penalty thread I'm also commenting in, after you used the dp example.

Feel free to tell me about the morality of according a fetus rights that supersede those of the mother. And how exactly that would be 'workable' in society...you know without invading her personal and medical records? Having the state be responsible for the fetus's wellbeing in uterero if it's deemed she's 'abusing it,' etc.

Without little trite phrases of avoidance.
 
Lursa said:
Feel free to tell me about the morality of according a fetus rights that supersede those of the mother.
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That's a strawman. I'm willing to make an exception to save the life of the mother.


Lursa said:
And how exactly that would be 'workable' in society...you know without invading her personal and medical records? Having the state be responsible for the fetus's wellbeing in uterero if it's deemed she's 'abusing it,' etc.

Without little trite phrases of avoidance.
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I expect it to be workable in society the same as it was before RvW.
 
johndylan1 said:
Of course it does, to desire a civil society is a moral base. Why do you think tribal societies have killed without pause? Their moral imperative is to gather scarce resources such as territory, workers, and food. To them it is moral to protect their own tribe. Our society's moral imperative is to respect individual rights and property. There is no concept of civil society apart from morality.
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No, it need not be a moral imperative but rather a selfish one.

I can protect my tribe, not because it's the moral thing to do, but because I benefit from doing so.
 
sangha said:
No, it need not be a moral imperative but rather a selfish one.

I can protect my tribe, not because it's the moral thing to do, but because I benefit from doing so.
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You've got a good point, but is there a significant difference between forcing your morals onto others, and forcing your opinions onto others?
 
mpg said:
That's a strawman. I'm willing to make an exception to save the life of the mother.


I expect it to be workable in society the same as it was before RvW.
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It was not workable for women...they had to risk their lives getting illegal abortions.

And why is it ok to kill the unborn to save the mother?
 
Lursa said:
It was not workable for women...they had to risk their lives getting illegal abortions.
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had to?



Lursa said:
And why is it ok to kill the unborn to save the mother?
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If it wasn't, you'd be putting the child above the mother. I have no desire to do that. I believe in equality.
 
mpg said:
You've got a good point, but is there a significant difference between forcing your morals onto others, and forcing your opinions onto others?
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My point has nothing to do with your question

The thread is about legislating morality, and my point is that while laws can be, and often are, based on morality, legitimate laws are based on the promotion of a civil society. This is particularly true in nations, like the US, where we have the freedom of belief.
 
mpg said:
had to?



If it wasn't, you'd be putting the child above the mother. I have no desire to do that. I believe in equality.
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but in your case you're placing the mother above the child, in the event say of a medical condition that requires induced abortion, where the kid might survive and the mother die, if both are equal as you say, then how can morally decide to save the mother? clearly the parties are not equal in your opinion if the mother gets the preference.....

a better argument is this, medical occurences requiring abortion to save the mothers life are so rare and few that it can be tolerated... versus abortion for convienence, which is far more common.
 
EMNofSeattle said:
but in your case you're placing the mother above the child, in the event say of a medical condition that requires induced abortion, where the kid might survive and the mother die, if both are equal as you say, then how can morally decide to save the mother? clearly the parties are not equal in your opinion if the mother gets the preference.....

a better argument is this, medical occurences requiring abortion to save the mothers life are so rare and few that it can be tolerated... versus abortion for convienence, which is far more common.
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The Constitution puts the born above the unborn, by granting the govt the power to protect the rights of the born while not recognizing that the unborn have any rights.
 
sangha said:
The Constitution puts the born above the unborn, by granting the govt the power to protect the rights of the born while not recognizing that the unborn have any rights.
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abortion was not an issue in colonial america, that's a fallacy, so of course there's nothing in the constitution about it.

there's nothing about cars or computers or genetically modified corn or what have you. you can argue the constitution espouses a philosophy of limited government involvement and as a result government shouldn't be involved in choice to abort, that would be a valid argument IMO but saying "the constitution doesn't recognize rights of the unborn" is, at least to me, not a great argument because it presupposes the founders even considered the issue.

I do not favor making abortion illegal BTW....
 
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