Legality vs. Morality

[karmiccancer]

anyways, i guess this is a question of do you think that legislation can be made on morality? (note: morality meaning morals and not laws from god or some other kind of religion)

i've noticed a lot of arguements (and some on here) use sort of an appeal to authority (in the form of law) to prove their point

the question of do you think its right is different from do you think it should be legal

you can completely opposed to alcohol, gambling, smoking, and prostitution etc. on moral grounds (which i am not, but thats not really relevant) and still be opposed to making legislation on them on the basis of a lack of relevant harm to society as a whole.

however, you could be of the opinion that it is society's job to enforce some sort of reasonable reprimands for behavior that perhaps only harms the individual and not society as a whole but IS (at least in your opinion) immoral.

I, however, am of the opinion that due to a lack of a way to prove that morality exists or even that specific exist themselves morality is left to be somewhat in the eyes of the beholder and at the will of the circumstances.
therefore i think it would be impossib le to create objective legislation on subjective moral viewpoints

that being said i think it also may be impossible to escape moralizing

for example the constitution and the declaration of independence state that "we, the people..." have certain unalienable rights.

a natural right is another way of creating a moral law
ex. it is Wrong to take away said persons right to________.

its not really an arguement just soemthing to think about i guess

 

[Vladislak]

I, however, am of the opinion that due to a lack of a way to prove that morality exists or even that specific exist themselves morality is left to be somewhat in the eyes of the beholder and at the will of the circumstances.
therefore i think it would be impossib le to create objective legislation on subjective moral viewpoints

I beg to differ, I believe some forms of morality are easily proven, in fact they can be found in nature.

I'll use an example my philosophy teacher used a while back: Consider this, a study was conducted involving a group of monkeys and bananas. The monkeys were trained to perform a specific task, and once the task was over they would get a banana. One day, when the first monkey was released and finished his task he was given two bananas. Naturally the other monkeys got very excited over this and hurried to do their tasks, only to be given one banana.
So the monkey's went nuts because they were not given two like the first monkey was.

This only goes to show that the monkeys have some perception of what is and isn't fair, which is clearly a moral issue. While one might argue that humans were involved so it isn't valid as "nature", humans had nothing to do with their reactions, all they did was teach them a task and give them bananas. Whether something is fair or not is an entirely different matter.


In other words, my argument is that morality exists within all of us on some level (whether subconscious or not). Dolphins have been known to protect humans and other creatures from sharks despite the fact that they gain nothing from doing so. The only explanation is that they feel it is the "right thing to do".

Another example can be seen in dogs. Even at a very young age they clearly display guilt towards doing something they have been told not to, even if the person who told them not to isn't aware of what they did. If morality did not exist they wouldn't be affected at all by something like that.

 

[blakstang98]

As far as I'm concerned, morality trumps legality every day of the week.

From a personal standpoint, I have my beliefs, just like everyone else. There are some things with the law that I don't agree with and have my belief that I'm right. We have the Capitol Punishment thread in the heat of debate right now. I personally do believe in execution, but I disagree with the way the due process is carried out. Does that make me right? Not necessarily, but I could fight for my belief, and my belief may be able to change the result of at least 1 trial.

And naturally, the system isn't perfect, just like the laws in it. I prefer to stand for something I believe in rather than backup a law I feel is wrong. The legal system has shown us many times that guilty people walk and innocent people do time. For that simple fact, I'd rather respect my morals than the legal system.

 

[Shu]

Not exactly, it would be nice to think so, but I believe there is no way for legislation to be viewed from an ethics point of view.

First off, I'm not an anarchist, but I will say our Legislation is pretty corrupt. We write a constitution that we amend almost yearly now in order to get away with more garbage in our government.

In order for a government to reside on a morality basis, you would have to strip down and destroy the current one and rebuild it from anew. Laws are put there for many reasons. They are not all fair. In order to enforce laws based purely on morals, people have a difference of opinion on what is morally right and wrong... so who's right, and who's wrong?

It would be a big ole cluster f---, because people will always be clashing on their ethical opinions.

Like for me.. I hate the need for America to be too politically correct about legislation. Honestly, if I can't say what I feel, because it isn't right in someone elses eyes, then that's crap. Freedom of Speech is there for a reason, and people are trying to censor eachother every freaking day because they just can't handle it.

Religious vs Non Religious morals. There are some things that people can come together about, but when people try to use a bible, qua'ran, torah or any other piece of their religious they clash with people who are non religious.

Why? The generation has changed since 2000+ years ago. More laws could apply today than before, and some laws that were considered good were actually ethically wrong. Just think of the 10 commandments, do you think those were based off of morals? Not quite.

Morals would be enforcing abortion laws, stripping completely capital punishment or making sure there was more of it, it would be doing away with affirmative action or enforcing it even more, it all depends on who does what..

Morals could also mean you could kill someone, just because you think it is morally right. I'm not sure I can agree with that. I mean there are bad people out there, and there are some confused people out there. Morals could also mean legalizing things in which may or may not destroy a nation. I mean like I said.. how does one know if his morals are right or wrong.. I mean I have a good idea about most things, because I have a good head on my shoulders, but some people have some twisted thinking I know. I mean a tatooer who we went to admitted to setting a kid on fire because this dude beat the crap out of his girl. I mean morally I could see a little bit of something in it, but then I sit there and say.. wait that's messed up.

 

[Midnight Memoire]

I go about my everyday life following my own morality code, not worried about laws. I do things that I find morally correct. For instance, I will not kill a man, not because of law but because of morals.

As for punishment purposes, some things can very well be punished for being "morally" wrong. As I stated about killing, ending another persons life is in fact morally unacceptable to most, thus it became law. Perhaps that is not exactly how that occurred but I'd like to think so.