What does it mean to “legislate morality”?
Viewer Mail Question: What does it mean to “legislate morality”? Isn’t any and all legislation a form of legislating morality? It seems to me that if we did not legislate morality, there would be no laws. We’ve determined that undermining ones welfare and liberty are wrong, and have outlined certain laws to strengthen individual liberty and welfare.
Response: Laws are just a set of rules to ensure the safe and harmonious interaction of society. Whether or not laws align with morality, has everything to do with your personal sense of moral values. But we don’t govern from morality, in the U.S. for example, but from a Constitution that was put forward by some people, as what was considered to be a good idea for governance. The Constitution does not tell anyone what is right or wrong. It talks only about governmental authority. Regulations aren’t morals.
A good example would be the food industry. They have food safety regulations. You might think it’s immoral to produce food in a way that makes it unsafe and potentially harms people. But that is NOT the reason for our food safety laws. The food safety laws are enacted because the government is tasked with looking after citizen safety. In short: It’s a bad idea to have your population eating poison. It causes a problem for your citizens, and therefore is a government concern, because the government wants to ensure the smooth function of society. Not because the government is telling people what is moral.
If our laws were based on “morality”–whose morality would we use? I know many people who believe it is morally incorrect to have an abortion, but hold to the legal ethic that it is a personal choice. So, a woman may, for example, think “I could never have an abortion, because I think it would be wrong to destroy my baby (some would not abort if their lives were in danger), but I understand not everyone sees it that way, and our basis for law indicates individual autonomy that requires each woman use her own judgement to decide what is best for herself.” The woman who thinks ‘I could never do that’ is not wrong. That’s her moral value. She’s just saying she couldn’t bring herself to do that–from a moral standpoint, based on how she views it. But legally she gets the law isn’t regulating morality, but ensuring individual rights/freedoms; and since she doesn’t want the law deciding what people do with their bodies (she gets she would not want the gov’t to force her to have an abortion), she extends that “right” to herself and her peers–legally. It has nothing to do with her morality.
The confusion happens, from what I’ve seen, when our laws and our morals overlap. People become confused thinking that this means laws are “based on” morality. But that leaves the door open for Sharia laws where people are convinced that is moral behavior. The law is best suited to balance society’s and the individual’s interests in a way that works for both–preferably optimally. There is a social contract between individuals and society whereby the society offers protection (generally) and the individual offers contribution and allegiance to the society. All social animals do this–not just humans.
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