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kermie October 23rd, 2014 2:17pm

"Laws must be based on morality, otherwise it would be legal to murder." --about a bajillion different SOH users.

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Arkansas123 Neoconservative
10/23/14 4:33 pm

Lol. The stupidity in this poll is amusing.

"Laws shouldn't be based on morality. They should be based on [insert moral principle]."

Reply
thebarr
10/23/14 4:38 pm

Exactly.

scottstots Georgia
10/23/14 4:25 pm

Laws are based on rights, not morality. Any other idea is nonsense

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Arkansas123 Neoconservative
10/23/14 4:30 pm

Rights are based on morality.

Arkansas123 Neoconservative
10/23/14 4:34 pm

What do you mean "how so?"?

A right, by definition, is a moral entitlement.

thebarr
10/23/14 4:38 pm

The idea that people have rights is a moral concept.

scottstots Georgia
10/23/14 4:44 pm

Maybe I made an assumption that the implied meaning was religious morality. If the question is just the generic term moral, meaning right or wrong, then sure everything legal is based on morality.

scottstots Georgia
10/23/14 4:46 pm

My point is that actions are not inherently right or wrong and the judgement of these actions is based on how they impact the rights of others.

thebarr
10/23/14 4:48 pm

Sure, that's the basis of law, how our actions affect others and society. But that's a moral concept.

scottstots Georgia
10/23/14 5:01 pm

Does the question imply religious/universal morality?

thebarr
10/23/14 5:02 pm

I'll say universal. For me that's also religious. It's at least non-material.

scottstots Georgia
10/23/14 5:05 pm

Then how are our laws based on religious morality? Wouldn't that make adultery illegal?

mac Oregon
10/23/14 4:15 pm

Laws must be based on humanity and reason rather than ambiguity of someone else's morality.

thebarr
10/23/14 2:24 pm

Laws are generally based on morality in order to be valid. There's a few exceptions of bureaucratic laws to help society run smoothly (building codes, etc) but the overwhelming majority of criminal law is based on morality. How could anyone disagree?

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cowboy Proud Father
10/23/14 2:40 pm

Ask Kermie...

scottstots Georgia
10/23/14 4:26 pm

Disagree because it's ridiculous.

thebarr
10/23/14 4:38 pm

Morality is ridiculous? Please explain.

scottstots Georgia
10/23/14 4:41 pm

Well, a universal morality is certainly ridiculous, because it doesn't exist, but I was talking along the lines that laws are based on morality is ridiculous

thebarr
10/23/14 5:01 pm

Why is universal morality ridiculous?

scottstots Georgia
10/23/14 5:02 pm

It doesn't exist. There is no inherent right or wrong, it's a human construct.

thebarr
10/23/14 5:04 pm

Or course there is inherent right and wrong. Just like there are plenty of inherent truths.

scottstots Georgia
10/23/14 5:05 pm

Absolutely not

scottstots Georgia
10/23/14 5:06 pm

There are none of either

thebarr
10/23/14 5:08 pm

Really? No logical truths? No mathematical truths? You seem to have no concept of truth.

scottstots Georgia
10/23/14 5:15 pm

Maybe not, but how do we know those are true? Because you say so?

Skarface69 Retired
10/23/14 1:48 pm

The people who disagree are clearly conflating morality with religious morality. Murder is illegal because it's considered morally wrong.

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scottstots Georgia
10/23/14 4:26 pm

Not true. It's a violation of rights

Skarface69 Retired
10/23/14 5:14 pm

And violating rights is morally wrong.

skinner Jersey City
10/23/14 12:25 pm

Why do we oppose murder and a litany of other crimes? Because they are morally wrong. We can expound on for what reasons they are morally wrong by rationalizing the situation and the negative effects of its decriminalization, but ultimately the vast

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skinner Jersey City
10/23/14 12:28 pm

majority of people, whether religious or irreligious, will reach the conclusion that murder is morally wrong because of certain logical reasons and or metaphysical reasoning and then reach the conclusion that they should be proscribed.

kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 1:26 pm

Nah. I don't oppose murder on moral ground because I don't believe in any moral code. I oppose it because it's bad for society and because I don't want it done to me.

thebarr
10/23/14 2:26 pm

kermie: Your very concept of "bad" is meaningless given your rejection of moral codes. What's so "bad" about murder and why? And who cares what helps society run better, unless we have an obligation to it? Another moral concept.

kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 4:40 pm

Total hogwash. How do you know you don't like mushrooms? You don't need a book to tell you. You have a brain. We can easily see that murder is detrimental to society. Relying on a book to tell you that is serious nonsense.

thebarr
10/23/14 4:43 pm

Arguing that something is personally distasteful is easy but meaningless. What you personally dislike holds no sway over how someone else should act. And my point about "bad for society" is: Why should that matter? Why should that guide action?

kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 4:57 pm

*blink*

You're not serious?

thebarr
10/23/14 5:00 pm

Very serious. The good of society guiding my actions is a moral concept. What if a murderer doesn't care if society burns? What then? A lot of people don't care about society. And the idea that they should care is, of course, a moral concept.

Dazey Beagles Rule
10/23/14 10:25 am

Resolving conflicts through violence (such as duels for example) was once considered a part of civilized society. In many ways it still is today. We choose moral boundaries enforced by legislation that conform to our times.

Dazey Beagles Rule
10/23/14 10:26 am

I don't believe in an absolute morality like "the bible says so". But we do legislate based on some form of "collective" morality.

cowboy Proud Father
10/23/14 8:43 am

Agree. Think of where we would be without God guiding us.

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PartyJustin R.O.C.K. in the R.O.C.
10/23/14 9:26 am

Probably just making the same basic laws anyway because they make sense?
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi

cowboy Proud Father
10/23/14 9:35 am

Good luck with that.

Arananthi Literal Ninja
10/23/14 11:17 am

Amazing how the more-than-half-of-all-humanity who doesn't believe in and/or never heard of God, Christ, the Bible, or heaven managed to come up with the same basic formulation of "Com'on, guys, quick being dicks to each other" over and over again.

MrMilkdud
10/23/14 12:44 pm

Aranathi- what does your tag line mean? "Stop feeding trolls by downvoting"

Does it mean we should downvote trolls to stop feeding them?
Or downvoting trolls feeds them?

kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 1:30 pm

Good luck with what? With what has already historically happened time and time again? Yes, good luck!

cowboy Proud Father
10/23/14 1:36 pm

What has happened, throughout history, is morality being legislated for a healthy society.

cowboy Proud Father
10/23/14 1:37 pm

The only thing that has changed is the legislature's version of morality.

SFLiberal
10/23/14 9:42 pm

God's guidance says women have the right to get an abortion.

cowboy Proud Father
10/24/14 4:40 am

You are a sick person.

EarlyBird Portland
10/23/14 7:40 am

Some laws are based on morals and some aren't.

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kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 7:50 am

But *must* they be?

EarlyBird Portland
10/23/14 8:03 am

Of course not

bethanyq Ess Eff
10/23/14 7:26 am

Of course not. Murder is wasteful and inefficient. It causes panic and begets more violence and waste. It's bad because it helps no one. I suppose if we had a society that was 99% sociopathic nihilists it might not be wrong, but that's not the world

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bethanyq Ess Eff
10/23/14 7:26 am

we live in.

bethanyq Ess Eff
10/23/14 7:39 am

Nah. I think most people are fundamentally decent, if ignorant and undereducated.

MrMilkdud
10/23/14 7:22 am

I disagree. Laws can also be based on maintaining a functional social order, the specific details of which may or may not depend on making a moral choice.

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MrMilkdud
10/23/14 7:25 am

But laws can be, and usually are, the result of both moral reasoning and the need to maintain the desired social order.
For example, most people agree that murder is both morally wrong and contrary to the proper functioning of a well ordered society.

kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 7:33 am

Well in our country laws are mostly based on whoever donates the most money, but that's neither here nor there.

In theory laws can be based on anything, and certainly many are based on the morals of the majority. But don't need to be.

MrMilkdud
10/23/14 11:37 am

No, they could be based on the whim of a dictator. And throughout human history that's been the case more often than not.
This is why most reasonable people recognize that laws are just the operationalized expression of some underlying value.

kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 11:57 am

I know you're trying to assert that you're more reasonable than me, but I agree. However values don't need to be based on morals.

kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 12:13 pm

And anyway, unless the dictator is mentally deranged (which has happened) even he bases his laws on values. Just his own set of values. And our current politicians base laws on their values of power and money.

kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 12:14 pm

So of course laws are based on values. But what the people making laws (clerics/kings/citizens/whoever) value varies widely.

MrMilkdud
10/23/14 12:23 pm

Kermie, just to clarify, "values" are a personally derived set of beliefs about what is right and wrong. "Morals" are part of a systemized set of shared beliefs about what is right and wrong.

MrMilkdud
10/23/14 12:25 pm

Values are more likely to vary from one person to the next because each individual will make personal determinations about what constitutes "the good."
Morals are shared beliefs which derive from a common, usually learned, set of values.

MrMilkdud
10/23/14 12:26 pm

So when I changed the language from "morals" to "values" and said laws are the operationalized expression of some underlying value, the personal nature of the way laws handed down or made was implied.

MrMilkdud
10/23/14 12:27 pm

And likewise, values are not based on morals, but morals are always based on values.
But at the level of moral action, or ethics, the distinction between values and morals within a given individual becomes so blurred as to be irrelevant.

MrMilkdud
10/23/14 12:29 pm

In any event, I stand by my statement that not all laws have to express a particular objective moral imperative, outside the simple fact that a law is, in itself, the expression of a society's shared belief in maintaining order.

MrMilkdud
10/23/14 12:30 pm

I'm not even sure we disagree on that point. I think this is is just another one of those situations where you're injecting prior animosity into present conversations.

It's ok to just agree with me once in a while, you know.

kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 1:25 pm

Lol ok bro. I did agree with you. You were the one who implied I wasn't reasonable.

MrMilkdud
10/23/14 1:28 pm

Kermie, I never said or implied you weren't being reasonable.
I said "reasonable people agree" on the premise I stated.

For crying out loud, stop being so sensitive.

kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 1:32 pm

Yes daddy

MrMilkdud
10/23/14 1:34 pm

If calling me daddy will keep you from being so mopey and hostile, then go right ahead.

kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 1:36 pm

And what will keep you from being hostile? Worry about yourself instead of wasting time with unsolicited advice for everyone else.

MrMilkdud
10/23/14 2:42 pm

Not everybody. Just people like you.

TopsQueen Oregon Coast
10/23/14 7:21 am

That depends on what you consider morale. I think equity is moral. Driving under the influence is immoral you might hurt others.

kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 7:18 am

I often try to refrain from giving my opinion right away so as not to influence other commenters, but come on. This has to be the most asinine thing I've heard in a long time. That so many people believe it makes my brain explode.

Reply
kermie gaytopia
10/23/14 7:19 am

"Thank goodness murder happens to be forbidden in my random old book, or else we'd all just have to let people kill each other at will with no reason to stop it!"