Some people argue against legislating morality, but what about things like theft and murder? Surely we can legislate against those? The confusion disappears if we distinguish between….
Social Morality and Personal Morality
Some moral principles govern how we treat each other. This is social morality . It includes standards like …
- The Golden Rule: Respect the conscience of others, as you desire them to respect your conscience.
- The Zero Aggression Principle: Don’t tread on others.
These ideas lead to laws against assaults, murder, fraud, and theft. Nearly everyone supports these rules — even Adolf Hitler thought it would be wrong to kill him or to steal his property.
In contrast to this are values that govern how we treat ourselves….
- What we ingest
- How we worship
- What we wear
- How we have sex
There’s far less agreement about this kind of morality. It’s highly personal. So I call it personal morality .
Here’s the crucial point…
- Imposing your personal morality on others requires you to initiate force against them.
- You must tread on their personal conscience.
- Doing this violates social morality.
Some people may consider this a good trade, but…
- What you can do to others, others can do to you.
- When you empower politicians to impose personal morality, the morality they prefer to impose will RARELY be yours.
This is your choice….
Do you want the law to enforce social morality, or someone’s version of personal morality? It cannot do both.
If you encourage politicians to enforce personal morality then they must tread on others. But….
If you restrict coercion to the enforcement of social morality, you can still use persuasion to promote your personal values.
Isn’t that the correct path? Isn’t peaceful persuasion the only socially moral way to promote your personal morality?
Teaching this distinction between social morality and personal morality is important. We hope you decide to adopt and share this concept. You can do that right now using Facebook, Twitter.
By Charlie Parker February 3, 2014 - 2:07 pm
I would like to see more material developing the social morality concept. It’s an excellent concept allowing us to apply moral principles at the social level without treading on others personal principles. Further examples and perhaps better defined criteria for what qualifies as a social moral would help.
Thanx – Charlie
By Penni B February 5, 2014 - 12:13 pm
When imperfect men try to enforce ‘ morality’ on society, they inevitably enforce their ‘own’ warped version of it. As a Christian who does not hold to all of the ‘Christian Right’ positions, I too would like a more clearly defined distinction between ‘social’ morality and ‘personal morality’. We may disagree on certain items, but I would think we could agree on the preservation of the rights to life, property, and liberty. Either you or Jim may e-mail me if you like.
By Perry Willis February 5, 2014 - 12:35 pm
Social morality is comprised of those rules about which 99.999% of all people agree. These are usually transactional rules — don’t initiate force, don’t commit fraud. They are non-controversial. IF the rule you propose does not have broad social agreement to the tune of 99.999%, then it is not an example of social morality. It is a personal preference instead — a rule about how you want to live, rather than a rule about how other people should be forced to live. Your preference may even be one that you share with a great many people, perhaps even a majority, but it is still NOT something that you can enforce against those who disagree, except insofar as you are willing to violate the prohibition against initiated force. I hope this additional explanation helps. Please feel free to keep asking questions if something remains unclear.
By Penni B December 23, 2014 - 5:56 pm
That clarifies it quite well.
By Mark Rouleau April 8, 2021 - 7:43 pm
So Perry what kind of morality is behind a speed restriction of 35 mph? And if the morality of that speed restriction does not meet the 99.999% threshold you propose then should we do away with that speed limit. Do we need a 99.999% agreement on any speed limit?
How about driving on the right hand side of the road? You know that at least 40% of the worldwide motoring public drive on the left hand side of the road. Does that mean we can’t establish a legal convention to uphold the safety principle of avoiding head on collisions, and the moral value of saving lives simply because others would do it differently?
Near unanimity is not a good standard for determining what laws we can have. And yes nearly all laws are based upon some moral value.
By Aaron Kauffman March 5, 2014 - 12:42 pm
Would you consider requiring me to legally acknowledge the validity of a same-sex marriage as someone coercing me to violate my concepts of personal morality?
By Jim Babka March 10, 2014 - 1:48 pm
Would you consider prohibiting me from legally acknowledging the validity of a same-sex marriage as someone coercing me to violate my concepts of personal morality?
By Aaron Kauffman March 12, 2014 - 7:56 am
Absolutely not, but the current legal system does not function under this premise (meaning the agreed scope of what a legal agreement is (i.e. forced third-party compliance)). What good is a legal agreement if third parties do not have to recognize it? Maybe that’s the point, that the scope should be limited to be more of a contract between two parties (as Perry notes in his response) for matters that are personal in nature instead of social.
By Mark Rouleau April 8, 2021 - 8:02 pm
What exactly do you mean by “legally acknowledging”?
When ever you establish a law legally acknowledging any type of relationship by necessity you are compelling everyone subject to the law to follow suit. So your response is not valid. It is also very far from classical conservatism which would posit that before you change the status quo you must (1) show a need for the change and (2) that the change would be overall beneficial.
Change simply for changes sake is a bad thing. If you were to assume that society is in the best possible position then any change would be bad. If you were to assume that society has developed these rules over thousands of years trial and error it is fair to assume that the rules are not merely random fiat especially seeing that we are no longer in the state of humans who just came down out of the trees. Yes changes are necessary but they must be carefully thought through (not felt through) to consider as many of the consequences as is humanly possible to avoid failure due to unintended consequences. We had the great society that helped out poor people with Aid to Families with Dependent Children as long as there wasn’t a man in the home because as we all knew in the 60’s Men should be working and supporting their families. Well all of those good intentions failed and broke up the nuclear family in the poverty strata and subgroups. Unless that is what LBJ wanted ( I doubt it because he was not of the Communist wing of his party) then this was a terrible unintended consequence of this change.
SSM has frequently been a sign of an end stage society.
What are the values? Are our values a suicide pact?
By Perry Willis March 10, 2014 - 1:52 pm
We think marriage is an issue of contract, not legislative dictate. Likewise, how you view marriage is up to you. You should even be free to discriminate against people in relationships that you consider improper, recognizing that others are likewise free to discriminate against you if they dislike your views on the matter. This is what it means to respect individual conscience.
By Mike March 10, 2014 - 2:21 pm
Where do morals come from? What are their basis? Are they cultural? What is an “individual concience”, and where does it come from?
By Perry Willis March 10, 2014 - 3:14 pm
They come from within you Mike. They are part of your nature, shared with most humans. This is why sociopaths are so dangerous. They lack inner morality.
By Mike March 12, 2014 - 1:55 pm
So you are saying we are born with morals, and are “good” by nature? More likely is that we are born with certain personality traits (passive, aggressive, extroverted, introverted, etc.) and that we are TAUGHT and LEARN moral behavior via parents, siblings, family, friends, etc. Those that are surrounded by people that have low moral standards, tend to be immoral themselves, and vice-versa. Of course ther are always exceptions to prove the rule in both directions, but for the larger majority, this holds true.
By Penni B January 7, 2019 - 2:06 pm
I agree entirely with you on this point, and there is some scientific evidence for our being ‘hardwired’ to hold to certain moral positions: murder and incest are wrong, e.g. This is why only the libertarians hve an answer that should work for everybody. (with the exception of the statist sociopath) http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/reviews/right-and-wrong-moral-compass-brain-prewired/6810.aspx
By Mark Rouleau January 7, 2019 - 2:49 pm
But if a person is hardwired then how are they acting on “morality” as opposed to merely operating on a bios chip much like there need to eat, eliminate or breath? There is no moral judgment that can be made. Can a person be bad or good if they merely do that which they are programed or destined to do?
This hardwired idea should suggest that those who have a different hardwiring than the bulk of the social group such that they violate social norms are neither good or bad but are atypical or noncompliant. This same logic carries over to those who choose to legislate in areas that many believe are “personal moral decisions.” Those people are likewise wired to impose the majority behavioral view on minority view, thus making their conduct neither good or bad. So the issue becomes whether the conduct is useful (or at least not harmful) to the group. It is not a moral judgment anymore but rather a functional one.
By Perry Willis January 7, 2019 - 3:17 pm
It is common in such discussions to mistake “is” for “should.” Morality is about what should be, not what is. The fact that human psychology may be perverse doesn’t dictate what should be.
But even a discussion of what “is” should take note of the fact that all people admit the distinction between universal morality and personal morality in their every day behavior. It’s only in the realm of politics that people forget the distinction and instead behave like sociopaths.
By Mark Rouleau January 7, 2019 - 5:10 pm
Perry you are correct about the difference between a normative and prescriptive and/or descriptive statements. However if we are talking about being hardwired it is difficult if not impossible for one to state either what is perverse or what should be. For as CS Lewis observed when he wrote: “But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”
Simply placing a label on something and calling it “perverse” is asserting a value laden statement. That the conduct is not appropriate. Where it it is actually hard wired it merely is because it was wired that way. Unless you posit that the existence of some external template for morality then you can not assert that the that one person’s humans psychology is perverse where it is merely is different than the majority. This whole assertion that there is right and wrong falls apart when it is simply dependent upon human preferences.
Additionally I don’t understand why you assert that people in the realm of politics behave like sociopaths (defined as: a person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.) Please help me understand.
By Penni B January 10, 2019 - 6:10 pm
‘Wiring’ something infers a personal agent. Morality refers to not just functionality, (if it did, a group might all choose to agree: only when a pre-born child is viable-{or worse, when born} does his or her life has meaning) but also to individual rights. One’s rights to do anything end where another’s begin. It’s one thing to agree with others on the premise above (only when a pre-born child is viable…..) its an entirely different proposition to compel one who disagrees to fund agencies who propagate such dogma. The same would apply to unjust wars: one should not be free to start wars of aggression, but self-defense is always permitted. Lying may not be wrong absolutely (e.g. to save someone’s life) but lying is not something to be done willy-nilly either. This link may be helpful:https://crossexamined.org/5-common-objections-moral-argument/
By Penni Bulten April 8, 2021 - 5:44 pm
Christians and other moral people alike can agree on this. The ‘bugbear’ comes in when we are inconsistent about the standard, and let ourselves off the hook that we will not let others off, as explained here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmHXYhpEDfM&t=664s
By Mark Rouleau April 8, 2021 - 8:11 pm
Romans 2:15, Hebrews 8:10 & 10:16 God’s law is written in every man’s heart.
By Mark Rouleau January 7, 2019 - 2:32 pm
All laws as well as the decision not to have a law are moral decisions. We legislate morality in even laws that the law defines as mallum prohibitum. For example it could be fairly argued that there is no moral wrong for someone exceeding the speed limit by one mile per hour or that there was no moral right by driving slightly under the limit. However, there is a moral premise or value behind establishing such a prohibited limit. The value or premise is that we wish to preserve lives and reduce unnecessary, unwanted or unintended harm that frequently occurs from driving too fast for the conditions of the area and roadway. Thus the moral value being legislated from such line drawing is preservation of life and property. If one looks hard enough at any law they can find some kind of value or morality being promoted.
Similarly, if one chooses not to legislate on a certain subject let us use abortion as an example we are making various potential moral statements that can be interpreted in numerous ways. For example: “a woman alone should have the right to choose whether to carry through with her pregnancy”. To pretend that such a statement does not have an impact on others is simply wrong. On the first perimeter of this allocation of rights is the potential father, then other children, the grandparents, and society as a whole.
This whole idea that we can make decisions without impacting others is over simplistic. It assumes that we are all unconnected with no interdependencies. However, by living in a society we are all connected. Our decisions or lack thereof impact everyone around us. The only issue is the degree of impact and the consequences of the impact.
I reject the assertion that 99.99% of the people need to agree on something before it can be reduced to a law. To use my earlier example of a speed limit you will never find that 99.99% of the people agree on any specific limit for any one place, unless you are willing to accept that we have to set the speed limit through a school zone at >90mph which defeats the entire purpose (of saving lives and property). You introduce the “hecklers veto” of the 1/100th of a 1% to determining what sound public policy should be.
I further reject the notion that “imposing your personal morality on others requires you to initiate force against them.” The failure to enact laws which reasonably protect the +99% of the public from perceived right of the 1/100th of a 1% to speed through a school speed zone is forcing the majority of the public to be subjected to unnecessary and irresponsible danger.
The problem is almost never whether lines need to be drawn but rather when and where to draw those lines. I would agree that lines should rarely if ever be drawn based upon the opinion of 50% +1 of the populous maybe not even at 85% (note the percentage itself is a subject of line drawing). One must always consider the degree of impact on the various parts or members of society. The legitimacy of the goals. Is there a problem that needs to be addressed? Will the legislation address the problem? Will i make things better or worse? What are the potential unintended consequences of the proposed legislation? It can rarely be reduced to a simplistic formulae however, having guiding principles when analyzing these issues is very important. To that end the suggestions presented by the zero aggression project are noteworthy. Forcing people to consider these (or any) values/morals in creating or choosing not to create legislation is extremely important. As Thomas Payne pointed out Governments function is to restrain the untoward nature in mankind, because society already provides the positive benefits from living together.
By Penni B January 24, 2019 - 8:20 pm
The extremity of the view is something I found hard to swallow as well, (on second glance) especially in light of what just happened in New York in relation to abortion.(has the whole DNC in NY a completely broken moral compass?)
http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/articles/display_art.html?ID=26800
This governor made no attempt to hide his contempt for those who disagree with him, either:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/01/21/andrew-cuomo-conservatives-extreme/4719915/
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/19/gov-cuomo-pro-life-conservatives-have-no-place-new/
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-goldberg-andrew-cuomo-conservatives-20140121-column.html
It’s no wonder that New York is seeing an exodus, if they maintain this level of statism.