How Much Morality in Politics?

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Originally Posted by Wraith

Couldn't one assert that a lot of people who are doing the 'right thing' for secular reasons are just doing it for fear of legal or social repricussions? Khen's recent post on German seatbelt laws would seem to weakly reinforce this, and if it's true for any significant portion of society, then it only helps your point. After all, I'm sure there's people who believe in God who do things because it's the right thing to do, and not out of fear of hell.

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I think it would depend on which "right thing" we are talking about, but of course some people who believe in God do things for reasons other than fear for their immortal soul.

The ironic thing? I took a look at this thread before all this spouted off, and thought to myself "this looks interesting, I'll have a read over it later". Wrong!

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Originally Posted by Wraith

Couldn't one assert that a lot of people who are doing the 'right thing' for secular reasons are just doing it for fear of legal or social repricussions? Khen's recent post on German seatbelt laws would seem to weakly reinforce this, and if it's true for any significant portion of society, then it only helps your point. After all, I'm sure there's people who believe in God who do things because it's the right thing to do, and not out of fear of hell.

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Yes, but the question then becomes: Do those people actually need God to do the right thing?

That's the problem I have with religious morals: They're founded by something other than "it's the right thing to do", they're grounded in "a man in the sky told me to".

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

Yes, but the question then becomes: Do those people actually need God to do the right thing?

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Well, no, probably not.

So we're splitting people into the two groups now of those who do the 'right thing' for fear of the consequences, and those who do it because it's the 'right thing', rather than splitting them strictly along religious lines?

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Originally Posted by Wraith

Well, no, probably not.

So we're splitting people into the two groups now of those who do the 'right thing' for fear of the consequences, and those who do it because it's the 'right thing', rather than splitting them strictly along religious lines?

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I'd add "or because of expectance of a reward" to "fear of the consequences", but other than that, yes. Following that: Do people using religious morals predominantly fall into the former or the latter group or neither?

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

I'd add "or because of expectance of a reward" to "fear of the consequences", but other than that, yes. Following that: Do people using religious morals predominantly fall into the former or the latter group or neither?

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I'm not sure that expecting a reward negates doing the right thing, though. I mean, take doing some sort of volunteer work - the good feeling you get is a reward, but you are still doing the right thing without any tangible benefit.

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Originally Posted by littlelolligagged

I'm not sure that expecting a reward negates doing the right thing, though. I mean, take doing some sort of volunteer work - the good feeling you get is a reward, but you are still doing the right thing without any tangible benefit.

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"Because" was the important word there, I think. If they're doing it for the reward, then they're probably not doing it for the right reasons though. You can think of it as "fear of the consequence of missing out on the reward", if it helps. They can do it for the right reasons and still get a reward, though.

I'm going to have to admit to being a bit lost at this point. What does this have to do with morality's place in politics?

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Originally Posted by littlelolligagged

I'm not sure that expecting a reward negates doing the right thing, though. I mean, take doing some sort of volunteer work - the good feeling you get is a reward, but you are still doing the right thing without any tangible benefit.

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If the good feeling is the prime motivator for doing good, then actually, yes, it would sort of nullify (not negate) it. Because, again, as soon as the good feeling ceases to exist...

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Originally Posted by Wraith

I'm going to have to admit to being a bit lost at this point. What does this have to do with morality's place in politics?

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Thread drift. And Lewk of course never followed up ;)

I think our government shouldn't actively do immoral acts, but to passively let things happen, I don't think they need to meet everyone's strictest criteria of moral. While I think they should urge moral acts such as giving to the poor they shouldn't be forced to. I think in such cirumstances they should just attempt to maximize the wellbeing of our society. In all reality, any time you do one moral act (Stop a bunch of people from dying), you take away from other things you could be doing, due to our finite resources. So we can't cover them all.


In short, we need to not do actively immoral acts; however, as far as what moral kindesses we do act upon it needs to be agreeable by society, it ought be urged upon by society, but it should be done with a foresight of efficiency to attempt to help people and society the most.

I think people should agree to these terms before the fruit of their labor is spent on it; however, they should be encouraged via ads, and information to do the right thing, such as Universal Health Care. Whereas I would even argue it is right morally (thus you should encourage it but not coerce it), and it is well to do fiscally (due to the positive externalities) another reason we should encourage support for it.

The problem is, Leb: Your way does not work. Period.

Urging people to do something without backing it up either with a reward or a punishment does not work for societies as a whole.

Case in point: Seatbelts. The Germans were urged to use them. Almost none did.
Case in point: Catalysators. They did not become widespread until the government both sponsored and mandated them.
Case in point: TBC vaccination in Russia. As soon as the mandatory vaccinations ceased, TBC flared up again.

There are countless examples where even simple and relatively uncomplicated measures don't become widespread until the government mandates it.

Merely "urging" those measures will have a success on a timetable the same scale as the continental drift.

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Originally Posted by Wraith

Also Tear, please stop shoehorning in jabs at Loki at every opportunity. He's not even here right now!

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You lie! And good job Lewk for starting an intelligent thread. :up:

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Originally Posted by Wraith

"Because" was the important word there, I think. If they're doing it for the reward, then they're probably not doing it for the right reasons though. You can think of it as "fear of the consequence of missing out on the reward", if it helps. They can do it for the right reasons and still get a reward, though.

I'm going to have to admit to being a bit lost at this point. What does this have to do with morality's place in politics?

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The reward is still there, though, and people know about it ahead of time, so how can you or they really know what the true motivation is. This has nothing to do with it that I know of, I still haven't decided what my opinion of morality in politics is entirely.

I mean, I'd really much prefer it if the updated morality that keeps me being legally your equivalent stays in place.

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

If the good feeling is the prime motivator for doing good, then actually, yes, it would sort of nullify (not negate) it. Because, again, as soon as the good feeling ceases to exist...

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I don't think you can reasonably take away that sort of reward. Hell, some people get pleasure from being sanctimonious about their good works (even if they aren't appreciated by anyone else at all, I mean).

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Originally Posted by Loki

You lie! And good job Lewk for starting an intelligent thread. :up:

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It doesn't count as being here if you aren't participating. Filthy lurker.

I'm glad you came back, even though I'm sure your fan club will be devastated that they have to get their pitchforks out again.

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Originally Posted by littlelolligagged

I think it would depend on which "right thing" we are talking about, but of course some people who believe in God do things for reasons other than fear for their immortal soul.

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The conflict is rooted in our tribal nature. We defend and encourage our 'group' whatever simply because that's what we do. Actually, its certainly a survival characteristic. When the group prospers, we're safer and can breed more successfully.

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Originally Posted by littlelolligagged

I mean, I'd really much prefer it if the updated morality that keeps me being legally your equivalent stays in place.

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One can come up with better arguments for why that should be the case than just 'it's good', though.

For instance, providing women with the same economic opportunities as men has been unquestionably good for the nations that have allowed it, allowing for a better, wealthier society and a better standard of living for everyone present, not just women.

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Originally Posted by Wraith

One can come up with better arguments for why that should be the case than just 'it's good', though.

For instance, providing women with the same economic opportunities as men has been unquestionably good for the nations that have allowed it, allowing for a better, wealthier society and a better standard of living for everyone present, not just women.

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I have no objections to there being tangible benefits to doing the right thing, or additional reasons to do something than its morality.

My big problem here is that I don't think it is necessarily possible to completely separate morality from everyday life, so of course morality is going to be a part of politics. Even if it's called something different, I think any healthy debate in an open society is going to have some basis in the moral beliefs of the people - either from the politicians or the voters.

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Originally Posted by littlelolligagged

I have no objections to there being tangible benefits to doing the right thing, or additional reasons to do something than its morality.

My big problem here is that I don't think it is necessarily possible to completely separate morality from everyday life,

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Sure, but it's in the everyday life, it shouldn't move out of there to politics. People should do what's morale to them in their own lives, not force it on everyone. What happens when people's ethics disagree? When someone thinks worshipping a God that isn't yours is the only ethical choice, for instance? Especially if it's a majority view, such as in the Middle East?

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Originally Posted by Wraith

Sure, but it's in the everyday life, it shouldn't move out of there to politics. People should do what's morale to them in their own lives, not force it on everyone. What happens when people's ethics disagree? When someone thinks worshipping a God that isn't yours is the only ethical choice, for instance? Especially if it's a majority view, such as in the Middle East?

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People's ethics disagree regularly. It's impossible for politics to exist in a vacuum, though - if laws don't reflect the society they are for, what do you think the results are? I can think of an example where peoples ethics disagree from here, even legalizing gay marriage as examples. The result is persecution and erosion of civil rights. It's still laws based on morality - in this case morality that I don't agree with. It will change, eventually. None of this changes the fact that the basis of many (if not all) laws come from some sort of moral and ethical place, even if there are multiple reasons to justify it that have no basis in morality.

Where it gets interesting is, of course, when the morals and ethics of neighboring countries disagree.

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Originally Posted by littlelolligagged

People's ethics disagree regularly. It's impossible for politics to exist in a vacuum, though - if laws don't reflect the society they are for, what do you think the results are? I can think of an example where peoples ethics disagree from here, even legalizing gay marriage as examples. The result is persecution and erosion of civil rights. It's still laws based on morality - in this case morality that I don't agree with. It will change, eventually. None of this changes the fact that the basis of many (if not all) laws come from some sort of moral and ethical place, even if there are multiple reasons to justify it that have no basis in morality.

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Doesn't that all point to a flaw in using morality as a basis for legal code? Wouldn't it be better if the system could allow for gay marriage, even if a large subset of the citizenship didn't like it and would not do it?

Of course it would, in my opinion. And you wouldn't hear me objecting if it were forced, like desegregation was in the 60s. That doesn't change the fact that it would still be using morality in the legal code, though.

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Originally Posted by Wraith

Doesn't that all point to a flaw in using morality as a basis for legal code? Wouldn't it be better if the system could allow for gay marriage, even if a large subset of the citizenship didn't like it and would not do it?

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What happens if 2/3 of the population are against gay marriage? Or even 9/10? Isn't having a society where the belief that people should have the right to marriage trumps the belief that political authority is ultimately derived from the people in itself a form of morality?

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Originally Posted by Loki

What happens if 2/3 of the population are against gay marriage? Or even 9/10? Isn't having a society where the belief that people should have the right to marriage trumps the belief that political authority is ultimately derived from the people in itself a form of morality?

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It depends on the basis. It could also be amoral.

God, I know I'm going to start getting catcalls for this, but here it goes:

If the foundation for the basis of the legal code is, instead of morality, liberty, then opposing gay marriage becomes indefensible, regardless of how many people don't like it. Allowing it does not remove or threaten the liberty of anyone else, and gives greater liberty to those who would do it, so on that basis it must be allowed. If you make all decisions of law by trying to find the optimal path to create as many open doors for as many people as possible, then situations like this wouldn't happen. I'll admit that there's still some value judgements you have to make in there, since you still have to figure out which freedoms are more important than others and okay to sacrifice, but there's a lot less wriggle room for things like gay marriage.

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

All of these ideas/political viewpoints are based in morality. Now from an objective viewpoint someone's reason for their moral argument be it secular or theological should make no difference. If one person says we should have laws against prostitution because it is sinful (wrong) how is that different from someone who says we shouldn't let people go hungry in the streets because it is wrong? I ask this question because I suspect that many folks on the forum think religious morality based laws = bad. And yet at the same time they believe secular morality based laws are somehow different and more acceptable.

So how much morality should be in politics and do you see any difference between religious morality and secular morality?

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The difference between the two is that a society whose laws are based on religious morality find it very difficult to adjust to changing times and base their beliefs on irrationality. I.E. We should outlaw X because holy book Y said so (coincidentally, that's not very far from saying that we shouldn't do anything to change the Constitution, it being a perfect document and all).

Meanwhile, the other set of belief is based on reason, however flawed. Reason can be challenged on rational grounds (e.g. having a large safety net leads to more poverty), and it's more likely to change to reflect changing times (e.g. we should treat the internet in a certain way because it benefits us in some way, not because God might or might not approve it).

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Originally Posted by Wraith

It depends on the basis. It could also be amoral.

God, I know I'm going to start getting catcalls for this, but here it goes:

If the foundation for the basis of the legal code is, instead of morality, liberty, then opposing gay marriage becomes indefensible, regardless of how many people don't like it. Allowing it does not remove or threaten the liberty of anyone else, and gives greater liberty to those who would do it, so on that basis it must be allowed. If you make all decisions of law by trying to find the optimal path to create as many open doors for as many people as possible, then situations like this wouldn't happen. I'll admit that there's still some value judgements you have to make in there, since you still have to figure out which freedoms are more important than others and okay to sacrifice, but there's a lot less wriggle room for things like gay marriage.

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Not allowing people any say over certain laws deprives them of liberty. You might be depriving them of less liberty than they'd deprive gay people, but you're probably taking liberty away from more people. It's not clear which would be better on utilitarian grounds (assuming we're trying to maximize liberty).

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Originally Posted by Wraith

I'll admit that there's still some value judgements you have to make in there, since you still have to figure out which freedoms are more important than others and okay to sacrifice, but there's a lot less wriggle room for things like gay marriage.

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And who gets to decide which freedoms are better than others? And on what basis will they be chosen?

I already conceded the point that there's still some value judgements needed in such a system. :p

The people who make the decision would be your elected representatives, of course!

Wouldn't the public elect representatives who more or less represent their views? If 90% opposed gay marriage, would they really elect people who thought that a gay person's right to marriage is something to be protected?

Hey, I'm not saying it'd be easy to convince people to switch to such a system. Most people are probably just going to say "I want representatives who do whatever I want, fuck everyone else!"

Well, come on. If we're creating a utopian paradise then I'm afraid it's going to be my benevolent dictatorship.

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Originally Posted by Wraith

Hey, I'm not saying it'd be easy to convince people to switch to such a system. Most people are probably just going to say "I want representatives who do whatever I want, fuck everyone else!"

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I think there are two semi-solutions to this problem. The first is that you have some rules that simply cannot be changed. It wouldn't be terribly democratic, but it would prevent any sub-group from having less rights than another sub-group. The other alternative is to make it hard to take away rights, i.e. require super-majorities and/or constitutional amendments. The problem is that there will occasionally be such super-majorities, and there's nothing you can do during those times. Not that I think there's a perfect solution; if there was, someone would have thought of it by now. :noob:

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Originally Posted by Loki

The difference between the two is that a society whose laws are based on religious morality find it very difficult to adjust to changing times and base their beliefs on irrationality. I.E. We should outlaw X because holy book Y said so (coincidentally, that's not very far from saying that we shouldn't do anything to change the Constitution, it being a perfect document and all).

Meanwhile, the other set of belief is based on reason, however flawed. Reason can be challenged on rational grounds (e.g. having a large safety net leads to more poverty), and it's more likely to change to reflect changing times (e.g. we should treat the internet in a certain way because it benefits us in some way, not because God might or might not approve it).

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Wow you don't post for about a day and the thread moves quite a long way... I'll go back to other posts as I have time but I'm going to start from the back.

Loki - So what you are saying is that secular morality is better then religious morality because its flexible? I don't see flexible as being inherently good. A rigid intolerance of genocide is a good thing for example. A societal bias against murder that doesn't change is also nice. Besides under that rational we should eliminate the constitution in the United States because it asks as a bulwark against change. If 51% of people want to do X then a government that accommodates them quickly is more flexible but I doubt most would agree that it is better.

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

If the good feeling is the prime motivator for doing good, then actually, yes, it would sort of nullify (not negate) it. Because, again, as soon as the good feeling ceases to exist...

Thread drift. And Lewk of course never followed up ;)

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I'm going to have to disagree with you. Positive and negative reinforcement are all that people respond to in one way or another. If someone does a good deed for no positive benefit but just to do a good deed then that person has received some benefit from doing it. Be it the warm fuzzy that lolli is referring to or something else there is a benefit. That something else could be as simple as the satisfaction of doing the "right" thing for no other reason then it is good and moral.

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

Wow you don't post for about a day and the thread moves quite a long way... I'll go back to other posts as I have time but I'm going to start from the back.

Loki - So what you are saying is that secular morality is better then religious morality because its flexible? I don't see flexible as being inherently good. A rigid intolerance of genocide is a good thing for example. A societal bias against murder that doesn't change is also nice. Besides under that rational we should eliminate the constitution in the United States because it asks as a bulwark against change. If 51% of people want to do X then a government that accommodates them quickly is more flexible but I doubt most would agree that it is better.

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Do you trust man enough to have created perfect laws? If not, why make it all but impossible to change them?

As for your genocide example, let's say we have a holy book that forbade it, and that was the reason a society refused to commit genocide. Unless there was also a prohibition against politicide and other forms of mass slaughter, would this society refrain from committing those acts? Meanwhile, a society that used reason to decide that genocide was wrong would quite likely realize that politicide is also enough in character to be wrong as well. What happens if a society forbids polygamy because of its holy book and then loses 90% of its men in a war? What do you think would be the consequence of inflexibility in this scenario?

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Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro

I still think that Lewk's approach is deeply flawed, inasmuch as he ignores the basis of secular laws (i.e. Kant et al.). Without mentioning those, we can't have a useful discussion about the difference between religious and secular morals/ethics.

"Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."

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Just our of curiosity what percentage of the population do you think look at a situation and say "Hmmm let me think am I making this decision because of whatever maxim Kant said we should follow?"

There are tons of different types of secular morality and many are based on religious morality. My main interest is why some people think secular morality is innately more relevant then religious morality?

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Originally Posted by Loki

Do you trust man enough to have created perfect laws? If not, why make it all but impossible to change them?

As for your genocide example, let's say we have a holy book that forbade it, and that was the reason a society refused to commit genocide. Unless there was also a prohibition against politicide and other forms of mass slaughter, would this society refrain from committing those acts? Meanwhile, a society that used reason to decide that genocide was wrong would quite likely realize that politicide is also enough in character to be wrong as well. What happens if a society forbids polygamy because of its holy book and then loses 90% of its men in a war? What do you think would be the consequence of inflexibility in this scenario?

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Well the United States has changed the constitution more then a few times. Take a look at drinking... 18th amendment outlawed liquor sales. Didn't work out too well and the 21st amendment overturned it. I'm sure your aware of it but for our foreigners here I wanted to point out how amendments can and have been made to the constitution.

The concept of using "reason" based morality as opposed to theological based morality in the genocide example is rather false. Your questions imply that a reason based morality system is going to make the "right" choices. With no firm footing a reason based morality society can end up choose to say that genocide is pretty fun if your people have a bunch of debt and another group of people that are culturally different are the creditors... You can reason your way into almost any position and think your are doing the right thing with enough self justification.

My personal view of course is that both secular morality and religious morality are going to be deeply flawed if those are the only ways to run a country.

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

This is a great topic. As a side note, its interesting that you didn't add a very basic moral issue that plagues politics: honesty. Personally, I'd like to see a somewhat rigorous requirement for honesty in political speech.

You hit on the key point here that there's more than 1 kind of morality - secular and theological - and complicating the matter, many moral issues fall into both realms. But there's more to it than just that. When you ask the question how is feeding starving children fundamentally different from outlawing prostitution, with your eye on the secular vs. theological moral conundrum, the answer is in fact quite simple. Prostitution, were it legal and regulated, would be a matter of personal choice and not of life and death, two additional moral characteristics that get more specific than simply god/non-god. Children don't choose to starve and when they do starve, they can die or be afflicted with developmental disorders. However, when a woman takes up the oldest profession, in the context of legal prostitution, she's making a decision freely and the choice won't result in her death. The reason the former is unnacceptable and the latter allowable is rooted in these characteristics, not something to do with religous law.

Moving along, here are my thoughts on the topics you listed:

Morally speaking, the above answers this one. There isn't that much difference, morally, in letting children starve vs. adults. There is, however, a more practical dimension to providing for the needy. Starving people that are forsaken by the rest of society have every incentive to attack and rob that society to get food. Desperation creates rebels and thieves and that's bad for everyone.

This one's good because there's the gluttony issue, a god rooted moral. There's also the quality of life issue - fat people, arguably, have a lower quality of life than fit people. There's also the free choice issue - children are easily exploited by crap food manufacturers and don't understand the health implications of eating bad food. And then there's the practical issue too - fat people are less healthy and put further pressure on the already strained health care system. Theoretically, thinner children in the long term means less overall health care expense.

This one's a no brainer. The argument's already been had, by the Founders themselves. Freedom of religion is no different than freedom from religion. The personal choice of your religous beliefs is something that should not be infringed by society in any form.

Ugh. This is a tough one. The simple answer is yes, we should. The complex reality is that we may not be able to stop it. Or be willing to shoulder the burden of stopping it. And worse, our efforts to stop it might make matters worse. In this case, the US was already involved in 2 other wars, deeply in debt from all sorts of governmental mismanagement, got a bloody nose trying to do the same sort of thing in nearby Somalia.... Should it have been stopped. Absolutely. Should the US have stopped it? Not sure - why are we the designated world police force? Why not the UN? Could the US have stopped it? Probably, but the cost would have been high, in lives and cash and who knows what else. And the outcome would have been very unpredictable - it could have worsened the genocide, exposed many more innocents to war and carnage, and so on.

This is too simplisitic and you know it. I don't personally know anyone that would vote for this based on this logic. And I don't think its really a moral issue as stated.

See 4 above. Its really the same set of issues.

There's moral reaons to outlaw racism, both religous and secular. There's practical reasons to outlaw racism. It benefits the country as a whole if all people have the same opportunities. Now, we know that economically that is not the case and righting that inequality entirely would cause far more harm than good, but making sure people don't lose opportunity because of ethnicity is a win-win. I don't see a down side and the up side is big.

Very sticky issue, balancing the rights of a pregnant mom against those of an unborn child. Personally, while I find abortion to be repugnant, I fall on the side of the mom. It's inside her body, it ends up being her responsibility when its born, the burden of the situation is almost entirely on her shoulders, so let her decide what to do about it. No, its not fair to the dad that wants the child, but there's no good way to right that injustice. In the end, while the fetus is a living human-to-be, its not the same thing as a human being. Its more about potential and its quite literally less than human. And there's very practical reasons to allow people with unwanted and inconvenient pregancies to terminate them.

I don't see this as a moral issue at all. On the one hand, this infringes freedom, but on the other hand, the results of car accidents are far worse when people don't belt up. That means higher costs to the medical system and higher costs in terms of dead people who are now not providing for their families and leaving their former employers without a valuable employee, and the like...

I would say a lot of morality should be in politics. But it should be the right kind of morality. Honesty and integrity, of course. Concern and help for those who can't take care of themselves. Concern and regard for preserving personal freedom. Concern and regard for maintaining the nations critical systems on which everyone depends, like the health care system, like the economy, and so on. Things like mandating everyone express certain beliefs based on a religion have no place in government.

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I'm sorry EyeKhan. These were just random examples of views off the top of my head that conservatives and liberals sometimes hold.

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As a side note, its interesting that you didn't add a very basic moral issue that plagues politics: honesty. Personally, I'd like to see a somewhat rigorous requirement for honesty in political speech.

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And who is going to be the fact checkers. ;)

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Prostitution, were it legal and regulated, would be a matter of personal choice and not of life and death, two additional moral characteristics that get more specific than simply god/non-god.

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Well how far are you willing to take personal choice? If I own a company want my secretary to perform sexual acts or be fired should I be allowed to make that choice? Its not a life or death situation so lets take that out of the equation. And the secretary has a choice - keep job or have sex. The owner has the choice of putting the secretary in that position. So if we are looking at morality in the lens that as long as people have the capacity to make choices and they are not life and death anything should go? I don't think that is the argument you are making but that is what I extrapolate from it.

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But it should be the right kind of morality. Honesty and integrity, of course. Concern and help for those who can't take care of themselves. Concern and regard for preserving personal freedom. Concern and regard for maintaining the nations critical systems on which everyone depends, like the health care system, like the economy, and so on. Things like mandating everyone express certain beliefs based on a religion have no place in

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Of course the rub is whose morality should reign supreme? If we choose democratically then we get into issues where some societies have more then 50% of people who want to live under Sharia law...

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Originally Posted by Aimless

This thread is a pleasant surprise :up:

I myself have no problems with morality and ethics in politics in principle. I am interested in having my own values supported!

One reason why I distinguish between religious and secular values is that gods and afterlives probably don't exist, whereas our fellow human beings (and the world/societies in which we all live) clearly do. Therefore I believe that our obligations towards real-world people and to the real world trumps those towards gods and afterlives. The rewards (for society) of focusing on the real world are also more real and of more immediate value (specifically thinking of your examples).

There are those who want laws against prostitution because they believe strongly (and possibly for good reasons) that prostitution hurts society or specific members of society in real ways. Rather than out of some belief that prostitution is sinful :o

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You are interested in your own values being supported. And this is the reason why you think ethics and morality do have a place in politics. How far do you think society should go in terms of having people follow your set (or any set) of values.

You can make several arguments against prostitution. Both from a religious and secular morality. In the end regardless of the type of morality you use to justify the criminalization of prostitution you deny freedom to someone and force them to work under the yoke of values that they probably would not share.

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

I'm going to have to disagree with you. Positive and negative reinforcement are all that people respond to in one way or another. If someone does a good deed for no positive benefit but just to do a good deed then that person has received some benefit from doing it. Be it the warm fuzzy that lolli is referring to or something else there is a benefit. That something else could be as simple as the satisfaction of doing the "right" thing for no other reason then it is good and moral.

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If you're doing it solely because of that fuzzy warm feeling - well, then, sorry, you're no better than a trained dog. You're proposing a rather behaviouristic view of humans - there's a reason why social sciences have moved away from that perspective.

If you're doing something because of a stimulus then your action is neither good or bad, wrong or right. After all, you did not think about it, you did not decide anything about it, you just reacted to the stimulus.

And that's something even a mollusk is capable of. I'd rather hope that we humans do have some amount of free will.

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

Just our of curiosity what percentage of the population do you think look at a situation and say "Hmmm let me think am I making this decision because of whatever maxim Kant said we should follow?"

There are tons of different types of secular morality and many are based on religious morality. My main interest is why some people think secular morality is innately more relevant then religious morality?

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One can be based on reason (y'know, the very own gift from God to us humans, according to your man in the sky). The other is based upon what a mystical man in the sky said.

And as to your first question: You yourself talked of politics, my dear. Political decisions are usually discussed. Which then very well brings Mr. Kant into play since, y'know, the political process actually allows for "looking at a situation". Please don't try to muddle your own discussion by conflating spontaneous and political decisions, okay?

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

Well the United States has changed the constitution more then a few times. Take a look at drinking... 18th amendment outlawed liquor sales. Didn't work out too well and the 21st amendment overturned it. I'm sure your aware of it but for our foreigners here I wanted to point out how amendments can and have been made to the constitution.

The concept of using "reason" based morality as opposed to theological based morality in the genocide example is rather false. Your questions imply that a reason based morality system is going to make the "right" choices. With no firm footing a reason based morality society can end up choose to say that genocide is pretty fun if your people have a bunch of debt and another group of people that are culturally different are the creditors... You can reason your way into almost any position and think your are doing the right thing with enough self justification.

My personal view of course is that both secular morality and religious morality are going to be deeply flawed if those are the only ways to run a country.

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I was referring to people who claim that we shouldn't touch the constitution at all (i.e. including amending it).

I don't think reason always leads to good outcomes; in fact, it quite often leads to very bad ones. The point I'm making is that we can change our minds about the utility of something based on reason. Communists came up with collective farms, most people realize that was a very bad idea, and now virtually no one wants to see that done again. Meanwhile, if a holy book claims that interest is illegal, very little can be done to allow interest in that society, even though we know that having credit is integral for an economy to grow. Reason can lead to us thinking that slavery is ok, but we can eventually change our minds. A holy book says that women get half the inheritance of men, and nothing can be done to change that.

It's not an amount just a principle to go by. I think acts of the government need to be agreeable by the governed, and moral action should always be encouraged, but not coerced. There is rare occasion for the need of coercion.

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

I'm sorry EyeKhan. These were just random examples of views off the top of my head that conservatives and liberals sometimes hold.

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Sorry for what? You took the time to bring them up so I posted my thoughts. Are you apologizing because you didn't take the time to read and comment?

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And who is going to be the fact checkers. ;)

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The main advantage of this argument, and it's key problem, is you can use it to basically argue against doing anything to improve our civilization. I humbly believe that it is possible to build an institution with the ethical standards and the integrity to provide a truly objective assessment of truth and fact in many if not most cases. There will always be subtle and borderline cases that will remain a gray area where people would have to agree to disagree; in fact this would end up being the vast majority of disagreements because the blatant stuff would go away, which is of course the whole point.

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Well how far are you willing to take personal choice?

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This isn't rocket science. People should be allowed to do whatever they choose so long as unreasonable harm isn't done to someone else. A standard of reasonableness is longstanding in our legal system so don't bother going there. In the case of blackmailing an employee for sex, I think it's pretty clearly a violation of her free will and pretty clearly unreasonable harm. It doesn't have to be life and death - the ability to work, providing for yourself and or family is very important as well.

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Of course the rub is whose morality should reign supreme? If we choose democratically then we get into issues where some societies have more then 50% of people who want to live under Sharia law...

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That's the biggest pitfall of true democracy, the tyranny of the majority. There again has to be an objective institution to keep this sort of thing in check. In our case, the institution that has kept the religious fundies in check, in spite of the majority sentiment, has been the supreme court. It's not perfect, take the "in god we trust" on our money for an example of failure, but with a reference document to work from and a high degree of integrity, you can have a workable check on this kind of thing.

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Originally Posted by EyeKhan

That's the biggest pitfall of true democracy, the tyranny of the majority.

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True democracy is just that. What you're meaning is "ochlocracy", the rule of the mob.