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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