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> The legal system should work to make ethical things legal and unethical things illegal. As a blanket statement, not it should not. As a counterexample, cons
by bzbarsky 8y ago
> The legal system should work to make ethical things legal and unethical things illegal.
As a blanket statement, not it should not. As a counterexample, consider that the whole purpose of the US First Amendment as regards speech is that it should not be illegal to speak, even if others don't like your speech (including because they think it's unethical).
As another counterexample, the war on drugs and alcohol prohibition are examples, in the US, of people trying to make unethical things illegal. The latter is widely accepted as a failure. I'm pretty sure that eventually the former will be too.
In general, trying to equate "I disapprove of X" and "X should be illegal" is a really dangerous tendency that comes and goes. It seem to be on the rise recently, unfortunately, at least in the US...
- solarkraft 8y agoIn my view drug prohibition is the attempt to make an ethical thing illegal. You can still defend somebody's right to speak (from an ethical pov) if you don't like what they say. These things don't have to be easy. I don't see what you're getting at. Laws are to govern things people should or shouldn't do - ethics are opinions on what people should or should not do. Am I missing something?
- bzbarsky 8y ago> Laws are to govern things people should or shouldn't do In RFC terms, laws are MUST and MUST NOT. Ethics are SHOULD and SHOULD NOT. There's a difference between those, even in RFCs. There is a similar difference in laws+ethics.