4 ms·
But laws are just encodes morality.
by fangspire 1mo ago
But laws are just encodes morality.
- Dylan16807 1mo agoMany of them are, but they're focused on big picture issues and preventing harm. Most of morality has no legal force.
- ultrarunner 1mo agoFunny how morality so often benefits incumbents and the powerful.
- marcus_holmes 1mo agoAbsolutely not. It was illegal to harbour escaped slaves. Or hide Jews from the Gestapo. Laws have nothing to do with morality. Or justice.
- lukan 1mo agoYes they do, but not with a philosophical concept of morality, but merely those of the ruling class/majority.
- buran77 1mo agoIt's not really that "absolute". Laws are not all made the same. Some start as a reflection of what society considers "right" at the time. Then the laws fall behind as society's morality reaches a tipping point. So the society pulls that part of the legal system behind it. Other laws are progressive, and they pull society's morality behind them. Some are driven by/for the majority, and some by/for the elites. But they all reflect the morality of society to a degree, whether the democratic majority, or the powerful minority.
- vasco 1mo agoWell this goes into the debate of "is morality absolute or relative" which gets religious fast and there's more books on the subject than we have time to read.
- marcus_holmes 1mo agoI actually think that's a separate debate. The question of "are laws there to enforce morality, or enforce public order?" is the key one. And, I think, very easily settled by looking at the laws we choose to implement. Almost none of them enforce moral behaviour (e.g. you must give 10% of your income to charity), they're all about enforcing how we interact and how we're ruled.
- fangspire 1mo ago>It was illegal to harbour escaped slaves. Or hide Jews from the Gestapo. Yes, of course. Morality is relative. In a slave-owning society, harbouring escaped slaves is immoral.
- BizarroLand 1mo agoIt is somewhat interesting that the version of morality an individual possesses always feels to that individual as an absolute. "Of course it's wrong to beat your wife!" says the person who beats their children in a society that has only recently ceased infantilizing their women (USA circa 1900 +/- 30 years). "Of course it's wrong to own slaves!" says the person whose society only recently began protesting against and/or illegalizing slavery (USA circa 1866 +/- 10 years) They say this not knowing that had the event of their births been moved a few decades in the wrong direction their morality would have shifted with it. Those same people might have said "Of course its wrong to beat your wife with a rod thicker than your thumb!" or "Of course its ok to own slaves as long as you treat them well!" at the same point in their lives had they been born maybe 30-50 years earlier.
- marcus_holmes 1mo agoThe one I find fascinating is eating animals. We currently eat animals as a normal part of our diet (for most of us, including me, anyway). To do this we treat the animals horribly. Incredibly badly. And we know it. It's very easy to see how society's morals will probably change on this, in fact are changing on this, and how in 50 years' time our current stance on eating animals could be seen as monstrously immoral and indefensible.
- fangspire 1mo agoAnimals eat each other. Often in ways more "horrible" than what we do to them (in quotes because nothing in nature is horrible. Horror is a human notion). Animals are not moral agents, and eating them is not different from eating plants. Both are part of the biosphere that we manage to our benefit.
- pocksuppet 1mo agoThat was the morality at the time.
- gib444 1mo agoThat's genuinely hilarious.