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There is no law against murder, only a law that requires the punishment of murderers. ("A person who commits X, Y, or Z shall be sentenced to W.") There is, how

by kijin 13y ago

There is no law against murder, only a law that requires the punishment of murderers. ("A person who commits X, Y, or Z shall be sentenced to W.") There is, however, a moral imperative against murder ("Thou shalt not murder"), as well as a moral right for me to protect myself from harm. The validity of moral imperatives and rights does not depend on the existence of any law. I definitely care when people disobey moral imperatives or violate moral rights. As a matter of fact, the majority of people in any society obey the majority of the law the majority of the time. After all, laws are often specifically designed to coincide with what the majority thinks is right, convenient, reasonable, etc., so the majority will obey those laws for the sake of doing the right thing, doing what is convenient, doing what is reasonable, etc. But if you want people to obey the law for the sake of obeying the law, I don't see what might justify such a demand. In my opinion, criminal law is just a device to facilitate obedience to moral imperatives. (Other laws might serve other purposes, such as facilitating commerce.) It's like a proxy server that helps me talk to an authoritative data source. A lot of the time, the proxy is good enough. But if the proxy interferes with my websocket, I have every right to bypass the proxy and talk directly to the data source. Note that this doesn't mean that I'm going to ditch the proxy altogether. I'm still going to use the proxy for all of my non-websocket needs because it's faster, better documented, etc. By the way, sorry for the vagueness surrounding the phrase "has the right". I meant it in a justificatory sense. In other words, if and only if a law contradicts moral imperatives, anyone has JUSTIFICATION to break that particular law and try to evade punishment. If, on the other hand, the law coincides with moral imperatives, there can be NO justification for breaking it (not because of the law but because of moral imperatives), but a person may still be justified in trying to evade punishment depending on whether the punishment is moral. For example, if the law requires disproportionately severe punishment for a petty crime, that's immoral.

foldr 13y ago
> There is no law against murder, only a law that requires the punishment of murderers. That's news to me. Is this actually your interpretation of the present state of affairs in the US, or is it just how you think things ought to be? >The validity of moral imperatives and rights does not depend on the existence of any law. That's not a point of disagreement here. The question is whether, in addition to the other moral imperatives, there is a (defeasible) moral imperative to obey the law. >In my opinion, criminal law is just a device to facilitate obedience to moral imperatives. Again, this is a fantasy view of the law, not one that can possibly be applied in practice. Consider theft. How are you going to determine, in every case, whether it is morally justified that someone owns something? You can always go back and find an injustice in the chain of events which leads to ownership. Or take a clear case, say, Bernie Madoff. Would it have been ok to steal from him because he didn't justly acquire his possessions?
- kijin 13y ago
  I think we're getting way off topic, but anyway: 1. It's my understanding of the present state of affairs in most countries. Apart from religious law, it is rare for criminal statutes to include a clause like "No person shall murder another." People do tend to interpret "Murderers shall be put in prison" as "Thou shalt not murder", but IMO the latter is an assumption behind the law, not its content. All the lawmakers already assume that murder is wrong. The law's job is to decide how to discourage murders, what to do when murder happens, etc. 2. The set of objective moral imperatives that exist at all times and places, and their application in particular circumstances, should exhaust the set of all the moral imperatives that we are ever obliged to obey. By "all times and place" I mean "even in times and places where the state does not exist", because that's the condition in which humans lived for the majority of their existence on Earth. So I don't think it even makes sense for there to be a moral imperative that only exists in certain circumstances (e.g. the state) unless it is an application of an all-times-and-places moral imperative. But I cannot seem to find an all-times-and-places moral imperative that could be applied in such a way as to justify obedience to the laws of a state just because they are the laws of a state. 3. Bad example. What makes you think it is morally permissible to steal something just because the owner had obtained it immorally? (Two wrongs don't make a right, etc.)
  - foldr 13y ago
    >It's my understanding of the present state of affairs in most countries. My understanding is that there are laws against murder in most countries. Do you have any evidence to the contrary? This is a rather surprising claim. I don't see anything to back it up in the Wikipedia article on Murder in English common law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_English_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_English_law >So I don't think it even makes sense for there to be a moral imperative that only exists in certain circumstances Why not? Ethical situationism certainly makes sense, even if you don't agree with it. In any case, you can just assume that there is a conditional moral imperative to obey the laws if there are any, in which case this imperative could perfectly well have been valid throughout human history. Most moral imperatives presuppose the existence of things which don't necessarily exist. E.g., "don't steal" presupposes the existence of property. >What makes you think it is morally permissible to steal something just because the owner had obtained it immorally? If he obtained it immorally then in what sense does he "own" it? At most in a legal sense. But that shouldn't matter to you.

by kijin 13y ago

foldr 13y ago

> There is no law against murder, only a law that requires the punishment of murderers. That's news to me. Is this actually your interpretation of the present state of affairs in the US, or is it just how you think things ought to be? >The validity of moral imperatives and rights does not depend on the existence of any law. That's not a point of disagreement here. The question is whether, in addition to the other moral imperatives, there is a (defeasible) moral imperative to obey the law. >In my opinion, criminal law is just a device to facilitate obedience to moral imperatives. Again, this is a fantasy view of the law, not one that can possibly be applied in practice. Consider theft. How are you going to determine, in every case, whether it is morally justified that someone owns something? You can always go back and find an injustice in the chain of events which leads to ownership. Or take a clear case, say, Bernie Madoff. Would it have been ok to steal from him because he didn't justly acquire his possessions?

kijin 13y ago
I think we're getting way off topic, but anyway: 1. It's my understanding of the present state of affairs in most countries. Apart from religious law, it is rare for criminal statutes to include a clause like "No person shall murder another." People do tend to interpret "Murderers shall be put in prison" as "Thou shalt not murder", but IMO the latter is an assumption behind the law, not its content. All the lawmakers already assume that murder is wrong. The law's job is to decide how to discourage murders, what to do when murder happens, etc. 2. The set of objective moral imperatives that exist at all times and places, and their application in particular circumstances, should exhaust the set of all the moral imperatives that we are ever obliged to obey. By "all times and place" I mean "even in times and places where the state does not exist", because that's the condition in which humans lived for the majority of their existence on Earth. So I don't think it even makes sense for there to be a moral imperative that only exists in certain circumstances (e.g. the state) unless it is an application of an all-times-and-places moral imperative. But I cannot seem to find an all-times-and-places moral imperative that could be applied in such a way as to justify obedience to the laws of a state just because they are the laws of a state. 3. Bad example. What makes you think it is morally permissible to steal something just because the owner had obtained it immorally? (Two wrongs don't make a right, etc.)
- foldr 13y ago
  >It's my understanding of the present state of affairs in most countries. My understanding is that there are laws against murder in most countries. Do you have any evidence to the contrary? This is a rather surprising claim. I don't see anything to back it up in the Wikipedia article on Murder in English common law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_English_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_in_English_law >So I don't think it even makes sense for there to be a moral imperative that only exists in certain circumstances Why not? Ethical situationism certainly makes sense, even if you don't agree with it. In any case, you can just assume that there is a conditional moral imperative to obey the laws if there are any, in which case this imperative could perfectly well have been valid throughout human history. Most moral imperatives presuppose the existence of things which don't necessarily exist. E.g., "don't steal" presupposes the existence of property. >What makes you think it is morally permissible to steal something just because the owner had obtained it immorally? If he obtained it immorally then in what sense does he "own" it? At most in a legal sense. But that shouldn't matter to you.