4 ms·

Public nudity is mere morals. IMO nothing law should deal with. Tyranny is a strong word, but it seems unreasonable interference.

• tjic 13y ago
  > Public nudity is mere morals. So are laws against killing people, theft, and beating animals. I'm always dismayed at people who think that the "good" ethical norms that they like are somehow scientific, universally agreed upon, and absolute, whereas the "bad" ethical norms that other people have are merely cultural, subjective, and contingent. We could do worse than to require a few years of ethical theory as a precondition to graduating high school.
  • mjallday 13y ago
    All those actions you stated have a consequence for some other than the primary participant. Killing someone derives them or life, theft of a possession, beating an animal hurts the animal. Public Nudity may not be comfortable to you but what's the consequence beyond that?
    • pandaman 13y ago
      Seeing naked people in public hurts most people.
  • fosap 13y ago
    For beating animals you might be right. I don't think so, but maybe you are right. For the rest you are not. Also you somehow see to confuse moral and ethical. Moral is "Eww, that's itchy." For example sodomy. Ethics are a reflection and systematization of the first. The latter is abstract. There are no universal ethics. But several sound systems. Kant's Categorical imperative, several utilitarianism. Hell even Hedonism is ethics and IMO a way better than morals. But all these have in common they do give explanations and justifications, unlike morals. Morals is just "that's nothing one should do" or "We never did that." And I can't see a ethics that would demand the criminalization of public nudity. However it is very easy to reduce to criminalization of killing and theft to a sound first principle. And IMO only these first principles are important enough to force them upon others.
• sliverstorm 13y ago
  It's a tiny bit more than morals (e.g., sanitation) but either way, I'm not commenting on whether law should deal with it. I'm objecting to the use of the word 'tyranny'.
  • rhizome 13y ago
    (e.g., sanitation) Really? Is there even a single documented case of a sanitation problem caused by mere nudity?
    • sliverstorm 13y ago
      It would be hard to document such cases, when public nudity has been restricted for thousands of years. You should not have to stretch your imagination, however, to figure out all the possible transmission vectors.
      • gutnor 13y ago
        Clean nudity is inferior to clean clothing, that's OK. However, we allow fully clothed homeless that haven't bathed in months, or even anybody with poor personal hygiene. We allow dirty street, dirty buses and public transports, kids playing in sewers in bad area of town, hoarders and countless other documented hygiene threats. So let's be intellectually honest and accept that nakedness is a morality issue first and foremost.