Ah, there’s the rub: claiming that “using the law as a tool to impose our moral beliefs on others is a bad thing” is itself a moral claim. Unless we’re willing to go down a purely Social Contractarian path–a path that among its many problems offers no protections to infants from murdering parents–then whatever model we use for building the law is going to have a moral system at its heart.
I disagree that this is fundamentally a bad thing.
If your position were consistent, then I might agree with you that it’d be a stronger position from which to condemn the Pat Roberstons of the world. However, I do not see it as a consistent position, inasmuch as it fails to recgonize the own moral assumptions that underlies it.
The problem with the Pat Robertsons of the world is that they want to base the law on a flawed moral system, not that the idea of basing the law on a moral system is bad. And honestly, if you’re trying to argue with the 700 Club folks, claiming that your own system is moral might be more persuasive than otherwise: given how much they value moral behavior, a claim taht your system is not based on morality is not likely to win many converts from among them.
I wouldn’t say that protecting people from harm should be the only role of the government. However, I would say that imposing moral beliefs (which are really just a subset of religious beliefs – perhaps the whole set in the case of agnostics) should not be a role of the government.
If those “common societal values” include religious beliefs, then you’ve just created a society without true freedom of religion. What if “not taking the lords name in vain” is a “common societal value”? What if “attending a Christian Church every Sunday” is a “common societal value”? In fact, I think (perhaps I’m wrong) that the majority of people living in America today value “accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.” Should this be required by law?
If you want to live in a theocracy, that’s your business, but America was founded not to be that sort of place. And personally, I don’t think it should be.
Yeah, I know I’m exaggerating your position a bit . . . Obviously you’re not advocating we force people to start going to Church and so forth. But my point is that forcing people to follow a certain moral code isn’t really any different, or any better. It’s just another case of imposing the majority’s religious views on the minority. As I said, I don’t think the only function of government is to prevent people from hurting each other . . . but I think it should stay out of the business of imposing religious beliefs on people.
I agree that my position on this issue is influenced by my moral beliefs. My position that murder should be illegal is also influenced by my moral beliefs. And no, this isn’t a bad thing. What is a bad thing, in my opinion, is basing a law solely on one’s moral beliefs. I don’t think I’m basing my point of view solely on moral beliefs – I’m also making what I think is a factual claim, namely that using the law to impose morality on people is incompatible with maintaining a society that doesn’t impose religion on people, because moral beliefs are just a subset of religious beliefs.
Even if you disagree that moral beliefs are really just a form of religious beliefs, this is a factual question that we can discuss . . . we could start by agreeing on a definition of what constitutes a religious belief, and then see if beliefs about morality fall under that definition. Or, we could examine the history of morality . . . if we did so, I think we’d find that ideas about morality have been overwhelmingly influenced by developments in religion, to the point that the two are inextricably intertwined. I also believe that if you took a poll of most Americans, you’d find that most consider their moral views to be very strongly tied to their religious beliefs.
If we accept that moral beliefs are a form of religious belief, then the claim that you can’t impose moral beliefs without imposing religious beliefs follows from that. The only other part of what I’m saying that could really be considered a matter of opinion is whether or not having the government impose religious beliefs on people is a bad thing. I’ll concede that this is, at least in part, a moral judgement that I’m making . . . but I think it’s a very uncontroversial one.
Let me put it this way: I don’t think letting the majority decide what we value is a bad thing. It seems perfectly legitimate for the majority to decide whether we as a society value freedom of religion, and if we value the lives of babies and of bald eagles, and whether we value the preservation of historic buildings and so forth. And then it makes sense to say, “Such and such activity does demonstrable, tangible harm to this thing of value, and therefore we will prohibit it.” But if we believe that freedom of religion is something of value (which I think we do believe), and we believe that moral beliefs are a subset of religious beliefs (which I think we have good factual reasons to believe), then we must add a stipulation that in making these laws, we can’t say “We value [such and such moral principle], and thus we’re prohibiting people from violating it.” And, we can’t say “we value morality, and it is our belief that [such and such] behavior violates it, so we’re prohibiting that behavior.” Such laws are incompatible with preserving religious freedom, so they shouldn’t be made.
Now, I suppose you could say, “Hey, wait a minute, we value preserving freedom of speech, but we still have laws restricting it. Heck, we also don’t allow people to freely practice their religion, if, say, that religion calls for human sacrifices.” But in all those cases, the practice is prohibited because it does harm. We won’t let someone yell “fire!” in a theater or perform human sacrifice, because those endanger human lives. And because these reasons are based on a desire to protect life, not a desire to restrict speech or impose religious views, that reasoning isn’t readily extended to more general cases. Thus, having those laws doesn’t threaten freedom of speech or freedom of religion as a whole. Contrast this to saying, “We’re outlawing this form of speech because we, the majority, don’t like it,” or “We’re outlawing this practice because we, the majority, find it violates our religion.” To do that does threaten freedom of speech as a whole, and it does threaten freedom of religion as a whole, because it sets a precident by which any speech could be outlawed, or any religious belief could be imposed, according to the whims of the majority.
Basically, I’m saying the only way we can safeguard our freedom from having religion imposed on us is by adhering to a general principle like “Don’t make laws based solely on religious beliefs.” Whether right or wrong, this (my whole preceding sentence) is a factual claim, not merely a belief. Likewise, my claim that moral beliefs are religious beliefs is at least one that can be judged based on factual evidence (see my examples above) – I’m not saying it should be accepted just because I believe it. So I don’t really think I’m “breaking my own rule” about not determining laws based solely on one’s moral beliefs.