Government Enforced Morality?

[Kimstu]

WAE: *“Similarly, people who feel that taxation is coercion and push for lower tax rates on that account are also trying to legislate their own moral views on the supremacy of property rights.”

I do not follow the logic here at all. You are referring here to people who are trying to get the state to not force morality on them. *

This, I think, is the heart of the dispute. That last sentence makes it very clear that you think that the “taxation is coercion” type of political philosophy is somehow more “objective” or detached from moral considerations than the type people like xeno, Mandelstam, jshore, et al. are supporting. Levying taxes, in your viewpoint, is somehow intrinsically more “morally loaded” than resisting the levying of taxes.

As many others here have pointed out, that doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny. A statement such as “the obligation to help the needy is paramount, and therefore we should have higher taxes” does indeed express a moral conviction, but so does a statement such as “the sanctity of private property is paramount, and therefore we should have lower taxes”. The people you describe as resisting the “forced morality” of current governmental tax policy are simply trying to enforce a morality of their own, which says that not requiring people to contribute money for the needs of poorer people is more moral than requiring them to do so. See? All types of tax policy reflect some moral conviction or other; the question is not whether we will have a tax policy that “forces morality” on us, but which kind(s) of morality we choose to have our tax policy impose.

*What I have a problem with is coercive legislation created only for the purpose of advancing someone’s morality, and which has no other justification. *

But that’s not relevant here. As economics buffs like picmr and Collounsbury and others have pointed out many times on this board, there are plenty of solid and practical economic “justifications” for progressive/redistributive tax policies. We can contend forever about exactly what rates and rebates and credits are most effective in this way, of course, but trying to argue that such policies are simply liberal-ethics dogoodery with “no other justification” isn’t going to cut it.

[Kimstu]

WAE: Whether or not there is a judicial consensus on something is irrelevent to the debate. A judicial consensus is created by judges. Judges are part of the government.

Sorry, but if individual rights are relevant to this debate, then the question of judicial consensus about individual rights is also relevant. As you said, the rights we have are established primarily by judicial interpretation. If, as I argue, we distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate “attempts to enforce morality” based on how they impact individual rights, then how the judicial branch of the government interprets those rights is indeed relevant.

[xenophon41]

originally posted by WAE:
If someone does not share this moral value with us, do we have a right to force that person to contribute to our food drive?

BINGO!

That’s precisely how constitutional republics work. We start with, as Lib calls them, “scribbles” on a piece of paper, outlining what rights the government cannot deny to individuals. On that same piece of paper, we list, broadly, the scope of responsibilities for government, and the powers we (the peeps) grant that government in pursuit of those responsibilities. In the US, those powers include the levying of taxes in pursuit of “the general Welfare” of the nation (which is as much a mandate for moral legislation as you’re likely to see anywhere).

Once those civil rights and those responsibilities and powers of government are decided, then the process of determining “the general Welfare” is carried out through democratic elections of representatives who advocate particular policies, which means… a majoritarian selection of moral priorities.

So yes, Weird Al, we as a nation DO have the right to require participation (by taxation) in federal actions from even those citizens who do not share the moral priorities of the majority. However, and this is key to the discussion, we as a nation DO NOT have the right to require individual citizens to act according to the moral priorities of the majority. In other words, while we require majority decision making on moral considerations, we prohibit majority imposition of moral sensibilities. The system is designed to protect individual moral choices against restrictions brought by a “moral majority” — despite periodic conservative efforts to impose certain religious sensibilities.

[erislover]

Legislating Morals
Legislating morals comes in the form of finding a practice which is considered wrong and outlawing it. It involves forced compliance across the board with little or no room for situational loopholes. Prostitution, murder, drug use, all these things are actions which are thought, in and of themselves, to either be immoral directly or to directly lead to immoral behavior. It is wrong to do [blank] and so we will also make it illegal to do [blank]. Complications in understanding this come from other prohibitive legislation such as speeding, parking tickets, etc, which are not obviously immoral under intuitive systems. For example, it isn’t hard to understand why some persons might feel prostitution is immoral, while it requires a serious stretch of the imagination to see why not paying for a parking meter would be so. I am unaware of how to address this intutitive schism in prohibitive legislation.
However, I think it is a necessary (though probably not sufficient) condition that legislating morals are prohibitive laws.

Moral Legislation
Moral legislation is not prohibitive in nature. That is, it does not require compliance with a strict code or set of actions.
Taxation is a most obvious example. Taxation as a means of running a government is pretty amoral by most standards. Now, what the government then does is a question of morality in many instances, and so the link between taxation and morality becomes entrenched, even though it is an error to do so. We would normally ascribe morality to taxation in how it is practiced, that is, how does the government collect its taxes. Though it requires compliance with taxation laws, our (American) taxation programs are not coercive in and of themselves. There are no strong-armed collection, no corruption (relatively speaking), and so on. It is no more coercive than, say, paying for a candy bar.
So, taxation is not moral legislation. I think most would agree that it is amoral.
But there are plenty of other examples as to what moral legislation is all about. The anti-trust laws are a fine example of this. They are not prohibitive in nature; there is nothing stoping oligarchies and monopolies from forming provided they stand up to the litmus test of the legislation which, in this case, is usually about economic coercion(it is also a fine example in that the laws are rather vague; this gives the enforcement of the laws over to the situation in which people feel it is being violated. Some consider this to be a blank check on power, and I agree with little reservation).
Moral legislation takes such a form. It provides a metaphoric litmus test of action. It is largely situational, and is very largely (completely, IMO) based on establishing the best behavior of given institutions/persons. By “best”, it may mean “most efficient with respect to resources” (as in the anti-trust laws), it may mean “setting fairness on equality” (as in some affirmative action programs or voting regulation), it may mean “honesty in business dealings” (as in insurance regulations on selling and what must be made clear to the customer).
When we legislate morals, we provide a generic template for behavior which allows freedom of uniqueness but is based on some moral principle.

Legislating morals completely would result in a society in which “everything not forbidden is compulsory.” Moral legislation allows for a freedom of action within a defined domain of actions; it is used as a guide.

Now, these definitions are a little skimpy, but should be clear enough anyway. What seems to be unclear, WAE, is why a government’s legislation should be ascribed any moral value whatsoever. This is almost a nonsensical question, however. Consider why a government does anything at all: because it should, because people think it should, etc. Inherent in the general idea of legislative government is the idea that government is making up for the shorcomings in the system of persons it regulates. As such, it fills the gap of pluralistic morality that any society exhibits. A government’s actions are always based on a moral decision as to why people/institutions should/should not perform certain actions. Legislative governments are largely based, morally, on an idea of rule utilitarianism. However, because we live in a republic and because we are a pluralistic society (a society comprised of individuals with sometimes greatly varied ideas on morailty and ethical behavior) you will not find a consistent morailty throughout legislation. Some laws, like drug laws, might seem to stem from “traditional” values of Christian Conservatives, while anti-trust laws might stem from another group altogether.

Comments/questions?

[Weird_AL_Einstein]

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
**

<snipped many, many lines of"History according to Mandelstam: 101">

**

…which were designed, I think, to assert that certain ideas are priveleged because they have been around for a long time, and accepted by a lot of people. I certainly don’t accept this…institutionalized slavery was around for thousands of years, and accepted by pretty much everyone for most of that time, but that didn’t make it right.

In any case, not that there aren’t many, many potential Great Debates with any number of the things you said in your…uhhh…“history lesson”, but I really do want to stick to the original debate and not get side-tracked here, so…

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
**
When you see taxation as an imposition on you that interferes with your freedom and your rights,
**

I do, but that’s not what we are debating.

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
**
we often do things together, as a society, that we cannot do as individuals: like build roads, or prevent unfettered capitalism from poisoning our air or water, or insure banks, or promote new technologies like the Internet, or help to educate everyone in our society, including the poorest. We pay for these things through our taxes because, without them, civilization as we know it would be impossible
**

Lordy, more potential new GDs, in almost every phrase; you have got to stop tempting me to go off topic. The issue before us is this: We must pay taxes…it’s the law. So should we be forced to pay for things through our taxes, such as anti-poverty programs, that are justified only through appeals to morality (as I assume they are)? I went through your post more than once, and I couldn’t see where you specifically addressed this question.

<more fodder for other GDs also snipped>

**
[/QUOTE]

[Weird_AL_Einstein]

*Originally posted by erislover *
**
I agree with the “moral legislation” camp completely. I mean, really, why else would we legislate if we weren’t doing something “we” thought was right? **

I assume that by “right” you mean morally correct. The answer to your question is, to do something that is in our own interest.

[Weird_AL_Einstein]

*Originally posted by jshore *
**You seem to think that there is a system set up that involves no moral judgements that contribute to the distribution of wealth and then the government comes in starts making moral judgements by redistributing wealth from the rich to the poor. What I am trying to say is that such a view is extremely naive. (1) We have already made all sorts of choices that affect the distribution of wealth simply in setting up the “game”. The tenets of corporate law, of patent law, etc. were not simply handed down by God.
**

Corporate law and patent law were not created for reasons of morality. They were created because they bring about, or at least they were believed to bring about, an economic benefit to society as a whole. I do not see how it follows logically that because we have these laws, which “affect the distribution of wealth”, that we must then make other laws which have as their justifications only morality to “make up” for it.

*Originally posted by jshore *
**
(2) There are many ways in which the government distributes wealth to the wealthy or provides services that benefit the wealthy to a much greater degree than the poor.
**

I assume you are referring to corporate welfare. Once again, we do not engage in corporate welfare for moral purposes…IMHO any legislator who made such a proposition would be laughed out of office. The (alleged) justification for CW is that it benefits society as a whole in some fashion, and once again, I do not see how it follows logically that we have to make up for it with laws that have as their justifications only morality.

Also, just FTR, I oppose CW and think it should be abolished.

*Originally posted by jshore *
**
The reality of the world is that it is very hard to enforce (and to even know when it is correctly being enforced) equality of opportunity. This is why it is necessary to consider outcomes to at least some degree.
**

Once again, assuming that what you say in the first sentence is true, how does what you say in the second one logically follow?

[Kimstu]

WAE: *So should we be forced to pay for things through our taxes, such as anti-poverty programs, that are justified only through appeals to morality (as I assume they are)? *

Then you assume wrong, as I pointed out above. As the economists around here will tell you, there are plenty of practical economic arguments in favor of anti-poverty programs as “something that is in our own interest”. We can certainly debate the validity of those arguments, but it is simply not true that anti-poverty programs “are justified only through appeals to morality”, any more than corporate welfare programs are.

I’ll also point out, again, that advocating legislation as a means of advancing our self-interest is just as much a moral statement as advocating legislation as a means of promoting other types of goals. Deciding whether we should legislate about moral issues is itself a moral issue. You still seem to be operating with that libertarian tunnel vision which thinks that its own convictions about what government should do are somehow on a separate philosophical plane, independent of particular moral assumptions. They’re not.

[Mandelstam]

**Weird_AL_Einstein **:"<snipped many, many lines of History according to Mandelstam: 101…which were designed, I think, to assert that certain ideas are priveleged because they have been around for a long time…"

Gee, Al, thanks for so entirely missing the point! The idea of thinking about morality in historical terms was to get you to think about how all moral positions (including yours) are subject to historical change.

"institutionalized slavery was around for thousands of years, and accepted by pretty much everyone for most of that time, but that didn’t make it right.

EXACTLY!!! <gives WEA huge congratulatory smack on the back> Exactly right! Slavery was once considered right and is now considered wrong. Morality–our sense of what is right and wrong–develops over time. Most people today continue to believe that slavery is and always was dead wrong–though, at the time, only a small vanguard thought so. They had to try to persuade others, including those with vested interests in slavery, that slavery was wrong. Similarly, most Americans today accept the need for taxation, including the need to use some of that money to provide a social safety net.

Me: “When you see taxation as an imposition on you that interferes with your freedom and your rights…”

Al: "I do, but that’s not what we are debating.

Actually, that is extremely relevant to what we’re debating, as was what you, so very kindly, called my “history lesson.” Whether you like it or not, you live in a representative democracy. The majority of people in this country accept taxation of one form or another as a just means of raising revenues for services that are necessary to securing stability for all to enjoy. You have singled out one thing that you don’t like–government spending to alleviate poverty–and have decided that it’s wrong because it depends on a subjective moral position. Several people on this thread have tried everything short of a Power Point presentation to show you that every social practice depends on a subjective moral position of some kind.

Let me try another tack…

One of the problems you’ve been having this discussion is that you’ve been reasoning as though taxation were wholly devoted to anti-poverty programs. In actuality, as you may know, only the teeniest amount of your tax dollars are earmarked for this purpose. So let me put a set of questions to you that might help you to grasp what has so far eluded you.

Question 1: Which if any of the following services do you consider necessary to your own self-interest:

a) defense of the realm; b) police, judicial system (for the trying of criminals) and prisons; c) oversight of food and water purity; d) monetary policy (setting of interest rates, regulation of the money supply etc.); e) road-building; f) insuring of banks

Question 2: Now, assuming that you have checked even one of these, how do you propose to pay for it without taxation?

In the meantime…

Al*“The issue before us is this: We must pay taxes…it’s the law. So should we be forced to pay for things through our taxes, such as anti-poverty programs, that are justified only through appeals to morality (as I assume they are)? I went through your post more than once, and I couldn’t see where you specifically addressed this question.”*

Al, the same question has been answered for you again and again. 1) Anti-poverty programs are not justified “only through appeals to morality.” (**Kimstu offered you an economic rationale above, and I tried to explain to you how such programs came to be seen as essential to a stable and functional democracy.) 2) Everything–even the idea of eliminating taxation entirely–implies moral grounding of some kind.

Like many people, because you take your own morality for granted, you’re not even aware of its existence. As Kimstu said above, if you disagree with government spending to alleviate poverty, you must persuade others that you’re right. Just like those folks long ago who argued that slaves should be freed; or that women should be able to vote–you, Weird_Al, just might be at the vanguard of a new moral breakthrough ;).

[Mandelstam]

Whoops, all that bold was a mistake. Apologies.

[erislover]

WAE
Why do we do anything? Because [blank]. Why is [blank] a reason? Because [blank] makes [blank2] happen. Why do we want [blank2] to happen? Because [blank2] is good.

It is good. We want this to happen because it is good. Why is anything considered good? Because it fits a mroal system, even if that system is implicit and unspoken, or, in your case, not recognized as existing.

Hume’s Fork is often paraphrased as “No is implies an ought.” As soon as one mentions how something should be, no matter the following justification, we are discussing morality.

[Weird_AL_Einstein]

NB: Remember, I am responding to these posts in a linear fashion, and I am behind a bit (or more than a bit), but if you have posted something I will get to it.

*Originally posted by Kimstu *
**
The people you describe as resisting the “forced morality” of current governmental tax policy are simply trying to enforce a morality of their own, which says that not requiring people to contribute money for the needs of poorer people is more moral than requiring them to do so.
**

Ummmm…what?! Lemme get this straight. If the state forces people to do something, then it is forcing morality on them, and if the state doesn’t force people to do something, then…it is forcing on them someone else’s morality???

I’m sorry, but this is utterly absurd. By this logic, if the state forces people to go to church, it is forcing morality on them, and if the state doesn’t force people to go to church, it is forcing another kind of morality on them.

By this logic, if I think you should give me money, and I force you to do so at gunpoint, then I am forcing on you my “morality”, and if I don’t think you should have to give me money, and I don’t rob you at gunpoint, then I am…forcing my morality on you.

This is completely ridiculous. If you are being forced to do something, then you are being forced to do something. If you are not being forced to do something, then you are not being forced to do something.

*Originally posted by Kimstu *
**
See? All types of tax policy reflect some moral conviction or other; the question is not whether we will have a tax policy that “forces morality” on us, but which kind(s) of morality we choose to have our tax policy impose.
**

No, the question is, should the state force people to do something when the only justification for forcing them to do it is someone’s moral vision.

*Originally posted by Kimstu *
**
*What I have a problem with is coercive legislation created only for the purpose of advancing someone’s morality, and which has no other justification. *

But that’s not relevant here…there are plenty of solid and practical economic “justifications” for progressive/redistributive tax policies.
**

[Loud Scream] Not relevent? Not relevent??? Not only is it relevent, it’s the only thing that’s relevent. We aren’t debating “…solid and practical economic ‘justifications’ for progressive/redistributive tax policies.” We are debating morality. I am sure you believe that there are “solid and practical economic ‘justifications’ for progressive/redistributive tax policies”, and who knows, maybe you’re even right, and could convince me of that if that’s what we were debating. But, I set up this thread to talk about government enforced morality, and with God as my witness, I am going to stick to it.

If you want to talk about “solid and practical economic justifications” for anti-poverty programs, set up another thread. For this one, we are darned well going to assume, for the sake of argument, that there are none. If you feel you can’t justify anti-poverty programs without “solid and practical economic justifications”, just say so and have done with it. Otherwise, explain to me how this would be different from other attempts by the state to enforce morality (and I mean force morality, as in by actually forcing people to do things, as opposed to not forcing them to do things).

*Originally posted by Kimstu *
**WAE: Whether or not there is a judicial consensus on something is irrelevent to the debate. A judicial consensus is created by judges. Judges are part of the government.

Sorry, but if individual rights are relevant to this debate, then the question of judicial consensus about individual rights is also relevant. As you said, the rights we have are established primarily by judicial interpretation. If, as I argue, we distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate “attempts to enforce morality” based on how they impact individual rights, then how the judicial branch of the government interprets those rights is indeed relevant.
**

Hmmmm…so, you’re saying that government enforcement of morality is ok if a judge says it is ok? I seem to recall, back in I think 1986…I forget the name of the case, but in it the SC upheld a Georgia anti-sodomy law. The SC, the highest judges in the land, said this law was “legitimate”. So this law enforcing morality was acceptable to you?

[Weird_AL_Einstein]

*Originally posted by xenophon41 *
**

originally posted by WAE:
If someone does not share this moral value with us, do we have a right to force that person to contribute to our food drive?

BINGO!

That’s precisely how constitutional republics work. We start with, as Lib calls them, “scribbles” on a piece of paper, outlining what rights the government cannot deny to individuals.
**

Ok, what is the exact opposite of “BINGO”? Because that is what I want to say here. Somehow “OGNIB” doesn’t cut it…

That is not, repeat not, how constitutional republics work, at least not the one I live in (America). We did not start by stating what rights the state cannot deny…that came later, with the Bill of Rights. We (“We the People”) started by delegating certain limited powers to the government. Then we…ohhhhhhhhhhh, no, no, dammit, you are drawing me off topic. I am not going to get into this here.

*Originally posted by xenophon41 *
**
On that same piece of paper, we list, broadly, the scope of responsibilities for government, and the powers we (the peeps) grant that government in pursuit of those responsibilities.
**

Ok, this is correct, you just got the order wrong. And we likely disagree about just how “broadly”, but never mind.

*Originally posted by xenophon41 *
**
In the US, those powers include the levying of taxes in pursuit of “the general Welfare” of the nation (which is as much a mandate for moral legislation as you’re likely to see anywhere).
**

How on earth do you figure this? I think this is as much a mandate for legislation that is in our interests as you are likely to see anywhere. Our selfish interests, if you want to put it that way. We don’t pay taxes to support a national defense because we think it would be immoral for someone to conquer and occupy us, we do it because not being conquered and occupied is in our collective self interest.

And this does not mean that we don’t think it would be immoral for the Canadian Hordes to sweep down on us and pillage our fields and have their way with our women…most of us likely do think it would be immoral for them to do that, so you could say that maintaining a national defense is “moral legislation”. But morality is not the rationale for it…or at least not a necessary one.

And note in the phrase “general welfare” the word “general”, which would seem to imply the interests of the nation as a whole. Anti-poverty programs benefit a small subset of the people in the country, not the nation as a whole. So does corporate welfare, of course, to which, as I have mentioned before, I am also opposed.

Of course, you could argue, as some do, that anti-poverty programs actually do benefit everyone, as kind of an “insurance policy”, such that these programs are justified by our own self interest, in addition to the moral reasons. But by doing that you are appealing to people’s self-interest, and what we are discussing here is morality. As I said to Kimstu, if you feel anti-poverty programs shouldn’t or can’t be justified by appeals to moral considerations alone, then just say so.

*Originally posted by xenophon41 *
**
Once those civil rights and those responsibilities and powers of government are decided, then the process of determining “the general Welfare” is carried out through democratic elections of representatives who advocate particular policies, which means… a majoritarian selection of moral priorities.
**

“General Welfare” does not mean moral priorities. It means national self-interest. Honestly, if it were just about “moral priorities”, and not self interest, wouldn’t it require us to give all our national wealth to people in the third world who are starving? I mean, what moral justification is there for us to continue living this lifestyle we are living with our SUV’s and our fast food and our remote controlled color cable satellite 27 inch tvs when people in the world are, quite literally, starving to death?

*Originally posted by xenophon41 *
**
So yes, Weird Al, we as a nation DO have the right to require participation (by taxation) in federal actions from even those citizens who do not share the moral priorities of the majority.
**

Irrelevent. The question is, does the state have the right to require participation (by taxation) in federal actions the only (or principal) justification for which is the moral priorities of the majority.

*Originally posted by xenophon41 *
**
However, and this is key to the discussion, we as a nation DO NOT have the right to require individual citizens to act according to the moral priorities of the majority.
**

And now you are contradicting yourself. The act of paying taxes is…an act. So can the state require it or not?

*Originally posted by xenophon41 *
**
In other words, while we require majority decision making on moral considerations, we prohibit majority imposition of moral sensibilities.
**

So…the congress can what decide what is and is not moral (“moral considerations”), but can’t act on it (“impose moral sensibilities”)? They could then, I guess, pass a resolution condemning poverty, but couldn’t do anything about it. Or pass a resolution condemning anal sex, but not stop anyone from doing it.

Somehow, I don’t think this is what you mean…

[Kimstu]

WAE: Lemme get this straight. If the state forces people to do something, then it is forcing morality on them, and if the state doesn’t force people to do something, then…it is forcing on them someone else’s morality???

Now you’re getting it!! See, the question of whether or not the government should force people to do a particular thing is itself a moral question, and can only be decided in accordance with some particular moral vision of what government ought to do. Saying “The government should spend money on poverty relief, and everybody should have to contribute to that via taxes” is no more and no less a moral statement than saying “The government should not spend money on poverty relief, and nobody should have to contribute to that via taxes.” See? Just let me know if you’re still having trouble with this concept, I can continue repeating it as long as you need me to.

*By this logic, if the state forces people to go to church, it is forcing morality on them, and if the state doesn’t force people to go to church, it is forcing another kind of morality on them. *

You’re still doing pretty well! The question of whether or not we should have a state-imposed religion is indeed a moral question. As I’m sure you know, there are many people who want their religion to have more direct influence in public life (“bringing this country back to God”, and so forth), and feel that the constitutional separation of church and state that prevents them from using government to sponsor their religion is “forcing” an alien and undesirable morality on them. Our Constitution (and probably the majority popular opinion too) does indeed force the moral principle of government neutrality in matters of religion upon many Americans who believe it would be more moral not to have such neutrality.

By this logic, if I think you should give me money, and I force you to do so at gunpoint, then I am forcing on you my “morality”, and if I don’t think you should have to give me money, and I don’t rob you at gunpoint, then I am…forcing my morality on you.

Bzzzzzt!! Oh Al, and you were doing so well there for a while. But you blew it by unthinkingly mixing up relations between individuals and the government with relations between one individual and another individual. Individuals can have separate moral beliefs that they act upon separately without impacting certain other individuals. But since the principles of government apply to all its individual citizens, and are formulated and applied in the name of all its individual citizens, government policies are always enforcing upon all of us the moral principles that inspire them. See?

*“All types of tax policy reflect some moral conviction or other; the question is not whether we will have a tax policy that “forces morality” on us, but which kind(s) of morality we choose to have our tax policy impose.”

No, the question is, should the state force people to do something when the only justification for forcing them to do it is someone’s moral vision. […]

[Loud Scream] Not relevent? Not relevent??? Not only is it relevent, it’s the only thing that’s relevent. We aren’t debating “…solid and practical economic ‘justifications’ for progressive/redistributive tax policies.” We are debating morality.*

There there dear, deep breath, calm down. (You’re getting so stressed that you’re forgetting that “relevant” has only two "e"s.) I’ll recap for you:

1. All tax policies, of whatever kind, are enforcing on the taxpayers the underlying moral vision about government that motivates them.

2. No tax policy, however progressive/redistributive, is promoted only for explicitly ethical or moral motives, as you keep trying to claim: there are always practical economic justifications involved in it too.

If you want to talk about “solid and practical economic justifications” for anti-poverty programs, set up another thread. For this one, we are darned well going to assume, for the sake of argument, that there are none.

But that’s just silly, because it’s completely divorced from reality. I might as well say that “for the sake of argument”, we’re going to assume that all people who oppose progressive tax policies are selfish schizophrenic child molesters. You can’t really expect to have a reasonable or useful debate if you permit yourself to ignore whatever facts you don’t like. As I said, we can certainly debate the validity of the various practical justifications for anti-poverty programs (though I agree that this is not the thread to do it in), but you don’t get to simply pretend that they don’t even exist, just because you would rather argue that such programs are “only justified on moral grounds.”

Hmmmm…so, you’re saying that government enforcement of morality is ok if a judge says it is ok?

Nope, that’s just your thinking getting kind of sloppy after the emotional stress of these arguments. Saying that judicial consensus about rights is relevant in determining what rights actually exist, and that rights are relevant in determining which kinds of government enforcement of morality are legitimate or illegitimate, is not the same thing as agreeing “that government enforcement of morality is ok if a judge says it is ok”. For example, as I pointed out several posts ago, the question of whether there’s a constitutional right to privacy that protects consensual sex acts such as sodomy still doesn’t have a firm judicial consensus (SCOTUS said there wasn’t in Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986, as you fuzzily remembered, while the Georgia Supreme Court said there was in Powell v. State in 1998).

My point back in my first post on this thread was that the types of “enforcement of morality” that a government can attempt are restricted by the overriding principle (still ultimately a moral principle, of course) of paramount individual rights. Now, I personally believe that the individual right to privacy does protect most consensual sex acts, and that anti-sodomy laws are therefore illegitimate attempts to enforce morality. Of course, for that to make any practical difference to actual governmental practice, there would have to be a judicial consensus that agreed with me (fortunately, IMHO, such a consensus is slowly but surely emerging). That doesn’t mean that I think anything is okay if a judge says it’s okay; it just means that I have an intelligent awareness of the practical relationship between judicial consensus and viable individual rights.

[Weird_AL_Einstein]

*Originally posted by erislover *
**Legislating Morals
Legislating morals comes in the form of finding a practice which is considered wrong and outlawing it. It involves forced compliance across the board with little or no room for situational
<snip>
I think it is a necessary (though probably not sufficient) condition that legislating morals are prohibitive laws.
**

Sooo…a law forcing forcing people to go to church would not be legislating morality? After all, it’s not prohibiting anything, just placing an affirmative obligation on you, like the affirmative obligation to pay taxes.

*Originally posted by erislover *
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Moral Legislation
Moral legislation is not prohibitive in nature. That is, it does not require compliance with a strict code or set of actions.
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Mmmm-hmmm. So, “Moral Legislation” does not prohibit me from telling the IRS “none of your beeswax” when it asks me how much money I made last year?

*Originally posted by erislover *
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Taxation is a most obvious example. Taxation as a means of running a government is pretty amoral by most standards.
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I would say, it depends on the manner of taxation, but never mind.

*Originally posted by erislover *
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Now, what the government then does is a question of morality in many instances, and so the link between taxation and morality becomes entrenched, even though it is an error to do so.
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There may be moral implications in what the government does, but how it spends our money ought to be determined by the consideration of the interests of the nation, not by someone’s idea of moral obligations.

*Originally posted by erislover *
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We would normally ascribe morality to taxation in how it is practiced, that is, how does the government collect its taxes. Though it requires compliance with taxation laws, our (American) taxation programs are not coercive in and of themselves. There are no strong-armed collection, no corruption (relatively speaking), and so on. It is no more coercive than, say, paying for a candy bar.
**

And now my head is officially spinning. Would you like some fries with that Whopper[sup]tm[/sup]? “(O)ur (American) taxation programs are not coercive”??? “There are no strong-armed collection”??? Try not paying your taxes and see what happens to you.

*Originally posted by erislover *
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So, taxation is not moral legislation. I think most would agree that it is amoral.
But there are plenty of other examples as to what moral legislation is all about. The anti-trust laws are a fine example of this. They are not prohibitive in nature;
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Yes they are. They prohibit monopolies.

*Originally posted by erislover *
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Moral legislation takes such a form. It provides a metaphoric litmus test of action. It is largely situational, and is very largely (completely, IMO) based on establishing the best behavior of given institutions/persons. By “best”, it may mean “most efficient with respect to resources” (as in the anti-trust laws), it may mean “setting fairness on equality” (as in some affirmative action programs or voting regulation), it may mean “honesty in business dealings” (as in insurance regulations on selling and what must be made clear to the customer).
When we legislate morals, we provide a generic template for behavior which allows freedom of uniqueness but is based on some moral principle.
**

I’m just gonna say…huh?

*Originally posted by erislover *
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What seems to be unclear, WAE, is why a government’s legislation should be ascribed any moral value whatsoever. This is almost a nonsensical question, however. Consider why a government does anything at all: because it should, because people think it should, etc.
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In the USA, the government does what it does because it is charged with doing so by the Constitution. See in my last post the discussion of “General Welfare”.

*Originally posted by erislover *
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Inherent in the general idea of legislative government is the idea that government is making up for the shorcomings in the system of persons it regulates. As such, it fills the gap of pluralistic morality that any society exhibits. A government’s actions are always based on a moral decision as to why people/institutions should/should not perform certain actions. Legislative governments are largely based, morally, on an idea of rule utilitarianism.
**

Again, huh? And yes I did read your cite, it was very interesting but I am not sure how it fits into the debate here.

**
[/QUOTE]

[Weird_AL_Einstein]

*Originally posted by Kimstu *
**WAE: *So should we be forced to pay for things through our taxes, such as anti-poverty programs, that are justified only through appeals to morality (as I assume they are)? *

Then you assume wrong, as I pointed out above. As the economists around here will tell you, there are plenty of practical economic arguments in favor of anti-poverty programs as “something that is in our own interest”. We can certainly debate the validity of those arguments, but it is simply not true that anti-poverty programs “are justified only through appeals to morality”, any more than corporate welfare programs are.**

I swear I went over this with you already in another post…maybe this linear thing wasn’t such a good idea after all. As I said, the question is, do you feel you need to appeal to national self-interest, or can you justify anti-poverty programs with morality alone?

*Originally posted by Kimstu *
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I’ll also point out, again, that advocating legislation as a means of advancing our self-interest is just as much a moral statement as advocating legislation as a means of promoting other types of goals.
**

Well you can point it out all you like, but that doesn’t make it right. Doing something to advance your own self-interest is not the same as doing something for unselfish moral reasons. It is conceivable that both of these things might motivate to take the same action, but you are still taking that action for two distinct and separate reasons.

If you take an action the sole purpose of which is to advance your own self interest, your action may well have moral implications, but no morality has affected your motivation. Lack of morality is most emphatically not itself a kind of morality. You don’t seem to understand the difference between moral, immoral, and amoral.

You seem to be saying that when I advocate that government policy in re poverty should be amoral, that I am advocating that something should be forced on someone. Somehow. So I ask you, if I were successful, and the government did not force people to contribute to anti-poverty programs, but let them decide for themselves whether or not to do this, as their own consciences dictated, who exactly would be getting forced to do what?

[erislover]

There may be moral implications in what the government does, but how it spends our money ought to be determined by the consideration of the interests of the nation, not by someone’s idea of moral obligations.

Excuse me, but “the interests of a nation” are a moral consideration. It must be gauged by some standard of how things should be. You might note that how things should be is a moral standard. Your question in the OP, “So, I ask: should the state seek to enforce anyone’s morality through the tax code and/or other economic policy?” is then answered. Yes. Obviously, actually, else the state could not act at all and would not exist. Now THAT’S a topic for another thread.

Try not paying your taxes and see what happens to you.

Well, we’ll see. Tax forms are sitting right in front of me as I type this. :eek:
Me: They are not prohibitive in nature; you: Yes they are. They prohibit monopolies.
No, they don’t. I don’t know ho to make this any more clear than to cite the law itself, but it can be researched easily enough. There is nothing illegal about a monopoly itself. At all.

In the USA, the government does what it does because it is charged with doing so by the Constitution.

Indeed. And a moral standard was used in setting up that constitution, and so a government based on morality and moral actions was made. The End.

[Ace_Face]

*Originally posted by Weird_AL_Einstein *
…collective self interest.

An interesting phrase. What exactly is “collective self interest?” Specifically, how does it differ from majoritarian morality? If a person is revolted by public nudity, then clearly it is in his/her self interest to prevent people from walking around buck nekid. If a majority of Americans oppose public nudity, then isn’t this a “collective self interest”?

What about the biker who refuses to wear a helmet? Is his self interest to wear the helmet and be safer or to not wear the helmet and follow his conscience?

Anti-poverty programs benefit a small subset of the people in the country, not the nation as a whole.
Of course, you could argue, as some do, that anti-poverty programs actually do benefit everyone, as kind of an “insurance policy”, such that these programs are justified by our own self interest, in addition to the moral reasons. But by doing that you are appealing to people’s self-interest, and what we are discussing here is morality. As I said to Kimstu, if you feel anti-poverty programs shouldn’t or can’t be justified by appeals to moral considerations alone, then just say so.

Funny, earlier you admonished us not to say such things here. I agree with Kimstu that anti-poverty programs have important economic justifications.

Irrelevent. The question is, does the state have the right to require participation (by taxation) in federal actions the only (or principal) justification for which is the moral priorities of the majority.

Yes. That’s life in a democratic republic.

However, the only laws/programs/actions I think meet your strict criteria are those involving social prohibitions (public nudity, sodomy), and these don’t involve much, if any, state spending. There really aren’t many laws justifiable on morality alone (I’m ignoring your “or principal justification” waffling, you do want us to stick to your OP, right?).

Even corporate welfare may be justifiable in some cases (perhaps the bailout of Chrysler was). You say you are opposed to it. Really, doesn’t this just devolve into hair-splitting into just how “justifiable” X policy is, and what exactly is “self-interest” vs. “morality”? I don’t see as clear a distinction as you do.

But anyway, to take your bait, let’s assume that morality is the only justification for anti-poverty programs. Is the state justifiable in imposing taxes that reflect “the moral priorities of the majority” to alleviate poverty? Yes. Why? Because we live in a democratic republic, and we accept the rule of the majority, within reason. By “within reason,” I mean such laws should not cause undue physical or economic hardship to any group, no matter what the majority thinks. Though I disagree, the state of South Carolina has a right to pass laws prohibiting sodomy. Those who don’t like it can move to another state, or, better yet, organize their fellow South Carolinians and get the law overturned through the democratic process.

IMO, the hardship, the “coercion” involved in paying a bit extra to support a fellow American on welfare is so minimal that it falls off the scale in comparison with other coercive government activities. Compare this with the coercion involved in sending a poor draftee to fight for his “self interest” in Vietnam.

So there’s a certain arbitrariness, a certain fuzziness, involved. If that’s a little too sloppy for your Libertarian utopia, well, you know what they say about democracy being “the worst system, except for all the others.”
Geez, I always arrive to these debates late.

[Weird_AL_Einstein]

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
**Weird_AL_Einstein **:"<snipped many, many lines of History according to Mandelstam: 101…which were designed, I think, to assert that certain ideas are priveleged because they have been around for a long time…"

Gee, Al, thanks for so entirely missing the point! The idea of thinking about morality in historical terms was to get you to think about how all moral positions (including yours) are subject to historical change.
**

See my argument below.

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
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"institutionalized slavery was around for thousands of years, and accepted by pretty much everyone for most of that time, but that didn’t make it right.

EXACTLY!!! <gives WEA huge congratulatory smack on the back> Exactly right! Slavery was once considered right and is now considered wrong. Morality–our sense of what is right and wrong–develops over time.
**

It seems like once again you are trying to draw me into another GD. You’re like the devil with all these temptations; I shouldn’t be answering this, but frankly my will is weakening.

Our perception of what is right and wrong evolves over time, but what is right or wrong does not. If slavery is wrong at all, it always will be, and it always was. Even when most people thought it was ok. This moral position is not “subject to historical change”.

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
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Most people today continue to believe that slavery is and always was dead wrong–though, at the time, only a small vanguard thought so. They had to try to persuade others, including those with vested interests in slavery, that slavery was wrong. Similarly, most Americans today accept the need for taxation, including the need to use some of that money to provide a social safety net.
**

Yes, well, that will depend somewhat on how you phrase the question in your poll, but never mind that. Are you asserting that if most Americans believe something, it is right? If not, what is your point?

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
**
Me: “When you see taxation as an imposition on you that interferes with your freedom and your rights…”

Al: "I do, but that’s not what we are debating.

Actually, that is extremely relevant to what we’re debating, as was what you, so very kindly, called my “history lesson.” Whether you like it or not, you live in a representative democracy. The majority of people in this country accept taxation of one form or another as a just means of raising revenues for services that are necessary to securing stability for all to enjoy.
**

For the umpteenth time, we are not discussing “services that are necessary to securing stability for all to enjoy”…we are discussing anti-poverty programs, and whether they are justified by appeals to morality alone. For God’s sake man (or woman), focus!

Oh and FTR, I do like it that I live in a representative democracy, and I take…ehhh…mild offense at your subtle implication that I might not.

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
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You have singled out one thing that you don’t like–government spending to alleviate poverty–and have decided that it’s wrong because it depends on a subjective moral position.
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Whoa…is that an admission? Are you saying that government spending to alleviate poverty does in fact “(depend) on a subjective moral position”. I have been trying to get people to concede this just for the sake of argument…

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
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Several people on this thread have tried everything short of a Power Point presentation to show you that every social practice depends on a subjective moral position of some kind.
**

Well perhaps a Power Point presention would enable me to demonstrate to you that this assumption, even if true, has no bearing on the debate. The debate is, should the government force us to engage in a certain specific “social practice”, namely contributing to anti-poverty programs, if the only justification for this is, as you said yourself, a subjective moral position?

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
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Let me try another tack…

One of the problems you’ve been having this discussion is that you’ve been reasoning as though taxation were wholly devoted to anti-poverty programs.
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I most certainly have not been doing any such thing. Where did you get this from?

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
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In actuality, as you may know, only the teeniest amount of your tax dollars are earmarked for this purpose.
**

Ummmmm…yeah. Let’s State Things That Are Obvious. That’s a fun game. My turn now…let’s see. Hmmmm…hey, didja know dairy products come from cows?

I am beginning to despair of ever getting to the point here.

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
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So let me put a set of questions to you that might help you to grasp what has so far eluded you.

Question 1: Which if any of the following services do you consider necessary to your own self-interest:

a) defense of the realm; b) police, judicial system (for the trying of criminals) and prisons; c) oversight of food and water purity; d) monetary policy (setting of interest rates, regulation of the money supply etc.); e) road-building; f) insuring of banks

Question 2: Now, assuming that you have checked even one of these, how do you propose to pay for it without taxation?
**

deep sigh Yes of course I want all those things, though I would only concede that government is absolutely necessary for the first two. Of course I think some kind of taxation is necessary to pay for them. I am beginning to suspect that you are trying to avoid my original questions by hosing me down with endless irrelevancies.

Just as a refresher, my original questions were:

So, I ask: should the state seek to enforce anyone’s morality through the tax code and/or other economic policy? If so, who decides what morality is enforced? Would this be in any way fundamentally different from enforcing morality in non-economic areas, say by forbidding certain sexual practices?

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
**
In the meantime…

Al*“The issue before us is this: We must pay taxes…it’s the law. So should we be forced to pay for things through our taxes, such as anti-poverty programs, that are justified only through appeals to morality (as I assume they are)? I went through your post more than once, and I couldn’t see where you specifically addressed this question.”*

Al, the same question has been answered for you again and again. 1) Anti-poverty programs are not justified “only through appeals to morality.” (Kimstu offered you an economic rationale above, and I tried to explain to you how such programs came to be seen as essential to a stable and functional democracy.)
**

And I already addressed the issue of “economic rationales” for anti-poverty programs, at least twice, and for once I am not going to repeat myself. Go read what I said to Kimstu.

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
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2) Everything–even the idea of eliminating taxation entirely–implies moral grounding of some kind.
**

Now I’m going to give you a quiz, in the form of an essay question. The word “amoral” exists; it is in the dictionary, I just looked it up. Please tell me if this word ever is or can be used to describe any actual phenomenon in the real world and, if it cannot, tell me why it is in the dictionary.

*Originally posted by Mandelstam *
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Like many people, because you take your own morality for granted, you’re not even aware of its existence. As Kimstu said above, if you disagree with government spending to alleviate poverty, you must persuade others that you’re right.
**

Again I must resort to repeating myself, though I will try to introduce some variation on the basic concept. Please tell me how what you said above is fundamentally different from me saying to you: If you disagree with the government giving money to that Reverend Phelps guy and his Westboro Baptist Church, you must persuade others that you’re right. Assuming of course that A) The government were actually doing this and B) The issue of the constitutionality of this had been adjudicated up to the Supreme Court, which ruled it constitutional.

**
[/QUOTE]

[Weird_AL_Einstein]

*Originally posted by erislover *
**WAE
Why do we do anything? Because [blank]. Why is [blank] a reason? Because [blank] makes [blank2] happen. Why do we want [blank2] to happen? Because [blank2] is good.

It is good. We want this to happen because it is good. Why is anything considered good? Because it fits a (moral) system
**

Something can’t be “good” unless it is moral? I beg to differ. I feel very strongly that it would be good if I had a million dollars. Is there any “moral” reason why anyone should give me a million dollars? No.

I am of the considerable opinion that it would be good if Uma Thurman had sex with me. Is Ms. Thurman thus morally obligated to submit to my carnal desires? Certainly not.

*Originally posted by erislover *
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Hume’s Fork is often paraphrased as “No is implies an ought.” As soon as one mentions how something should be, no matter the following justification, we are discussing morality. **

I “should be” living in a mansion with a hot tub, and Uma Thurman “should be” in that hot tub. How does morality figure into this?
Looking back on this post, I see that I have once again succumbed to temptation. To get back on topic, I reiterate what I said in a previous post: We have a national defense that prevents the Canadian Hordes from swooping down on us, because it is a “good thing” not to be swooped down upon by any Horde, Canadian or other. That this is a “good thing” is not a moral consideration, it is a consideration of our own interests.