Those should all be fully informed conscience
Accepted. I was kind of disappointed, though; philosophically and rhetorically, I thought that your denial of the possibility of discussion was far and away the most interesting part of the OP.
If it were discovered that the majority of people were morally opposed to the statement “The government is responsible for enforcing the citizen’s moral code”, surely this should make any law against prostitution that was based on it being immoral illegal?
I find the idea of a government legislating morality to be dangerous. If, for example, Iran decided thatIf it were discovered that the majority of people were morally opposed to the statement “The government is responsible for enforcing the citizen’s moral code”, surely this should make any law against prostitution that was based on it being immoral illegal?
I find the idea of a government legislating morality to be dangerous. If, for example, Iran decided that Christianity was immoral, a view that was supported by a majority, and that all practitioners were to be arrested can you honestly say you would support this action? While you can certainly argue that you yourself do not find Christianity immoral and do find prostitution immoral, surely you see the danger with majority morality enforcement?
I would prefer the system to only take into account behavior that causes others harm or is necessary for the successful running of society (for example, income tax regulation and “everyone must drive on the right”).
I could certainly be persuaded to make prostitution illegal based on factors such as it would be impractical to prevent people being abused by other people in the industry. If, in effect, there is slavery involved this is a critical problem that must be resolved. I would rather people’s right to engage in transactional sex be curtailed than to allow the slavery. But I could not be persuaded to make prostitution illegal because people believe that the free exchange of money for sex is immoral.
Christianity
What’s persuasive?
What argument?
If your claim is that prostitution is illegal in this country because most people think it’s immoral, then, um, sure. If your claim is that the legal process has worked as it’s intended in this case, then you similarly have no complaint from me. I thought I made that clear.
However, the fact that the legal process worked as intended does not indicate that it made the right decision. As I said, it’s a flawed process compared to the Daniel Rules the World process, with the sole advantage of other people are bizarrely more willing to accept it (well, I guess that advantage, plus the Fewer Headaches for Daniel advantage).
Morality and law nod at each other in the hallway, but they don’t share a bed, and it’s a mistake to think otherwise.
Daniel
So, if you want to actually have a debate, as posting in GD would imply, then you at least need to do some work to convince other people. For instance, I’d think that most people could get behind the objective metric that doing harm to another human being is wrong. (Excluding some exceptions where that person wants harm done to them like at a BDSM-and-Yahtzee-a-go-go club.)
So, for instance, you could make the claim that prostitution is inherently harmful. I wouldn’t agree, but we could at least debate that position. But as you’ve set this discussion up, it pretty much boils down to “I’m right because I say I’m right and a bunch of people agree with me.” Not much to debate there.
Well, you can, but you’d have better luck doing so with a brick wall than the Doper community.
You haven’t really supported either of your positions; that majority equals morality, that morality equals law.
Why? The only reason you couldn’t respond is if you really did start this thread in bad faith. I’m not assuming that, but I do believe your contradictions are fair game. No?
But it does indeed seem that you’re free to discuss what you believe. So the contradictions which are evident in your stated beliefs should be a valid topic, yes?
I think that despite the trainwreck nature of this thread so far it has the possiblity to really be a great thread. I mean, the interplay between law and morality is fascinating to me, especially where the majority is concerned. Although a nation’s leaders have an obligation to carry out the will of the people, sometimes they also have the obligation to act against it to protect individuals. Maybe you can discuss your reasons for governing the country based on morality, whose morality it should be, why, and what the law should do with respect to morality and most importantly, why.
As pointed out, many people in this country consider many things immoral. After 9/11 many people considered criticism of the chief executive to be immoral, should that have been criminalized? Many people consider atheism immoral, should everybody be legally required to have a religion? Many people consider pornography immoral, should that be illegal? Etc…
Should the law be guided by a set of firm axioms (eg. harm no other human being unless they are an adult and consent, do not harm or take anybody else’s property, etc…), or should it be based on the majority? If the majority of this country decided that Protestanism was moral and that Catholicism was immoral, would you support a purge on Catholics?
I believe that law should be limited to the minimum necessary to prevent disorder, provide for the common defense, and keep the peace.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=6912024&postcount=50
was the actual form of my argument, and I’d like it examined in that manner, Bricker. I do not feel that morality should be legislated, as that becomes a question of ‘whose morality?’ Like abortion, any issue of morality that is legislated, will be a point of disagreement. In short, I find those laws unnecessary, as those who would be affected by them, should obey them without a law. Those who do not find it immoral are unduly affected by the law.
The closest a law should get to morality is the subject of coercion. It should level the field, rather than eliminate it.
I do not buy your notion that the proposition that “prostitution is immoral” is monolithically accepted among a majority of people. I believe that there is a growing number of Americans who have given up the whole Great Sky Fairy schtick that you accept. A minority of those who have done so, have done so consciously and knowingly, and they call themselves atheists and agnotics. The vast majority of those who have done so still call themselves Christians, but their Christianity is just a shell covering their core beliefs, which is that Christianity is just a brand of malarkey that people tell themselves to remain happy. They haven’t thought this out, because they’re not in the habit of thinking things out, and besides, if they did, they might have to face social pressure from friends and family and co-workers.
But still, they vote for secular ideas, buy the services of prostitutes, go to strip clubs, drink, etc., because they don’t really believe in Christianity. They may think of themselves as “weak sinners” but in fact they are just adrift between the very evident falsity of Christian superstitions and the reality of the world around them.
The reason there is a debate, and should be a debate, over prostitution and other such moral values is that there’s a very real conflict between the morality of the devout and the morality of secular types and the non-devout. The devout use every trick in the book to avoid such debates, or to gframe them in terms that will give them an unassailable advantage, because they know that if they have to deend on logic and reality, they will lose. There is no evidence for God or Jesus or any other supernatural phenomena, and morality that are based on these are bound to be false.
And the prospect that really frightens the devout has nothing to do with the spiritual health of atheists and agnostics, it’s that the scales will fall from the eyes of the non-devout here in America, as has happened increasingly in Europe.
Thus, there are more than ample grounds fo a debate on the morality of prostitution, your presumptive overwhelming majority notwithstanding.
By the way, I was curious and went looking for some data.
The magazine isn’t porn, but it does have a somewhat racy graphic on the web page in question. Possibly not safe for work. It’s also definitely not a highly rigerous poll by any means, but ah well.
[
](http://www.mensfitness.com/sex/34)
But that’s not the point, really. We can get other results in different polls like:
[
](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3613217.stm)
Should the world break the US up into seperate UN controlled states and destroy the global economy? After all, a majority support it…
Bolding added. Cite.
Enjoy,
Steven
(Having only skimmed the 4 pages to date) I do not consider prostitution to be immoral. In fact, I think that Amsterdam is highly civilised and morally superior.
OK.
Without replying individually to the several posts above that have made varying versions of this point:
It seems clear that merely asserting immorality, even if I can also show public support for the idea that the immorality exists, is insufficient to pass a criminal law.
I now accept that.
So now the question becomes: what should we rely on? I do not believe we can simply ignore the majority view; after all, we live in a representative democracy. It must have some meaning.
So let’s hear it. Several posts above advance a very libertarian view of how law should be made. I would like to point out that most American do not seem to want to adopt such strong libertarian views. If you contend they should nonetheless be adopted, how would you address the tension between what you want and what the majority wants?
In other words: if you advocate adopting something the majority does not support, and I advocate adopting something the majority does support, why should your way be followed? In other threads, I’ve been criticized for being too legalistic, so I’m going to try mightily to resist the temptation of referring conclusively to HOW laws are made, and ask instead WHY particular laws should be adopted, especially those not garnering majority support.
I really think you’re making htis more complicated than necessary. Our system has to work by majority support, but opinions on issues are not set in stone: people change their minds. When I advocate adopting something the majority does not support, my goal is really to change enough minds so that the majority DOES support my position.
If you hear my position, and your thought on the issue ends with, “Yeah, but that’s a minority position,” then you’re doing yourself and your society a disservice. Whether a position is majority or minority should have no effect on whether you adopt it as yours; and if you do adopt it as yours, that’s one person closer to its being a majority position.
Daniel
I am shocked, *shocked * to find out the debate is not really about prostitution.
Nor do we live in a false democracy. I consider that a true democracy (especially one in which church and state are separated by some written consitution, however outdated written constitutions might eventually become) is necessarily socially liberal in that it carefully weighs the reasons for actively prohibiting a particular act, given the vast time effort and expense such prohibition entails. Only in those instances where the demonstrable harm clearly outweighs such abridgement of freedom and personal liberty does an industrialised democracy call such acts “crimes”.
Put simply, in matters of social liberty, my reading of the general principles common to modern democracies suggest that the benefit of any doubt ought to be given to the anti-prohibition side. In the case of prostitution, I believe that the electorate has not yet caught up with the venerable Mill (b. 1806). (There are, of course, issues in which I consider that US law’s refusal to abridge a personal freedom results in what I consider to be very weighty demonstrable harm, eg. handguns outside of designated, secure ranges.)
Unfortunately, a lot of people do think like that. Mrs. Evil Captor still recalls with disgust a political discussion she had that ended when the guy said, “Why should I vote for him? He’s going to lose.” As if the object of an election were to guess who the winner is and vote for him. Very 1984.
So… no matter what rhetortic is employed against a given proposition, the only real meaning of it is to convince the majority to adopt an alternate proposal?
Even if someone says, for example, that they don’t care if the majority supports it and the issue of gaining majority support is irrelevant to their argument… you’re contending that nonetheless, their argument is designed to garner majority support?
What are you talking about? That’s exactly what this is about. It wasn’t my idea to enlarge the scope. Read the thread. Other people introduced more general “some if ANYTHING is immoral, it should be illegal?” questions. I framed this debate as about prostitution. Others expanded it. I’d be perfectly happy to contract it again. Don’t put the onus of subject change on me.
Who is the authority on what counts as “demontrable harm”?
Perfect example. You would judge that handguns outside of designated, secure ranges create “demonstrable harm”. I allege that legal prostitution would create “demonstrable harm”. What person or body evaluates the “demonstrable harm” standard and decides what is and is not “demonstrable harm?”
I think that allowing the moral view to dictate the law is a dangerous course to take, is prostitution immoral, i think not, is using one i think so Here in the UK we have a huge problem of people trafficking for the purpose of prostitution, to outlaw it would be to drive it further into the hands of the criminal element. to legalise it is to control it. Law should be made in the cold light of day and take the practicalities into account no matter how distasteful some of the electorate find it.
Er, Bill Bennett doesn’t patronize prostitutes?
What do I win, Alex?