Law and how it fits in Abolute Moralities

This is a great Debate between Discrete and purpledawn

This thread is an outgrowth of two threads (possibly more) Morality and Subjectivity threads that RobinRohan proposed and the Atheism, Regimes and Belief Systems thread by Supernintendo Chalmers.Background: One of the difficulties I found in reading the pair of threads is that there was a lack of common ground in three important concepts of Law, Morality, and Justice. I specifically feel that as the threads progressed the discussion turned to morale quandaries that people would not traditionally encounter such as giving killers information that you didn’t know were killers at the time, which were posts that did nothing to further the thread discussion.Immediate Goal: My goal is to try and generate a discussion about Law and what it is. Furthermore I would like to try and examine the impact law has on people in a society, by discussing the various functions Law serves in society as well as how it affects individuals and groups. Here are some initial questions we can discuss, but the discussion is not limited to these:What is law?
-is it a series of rules made by the government to safeguard individuals from society, to safeguard society from individuals, a combination of both, a convoluted way to secure ruling class power, a method to safeguard poor people, a way to prevent radical changes from occurring at once or something completely different?How does law affect individuals and societies as a whole?
-is law present to promote general societal welfare in things like public education or is it to promote individuals over the whole? Or is there a different interpretation available?How is law made?Who makes law?(In these series of questions if, we go toward them, a description of positive, neutral and negative should be brought forth by the poster, and i don't particularly mind what postive, neutral and negative are so long as it is justified and clarified if needed)What are some positive impacts of law?
What are some neutral impacts of law?
What are some negative impacts of law?Long-term Goal: The overall intent of this particular thread is to establish a foundation for a discussion of morality, then justice and ultimately try and discuss the idea and function of an absolute morality.Notes: I request that this thread be placed in the Showcase forum. As well as a side thread opened for commentary (in social issues and creation/evolution) for the reason to provide a place for others that are interested in the topic to post.For Interested Parties:
If other parties express interest in contributing I’d recommend putting up your question in the side thread as well as your overall goal for the question since a goal can provide an idea of how to approach the question.Promoted to Great Debate by AdminJarEdited by AdminJar, : general promotion noticeEdited by Discreet Label, : It was a recommended topic name change so others interested in the topic can find similiar information related to the thread.

This is a great Debate between Discreet and purpledawn

Okay honestly I have no idea what I am doing so bear with me. I think my first post pretty well lays out my agenda, but if your having trouble with it ask for clarification. I don't think its layout is at all similiar to other threads so its alright to ask. So might as well talk about the first question.So what is law? (we are ignoring those questions that came afterwards because i think it sorta touching on what the function of law is)So when I think of law what comes to first mind is the notion that laws are made and created such that people can live and work together. By this i mean that when you want to communicate with someone you follow a proscribed set of actions and rules such as grammar and syntax to appropriately communicate your ideas and yourself to another person. Or i think about modern laws about the environment and how much someone can polute or the penalities for murder and public drunkeness.So basically for the sum of it. I feel that laws in general are a series of rules of conduct that are either officially, unoffically agreed upon by people entering into a particular culture. That need to be learned for a person to manuever their way through life and get along with people.So i guess this is the start, what do you think? and is there anything you want to expand on or want to bridge into?(oh and its alright if responses are slow i understand how time can be a problem and that life can get busy)

This is a great Debate between Discreet and purpledawn

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So what is law?

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I'm still here. I'm trying to figure out how to respond in a manner that will best promote the topic. So i'll probably be posting over the weekend. (no need to respond) just telling you what is happening.

This is a great Debate between Discreet and purpledawn

Sorry about the delay. It took a very long to think of ways that could open up the discussion. And now to start:I definetly agree with the majority of your post though I have two questions.

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Laws also provide protection. This can be illustrated by our own "Wild West". As the pioneers moved west and people settled, creating small towns, peaceful people needed some sort of protection from those that wished to steal and kill. From what I remember of history, laws seemed to come in later as the town formed.

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So from here you point out that laws can serve to protect. I certaintly agree but at the same time what are laws protecting? For example 1860s at the end of the reconstruction era in the U.S. (I don't know how many) but many Southern states passed several Jim Crow Laws that were meant to protect White people from their former Black slaves through a systematic stifling of Black people's political power. So in this instance a question arises of how law is applied.

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Here recently in Carmel, Indiana, a speed limit was established for the Monon Trail. What used to be primarily a bicycle trail, is now used more and more by pedestrians. So now speeding cyclists became a hazard to walkers and a new rule is needed.

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IMO, most laws develop from the needs of the civilization.

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The second question arising out of your post is who, what and how are the needs of a civilization determined? To contribute, in this particular case pedestraians were the who, what was causing the problem was the dangers of cyclists and the law was created through the petition of local government by the pedestrians(i'd assume local government made the law as I don't know how exactly this was decided).But in other cases are the who, what and how as clear cut? Harkening back to the Jim Crow Laws, the people who decided to create these laws were definetly not the majority of the population (as the majority in the southern states were black at about this time i think). What caused the laws to be created was not so clear cut either, it could be attributed to trying to maintain the socioeconomic climate in the South, to "safeguard" black people from themselves in some of the more 'charitable' minds of politicians, or any other number of things. How it was created was also through local government and in some cases state, but in these particular cases it was circumventing and outright breaking of higher federal laws.Lastly as I was reading your post I recognized that we are looking at what law is, which is not necessairly the best method. Because people can usually agree about what law is. So I propose to also look at what law is not. For example law is not 'moral'. By that I mean you can have 'moral' laws and its intent can be 'moral' but the law itself is not moral, what IS moral is what people do with it.Law is also not preemptive. Laws can not be made for situations that had yet to occur. Civilizations I don't think can make laws in such a way to consider and 'protect' against situations that have not been created or even thought of.Course law is also not a bunch of other things but I think this is enough for a single post.Edited by Discreet Label, : Lost half the post due to bad formating

This is a great Debate between Discreet and purpledawn

I think you've been pretty on topic to the posts so definetly no harm there.

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Laws in and of themselves are not moral as you can see by the definition again. I brought up the protection from outlaws aspect and you brought up the Jim Crow Laws (which I had forgotten about), which shows that laws aren't always based on what we consider today to be right and wrong, but then the attitudes were different then. They probably thought it was the right thing to do. People want protection from what they fear.

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In this particular case, as you bring up later in the post, I would point out that its more those that possess or are percieved to have power that are the ones that are afraid. People that lack power, have no power to make the rules thus can not really do anything.And also to carry the statement further, I think, there is a correalation that those that hold the power, at which point then make the needs of the civilization. For example consider 1984 where those in power of oceania, the oriental one and the third one (can't remember the names) where warfare and murder were the norm, situations that were traditionally non-beneficial. However, the higher ups translated the warfare, and excess capapcity of the industralized civilizations preventing anyone from outside of the party to gain power as well as keeping the 'citizens' at a low level of awareness. And through this a balance of power was maintained through the three competeting super powers, and the smarter people who began to question and feel were occuppied by the rules governing the party... (i'm not sure how coherrant that was). And 1984 is about alot of things, so do say if you think this might not be acceptable to discuss.

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The thread that just started concerning the Leviticus laws brought this to mind. Maybe one way to go at this is to look at laws from the past and then some in our own lifetime to see what they might have been based on. Even looking at laws that have become obsolete. What were the moralities or needs of the time? What laws tend to stick around through time? Do not murder seems to be consistent through time, but then again in our own countries history it depended on who was killed whether the law was enforced. Whites killing Indians or Blacks, not enforced, but if they killed Whites, yet it was enforced. So it was relative to who had the power to enforce. Even the rules in the OT were relative to whether you were a Hebrew or not.

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I don't know whether or not we want to go on a tangent. But something to maybe consider at a later point ideally what do laws do, what kind of social circumstance would make complete obeying of the law possible, as well as similiar idealized questions.So yes a number of the points you have brought up about how law changes over time pose a very interesting line of discussion. Since i'm not exactly sure how you would want to talk about them would you like to propose some ways to tackle them?I can propose a few that might be interesting to discuss. Like the history of alcohol in America. Its pretty strange how we get here, we love booze, then 1920ish roles around theres a massive backlash about usage, now its the recreation drug of under 20s..?

Didn't forget or get bored, I've been trying to collect thoughts, I will try and reply within the week. (last week and the two weeks before between finals, placement tests for transfer and the fact that we had to run our professor's lab and develop a new line of experiments, as well as the steep learning curve associated with learning the overall project, precluded err any useful thought about laws and morality)

So we've been participating in the Absolute Morality...Again. Something that has continuously come up in that thread is that Laws since they are derived out of Moral principals must be Moral unto themselves.I would question this because, i think, when something becomes codified into law. Following the actions of the laws then becomes not moral the primary reason becomes lawful. The hardest thing in accepting is that I feel that moral actions and stances should be intrinsically arrived at not coerced. Moral action should be done for the sake of its value instead of legislated upon IMO when it becomes legislated morality then losses all meaning because morale actions then become actions that must be followed instead of freely done.Theres more we can discuss but right now I'm not exactly sure where this will go.

Top down legislation of employment practices to generate 'equity' in employment. I have difficulty with that in particular because it creates a situation that is unhealthy for a company or public instituition. Employment and hiring of people should not be based on ethnicity but the skills they demonstrate they can bring to the job. I've had a run in on this particluar subject at a prior college because they were hiring instructors of math that couldn't solve basic trignometry etc. Preffrence of ethnicity over ability to teach has created a dangerous environment on the math side of the campus because students that pass and move on to a university (was located at a community college) are inadequately prepared and in some cases are either forced to come back or forced to retake a number of past courses. I see that as legislated morality because hiring people should not even focus on ethnic at all but the skills and qualifications a person has for the job they are supposed to do. (Thing is that I am affected by this policy as well because i'm categorized as a minority. So I am in the position of recieving a higher status in college apps then other groups when my skills as a student may not necessairly be as good as one who may be ranked lower then me.) This particular legislation has forced me into my own moral quandry.Another couple pieces of legislation are ones that completely deny vices such as alchohol like dry counties and or prostituition (one of the oldest trades in human history). I personally don't agree with prostituition but its up to the individual. Another one is word censorship basically legislation of proper language. Instead of the maker being responsible for their own actions you've a second party investigating prior to. Responsibility and morality should be done by the people doing what they are doing, not necessairly by second party. I mean if the group wants a second party to temper what they are creating then go hire a person to do that and help you consider the impacts of programming. I'm not sure how I am equating moral with good or even what good is for that matter. But i'm starting to see how it is because i'm trying to figure out a way to rexplain my position and it always comes back down to making decisions that take into consideration all parties that are involved and how the decision will influence the other parties.

I'm not certain I meant inborn. To my understanding intrinsic means for the sake of doing it. For example there is an intrinsic value in learning about chemistry for the sake of chemistry. Like some people cook for the sake of cooking, the intrinsic value is inherent in the process of doing them.So as applied to moral decisions. Moral decisions should be made for the sake of making them not because there is an external factor involved saying that this is the decision you must make. It was a good idea, but approached in the wrong manner in my honest opinion. Realistically it should of tackled the problem from bottom up vs top down. You continually introduce and phase everything in over a span of time. Poltically speaking that kind of phase in would of taken time and been politcal suicide because they would of sad you were doing it to slowly. But the phase in process of combining schools from the first grade present at the school and then moving upward would have potentially made the switch a great deal easier for people to get used to. In example a three year school would take three years to become completely integrated. Or something like that.One of the other problems is that tossing everyone together without any warning caused huge reprecussions in the educational system because of the differences in educational backgrounds in terms of what was actually learned. As black schools were definietly not on par with white schools due to funding issues. Basically what would of been best for the school system would have been to slowly integrate and continually do so to best understand what level everyone was coming from and be able to get everyone and maintain the level of educaiton. Not to sure. California atm has relaxed it and started only using ethnicity for statistical reasons and removed the prefrence portion (UC and CSU). But i'm not sure about other states, so when i do go to another state and i mark my ethnicity, or even if they look at my last name they will either note that i'm asian or from my name hispanic. So either way i'm a minority. One case an educated minority in the other case i'm a traditionally under represented minority (based on name).Same here for micromanaging. Its impossible to do, its akin to attmepting to control what everyone thinks all the time. Its pretty much a waste of resources, because it becomes akin to a police state the more and more everything is controlled...Sorry for rushed post i've an ethics seminar to attend.

It is if you discount the bad 80's video clips and movies, as well as the even worse acting and yet worse stereotyping. All the people making bad ethical decision were played by black characters.