Law and Morality
one
One of the strangest things you hear today is that you shouldn’t “legislate morality,” or that our laws shouldn’t “impose morality.”
a. People who say that clearly don’t know what the law is, or why we have civil laws in the first place.
i. They probably don’t know what morality is either.
b. So let’s make it really clear:
i. Morality is just our insights about what’s good for people, and what’s bad for people
1. For instance, our moral insight tells us that murder and bigotry and sexual objectification and sickness and hate are not good things.
2. And that cooperation and friendship and family and cultural enrichment are good things.
ii. And then civil law is just our strategy, as a society, for doing our best to reasonably limit bad things like hate and murder and bigotry and needless tragedy; and to reasonably promote good things like employment and safety and transportation and health.
c. So, for instance, take our highways.
i. It’s a basic moral insight that mobility transportation – being able to visit and trade with people from far away – is something that’s generally good for people. So all advanced societies have laws about how to build and maintain roads.
ii. And it’s also a basic moral insight that deaths from car crashes are bad for people. So we also have traffic safety laws.
d. Again, morality just means our convictions about what’s good for people and not good for people – and laws are just an attempt to put those convictions into practice by promoting good things and limiting bad things.
two
Not religious
a. Notice too that you don’t have to be a Christian to have moral convictions. Everybody can see that certain things are good for people and certain things are bad for people.
i. Everybody knows that eating rocks isn’t good for people; neither is ignorant prejudice. Neither are mass murders or store-looters.
b. St. Paul says that even the pagans have a moral law written on their hearts. That just means that God has given all of us at least some insight into what’s good for people and bad for people.
i. And part of being human means trying to live according to our moral insights as individuals, but also making sure our laws express these truths about the human condition – about promoting what’s good for us and trying to limit what’s bad for us. That’s the only way we can be not only moral individuals, but also a just society.
three
Freedom can’t be the only, or even the ultimate standard for our laws.
a. Some people think that the ultimate purpose of society is freedom. And while it’s true that freedom is very important to a society, it can never be the ultimate end of anything.
i. Imagine a child and his father are at a hardware store, and the child looks at a hammer and says, “What’s that for?” and at a screwdriver and says, “What’s that for?” and at a saw and says, “What’s that for?” and to each question, the dad replies, “It’s for freedom, son.”
1. Well, eventually the kid is going to figure out that the dad has no idea what any of these tools are for.
2. So with us. When we act like the ultimate purpose of individual life or even our societal life is just freedom, it’s a sign we don’t know what our purpose actually is.
b. The purpose of individual life is happiness and virtue. The purpose of life isn’t to be free – it’s to be good. And freedom is simply one of the important conditions of the good life – it’s not the good life itself.
i. So too, society must seek to provide a free space for individuals to make their own decisions – but always within the limitations of the goal of promoting a more virtuous society.
1. Go back to roads – people should be free to make their own driving decisions – but only within the limits of the traffic laws.
a. Otherwise the road can’t fulfill its purpose – everybody would simply crash into everybody else and no one would be free to get where they wanted to go.
b. Ironically, a society that makes freedom the ultimate standard doesn’t even get freedom – it just gets chaos.
four
We can only settle debates about freedom by convictions about good
a. The other problem with making freedom the ultimate good of society, or the ultimate standard for all our laws, is this: how do you judge between competing kinds of freedom?
i. For instance, whose freedom should win?
1. My neighbor’s freedom to use his leaf-blower on a Sunday morning, or my freedom to enjoy my morning coffee in peace and quiet on my patio?
ii. Whose freedom should win?
1. An individual’s freedom to live where they wish?
2. Or a nations freedom to regulate their borders?
iii. Whose freedom should win?
1. A doctor’s freedom to cut a child in the womb to pieces?
2. Or a child in the womb’s freedom to exist without being violently assaulted?
b. We can’t just go around saying we’re “pro-freedom” “pro-choice.” We have to make decisions – and we have to make laws – about what kind of freedoms are the most important.
i. And that can only be based on our insights into the human condition. That can only be based on being people of moral conviction.
five
One last point: don’t forget that an appeal to moral truth – the appeal to what is really right and what isn’t – is the only defense the weak have against the strong.
a. If you get rid of morality – if you say that laws are just about letting everybody do their own thing – then you are giving the powerful carte blanche to do whatever they want to the vulnerable members of our community.
i. Then the laws become an instrument of oppression – they become another tool by which the mighty, or the numerous, or the rich – or those who are already born – simply exploit and violate the few, the poor, the weak and the unborn.
b. If our laws aren’t based on what we know is morally just, then we won’t have just laws. Then we won’t have a just society.
i. Don’t give into the cowardice of pretending not to have any moral convictions when the time for political action comes.
ii. God has written a law on our hearts. We know right from wrong. If that isn’t expressed in the laws we enact as a society, then we’ll have to answer to Him.