McCain vs. Obama on Healthcare

Here is a very informative article written by the CATO Institute comparing the two presidential candidates' healthcare proposals.

Legislating Morality

Many people have used the phrase in political debate that one should not legislate morality. However, this claim is false and not coherent. We will see why below.

"One should not legislate morality"

It is important to see what those who are against 'legislating morality' are claiming to be against. People who are against 'legislating morality' often point to laws that go too far and do not respect people's privacy. A law against homosexuality would be 'legislating morality' since sexual orientation, as long as it's not harming others, should be a private matter. The government should not be ignoring people's right to privacy. The argument can also be extended to many other examples.

However, one must note the presence of the clause "as long as it's not harming others." What is the justification for this clause? Also, how does one say "The government should not be ignoring people's right to privacy?"

The justification of any law must come from morality. If one shows that, without a given law, many people would be hurt only proves it is a just law if it is morally required that we care about other people's suffering. The same can be said about any other justification of a law. Adding the phrase "as long as no harm is done to others" presumes that morality demands that we care about harming others.

So, when one is talking about what the law ought to say, one has no other choice but to resort to morality. Realizing this makes the statement "The law ought not legislate morality" very puzzling since the phrase "ought" is in there. If that is a 'moral' ought then one is equivalently saying, "Morality demands that we do not legislate morality."

Clearly, something has gone wrong here. If we can't legislate morality, then what morality demands would be irrelevant. We wouldn't be able to use morality to show morality can't be legislated.

In order to legislate morality, one need not argue that since an act is wrong, it must be legislated against. There are many competing issues when determining what acts to legislate against. An act would have to be immoral but we also have to consider if, in policing the act, we are violating people's rights. One of these rights is a right to privacy. Surely, this right can be overridden if the act is terrible enough. These are things that must be weighed. Surely, no one is arguing that one should make all immoral acts illegal.

Morality provides a framework to weigh competing considerations. Without morality, you cannot weigh these considerations at all to determine what acts one should legislate against.

Conclusion

Clearly, one has to legislate morality. The phrase "One ought not legislate morality" is a confused one and is surely false. For another person expressing the same viewpoint, see Alonzo's post here.