Morality should be legislated

Why morality should be legislated: Morality is belief in right and wrong, what SHOULD BE allowed or tolerated and what should not be, what is a liberty and what is not, as well as what is justice. This follows from the definition. If you believe something is "wrong" enough, you will want all practice of it outlawed. Laws should be just. That is obvious. We cannot get just laws without morality, as justice is a function, or component, of morality. Morality is therefore necessary and vital to the making of laws. All that remains is to decide whose morality should be legislated and how it should be done so. Con hasn't really provided an adequate rebuttal. All he posits is that HIS specific set of beliefs about what is just (the NAP) are better than all others. " "Today homosexuality is legal not because people have decided not to legislate morality but because they have decided homosexuality is not really wrong." Pro has essentially implied that if homosexuality were wrong, it should be illegal. However, as homosexuality is not in violation of the nonaggression principle, it should be legal regardless of whether it is right or wrong. I, for one, believe homosexual acts are morally wrong, but I have admitted they should not be illegal. Homosexuality is legal (in some places) because of two factors: some people have decided it's not wrong, and some have decided not to legislate morality. " The confusion in this debate is derived from Pro's arbitrary demarcation between what is JUST and what is RIGHT. Pro believes homosexuality is wrong, but that allowing it is just. Hence, he believes that criminalizing homosexuality would be, in at least some sense, wrong, whether the reason he gives is compliance with the NAP, the pointlessness of enforcement, or belief in the principles of liberty. It therefore follows that morality is still being legislated even under this philosophy. Pro believes the nonagression principle to be the (moral) foundation of legislative justice and will therefore denounce any violation as unjust, but this obviously does not mean he is not legislating morality. He is! CON: "Now, I want to clear up any misconceptions about evolution. By not banning the teaching of evolution, I am not enforcing my morality on others. It's that simple. Pro claims, "In some instances (banning the teaching of evolution) may be fair, in some instances it may be unfair." This harkens back to my point about pro having no objective standard. It is absolutely unfair for the government to ban the teaching of evolution. This is an objective, not a subjective, statement. Pro cannot say whether it is fair or unfair because he lacks an objective standard for government. He is like a Sophist from the time of Socrates, not being able to come to an objective conclusion based on sound reasoning from first principles." What is my objective standard? The liberty that people should possess to govern themselves. If 99% of the population of Georgia doesn't want their children "indoctrinated" with evolutionary teaching, why shouldn't their will be enforced? If you, as the dictator, king, judge, or whatever you want to call yourself, forbid such a legislative measure, you are legislating your morality (that such a law would not be "just" according to the NAP) over the morality of 9,717,059 others. For some reason that looks suspiciously like tyranny to me. Unfortunately, this type of government (any form of democracy) will only work with a fairly moral people, but I still prefer it to a "benevolent monarchy" or a judicial dictatorship, as those are far more prey to unjust results. Even if the king was pretty much spot-on in his CON: "The justification for government is that people constantly use force against each other, and that there must be some protection from this abuse of force." Quite an emphasis on force in this debate. Is theft not wrong if it isn't done forcefully? Is deception regarding certain important issues not illegal, and rightfully so? As I pointed out earlier (Con didn't respond), the NAP cannot address breaches of civil contracts. Under the NAP such would not be illegal. " Crafting a government based on the NAP is not legislating morality but protecting rights." Crafting a government based on the NAP must come about as a result of believing that protecting rights is important and that a government that neglected, or at least encroached upon, others' rights would be doing something "wrong" or at least unjust. As I showed earlier, perceptions of injustice follow from perceptions of morality, so the distinction shouldn't be important. If there is nothing inherently "right" about rights (conduct point for pun, please!), then why should we protect them? "Reason and libertarianism provide an objective standard for the role of government. Pro's assertion that the "inner compass of general humanity" is the standard by which government should be run provides a subjective, extremely and deliberately vague means of determining the proper role of government." Otherwise known as "a democratic society." I still maintain that a bottom-up democratic process is better than a top-down intellectual elitist process. The NAP's guidelines against "force" would require a great deal of interpretation and would be quite vague at least in practice. Let's define "force." If my neighbor climbs into my car while it is running and drives off, has he used force? The whole top-v.-bottom debate is irrelevant, though, as legislating either system is to legislate a system of morality. " Pro has failed to provided an objective justification for the existence of a government, much less that government must dictate morality to its citizens, as pro must show."