Morality should be legislated

Pro's response to my argument is rather interesting. He claims that government should be based on some moral principle. This is not what the resolution states. Let's take a look at the resolution. "Morality should be legislated." Now, pro has given us a nice definition of morality as beliefs about right and wrong behaviour. With this in mind, there are two ways to interpret the resolution. The first is that people's beliefs about right and wrong should be legislated. I believe this is not what pro is going for, as he states, "His point seems to be only that the government should not dictate morality. To which I respond, Yes (sic)." The second interpretation is that beliefs about what is morally wrong should be codified into illegal behaviour. This is what I was aiming at. Violating the NAP is a sufficient but not necessary qualification for being immoral. In other words, an action that aggresses against a person or his property is immoral, but not all immoral actions necessarily do this. My point is that our laws shouldn't be based on whether society thinks an action is right or wrong, but by whether the action violates certain fundamental rights, as I laid down in my last argument. Clearly, legislating a belief about right and wrong, the literal interpretation of the resolution, is not the role of government. The second interpretation, which is that being immoral qualifies an action to become illegal, also goes against the proper role of government. Pro is trying to spin the resolution in a somewhat misleading way. His interpretation seems to be, "we should make laws based upon our understanding of what is right and what is wrong." This is obviously rather vague, so some clarification would be welcome. If pro is going for something like "laws should be loosely based on some moral principle," then he is distorting the resolution and not interpreting it in the most natural way. I would like to ask pro a very specific question. Under your system, does being immoral qualify an action to be illegal, or not? Also, what is your justification for the existence of a government in the first place? Please elaborate on your reasoning. The reason I ask for a justification for the existence of the government is that legislation cannot even occur if government itself is illegitimate. Pro does give a somewhat troubling statement which I would like to look at. "The people, through their elected representatives, should be the cause of morality-based legislation." Let's say we pick a state in the Bible Belt, where about 3/5ths believe in young earth creationism, [1] and let's hypothetically say that they found the teaching of evolution to the pure, innocent, defenseless minds of children to be immoral and passed a law banning evolution in any school teaching minors. According to pro, this would be "The people, through their elected representatives, (being) the cause of morality-based legislation," and their actions would be legitimate. This is highly troubling to me to think that a government can, supposedly legitimately, enforce the beliefs of the majority, which in this example were false [2], on everybody by making them comply with the use of force. Finally, remember the BOP is on pro. He must do more than claim "it should be obvious" that the resolution is true; he must demonstrate its truth. Good luck in the next round. Sources 1- http://ncse.com... 2- Science and Creationism A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition. S.l.: S.n., 1999. Print.