News Could the Women's March Trigger a Global Movement for Rights?

[StatGuy2000]

You didn't answer my question. I know murder is illegal (by definition): I asked if you think murder is immoral.

Definition/word switch problem notwithstanding: I used the word "murder" and you substituted the word "kill". There is no context confusion: I meant murder.

The problem here is that "murder" is a legal term, not a moral term. I substituted the word "kill" because whether someone committed murder is up to the legal system to deal with. As I stated earlier, there are circumstances when it is perfectly justified for an individual to kill another individual (e.g. in self-defense). Such an individual could still be charged with murder, so it is up to the courts to determine whether that charge essentially "sticks" (through dismissal by judge, through acquittal by the jury, etc.)

 

[russ_watters]

The problem here is that "murder" is a legal term, not a moral term.

So what? Are you saying there is no context where you would describe murder/killing as "immoral"?

I substituted the word "kill" because whether someone committed murder is up to the legal system to deal with. As I stated earlier, there are circumstances when it is perfectly justified for an individual to kill another individual (e.g. in self-defense).

1. We're discussing the legal system, that's why we need to use the legal word.
2. I'm asking about your view of unjustified killing, which is why bringing up justified killing is inappropriate.

It's really a simple question, StatGuy. If the answer is that you don't believe such an animal as "morality" even exists, so be it, but if the answer is that you just don't want to admit you recognize that legislation of morality is inherent to government, this seems like a silly game to play.

However, even if you don't think such a thing as "morality" exists, most people do and even bait-and-switching the wording doesn't change the issue. You used a number of words that are synonymous with "moral", such as "equitable" and even "self interest". You only (so far) have applied "morality" to government actions you don't like despite the fact that their motivations can be described in exactly the same terms you use instead.

 

[StatGuy2000]

So what? Are you saying there is no context where you would describe murder/killing as "immoral"?

1. We're discussing the legal system, that's why we need to use the legal word.
2. I'm asking about your view of unjustified killing, which is why bringing up justified killing is inappropriate.

It's really a simple question, StatGuy. If the answer is that you don't believe such an animal as "morality" even exists, so be it, but if the answer is that you just don't want to admit you recognize that legislation of morality is inherent to government, this seems like a silly game to play.

However, even if you don't think such a thing as "morality" exists, most people do and even bait-and-switching the wording doesn't change the issue. You used a number of words that are synonymous with "moral", such as "equitable" and even "self interest". You only (so far) have applied "morality" to government actions you don't like despite the fact that their motivations can be described in exactly the same terms you use instead.

In the previous posts in this thread, I have specifically stated that the government has no business in legislating sexual morality, and that is the context I have kept to. I do not want to get into a debate about the existence of morality or not, because that is a philosophical debate, and as a moderator, you are well aware that such discussion goes against the rules of PF.

You asked a question regarding murder and whether it is immoral -- I answered the way I did, and I stand by my answers.

 

[russ_watters]

Laws are not about morality, and shouldn't be, due to the separation of church and state.

Oh, my god, no. My sister is an atheist and she is a very moral person. The fact that many people derive their morality from religion (or even the historical fact that our laws were based on religious morality) doesn't mean morality is a strictly religious thing.

The law against murder, for example, is purely practical.

Nonsense. The law trips over its feet all the time to promote morality over practicality. It's written into the Constitution and Declaration of Independence that the purpose of government is to do right by its people. It is so disheartening to see this. You're an American, aren't you?[edit: actually, wait -- are you Canadian?] This is the very reason this country exists!

There is nothing in it that requires you to hold human life sacred, or to even have any moral ideas about human life at all. It merely requires that you not kill anyone. Insider trading is the same: you are not required to have any moral qualms about taking unfair advantage of knowledge others don't have. All that is required is that you don't engage in insider trading.

We're not talking about the people who follow or don't follow the laws, we're talking about why the laws were written.

You must be aware of this crazy lawsuit from a couple years ago:
http://business.financialpost.com/legal-post/nebraska-woman-sues-every-homosexual-on-the-planet
It was dismissed because courts and lawmakers aren't in the business of deciding what is or isn't sinful. In other words, they don't legislate morality.

I wasn't aware of it, no. But what it tells me is that you are letting the crazy extreme dominate your understanding and pull it away from reality.

 

[russ_watters]

In the previous posts in this thread, I have specifically stated that the government has no business in legislating sexual morality, and that is the context I have kept to. I do not want to get into a debate about the existence of morality or not, because that is a philosophical debate, and as a moderator, you are well aware that such discussion goes against the rules of PF.

You asked a question regarding murder and whether it is immoral -- I answered the way I did, and I stand by my answers.

Actually, you omitted the word "sexual" previously, but so be it. I'm not asking for a debate of if morality exists, I just want to know what your opinion is on it in order to be able to explain how the reality works for the government in a context/wording that you'll understand based on your usage of the concept. I find it silly that you don't want to answer the questions asked, but so be it: I can't force you to answer a question you don't want to answer.

 

[russ_watters]

Also, guys, you may not believe it but I'm actually trying to help here and my politics on the issues (abortion, homosexuality, etc.) are pretty close to yours. You shouldn't be running from the issue of morality, you should be embracing it as a means to forward your own. Framing the question wrong and running from it leaves a vacuum for others to fill-in their own morality in the absence of yours. This is, in part, what enables the Religious Right to be able to forward its ideology despite its positions being in the minority.

Here's a legal scholar discussing the issue:

...I want to dispute the more basic and, I believe, misguided notion that government should not try to legislate morality. In fact, I want to argue something almost exactly the opposite: that it is extremely difficult and rare for government not to legislate morality. Therefore, the connection between legislation and morality ought not to be affirmed by conservative Christians alone. Any American who worries about the moral condition of their society cannot responsibly ignore this question. And that means they cannot responsibly ignore politics, nor can they deny the moral duty of the state.

To make this case, I want to focus first on another Christian American, Martin Luther King, Jr...

https://www2.gwu.edu/~ccps/rcq/legislating_morality.html

...that is assuming I believe these arguments are even serious. I have a tough time accepting an argument that looking back at historical context would imply issues like slavery had no moral component.

 

[Astronuc]

The problem here is that "murder" is a legal term, not a moral term.

Actually, it is also a biblical, pentatuchal or moral term. In the ten commandments, the sixth commandment invokes one "not to murder", which has been diminished in the west to "not kill". Whether or not, there exists a specific law on the matter, the fact that one lives with many means that one must decide personally, whether or not 'murder' or 'killing' is acceptable or not. I expect most persons find 'murder' unacceptable.

Morality is a particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person, group/community or society, and morality is often reflected in, or otherwise influences, civil and criminal law. A sense of justice/fairness, and of injustice/unfairness, is usually part that system.

I suspect that one motivation in the Women's March, was a sense of injustice.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Oh, my god, no. My sister is an atheist and she is a very moral person. The fact that many people derive their morality from religion (or even the historical fact that our laws were based on religious morality) doesn't mean morality is a strictly religious thing.

Non-religious morality happens, I guess. People want other people to behave in certain ways so they rationalize up a personal constellation of "morals," ideas about what is intrinsically right or wrong, and mentally apply it to the world.

Nonsense. The law trips over its feet all the time to promote morality over practicality.

I'm not sure what you're talking about specifically, but when I see what appears to be the "promotion" of morality by lawmakers it's usually obvious they're doing it for the purely practical reason of catering to their constituents. If a Representative gets 4 million e-mails from voters saying it's morally wrong to eat potatoes before noon on Fridays it's in his practical self interest to introduce legislation preventing that behavior. However, in doing so, he can't make it a legal requirement for the pro-friday morning potato eaters to consider their behavior morally wrong. "Promoting" morality is not the same thing as legislating it.

It's written into the Constitution and Declaration of Independence that the purpose of government is to do right by its people. It is so disheartening to see this. You're an American, aren't you? This is the very reason this country exists!

You have the makings of a genetic fallacy developing here and you're also starting to sound like a Trumper, deciding who is acting like an American and who isn't. Not persuasive.

We're not talking about the people who follow or don't follow the laws, we're talking about why the laws were written.

The function of laws is to maintain order in society. That's the real reason any law is written. I suppose a lot of people confuse law with morality because standardized morals have the same function: to keep people on the same behavioral page. But US laws do not standardize morals, they only apply to people's behaviors. Period. A law might have a moral inspiration behind it, but US citizens are not required by law to adopt any moral ideas, beliefs, values because of a law. They simple have to adopt, or stop, the behavior in question.

You must be aware of this crazy lawsuit from a couple years ago:
http://business.financialpost.com/legal-post/nebraska-woman-sues-every-homosexual-on-the-planet
It was dismissed because courts and lawmakers aren't in the business of deciding what is or isn't sinful. In other words, they don't legislate morality.

I wasn't aware of it, no.

That's funny. You posted twice in the thread about it:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/woman-sues-all-of-the-gay-people-on-earth.812524/

But what it tells me is that you are letting the crazy extreme dominate your understanding and pull it away from reality.

You are missing the fact that what emerges from the case of the "crazy extreme" is that, when specifically pushed to legislate morality, the government admits it does not legislate morality. It is not the province of the government to make people consider homosexuality a sin. Nor does it require people to consider murder morally wrong. Or insider trading.

re: what you said in post#31, I don't like that idea at all. If we don't maintain the moral neutrality of laws it will foster religious conflicts. I'm pretty sure the majority of people who wish we could legislate morality feel that way for religious reasons.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Look, I'm pro choice and in favor of funding Planned Parenthood, but there is a lot of false sexism used in many arguments about it. No one is ever heard saying "No woman should have a say over my prostate health!", but it is practically a mantra in womens' health arguments. My level of sympathy for people who need my vote drops substantially when they try to exclude me from the conversation.

It's the same issue: no, in a democracy, you can't say that. Everyone gets a vote and "get your laws off my body" doesn't work. In fact, it is a sexist statement itself, saying that men shouldn't be allowed to vote!

Guys, we live in a democracy. Everyone over 18 who is not a felon gets a vote. You cannot exclude a person from discussion/voting about an issue based on their sex (or race, for that matter).

...but this then beggs the question of even the accuracy of the mantra that men should have no say in the reproductive health of women: since Planned Parenthood services men, then men have a direct interest in whether or not it should be funded. Perhaps if women instead of trying to exclude men from the conversation included them and emphasized that it serves both, that would help the cause.

Common to all these posts complaining that women are trying to exclude men here is a failure on your part to recognize that the people who want to overturn Roe vs Wade pretty much want to suppress the majority vote of those who don't. One person one vote, except there's that weird electoral college whereby the Religious Right got into power by allying themselves with a malignant political crackpot who amassed a huge following by catering to ignorant people's fears.

Further, it seems to me a good argument could be made that not giving non-religious women's voices precedence on the issue of abortion is like not giving scientists precedence on the issue of anthropogenic global warming. And, insisting that religious men should have equal input on abortion is like insisting that climate deniers have equal input into global warming.
In the misguided attempt to be "balanced," valence can be erroneously granted to things that don't deserve it:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Balance_fallacy

Scientists now saying 'something in the category of', "Keep your laws off my science!"? And that is not actually an attempt to suppress someone's vote, but an attempt to get them to vote from knowledge rather than ignorance or partizan special interest. The majority vote is what got suppressed here due to the 'perfect storm' of the electoral college and successful Trump demagoguery.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Huh? Open your mind to it: As the link says, the possibilities and absurdities are endless. Even if there weren't a specific example of exactly that (Barbra Boxter; prostate cancer) in the link above (I almost wish there wasn't), you can't possibly be unaware of the many examples I gave previously about types of laws that impact men.

I looked into that Barbara Boxer legislation and I fail to find the imposition on men in it you seem to be claiming is there. It requires nothing whatever of men. It sounds, in fact, that if properly implemented, it would be a 100% benefit and 0% liability to men. Also, it was co-sponsored by a man, a conservative lawmaker in fact, Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Al, who was a prostate cancer survivor, and I'm not sure why his name is everywhere absent when your conservative source (The Federalist) brings it up.

So, the legislation in question is actually bi-partisan, was created by both sexes, and imposes no requirements whatever on men to complain about. That being the case, it is no wonder men aren't complaining about it.

As for all the other laws that affect men specifically that you allude to, which of them was created by female lawmakers?

I think if female lawmakers actually did produce a bunch of legislation concerning men's reproductive systems, there'd be no ends of complaints about women applying their laws to men's bodies.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

This murder discussion is a red herring. The distinction between what should and should not be the government's business (as far as legislating "morality") is whether anyone is harmed. Clearly people are harmed by murder, insider trading, and Ponzi schemes. No-one is harmed when consenting adults decide to have sex outside of conservative-Christian-approved circumstances.